They fought their way out of the alley into a cratered square where Argwan commandos patrolled among the dead. Seven-foot brutes with coiled muscles and mandibles clicking in place of speech. One turned—a grotesque fusion of insect and human, golden eyes locking on Ren—and tilted its head, studying them as prey.
Without thought, Aiko fired at its leg. The plasma round glanced off the chitinous armor. It roared, a sound like grinding metal, and charged. Ren shoved Yui behind him and lunged with his knife. The creature's clawed foot crashed into his shoulder, sending him skidding across stone. Pain bloomed, white-hot, but he gritted his teeth and buried the blade in its thigh. Black ichor spouted, sizzling where it hit the cobbles.
It swung again. Ren rolled, firing the pistol until the cartridge clicked empty. The creature convulsed, bowed forward, then collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs. Its golden eyes dimmed to glassy spheres as the life drained away.
Gasping, Ren staggered to his feet. He held up one blood-slick hand, his chest heaving. Aiko knelt over Yui, brushing ash from her hair. "Are you okay?"
Yui nodded, eyes wide and uncomprehending. "Papa… scary."
He gathered both of them close, pressing their foreheads together. "You're safe now."
Aiko's gaze fell to his jacket, stained with ichor. "You lied to me," she whispered without anger, only sorrow. "You thought peace would last."
Ren dropped his voice to a vow. "I thought so too. I'll make it right. I'll save you both." He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping ash and tears. "Together."
Above them, the sky rumbled as more Argwan ships descended. The Hollowing's pulse echoed beneath the ground, calling the buried to join the nightmare. Ren tightened his hold on Aiko and Yui, bracing for the next wave of horror. He would shield them—through every scream, every fracture of earth—until the last ember of hope remained.
The air reeked of ionized plasma and blood, thick as tar, clinging to Ren's lungs with every frantic breath. The night had become a crucible, fire carving shapes of ruin through the village he had once called sanctuary. His grip on Aiko's wrist tightened until she winced, but she didn't pull away—not yet.
"We go together!" he snarled, voice raw from smoke and grief. But Aiko's eyes had already gone distant, that sharp clarity of hers cutting through even the apocalypse. Her pupils reflected the firestorm, but her gaze saw beyond it—to the one thing that still mattered. Yui.
"You stubborn fool!" she barked, then slammed her forehead against his. Their breath mingled—hot, scorched, desperate. "She's all that's left! Don't let your pride bury her too!"
Behind them, the Argwan tide swelled. Violet flesh, gleaming mandibles, golden eyes—the future Ren had fled from now bled into the present like a slow infection. Their war cries pulsed with inhuman rhythm, like the heartbeat of a dying world.
And then—Sora.
Her voice cracked through the chaos like a thunderbolt, not from the battlefield but from memory, from the rotted hollow in his soul. *"Big brother… why won't you save me?"*
He hadn't saved her. The dirt still lived beneath his nails. Her name still festered under his skin.
"I won't lose you again," he growled, dragging Aiko forward, as if sheer will could anchor her to the living.
But her tears had already carved their path down the soot on her cheeks. "You already have," she whispered, and with one swift motion, she slashed her own arm open on the edge of his knife. The crimson arc shimmered against the firelight like a broken vow.
"Aiko—!"
She shoved him, using the bloodied arm, and Ren stumbled, skidding on the debris-strewn path. Yui shrieked, arms clamping tighter around his neck. His heart splintered as he watched the woman he loved—fierce, brilliant, infuriating—turn toward the oncoming horde.
"Run," she said.
He hesitated.
Then she screamed it, voice cracking like thunder: "**RUN, YOU COWARD!**"
The sound that followed wasn't a scream but a high-pitched charge. A whine, mechanical and monstrous, building toward annihilation. The plasma cannon fired—not at her directly, but at the clocktower beside her. Stone, metal, and time collapsed as one. The explosion swallowed Aiko whole in a storm of fire and shrapnel.
And in that blinding instant, all that remained of her was a final look. A smile—soft, resigned, almost serene—before the world came down.