「 ✦ Shizuku Yaegashi ✦ 」
A single drop touched my cheek. It felt cold and clean. So different from all the blood coating my skin.
I looked up at the sky, confused. When had clouds gathered? The air had been clear just moments ago. But now the heavens were dark as ink, pregnant with storm.
Another drop. Then another. More came.
And then the sky opened up.
Rain poured down from above like the world was weeping. It mixed with the blood on the coliseum floor, turning everything into rivers of deep red. Lightning split the darkness of the sky, followed by thunder that shook the very stones beneath us.
In the sudden downpour, everything felt different. Quieter somehow, strangely, despite the storm. Like the world itself was holding its breath.
That's when he appeared.
I didn't see him arrive. One moment there was empty air, the next he was standing there. Dressed in black—always black—with blood that wasn't his splattered across his clothes. Some had gotten in his beautiful blue hair, streaked across his pale, pretty face.
Rimuru...
Everything stopped.
Eri froze mid-chant, her mouth hanging open. The surviving students stopped fighting. Even the undead knights went still, like someone had cut their strings.
The rain kept falling.
For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Just our savior's broken body lying in a pool of blood. Rimuru staring at her, his face blank with shock. Nelson standing over them both with that same cold expression.
And Rimuru's eyes... God, his eyes. They were so empty. So tired. So dead. He looked no different from the walking corpses around us.
"So you do care for her," Nelson said, breaking the silence. "Well, that's a shame."
"Iu..." Rimuru's voice was barely a whisper.
So Iu was her name, I thought to myself.
"She was strong for a human, but that's as far as she went," Nelson continued, like he was discussing the weather. "She died peacefully, though. That's all I have to say. So... ready to kill each other?"
Something changed in the air. The temperature dropped so fast I could see my breath now curling into white mist. Rimuru reached into the darkness around him, pulling out something white. A mask. It materialized from swirling black mist with strange patterns and markings running across it.
He put it on slowly, covering his face completely.
"I have a friend to mourn," he said, his voice muffled now. "Let's get this over with."
They moved at the same time.
I couldn't follow their speed. No one could. They were just blurs around us, clashing in bursts of light that were red and gold and everything sinister. The ground cracked where they stepped. The air burned and seemed to scream when their weapons met.
Nelson's scythe carved through stone like butter. Rimuru's sword moved like lightning. They danced around each other, but it was over in three moves.
The first strike took Nelson's hand. Rimuru's blade cut clean through, sealing the wound with black flame that burned with searing heat. Nelson didn't even have time to scream.
The second took both his legs. Nelson toppled, but his expression never changed.
The third wasn't a sword at all.
Rimuru's fist connected with Nelson's chest.
The impact sent out waves of dark light that bypassed everything—armor, flesh, bone. Nelson's body began to change, rewriting itself from the inside out. His skin cracked. His eyes dulled. He started to crumble like old paper.
"...Twice now," Nelson said as he kneeled.
"You never learned," Rimuru replied.
"I wanted to see what you'd become."
"Great. I'm the last thing you'll see."
Then Rimuru opened his hand and swallowed Nelson whole. Just like that, the god was gone.
Rimuru stood alone in the rain.
A crack appeared on his mask.
And the rain kept falling—kept getting stronger.
He walked over to me first. I was still holding Daisy, who had gone completely silent. Without a word, he pulled out a small bottle and splashed healing potion over Kaori's wounds. Her breathing steadied immediately.
He took Daisy from my arms. She didn't resist, just pressed herself against his chest and made small, broken sounds.
Then he walked to Iu.
He sat down beside her body, one knee raised, resting his arm on it. The rain soaked through his black clothes. Blood and water ran down his mask in pink streams.
Daisy kept crying, pawing at Iu's face like she could wake her up. But Iu didn't move. Would never move again.
I'd never seen anyone look so lonely.
Here was someone who had just killed a god with three moves, sitting in the rain next to his dead friend like any ordinary person who'd lost someone they loved. The contrast made my chest tight.
