Meki's gaze slid toward the two figures crumpled in the cratered wall.
Luna.
Tatsuya.
But the names meant nothing to her.
What made her pulse stutter—what made the hunger in her belly twist strangely, uncertainly—was the scent.
Her nostrils flared.
Her expression softened.
Her gluttony—the endless roaring ache gnawing at her soul—fell silent for the first time in… she didn't know how long.
That scent…
Warm.
Faint.
Old as a prayer whispered through generations.
It wrapped around her like phantom arms.
It pressed into her skin like a memory forgotten, yet desperately familiar.
"…Master?" she breathed, voice trembling.
Her golden eyes widened, pupils dilating in awe and something that felt dangerously close to devotion.
It's the same… it's the same…
The scent of the one she worshipped.
The one who taught her how to eat the world.
The one whose hunger carved the path she walked.
Her beloved Sin.
But this boy—this trembling human with dust tangled in his hair—he was not her Master.
Lightning flickered along her fingers, then sputtered out, unable to take shape. Her Gluttony recoiled, uncertain, like a wild beast remembering gentleness.
For the first time since her rebirth as a Demon of Sin…
She felt no urge to devour.
No urge to tear him open, rip his mana free, and drink the life from his bones.
Instead—
Her knees weakened.
A warmth bloomed in her chest, aching and bright.
Why… why can't I hurt him?
Her heartbeat stuttered.
No… why don't I want to?
The hunger that ruled her—guided her—defined her—
was silent.
Empty not with need, but with stillness.
A terrifying, beautiful stillness.
Meki's lips parted, trembling at the edges.
"…Reborn," she whispered.
Her voice cracked with awe.
Her heart pounded.
Lightning rippled down her arms like worship trembling for release.
Her orange eyes were glassy—astonished—hopeful in a twisted, innocent way that had no place in a battlefield.
Part 2
The world didn't collapse.
It didn't roar or crack or splinter into chaos.
It simply… stopped.
Like the moment after lightning strikes—where silence hangs heavier than thunder, suspended in the stillness between heartbeats.
Tatsuya stood there, breath snagged halfway in his throat, staring at the girl in front of him.
Her feet were bare against the soiled stone.
Her fingers were stained the color of dried rust.
Her orange eyes flickered like lanterns swaying in a hungry wind.
Meki.
The name rose into his mind instinctively, almost tenderly—before the truth slammed into him.
No…
The shape of that truth was too sharp to grasp all at once. It slid wrong inside his thoughts, like a jagged gear shoved into a clock not meant for it.
He blinked and fell to him knees.
The world didn't move.
But she did.
Her head tilted, a slow, almost innocent motion. The strands of orange hair swayed as she inhaled.
Deep.
Lingering.
As if memorizing the scent of rain before a drought.
The way she breathed him in—the way her pupils dilated as if she recognized something sacred—carved an icy fissure down his spine.
She doesn't know me.
She only knows the scent…
The thought, once formed, felt wrong to his very bones.
Tatsuya's fingers curled faintly at his sides.
He told himself it wasn't shaking.
He told himself his heart wasn't pounding hard enough to bruise his ribs.
He told himself many things in that moment.
Most of them lies.
It can't be her.
The whisper erupted unbidden inside his mind, weak but stubborn.
He swallowed hard, but the dryness in his throat didn't go away.
Meki—the girl who sat beside him when he clean his sword, who got mad when he teased her for sitting to close.
Meki—the girl who brushed dirt from his cheek after a fall, laughing softly as though being close to him made her heart warm.
Meki—the girl whose confession had cracked open the sealed, rusted part of his chest.
Her.
This one.
This thing.
"I…" he breathed, voice so fragile it didn't sound like his own. "It… can't be…"
The denial tasted sour.
Like he was forcing himself to swallow something poisonous.
But the poison was the truth.
And the more he tried to reject it, the more it seeped into him.
The corpse-littered streets.
