Part II: Feelings
Aisha had avoided speaking for days, dodging his gaze in the hallways, in every class, as if the mere contact could burn her. But that afternoon, before they were meant to work together, Rasen stepped in front of her, blocking her path with a calmness that weighed like lead.
"Are you always going to run away every time I get close?" he asked. His voice carried no reproach, only the certainty of an inevitable fact.
Aisha remained silent.
"We haven't been great friends," he continued, "but I want you to tell me your name. I don't want to hear it from others. I want to hear it from you."
She looked at him intently. There was no mockery in his face, no threat. Only patience. Strange, dangerous patience.
At last, she sighed and lowered her guard just a fraction."If that's the only way you'll leave me alone… I'm Aisha."
Rasen nodded slightly, as if confirming something he had already known all along."Then… your name—Aisha, right?—probably comes from your mother. You must look like her."
The word mother struck her chest like a whip."I never knew her…" she whispered, lowering her gaze.Then she looked up again, her voice edged with suspicion."Why do you care so much about what happens to me?"
Rasen never had the chance to answer.
"Murderer!"
The voice shattered the corridor like breaking glass. Estrella stormed forward with a group of girls behind her, every whisper sharpened into a blade.
"Where's the body? What did you do that Red Night?!"
The murmurs grew louder. Nobody intervened. They only watched, as if waiting for a sacrifice.
A warm hand took Aisha's, firm and steady."Let's go," Rasen murmured, pulling her toward the courtyard.
"Let me go!" she protested, struggling. The girls followed, throwing insults, but still no one stopped them.
Out in the courtyard, surrounded by watchful stares, Rasen raised his voice:"Say it to her face!"
One of the girls stepped forward."We all know the truth, Aisha. That boy who disappeared… the one found dead later. What did you do to him?"
Rasen turned toward her, bewildered."Is it true…?" he whispered.
Aisha gave no answer. She only looked at him, eyes full of shame and rage, then pulled away sharply.
From that day, Rasen searched for her everywhere—classrooms, corridors—but she always slipped away. Always one step ahead. Until one afternoon, he saw her by the doors, a cap hiding her hair. The crowd swallowed her, but he recognized her: by her walk, by her silence, by her shadow.
Cristal leaned in with a mocking tone:"Do you really care about that girl? Aisha is dangerous. You could be the next to disappear."
The words burned inside him. He found her again, and when he did, he said only:"I don't care about your past, or what they say. It's not pity, Aisha. It's something else. And I won't leave you alone."
She pressed a cloth against her eyes before he could notice the tears, but it was too late."What do you gain by staying… when everyone else runs?"
Rasen held her arm. His answer was an embrace.
Aisha collapsed against his chest, breathing for the first time in years an air that didn't smell of ashes.
"I'm no saint, Aisha. I know that. But I don't want you to push me away. I care… I want your battles to be mine too."
She swallowed hard."I don't want you hurt because of me. You should stay away."
He held her gaze, unflinching."I don't care about your past. I care about you. And I won't walk away. That's my choice."
The Mall
That night, in the shopping mall, the ice cream melted between Aisha's fingers, sliding down like a bitter drop that couldn't sweeten the anxiety in her chest.
Rasen walked beside her, distracted by the crowd, until he suddenly stopped. A sudden pressure struck his chest, anchoring him to the ground as if an unseen force pinned him there.
Aisha, unaware, kept walking. Closer and closer to the glittering shop windows.
And then she saw him.
Behind the glass of the jewelry store, a blond man turned a Victorian pocket watch slowly in his hand. The golden chain swayed with a violet gleam, a flicker that seemed to rise not from the shop's light but from some buried memory Aisha had tried to forget.
"Stefan…" she whispered, her voice breaking.
The name ripped through her like a knife. Stefan, the boy she had once studied with. The boy who vanished the night of the Red Moon. The same boy Estrella accused her of killing.
But it wasn't Stefan.She knew it the instant his golden eyes caught hers through the glass, searching for something beyond the crowd.
Sanathiel.
He stiffened for a moment. The air shifted. He had scented something—her. The fragrance that had haunted him for years. Yet, unable to find her among the swarm of faces, he turned the watch one more time and continued on his way.
Above them, the Red Moon rose—not like an orb, but like an open wound bleeding across the sky.
A thunderous crash shattered the calm. The jewelry windows exploded, shards of glass flying like burning blades.
Aisha was thrown backward. The cold marble floor met the iron tang of her blood.
Amid the wreckage, the relentless ticking of the watch kept time with her ragged breaths.
"Aisha!" Rasen roared, running toward her.
But the blond man was gone. Only the echo of laughter remained, slithering like poison through the debris.
In the air, violet smoke curled into a symbol:S.S.V.
Rasen froze, his chest chilled. He hadn't clearly seen the man's face, but something in his blood howled as if he had.
The Red Moon glared above, devouring stars and shadows alike.
Part III: Secret
The hospital lamp, with its dim glow, carved Aisha's profile against the shadows, her breathing keeping pace with the ticking monitor. Rasen watched each flicker of the machine as if it were a countdown. The smell of antiseptic failed to mask the trace of bergamot and iron emanating from him—a reminder that his world no longer belonged to the living.
"Don't leave," Aisha whispered, digging her nails into the sheet. It wasn't a plea, but a challenge.
Rasen took her hand without asking. His calloused fingers brushed against the IV line, and for an instant, the violet glow of the relic beneath his shirt lit up the room.
Aisha squinted: inside the worn photograph in the pendant, a little girl with braids played beneath an oak tree. Herself, years before the Red Night erased everything.
"I'll take you far from here," he said, his gaze drifting toward the window. "Somewhere the ghosts won't reach you."
On the fogged glass, Rasen's reflection merged with Sanathiel's—two silhouettes, two beasts, one destiny carved in violet scars. Aisha turned her face away, but he caught her wrist with the gentleness of someone taming serpents.
"Why?" she asked, feeling his pulse beating in time with the relic. "I'm not your cross to bear."
Rasen smiled, that restrained smile that promised storms."You're the bullet that will pierce my demons."
A thunderclap rattled the panes. Aisha tried to pull away, but he slid his thumb along her bandaged scar, stopping where her skin flared purple.
"Tell me his name," he demanded, the relic burning against his chest. "The one who carved this sin into your flesh."
The monitor quickened. In the hallway, a nurse hummed Clair de Lune. Aisha squeezed her eyes shut: that same melody had filled the room the night Stefan appeared at her cradle.
"It's… a mirage," she lied, but Rasen smelled the truth in her sweat.
Though she denied it, her skin still remembered Stefan's icy touch, the way he whispered her name as if she already belonged to him.
He leaned in, his lips brushing the scar at her neck, sealing the vow:"Mirages burn with fire."
Aisha gasped. In her mind, Sanathiel howled behind the bars of her memory, Stefan's watch gleaming with the same violet glow as Rasen's marks.
But it wasn't only a memory.
A chill raced down her spine as the air in the room thickened, suffocating. The IV line trembled with a faint click. She felt an invisible pressure on her chest, as if cold fingers traced her collarbone. It couldn't be him. Not now.
The shadow in the window stretched, warping into something neither human nor beast.
"He wants me dead!" she spat, her voice a mix of venom and fear.
Rasen gripped the relic until the chain cut his neck."You'll die," he whispered against her skin, "when I draw my last breath. And I still have enough air to set worlds on fire."
Outside, the storm ripped a wire from the building. The spark lit up three circles carved into the window frame—brief and fleeting, like the laughter of a nightmare that hadn't yet ended.