The smoke hung heavy around me, but it was nothing compared to the weight pressing down inside my chest. I looked at my hands, black with rot that felt like it was eating away more than just flesh. It was eating away at me.
What had I become? When did I cross the line from being the boy who trained with Satoru and rivaled with Ren to this monster standing over bones and ash?
Aya's face haunted me. Her eyes, full of hope even in the last moments. And I— I had taken that hope from her. My hands were the instruments of her end. I had pressed my palm against her cheek and watched as she withered into dust. The memory twisted like a blade inside my mind.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to rage. But all I could do was stand there, frozen in shock and sorrow. The power inside me was like a dark tide, relentless and unforgiving, but it did not fill the emptiness.
Every life I destroyed with the rot left a mark on my soul, a crack that spread until I was barely holding together. I had promised myself vengeance, but now all I felt was loss. The faces of those I loved, now gone forever, burned into my mind like a fire I could not put out.
I took a shaky breath, the ash tasting bitter on my tongue. How did it come to this? How had I let the darkness inside me take control?
I wanted to turn away from it, to run back to the boy I was before the war. But that boy was dead. All that remained was this—this hunger and this rot.
I fell to my knees, hands pressed against the scorched earth. Tears stung my eyes, but I did not wipe them away. Maybe I did not want to.
The silence around me was suffocating, but inside, a storm raged. I did not know what would come next. I only knew that I could not go back.
Not now. Not ever.
The sky above was a dull gray, as if even the sun refused to shine on this broken world. My knees burned where they pressed into the cold earth, but I couldn't bring myself to stand. Not yet.
Memories crashed through me like waves—Ren's grin before battle, Satoru's reckless laughter, Aya's steady presence. They felt so close and yet impossibly far away. I had lost them all. I was the last piece of a shattered puzzle, and I didn't know how to put myself back together.
The rot inside me pulsed, an aching hunger I couldn't silence. It promised power, promised justice for what was taken. But power came at a cost. I could feel it eroding what little was left of my humanity.
A scream echoed somewhere distant. Enemy soldiers. The war was still raging, still demanding blood. I was no longer the boy who ran from fights. I was the weapon they feared, the darkness that consumed everything it touched.
I pushed myself up, the world tilting as I took the first unsteady steps. My hands still dripped black mist, the curse I bore. I didn't know if I was saving what was left or destroying it further.
All I knew was I couldn't stop. Not now.
Not when the war still burned around me.
I stood, my legs trembled in shame and eyes widened from shock. I couldn't, I just couldn't let all the lives that were lost go to waste. . . I began to move and my arms dangled. I was tired.
The ruins of the compound lay behind me like a graveyard of memories. Ash drifted on the wind, settling on the cracked stones and shattered wood. I stood at the edge of what used to be home, staring into the thick forest beyond the walls.
I had nothing left here. No family, no friends, no place to return to. The war had swallowed it all, and the rot inside me whispered that I didn't belong here anymore.
I tightened my grip on the worn wooden sword I had carried for years. It felt heavier now, a reminder of who I was—and who I was no longer. The boy who trained with Satoru was gone. The man who burned with dark power was all that remained.
The forest loomed ahead, its shadows deep and endless. I didn't know what waited inside—enemies, dangers, or maybe a chance at something new. But staying meant waiting to die.
I took a step forward, then another. Each footfall felt like breaking a chain, cutting ties with the past. The cold air filled my lungs, sharp and unfamiliar. The rot beneath my skin pulsed, eager for the fight ahead.
I paused, glancing back one last time. The compound was nothing but smoke and silence. No one was left to hear my goodbye.
I didn't speak it aloud. The words caught in my throat, heavy and broken.
I walked on.
TWO HOURS LATER.
Two hours. That was how long I had been walking, step after step through the forest and fields, with nothing but the cold wind at my back. My legs moved on their own. My thoughts trailed behind like ghosts.
I passed what was left of a village not long ago. Huts burned down to black skeletons, charred beams jutting out of the ground like broken teeth. The bodies were gone, or buried under ash and dirt. The people who did this were the same ones who burned my home to the ground. The same ones my father died fighting. The same ones Ren and Satoru bled for.