The shredded remains.
The stench of torn flesh that never left his nightmares.
The hollow sockets of a child clutching someone else's hand.
The memory had burned itself into him.
And the face responsible for it—
the monster he could never forget—
stood inches away.
Wearing her eyes.
Her smile.
No. No, this isn't real. It can't be…
It seeped through him slowly.
Like a thread being tugged loose from a garment until everything unravels.
He felt it in his lungs first—a tightness, as if breathing hurt. Then in his arms, where phantom memories still lingered of the way she once held his hands to warm them.
The image rose unbidden:
Meki leaning forward, her forehead touching his, whispering that he didn't have to endure everything alone.
The warmth of it—
the gentleness of it—
clashed violently with the blood on her fingers now.
The contrast broke something inside him.
"Meki…" he whispered, voice cracking so softly it was almost inaudible.
It hurt.
God, it hurt.
His heart twisted painfully.
Her eyes held no malice.
No hunger.
Just confusion.
Just faint devotion she didn't understand.
As if some invisible thread tied her existence to him.
And that made it worse.
He didn't know which version of her he was grieving—the girl who never existed, or the girl she used to be before this madness devoured her.
Maybe both.
Probably both.
"Why…" he breathed, though the question had no answer. "Why didn't I… notice?"
If he'd stayed by her side when the avalanche came.
If he had fixed the problem himself instead of relying on her.
If he hadn't needed her so much…
Maybe she wouldn't be standing before him like this.
Maybe he could've stopped it.
Maybe he could've saved her.
His hands trembled openly now.
He didn't try to hide it.
He couldn't.
The guilt spiraled fast, like a sudden storm tightening around his heart.
I should've been there.
I should've protected her.
I should've—
His breath hitched.
He wasn't spiraling into self-destruction like before.
Not collapsing, not retreating.
But his heart still dragged him down with all the old habits of blaming himself for sins he never committed.
He hated that part of him.
He hated how familiar it felt. The disgust, but not at her.
Even now—not at her.
That was the part that sickened him.
His stomach twisted painfully as he realized it.
Some part of him—some fragile, stupid part—looked at her and didn't see the Demon of Gluttony.
He saw the girl who he had fun with in the snow. How she scolded him when he almost burn the house down.
His teeth clenched.
The bitterness rose until he felt it on his tongue.
He wanted to despise her.
He wanted it to be easy.
But nothing about this was easy.
He was disgusted with himself for… For wanting… even now… to save her.
He shut his eyes hard.
It didn't help.
It arrived quietly.
Not explosive.
Not unhinged.
A silent fury, coiled tightly around his lungs.
His shoulders squared.
His breath deepened, not quicker but steadier—
a soldier bracing for a blow that pierces not the body but the soul.
His eyes opened.
Steady.
Clear.
And aching.
"…Meki," he murmured, tone painfully soft. "What did they do to you?"
Not accusation.
Not fear.
Not even anger at her.
Anger at this world.
At whatever twisted force hollowed her out and left this shell.
At the fate that kept ripping the people he reached for out of his grasp.
His fingers flexed, as though preparing to draw invisible lines around her—lines he didn't yet know he intended to protect or cross.
If rage was a fire, his wasn't roaring flames.
It was the ember buried under ashes, refusing to die.
Then his chest tightened.
A fracture ran through him—
but he didn't collapse.
He stayed standing.
Barely.
Because of her.
Because she was the one who'd taught him to stay.
The irony stabbed him deeper than any knife.
He had finally—finally—begun to trust people.
To step forward instead of retreat.
To say "we" instead of "I."
To open his heart just enough to let light in.
She was the first one he allowed inside that locked room.
And she was also the one who tore open an entire village.
He felt like he was losing her and himself at the same time.
Part 3
Ruza was the first to look away from the Demon Of Gluttony.
