Darkness didn't end.It bled into shape.Rin hit the ground, or something like it — but there was no pain. Just a dull silence, like the world had forgotten how to echo.He opened his eyes.The sky was black. Not nighttime black — void black, like something had ripped the heavens open and let nothing in. The stars weren't stars. They moved. They watched. They pulsed like they had heartbeats.
He sat up slowly.
The earth beneath him was ashen, cracked like an old bone. Trees stood in the distance — gnarled, leafless things, twisted into shapes that looked almost human. Or maybe they were.
Rin didn't speak. Didn't move. He listened —But this place had no wind.No insects. No hum of life.Only the sound of his own breath, and even that felt borrowed.
"Is this… hell?"
His voice broke the silence like a sin.
No answer came. But the sky shifted — ever so slightly — like it had heard him. Like it was listening.He stood up. Unsteady. Cold.
And for the first time, he noticed his body.
No wounds.
No bruises.
Not even a scar from the bus.
But his reflection — caught faintly in a puddle of dark water — was not quite right. His eyes… were too dark. Too still. Like the soul behind them wasn't fully his anymore.
"Then it's done. Your soul is no longer yours…"
The voice echoed again. Not around him — within him.
Faint now. Distant.
But still there.
"Bound to me…"
He swallowed hard.
Somewhere behind him, the ground cracked.
Rin turned.
A figure was walking toward him — slowly, deliberately — from the forest of ash. No face. No footsteps. Only the sound of bells. Faint, metallic, off-tempo, like they were ringing underwater.
The figure stopped a few feet away.
A whisper bled into the air.
"You answered yes. But do you understand what it means to return?"
Rin stayed silent.
The figure didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"This is the place between," it said. "Where the dying forget they died. Where choices bloom like rot. You asked for a second chance… but every gift has a price."
"And the price is you."
The words weren't angry. They weren't kind.
They simply were — like gravity or time.
"There are others," it continued. "Like you. Chosen. Marked. Called back by death. Each of you a seed in the corpse of the world. Some will wither. Some will bloom. You must become more than you were… or you will break."
The air was thinner here.
Not just the oxygen — but something deeper. Like the silence itself had been drained of meaning.
Rin staggered to his feet. His body still ached from the fall, but he was breathing. That alone felt like a miracle.
The landscape stretched endlessly in shades of grey and ash — ruined buildings, broken roads, and a sky that looked bruised, bleeding light through endless clouds. Nothing moved.
Except her.
She stood beneath the only untouched structure in the wasteland: a towering monolith of chrome and glass, untouched by time or ruin. Its reflective surface gleamed faintly, and near the top, a massive digital counter ticked down in slow, ominous red.
[51]
The girl didn't speak at first.
She just watched him — arms crossed, black coat swaying slightly in the wind. Eyes cold and sharp. Like she had already seen this play out before.
"You're late," she said finally.
Rin blinked. "Late?"
"Most arrive dazed, but not this dazed. Thought you'd hit your head harder than expected."
She turned her back on him and began walking.
"Come on, newbie. I'll explain while we move. Name's Kuroha."
"…Rin."
She didn't respond. Just kept walking, boots crunching the dead ground beneath her.
They moved through the skeletal remains of a city long abandoned, like ghosts wandering a forgotten memory.
"What is this place?" Rin asked.
"Call it purgatory. Call it the Void. Doesn't matter. We're not alive, but we're not dead either. Just stuck."
Rin looked up at the gleaming building again. The counter hadn't changed.
"That number—what is it?"
Kuroha's eyes flicked toward it.
"It's how many more souls need to arrive before the Tournament begins," she said. "That counter started at one thousand. Every time someone dies and gets pulled into this world… it ticks down."
Rin frowned. "So when it hits zero…"
"Then the Voidbirth begins. The Tournament. The real game."
He stopped walking. "Tournament? What kind of—"
"The kind where people like us are forced to fight for our right to exist again."
She faced him now, her voice low and clipped. "One hundred contestants. When the counter hits zero, there'll be a hundred of us. No more. No less."
"And the rest?"
"They didn't make it," she said simply.
A distant sound echoed. Like metal scraping stone. Rin flinched. Kuroha drew a long, curved blade from her back, fluid and calm.
"They're early," she muttered.
Rin's breath hitched. "Who?"
Kuroha's eyes narrowed toward the fog.
"The Wardens."
"Scouts. Executioners. Whatever you want to call them. Their job is to make sure we don't cheat the system. They think no one deserves a second chance." Her voice hardened. "So they hunt us. Kill us. Wipe us from existence."
"But I didn't ask for this," Rin said.
"No one does."
Kuroha looked at him for a moment. Really looked.
Then she said:
"Better learn fast, Rin. Because the Void doesn't care what you wanted. Only if you're strong enough to survive it."
From the fog, a shape emerged — tall, robed, inhumanly still. A curved helmet masked its face, and from its arms, twin blades gleamed like bone.The Warden had arrived. And Rin's second chance was already under siege.
A low hum settled in the air — like the world itself was holding its breath.
From the fog emerged a figure dressed in ink-black robes stitched like a tailored suit. Polished shoes. Blood-red gloves. A pristine white cravat at the neck. His face was obscured by a silver mask, expressionless, carved with ancient runes. A single red eye blinked within it — a lens, or perhaps something alive.
Strapped to his back was a massive executioner's blade — broad, ceremonial, etched with jagged scripture that bled crimson with every breath he took.
He paused.
Then bowed — elegant, theatrical.
"Ah… Another wretched soul misplaced by grace,"
"Tethered to a fate undeserved."
"Forgive me, dear sinners…"
"But balance demands blood."
Kuroha didn't hesitate. She stepped in front of Rin, blade drawn, eyes locked.
"Don't talk," she said coldly. "Just die."
The Warden straightened.
"Rude."
"I rehearsed that for hours."
And then he moved — impossibly fast. The air screamed as his executioner's blade swept forward like a guillotine's fall.
Kuroha blocked — barely. The impact cracked the concrete beneath them, sending a shockwave rippling through the city's corpse. Her boots scraped back, and Rin stumbled.
She hissed through her teeth. "He's faster than the last one."
Rin's heart pounded like war drums. His fingers twitched. Something ancient stirred within him. Not a voice, not a thought — just pressure.
Like a storm hiding behind his ribs.
"This one is still asleep," the Warden crooned, motioning toward Rin.
"Shall I carve his awakening into his bones?"
He raised the blade again.
Kuroha lunged to intercept, steel flashing — but the Warden vanished mid-swing, reappearing behind her like a phantom from a nightmare.
"Art is not chaos, girl."
"It is control."
His blade whistled downward—
But Rin screamed. A ripple of black voidlight burst from his chest, unseen, but felt. Like something cracked open inside reality itself.
For a heartbeat, the world stuttered. The Warden's blade hung mid-air, motionless, like time itself was holding its breath
"…Fascinating."
Kuroha leapt, dragging Rin with her as the Warden's blade crashed where he had stood. The building behind them disintegrated from the force.
"You just triggered a surge," she hissed, panting. "Whatever's inside you—keep it locked or learn how to use it, fast!"
Rin's eyes were wide — glowing faintly with a dark shimmer. He didn't understand it.
But the Warden did.
He turned slowly, like admiring a masterpiece on the verge of completion.
"Ah… how I adore potential."
"Please don't die too soon, Rin."
"The canvas has just been stretched."
With that, the Warden stepped into the fog — vanishing like a ghost, as if this first act was merely a teaser. Was this what dying gave you? A borrowed life, bought with silence and blood?
And the counter on the tower?
It ticked.
[50]