The walls are screaming.
Flames dance where order once lived. Steel melts like wax beneath the fury. Sparks rain like cursed snow as Kaizen walks through the wreckage, shirtless and soaked in blood that isn't all his.
His spine aches. Not from damage. From overuse.
From healing.
Too much. Too fast. Too loud.
Every step is a grind of bone repairing mid-fracture. His veins throb with overclocked regeneration—stretched thin, past limits meant to keep a body alive.
But he's still moving.
Because Vahr is still breathing.
The display stage is rubble now. Torn wires coil from the floor like veins ripped out of a corpse. Techs lie where they dropped — headless, gutless, faceless.
And in the center of it:
Vahr.
One leg bent the wrong way. Blood gushing from the stump of an arm. Trying to crawl.
Trying.
Kaizen steps on his back. Heavy. Final.
"You think… this changes anything…" Vahr coughs. "There's always another lab. Another—"
A fist. Through the back of the head.
Wet crunch.
The words stop.
Kaizen yanks the hand back. Grey matter clings to his knuckles like paste.
He doesn't look at the crowd of corpses watching.
Doesn't need to.
They're already dead inside.
He turns.
Elen's there, still half-staggering, soaked in soot and streaked blood. His face pale. His eyes red. Legs wobbling.
He opens his mouth to speak—
Kaizen grabs his collar and drags him.
Out of the room. Through broken corridors. Past burning equipment and shattered cryo-tanks. The sirens howl, but no one is left to answer.
Every light that blinks gets smashed underfoot.
Every door that resists gets torn off the hinges.
They escape.
The sun is gone when they stop.
What remains is grey. Cold. Like the world's forgotten how to burn.
They're outside.
Kaizen falls to one knee.
The blood he's been holding in finally spills in thick, black ropes from his mouth. It steams against the frostbitten grass.
They've reached it:
The graveyard.
Old. Rotten. Abandoned. Rows of crooked stone markers clawing out from snow like broken teeth.
Elen looks around, wide-eyed.
"You remembered…"
Kaizen doesn't answer.
He falls forward.
Breathing ragged. No rhythm. Just survival on instinct. He plants a hand against the nearest headstone.
His fingers sink into the cracks.
"You're dying," Elen says.
"Yeah." Kaizen's voice is like gravel dragged over steel. "Messy... isn't it?"
His skin is cracking now — not from burns.
From regrowth.
The healing won't stop.
It's tearing him apart from the inside. Too much flesh trying to remake itself. Too many cells multiplying with no check. His muscles bulge. Veins spider. His eyes flicker between human and something deeper.
He's melting.
And growing.
And dying.
"You honored it," Elen whispers. "You brought me here. Even if it's not the graveyard I asked for."
Kaizen nods, barely.
He falls back, spine hitting a tree root with a wet crunch.
"Not... yet," he mutters.
His hand grips Elen's jacket.
"One. More. Thing."
Blood foams in his mouth.
"You. Finish it."
Elen's lip trembles. He shakes his head.
"I'm not—"
"You... ARE... NOW."
Kaizen coughs hard. Blood sprays against the stone.
"BURN. EVERY. file... ERASE. EVERY. fucker...BURN... BLUE- prints...SHATT-ERRR. CAGES. EVERY. LAST. ONE."
Elen stares.
Kaizen meets his eyes.
"DON'T. DIE. IN. A. CHAIR."
"STAY. ALIVE. THAT'S. ALL. I. ASK."
Kaizen's hand twitches again — weak, barely a grasp. He pulls Elen a little closer, jaw slack, words rasping out through blood and smoke.
"ONE. MORE. THING."
A pause. Sharp inhale. Wet.
"LUCEN."
Elen's breath catches. That name — he's heard it whispered. Rare. Untouchable.
Kaizen spits a broken laugh.
"KILL. FUCKING. BASTARD."
His body convulses.
The final surge of regeneration begins. But it's too much now.
The skin on his back splits.
Ribs snap outward.
His eyes roll back. His throat opens one last time, not for a scream—
—but for a laugh.
A raw, bloody, broken laugh that turns into a gurgle halfway through.
Then silence.
Kaizen slumps against the stone.
And doesn't get up.
Elen sits there a long time.
Long after the steam stops rising from Kaizen's corpse. Long after the distant sirens fade. Long after the sky turns black and snow starts to fall.
He leans back against the same stone.
Hands shaking.
Eyes hollow.
But he breathes.
Still.
Alive.
His voice is quiet.
"Okay."
He wipes his face. Blood. Tears. Ash.
"Okay. I'll finish it."
The graveyard doesn't respond.
But somewhere inside Elen's chest — behind the panic and loss and ghosts — something flickers.
Purpose.
He stands.
And begins walking.
Into the snow.