Her ruby eyes widened the instant she caught sight of Tatsuya's face—
the way his lips quivered,
the way his shoulders sagged,
the way his eyes held not determination—
but despair.
"T…Tatsuya…?" she whispered, voice cracking.
The boy didn't look up.
Ruza's heart dropped into her stomach.
She finally understood.
And in the next instant—
Her hands slammed together, mana whipping the air.
The stone beneath Meki's feet erupted in jagged pillars, sharp as spears.
Meki leapt back with inhuman grace.
Ruza didn't give her a chance to breathe.
A second pulse of mana tore the ground, sending a wave of earthen debris crashing toward the Demon of Gluttony like a razor-edged tide.
Ruza couldn't stand there any longer and do nothing not when she saw him like that—
broken, trembling, on the verge of collapsing into a choice he would never come back from.
Her face twisted in fury unlike anything she had shown before.
"Stop!" she screamed, voice cracking. "You don't—you don't get to look at him like that!"
Meki skidded back, dust and stone erupting around her.
She planted herself between Tatsuya and Meki, arms shaking with mana still surging from her fingertips.
She was scared.
She was furious.
She was crying.
She didn't understand what Meki was to Tatsuya,
or what Tatsuya felt for her—
but she understood one thing perfectly:
That expression on his face
was the look of someone who was about to lose himself.
And she would sooner turn to stone than let that happen.
Luna exhaled sharply and stepped to Ruza's side.
"Tatsuya's not going to survive this if he's left alone," she said, voice low.
Ruza's breath hitched. "Then help me fight her."
Luna shook her head.
"No."
Ruza turned, startled—almost offended.
Luna placed a hand on her shoulder.
Her public brightness was gone.
Her draining, exhausting cheerfulness had vanished.
What remained was the quiet, trembling Luna—the one few ever saw.
"Ruza," she said softly, "you're the only one who can reach him right now."
Ruza's lips parted.
"Huh…?"
"You saw his face," Luna whispered. "If you leave him like that, he'll drown. He'll do something he can't undo."
"But— I— I can fight—"
"No," Luna said, firmer now. "I'll fight the demon."
Ruza's breath faltered.
"What if you got hurt."
"I will be okey," Luna said with a shrinking smile. "I'm the only one here who can hold her off."
Ruza nodded, she was never able to beat Luna in a fight.
Meki straightened in the distance, watching them with unreadable eyes.
Not approaching.
Not attacking.
Simply watching Tatsuya with a trembling longing.
Ruza dug her nails into her palms, trembling with helpless fury.
"But— Tatsuya— he's—"
"Ruza."
Luna's voice cracked.
"Go to him."
Ruza froze.
The weight of the moment hit her all at once.
Tatsuya, whose eyes were glassy and distant.
Tatsuya, whose sword hung limp in his shaking grip.
Tatsuya, who looked like he was breaking in a way no blade or demon could ever cause.
She looked back at him—
—and her heart nearly collapsed.
He wasn't breathing right.
His hands shook too violently.
His gaze was fixed somewhere between grief and self-hatred.
He looked like he might disappear into himself.
Into despair.
Into Meki.
Ruza took one shaky step backward, toward him.
Meki's eyes followed the movement, tightening.
Luna stepped forward, blocking Meki's line of sight, eyes narrowing.
"You want him?" Luna said, voice low. "You'll have to go through me."
Meki flinched—
not from fear,
but from confusion and pain, as if the very idea of fighting Luna caused something inside her to recoil.
Ruza turned and ran to Tatsuya.
"Tat— Tatsuya!" she whispered desperately.
The boy didn't look up.
He didn't hear the gasp.
He didn't notice the crunch of hurried footsteps on stone.
His breath came shallow, uneven.
He looked lost.
Ruza's throat tightened.
She dropped to the ground and reached him and slowly—terrified—placed her hands on his cheeks.
His eyes widened, faint and stunned by the sudden warmth.
