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Author Note:
' ' = Thoughts
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*A/N: This is a filler chapter. Important for the future.
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LIVE BREAKING NEWS
Anchor: We interrupt our scheduled programming with breaking news from Yomiyama City, where a horrific traffic accident shortly after midnight has claimed the lives of six people, including two students from 9th Grade Class 2 of Yomiyama North Middle School.
The anchor's face remained composed, but the gravity in his voice was unmistakable. Behind him, the studio screen displayed the words Fatal Tanker Collision in Yomiyama City, followed by a blurred image of burning wreckage and flashing emergency lights.
Anchor: According to police, the victims were part of two families who had gathered earlier that evening for a small late-night get-together. After spending several hours together, they left shortly after midnight and were driving home when the fatal collision occurred.
The broadcast cut from the studio to live footage taken from the scene. Emergency vehicles filled the road. Fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances lined both sides of the highway while thick smoke drifted upward into the night sky. Even through the camera, the scale of the destruction was clear. The road surface had been blackened by fire, and what remained of the vehicles could barely be recognized.
Field Reporter: I am standing on National Route 17, where rescue crews are still working at the scene of what investigators are calling one of the city's most devastating road accidents in recent years.
The reporter stood behind a police barrier, her voice raised slightly over the distant sound of engines, emergency radios, and firefighters moving through the wreckage behind her.
Field Reporter: Preliminary reports indicate that a liquefied petroleum gas tanker traveling downhill suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure. Authorities believe the truck's wheel stopper and braking system failed, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle. Witnesses say the tanker crossed the center divider at high speed and slammed directly into the families' sedan only seconds after it entered the intersection.
The footage shifted again, showing firefighters spraying water and foam over the burned remains of the tanker. The vehicle's frame had twisted from the explosion, and pieces of metal lay scattered across the road like blackened bones.
Field Reporter: The impact ruptured the tanker's fuel tank, triggering a massive explosion that engulfed both vehicles almost instantly. Firefighters battled the blaze for nearly forty minutes before they were able to extinguish it, but officials have confirmed that no one inside the sedan survived.
The camera lingered on the safety perimeter where police officers were preventing civilians and reporters from moving closer. Beyond them, forensic investigators in protective gear examined the wreckage beneath portable lights.
Field Reporter: Among the victims are two fourteen-year-old students from 9th Grade Class 2 at Yomiyama North Middle School, along with four members of their families. Several nearby vehicles also sustained damage from the explosion, and two bystanders suffered minor injuries from flying debris. They were treated at a nearby hospital and are not believed to be in critical condition.
The broadcast then shifted to a recorded interview with a witness standing near the scene, his face pale and his hands still trembling slightly as he spoke.
Witness: It all happened so fast. There was a loud screech, and then this tremendous explosion. The whole street lit up. Some of us tried to move closer, but the fire was too intense. We couldn't do anything.
The feed returned to the studio, where the anchor lowered his gaze briefly before continuing.
Anchor: Police have closed the highway while forensic investigators examine the wreckage. Early evidence suggests the crash was caused by mechanical failure, though authorities are also investigating whether improper maintenance of the tanker may have contributed to the tragedy.
The words were ordinary.
Mechanical failure.
Improper maintenance.
Fatal collision.
Simple explanations for the public to accept.
Yet beneath those words, something far colder had moved.
Anchor: Counselors are expected to be available at Yomiyama North Middle School later today as students and teachers struggle to come to terms with the sudden loss of their classmates. We will continue following this developing story as more information becomes available.
The broadcast ended with a lingering aerial shot of the blackened roadway. Emergency lights flashed through the drifting smoke, red and blue reflections trembling across the burned asphalt as if the road itself had not yet finished remembering the explosion.
Then the screen faded back to the studio.
.
.
.
Kaelthorn sat behind the doctor's desk in his clinic, watching the live news broadcast on the television mounted against the wall.
Six or seven hours had already passed since the explosion, and morning had settled over Yomiyama City with the pale, exhausted light that always followed a night of disaster. The streets outside had begun moving again, but the movement felt different now. Slower. Quieter. As though the city had awakened and immediately remembered that something terrible had happened while it slept.
The principal had already given Kaelthorn permission not to come to school for the time being. His only responsibility, at least officially, was to monitor Yukari Sakuragi until she woke. Because of that, Kaelthorn had opened the clinic earlier than usual and now sat in silence, waiting for patients who would likely never come, while the news repeated the details of the accident from the previous night.