This loss caused him too much. I could see it in the way he held himself, in the crack spreading across his mask, in how still he'd gone.
Then he raised one hand toward where Eri was hiding behind her wall of undead.
She tried to run. Tried to scream. But her body began to twist like someone was wringing out a wet towel. Her limbs bent at impossible angles. Her spine curved in ways that made my stomach lurch.
"No! NO! This wasn't supposed to—"
Her words cut off as something inside her seemed to collapse inward. Like a black hole had opened up in her chest. Her bones cracked. Her flesh tore. Blood sprayed in all directions as her body folded in on itself.
She became red paste. Then nothing at all.
Every undead knight in the coliseum dropped at the same time. Their strings finally cut.
The rain kept falling—washing away the blood but not the pain.
Rimuru sat there for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, still mourning. The crack in his mask had spread further, spider-webbing across the white surface. His shoulders shook once, then went still again. Daisy had stopped crying, just pressing her face against Iu's cold cheek.
Then Iu coughed.
My heart nearly stopped.
Her eyes fluttered open. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, but she was breathing. She looked up at Rimuru and managed the smallest smile.
"That... was dramatic," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the rain. "Did you... miss me?"
For a moment, everything seemed to light up. Even through his mask, I could feel Rimuru's relief like a physical thing. His hands shook as he pulled out a healing potion and poured it over her wounds.
The storm clouds parted just enough to let moonlight through. Hope bloomed in the air like a flower after winter.
"Don't you ever do that again," he said, his voice cracking.
"Can't promise anything," Iu replied, but she was already looking better. The potion worked fast, closing her wounds and bringing color back to her face.
Daisy was practically bouncing, purring so loud I could hear it over the rain. She rubbed against Iu's cheek like she was trying to make sure she was real.
"Easy, girl," Iu said, reaching up to pet the cat. "I'm not going anywhere."
Rimuru pulled off his mask. His face was streaked with rain, but he was smiling.
"I thought I lost you," he said, but he was laughing. Actually laughing. The sound was like music after all the death and screaming.
"It takes more than a god to kill me," Iu said, sitting up slowly. "Though I have to admit, that was closer than I'd like."
My surviving classmates were picking themselves up, staring in amazement. Kaori was beginning to stir, the healing potion working its magic. For the first time in what felt like hours, things were looking up despite the fact that we were still under invasion.
Nagumo and his group arrived then—Aiko-sensei, Yue, Shea, all bloodied but alive. They took in the scene with wide eyes. The destroyed coliseum, the bodies, but also the relief and sorrow on everyone's faces.
Everything was going to be okay.
That's when Iu's expression changed.
Her smile turned cold. Cruel. Her eyes, which had been warm just seconds before, became empty as winter.
"Reality is often disappointing," she said in a voice that wasn't hers anymore. "Were you happy? Hm? Were you?"
The sword appeared in her hand like magic.
The sword punched through Rimuru's chest, sliding between his ribs with a wet sound that made my stomach turn.
He looked down at the steel protruding from his body, confused. No blood came out—which struck me as odd—but the shock was real. Raw. Like she'd torn his soul apart. So real that he froze completely, his guard dropping to nothing.
Iu smiled a far more cruel smile than the one Eri had worn. With her free hand, she grabbed Daisy by the scruff and drove another blade through the little cat's body in one clean, vicious motion.
The whole world seemed to fall apart.
Daisy's cry was cut short. Her white fur turned red. She went limp in Iu's grip, those beautiful blue eyes losing their light. The little white cat hit the ground in pieces. Her blood mixed with the rain, turning the water pink.
A man appeared in front of Rimuru like he'd been there all along. Tall, young, handsome in a way that seemed wrong somehow. His hair was glacial blue, his eyes crimson red. He wore a perfect white three-piece suit that didn't have a single wrinkle or stain.
He was smiling like this was the best day of his life.