I told myself I was different from them. I told myself my hands were righteous. But the road behind me whispered the truth. I was no better. Maybe I was worse. They took my family, my friends, and my home. But I killed the only person who could have pulled me back. Aya. Her name tasted like iron when I thought of it. I saw her every time I blinked, saw how I pressed my palm to her cheek like I was saving her. Saving her from what? From me?
I kicked at the dirt, sending dust spinning into the wind. A weak sun tried to break through the gray clouds but failed. Just like me. I wondered if there was another village ahead, still standing. I wondered if I would see people who hadn't yet learned to fear the black rot that dripped from my hands.
Would I pass them by? Or would I ruin them too?
The power inside me didn't care about questions like that. It waited, patient, coiled tight around my bones. All it needed was a reason to come out again.
I kept walking. I didn't know where the path led. I wasn't sure I deserved to reach the end.
But my thought was interrupted by a wooden log I hadn't been paying attention to. My face went straight forward, down to the ground dust appearing as soon as the impact came. I laid there, thinking why did I do that to Aya? She would've been with me right now. . . I wouldn't be as alone as I am right now. . . JUST WHY DID I LET THEM CONTROL ME. The whispers, the rot, the hunger within me. I let it go wild. I rose from the ground slowly and stumbled a little but regained my balance.
I kept moving because stopping felt like dying in a different way. The forest thinned as the sun dragged itself lower behind the clouds. My feet found an old dirt road, cracked and half-swallowed by weeds. It led past more signs of life that had already been taken. A cart left to rot in a ditch. A child's wooden toy half-buried in mud. Crows perched on a fence with no field left to guard.
Every step pressed the same thought deeper into my skull. The people who did this had faces. Names. Families. And they left nothing behind but ruin. Same as me.
Once, I would have sworn I was nothing like them. Now I wasn't so sure. The rot inside me shifted when I thought about that, as if amused at my doubt.
I stopped near an old shrine by the roadside. Its wood was cracked and blackened by old fire. I knelt before it out of habit more than belief. There were no gods left for me. No prayers worth saying.
I stayed there, eyes on the ground, listening to the wind scrape through dead grass. For a second, I tried to imagine what Aya would say if she could see me now. I didn't know if she'd pity me or hate me.
Maybe both.
When I stood again, my legs ached. I looked down the road that bent away into dark trees and silent hills. There were no lights ahead. No voices waiting. But the hunger in my chest knew there were still enemies somewhere out there.
If they were still breathing, then I still had something left to do.
I found the next village when the sky was bleeding into dusk. The houses were nothing but empty frames and crumbling walls, charred wood still clinging to old fires. I should have kept walking but something made me stop.
I heard voices. Not far ahead, past a cracked stone well, I saw shapes moving between the wreckage. I crouched behind the remains of a fence, eyes fixed on them through a gap in the broken planks.
Six men. Rough clothes, stolen armor, blades strapped to their backs. Bandits picking through whatever was left. They laughed as they dragged crates from a half-burned storehouse, tossing aside anything useless. One of them kicked over a basket, scattering spoiled grain into the dirt.
Near them, half hidden behind an overturned cart, a girl knelt with her hands bound. She couldn't have been much older than fifteen. Her eyes were wide, but she stayed silent, shoulders trembling every time they barked at her.
I pressed my palm into the cold wood of the fence. The rot inside me twisted, restless. Part of me wanted to stand up, walk away. I knew what would happen if I didn't.
But I stayed there, watching. Listening. Their laughter scraped at my head like knives. The one closest to her leaned down and grabbed her hair. He made a joke I couldn't hear. The others laughed louder.
I felt something in my chest snap. Quietly, I rose from the shadows. My breath steamed in the cold air. The girl saw me first. Her eyes locked with mine over the edge of the cart. and pleading.
I stepped closer through the thin smoke drifting off the ruined huts. The girl's eyes were locked on me, wide and wet, strands of hair stuck to her cheek where tears had smeared the dirt. Up close, I saw how young she really was. Pale skin, hollow cheeks, but under the grime, something striking — a kind of quiet beauty that didn't belong in a place like this. It made the ugliness around her feel sharper.
The men who'd surrounded her were filth in comparison. The closest one had greasy hair stuck to his forehead, half his beard burnt off, ragged plates of rusted armor strapped to his shoulders with rope. His teeth showed yellow when he snarled at me. Another had a jagged scar across his jaw and a piece of cloth tied around his thigh where blood had soaked through. They smelled like smoke, old ale, and cheap death.