"Tatsuya… look at me," she whispered, voice trembling. "Please… please look at me."
But no answer came.
Ruza's heart broke.
"Tatsuya… don't disappear," she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. "Don't leave. Not like this. Not for her. Not for anyone."
Putting her arms around him, she hugged him firmly to not let him fall into the abyss of despair.
Behind them, Kiome lay bleeding, breath shallow, with Chika kneeling beside him, hands glowing with healing magic as tears streaked her cheeks.
Kizutoro stood a few meters away, struggling, fists clenched in frustration.
They were all fighting to stay alive.
But Ruza fought for one thing only:
Tatsuya's heart.
She pressed her forehead against his, voice breaking:
"You're not alone anymore. Not ever again. So don't— don't walk away. Not for her. Don't leave."
Tatsuya's breath hitched.
His eyes trembled.
In front of him mana flared around Luna, sharp as razors.
Meki stepped back, pupils widening.
Ruza clutched Tatsuya tighter, whispering into his shaking breath:
"Stay with us.
Stay with me.
Please."
Part 4
The battlefield shuddered under the collision of two forces—one wild and storm-bright, the other cold and predatory like thunder stalking prey.
Luna stepped forward.
Her boots scraped across the scorched stone, not in hesitation, but in the steady exhale of someone cracking their knuckles before tearing open the sky. Her wrists rotated, using Manaflux she channeled mana along her forearms like pale moonlight drawn into motion. Then—
FWOOM.
A ring of mana ignited around each hand, glowing hot enough to distort the air.
Meki's eyes sharpened.
Thunder crawled up her arms like serpents waking from a nest of sparks. The shan fan in her right hand snapped open with a metallic whisper; the left flicked upward, lightning skimming its edges.
"Come, Luna," the Demon of Gluttony murmured. "Show me how brightly false hope can burn."
But Luna didn't answer with words.
She moved.
No—she vanished.
A shockwave burst where she had stood, the ground fracturing like brittle bone. Meki reflexively threw her fan up—
CRACK!
A fist wreathed in spinning mana smashed against the fan's metal ribs, the impact rattling the demon's bones. The blow didn't simply carry weight; it carried the raw, unrestrained force of a creature that fought with all her flaws bared, all her loneliness screaming, all her heart set on protecting the boy who had finally seen her.
Meki slid back, boots carving deep trenches.
"What—"
Another fist came.
Then a heel.
Then a rising knee clad in swirling mana that erupted like a geyser of pressure.
Luna's assaults didn't flow—they crashed, primal and relentless. Her style wasn't elegant. It wasn't disciplined. It was a living storm. A roar given shape.
Meki skidded sideways, planting one fan into the dirt to arrest her momentum. Thunder sparked wildly around her—overcharged magic trying to bleed off.
"Tch… too fast—!"
Luna was already there.
She flipped forward, palm striking downward.
A blast of condensed mana hammered the ground—
BOOOOM!!
Dust exploded. The terrain caved like it had been punched by a god.
Meki barely escaped, lightning detonating beneath her feet to hurl her out of the crater. She emerged in a blur, electricity shredding the air.
Her voice cracked into a snarl.
"You think speed is yours alone!?"
She lunged—
A streak of white-blue lightning carving a line straight toward Luna's head.
SLASH!!
Her fan cut the air, thunder exploding from the arc, a blow meant to split bone and soul.
But Luna didn't dodge.
She stepped into it.
Her mana-ringed hands clamped down on the fan, arresting its movement with muscle and magic fused into one impossible force. The shock rattled her arms, her hair whipping violently behind her. Wild eyes glared through the lightning.
"You're slow."
A single sentence.
Soft.
Deadly.
Her knee rose—
—and collapsed into Meki's gut.
Lightning burst backward in a chaotic spray as the Demon of Gluttony was lifted off the ground, thrown like a doll across the battlefield. She crashed through broken stone, rolled, and skidded until friction finally dragged her to a halt.