His voice cut through the silence.
"Reality is often disappointing," he repeated Iu's words. "Were you happy? Hm? Were you?"
The danger radiating from him made Nelson look like a child playing with toys.
Rimuru looked up at him with wide eyes. I could see a million questions flashing across his face, but no words came out. The sword in his chest didn't seem to hurt him physically, but something deeper was breaking.
And Daisy... poor Daisy was gone.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the man said with a charming smile. "I'm Keith. Though I'm better known as the God of Mischief. I've been keeping a low profile lately, you understand."
His voice was warm, friendly even. But there was poison underneath it. He walked around Rimuru like a predator circling wounded prey.
"Did you enjoy the show?" Keith continued, gesturing at the destruction around us. "You should have seen your face. The hope! The relief! It was beautiful, really. I almost felt bad about ruining it."
He paused to examine his fingernails.
"Almost."
Rimuru still said nothing. He was staring at Daisy's body, his hands shaking.
"Oh, don't look so glum," Keith said cheerfully. "You should be proud. Most people break much easier than this. But you—you're one tenacious bastard, aren't you? You keep getting back up! It's admirable, really."
Rimuru finally found his voice. "Was she ever real?" He looked at Iu, who stood there with that same cruel smile. "Was any of it real?"
Keith tilted his head. "What do you think?"
The way he said it, with that sadistic smile, was answer enough. I watched Rimuru's face crumble as the implication sank in.
Iu's body began to glow with red light. She dispersed into particles that flowed into Keith's outstretched hand like he was absorbing her very existence.
"A clever little puppet, wasn't she?" Keith said, watching the light disappear into his palm. "I'm quite proud of that one. Took me weeks to get the personality just right."
Rimuru looked down at Daisy again. She hadn't even gotten a clean death. The blade had torn through her small body, mangling her horribly. Her beautiful white fur was soaked red with blood.
He stood up slowly, pulling the sword from his chest. His flesh regenerated instantly, sealing the wound like it had never been there. For just a moment, his eyes flashed from gold to crimson. But they changed back so quickly I almost thought I'd imagined it.
"You're going to die... for that."
His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried more menace than any scream. He was holding himself together by threads, and we could all feel it.
Keith clapped his hands together in delight. "Oh, wonderful! I was hoping you'd say something like that. It's so much more fun when you fight back."
He leaned forward, his crimson eyes gleaming. "I'm looking forward to it. We are looking forward to it. Come for me as a demon lord, Rimuru Tempest. I'll be expecting you."
Then he was gone. Just like that.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I could feel it in my bones—Keith outclassed Rimuru completely. The casual way he'd orchestrated all this suffering, the ease with which he'd broken someone as impossibly powerful as Rimuru... it was incomprehensible.
If beings as powerful and malevolent as Keith existed in this world, what hope did any of us have?
The rain kept falling.
Even harder now.
Rimuru stood there for a long moment, looking down at what remained of Daisy. Then he looked up at the dark sky. Water ran down his face. He rubbed his face with both hands, like he was trying to scrub away what he'd just experienced.
Then he looked down at Daisy's broken body one more time.
"Fine," he muttered.
The word carried so much burden. So much pain and anger and determination all wrapped up in one simple syllable.
He knelt and gently lifted Daisy, cradling her against his chest carefully so she doesn't fall apart any more than she already has. His hands were shaking as he smoothed down her bloodied fur.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to her. "I'm so sorry."
A portal opened beside him, darker than the storm clouds above. Before stepping through, he looked back at us one last time.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For whatever it was worth."
Then he was gone, taking Daisy with him.
The storm began to fade, but the damage was done. We were all still alive, but something had changed. Something fundamental about how the world worked.
There were gods out there who played with people's lives for fun. Who created schemes just to watch someone suffer.
I looked around at my classmates, at Nagumo's speechless group, at the ruins of the coliseum. We'd all survived, but we'd also witnessed something that would haunt us forever.
The rain stopped.