The tallest one still gripping the girl's hair had tattoos running up his arms — snakes, fangs, faded ink under layers of grime. His eyes flicked between me and the others, like he was trying to figure if he'd live through the next minute.
"You're dead, boy," he hissed, spit flying from cracked lips. He yanked the girl's head back, forcing her to look at him instead of me. "Pretty thing, ain't she? We were just about to—"
I didn't let him finish. My boots scraped over ash as I moved. I felt my fingers brush his wrist. The rot answered. He gasped, head snapping back. The ink on his arms split like paper under flame. His skin cracked, black veins tearing through muscle until all that was left was bone and dust tangled in the ropes that once held his armor.
The girl fell forward, landing on her hands. She didn't scream, just stared at the empty space where he'd been. Her shoulders shook but she didn't look away.
The scarred man lunged. He was fast but clumsy, blade arcing for my ribs. I turned, grabbed his forearm. The rot spread from my palm to his throat. His eyes rolled back before he could choke on his own fear. He dropped like rotten cloth.
The last man stumbled back, eyes wide. His armor rattled like bones in a sack. He tried to run. I didn't stop him. Let him carry the story to wherever carrion like him hide.
When I looked down, the girl was still on her hands and knees. Her hair fell in a tangled curtain around her face. I could see the bruises on her wrists where the rope had bitten deep.
I crouched. She flinched when I moved, but didn't crawl away. Her eyes flicked up, meeting mine for a heartbeat before darting away again.
"Hey," I said, voice low. My throat felt raw from the cold and the rot was still humming under my skin. "Look at me."
Slowly, she did. Her eyes were dark, the color hard to see in the weak light, but they held something alive — something I hadn't seen in days. Hope, maybe. Or the fear of hope.
"Your name?" I asked.
She swallowed, her lips cracked and pale. "S-Sae…"
Her voice was so soft it almost vanished in the wind. I let it hang there between us.
I nodded once. "These men… Who were they?"
Her eyes flicked to the bones and dust at my feet. "Bandits. They… they came from the north. Said they were with…Paraise." The word stumbled out of her mouth like something she wasn't supposed to say.
Paraise. My pulse thudded at my temples. That name carried weight — raiders, soldiers in ragged armor, hungry for whatever they could steal. The same scum that tore through my home.
My fingers twitched. I almost reached for her, then stopped. She watched my hand hover in the air like it might burn her if it touched her skin.
I forced the hunger back down. "Did they say anything? About other camps? About my compound —validant?"
Sae's shoulders curled in. She shook her head. "They said they'd keep moving south. That they'd leave no house standing. They laughed when they talked about it. They… they said they'd find another place before dawn."
I let her words settle. The taste of iron filled my mouth. I wanted to stand and hunt them down now. But I kept looking at her. This girl, alone, shaking in the ruin of her home.
Part of me thought about leaving her. Let her carry the same nightmare I did. A piece of me — the piece the rot liked best — wanted her to remember tonight forever, like a scar she couldn't scrape off. But another part hesitated.
I leaned closer. She didn't move.
"Remember their faces," I said, voice low. "Remember mine too. Don't forget what happened here."
She nodded once, eyes glassy but locked on mine now.
"Good," I murmured. "Get up. Stay alive. And when you see their kind again… run, or burn them to ash."
I stood, the wind cold against the sweat on my neck. Sae stayed on her knees a moment longer before she slowly pushed herself to her feet, arms trembling.
I turned from her and stepped back onto the road. I didn't look back when I spoke.
"Don't follow me."
And I kept walking, leaving the ruin behind — but I knew I hadn't left anything at all.
I took one more glance at her, remembering her face. I faced back forward and soon I was nowhere to be found from her perspective whatsoever.
SOME TIME LATER
It was midnight, so dark I could barely see. I was wondering why aren't I. . . broken? I killed someone I loved, watched everyone I loved die in front of me, and killed people. Why do I feel so dull. . . I looked up at the moon that lit the dark skies and stopped following the road taking a right into the forest laying down onto the grass wrapping the cloak I've been wearing since forever around me. Slowly, drifting off into sleep.