Her breath trembled.
Her muscles sparked uncontrollably.
Her face twisted—not with fear, but with the grotesque thrill of prey discovering the predator had always been behind it.
"You…" Meki coughed, "…a human shouldn't be able to fight like—"
Luna blurred.
Meki didn't see the movement—only the moment Luna's shadow fell atop her.
A fist was already drawn back.
Mana spiraled around it like a moonlit cyclone, shrieking with gathered force.
"Stay away from Tatsuya."
The punch fell.
And the world detonated.
Luna's knuckles dug into Meki's face hard enough to crater the ground behind her.
WHAM.
A second blow—straight to the ribs—sent the Demon of Gluttony twisting midair like a rag battered by a gale.
BAM!
A third punch, fired upward from below, launched her skyward.
Luna didn't slow.
She leapt after her prey, mana rings sparking violent spirals around her wrists, her momentum turning her into a comet of raw, feral fury. She caught Meki's ankle mid-flip—
—and hammered her back down like she was nailing a star to the earth.
KRAAAAAAASH!!
Dust billowed. Stone ruptured. A shockwave tore through the field.
Ruza shielded Tatsuya.
Chika tightened her focus over Kiome's wounds.
Even injured, Kizutoro flinched from the raw violence shaking the ground.
Luna landed atop the crater, fists raised, chest heaving—but not from exhaustion.
From outrage.
"Why…"
She blurred again—fist slamming into Meki's jaw.
THUD.
"…why aren't you—"
Another blow.
A hook across the cheek.
THWACK!
"…breaking!?"
Her fists were bruised.
Her knuckles were split.
Yet Meki's face—
smooth. unmarked. untouched.
No bruises.
No swelling.
Not a single drop of blood.
Not even pain reflected in her eyes.
Only a twisted delight.
"More," Meki whispered, voice breathy with excitement. "Show me more. Feed me more."
Luna's teeth ground together.
SWING—CRACK—SWING—BOOM—
She unleashed a barrage of punches, each heavy enough to kill a normal human outright.
Meki's head snapped back—forward—sideways—her body thrown, bent, twisted—
—and every time Luna blinked, Meki was perfectly intact again.
How—?
A blow landed.
A shockwave rippled.
And then—
Luna felt it.
Not on her fist.
But inside her arm.
A tiny pull.
A thin drain.
As if something had tugged at the mana pulsing through her veins.
She jerked back instinctively.
Her eyes widened.
Her breath caught.
"…You're kidding me."
A silence cracked open inside her mind—
A rare, cold moment where Luna's usual emotional tornado sharpened into pure, lethal clarity.
Meki stood up slowly, lightning skittering across her skin like living veins.
"My body does not break," she said.
"Not while I am fed."
Luna's gaze darted over her enemy—no blood, no wounds, not even dust clinging to her skin.
Regeneration beyond instantaneous.
More like damage…
never happening in the first place.
Not unless—
"You're… stealing it," Luna muttered.
Meki's grin widened. "Ah. You noticed."
Luna's fists tightened as she spoke through clenched teeth.
"You're stealing mana every time I hit you. Through contact."
"Through anything," Meki corrected sweetly, spreading her arms. "Skin. Breath. Blood. Even the space between us hums with your delicious energy."
Luna exhaled sharply.
So that was it.
Gula. The Demon Power of Gluttony.
Meki—
this thing—
had made mana her food.
Luna spat dust from her mouth and lowered her stance.
"You're immortal," she whispered.
"Only as long as you're… full."
Meki bowed her head in mocking praise.
"Exactly."
Luna's eyes narrowed, her wild aura shifting.
Less chaotic.
More precise.
The storm tightening around its own lightning.
"So I just have to starve you."
Silence.
Then—
Meki's fans snapped open.
Thunder ripped the air.
Luna's mana rings flared, blazing like twin moons.
And the battlefield trembled as the real fight began.
Part 4
His chest twisted violently.
Despite the warmth of Ruza's body, Tatsuya felt something else.
Some invisible tether inside him pulling taut, dragging him toward her.
Not magic.
Not manipulation.
Something far more dangerous.
Memory.
It struck him with the force of a blade:
Her hands warming his by the fire.
Her laugh spilling softly in the night air.
The way she said his name—quiet, like it mattered.
The night she confessed, eyes trembling with fear and longing.
Her smile.
Her tears.
Her warmth.
A thought wormed its way in, poisonous and sweet:
What if I just… leave?
What if I go with her?
He imagined it for a heartbeat that lasted far too long.
Running.
Not fighting.
Not choosing.
Not failing.
Just disappearing with her into a world too far away for fate to reach.
No Luna's desperate cling.
No Ruza's soft devotion.
No Kiome's heavy trust.
No Chika's gentle smiles.
No Kizutoro's loud frustrations.
No Sora's unshaken loyalty.
No Yatsu's loyalty.
No Nisuki's teasing bravado.
No Misuki's thawed warmth.
No Itsuki's quiet, unwavering kindness.
No expectations.
No weight.
No fear of breaking them.
Just him and Meki.
The girl who once felt like a spark of light in his chest.
If I leave… they won't be hurt because of me.
If I leave… I won't have to watch anyone die because they stood beside me.
His fingers twitched.
His foot shifted an inch.
The world held its breath.
Again.
The word carved through him.
The world he imagined—the escape, the unbearable relief of running—
shook like a fragile glass tower.
Don't leave me again. Would a thought like that appear in her mind?
Would she remember something.
Would her heart recognized him in a way her mind couldn't.
Would her echo of who she was had survived inside the monster she'd become.
His breath hitched.
His heart screamed.
What if I throw everything away?
What if I abandon the people who'd pulled me back to life?
The family he'd never realized he wanted.
For a moment that felt infinite—
He almost gave them up.
He swallowed hard, the sound small, fragile, terrible.
And his voice—
raw, trembling, cracking under the weight of it—
escaped him:
"…Her master."
The words tasted like ash.
"Your master…" he said again, quieter. "The one who shaped you. The one who made you into this."
His eyes opened fully.
He saw her.
Not the memories.
Not the version he loved.
Not the illusions.
He saw the truth.
The trembling confusion.
The devotion she couldn't explain.
The hunger she was fighting in ways she didn't understand.
The identity forced into her.
The chains he couldn't see but felt tightening around her soul.
She wasn't choosing this.
She was trapped in it.
And there was only one way to free her.
The storm in his chest stopped moving.
Silence fell inside him.
Horrible, heavy, clear silence.
"…Meki," he said, barely audible. "I'm… so sorry."
Her eyes widened.
Not in hunger.
In fear.
As if she understood something in his tone that she wasn't meant to understand.
It felt like tearing out a part of himself.
But it was enough.
Enough to sever the illusion.
Enough to break the spell of his own longing.
Enough to confront the truth he never wanted to face:
The only way to save her…
is to kill her.
His hand shook violently as he reached for his blade.
Not out of hatred.
Not vengeance.
But grief and love twisted into something unbearable.
But his answer—
the quiet truth he didn't want but accepted—
left his lips like a dying wish:
"…I won't let him control you anymore."
Feeling Tatsuya was about to move. Ruza loosened her grip on him.
She looked again in his eyes. And Tatsuya followed.
"I am going to save Meki." He said.
And that was enough for Ruza to convince that he wouldn't leave them.
The gaze in his eyes are the same as they were when he thanked her for saving him on the rooftop.
Does he want to save me too? She wondered, as her cheeks turned slightly red.
He stood up as the blade slid free.
His heart cracked.
And for the first time since he arrived in this world—
Tatsuya chose to break something
so he could protect it.
Not himself.
Her.
Even if it meant destroying her to set her free.