Yukari Sakuragi lay on the bed at the side of the room, still unconscious. Her breathing remained steady and even, supported by the treatment Kaelthorn had provided, but she showed no sign of waking. The bandages around her neck were clean, and the tube attached to her throat continued doing its work without interruption.
As for Reiko Mikami, she had left shortly after witnessing the explosion.
Kaelthorn was certain she would eventually go near the scene, either out of fear, curiosity, or the desperate need to understand whether what had happened was connected to her. She would investigate in whatever limited way she could. She would ask herself whether this was the calamity. Whether this was because of her. Whether the deaths had begun spreading because she had failed to die.
That uncertainty would eat at her.
To almost everyone else in the city, the explosion would appear to be nothing more than a tragic accident. A mechanical failure. A tanker losing control. A collision. A fire. A reportable disaster with causes, witnesses, and official explanations.
Even the students and teachers of Yomiyama North Middle School would likely think the same at first.
But they had no idea what was moving beneath the surface.
It was no coincidence that the dead students were not from ninth grade, Class 3, yet still belonged to Yomiyama North Middle School.
CLICK.
Kaelthorn turned off the television.
The room fell into silence, broken only by the soft rhythm of Yukari's assisted breathing. He stood from his chair and walked toward her bed. Once beside her, he checked the IV line and replaced the dextrose solution with a new one, his movements slow, precise, and practiced.
While his hands worked, his thoughts remained elsewhere.
'Kaelthorn: The moment the laws around the city began to twist, ninth grade, Class 3 stopped being the only center of the calamity. Now the entire Yomiyama North Middle School has been pulled into it… for now.'
The words from the news returned to his mind.
Instant death.
No chance of survival.
The victims had died in a way that left no opening, no delay, no fragile margin where a doctor could intervene and perform another impossible rescue. That detail was important. The calamity had already adapted. Yukari's survival had taught it something.
Or rather, it had learned to avoid Kaelthorn.
From now on, the deaths would not happen directly in front of him. They would occur beyond his immediate reach, far enough away that his ordinary body could not interfere in time. Unless he used powers that he had no intention of exposing yet, he would not be able to save anyone.
Yukari Sakuragi had been the first person he saved from the calamity.
And most likely, the last.
There was another matter as well.
Last night, Kaelthorn had taken ninety-nine percent of Reiko Mikami's bizarre power again. By itself, that should have weakened the calamity's anchor temporarily. But now that the laws around Yomiyama had begun to twist, the recovery would not return in the same form as before. When Reiko's power rebuilt itself, it would come back stronger than it had been previously, shaped by the widened scope of the distortion.
That increase would twist the laws even further.
And once that happened, the calamity would no longer remain limited to the school.
'Kaelthorn: From now on, it will not be only students who face death. Their families will be included as well. Parents, relatives, entire bloodlines connected to the target… each death will become the end of more than one life.'
A slight twist in the city's laws had already changed the calamity drastically.
It had become more ruthless.
More indifferent.
More efficient.
And worse, more intelligent in its results.
It was closing loopholes. Removing chances of survival. Expanding the meaning of who could be counted as connected. What had once been a curse centered around one classroom was beginning to grow into something that could treat an entire school, then an entire city, as part of the same diseased structure.
After confirming that the IV drip was functioning properly, Kaelthorn returned to his desk and picked up his phone.
Several messages had arrived from the principal and other teachers, all asking whether Yukari had woken yet. Their concern was genuine. Their fear was equally genuine. There was also a longer message from the principal informing him that the authorities mentioned in the news would be arriving at the school later that day to question the staff and offer support to the students.
The principal strongly emphasized that Kaelthorn did not need to worry about any of it.
They would handle the school.
He only needed to take care of Yukari.
They still believed that her survival meant something hopeful. To them, saving Yukari was the first victory against the calamity, proof that death could be resisted, proof that this year might be different.
They did not understand.
Yukari's survival no longer mattered in the way they thought it did.
The situation had already changed.
The deadlock had not been broken in their favor. It had been broken in Kaelthorn's. The calamity had widened, the city's laws had begun bending, and with time, the consequences would only grow worse.
How much worse?
Even the current Kaelthorn would die if he stopped guarding himself completely.
For ordinary people, there would be no protection at all.
After replying to the messages with a brief update on Yukari's stable condition, Kaelthorn placed the phone down and leaned back in his chair. His hidden gaze lowered slightly, and his thoughts turned inward.
The city was entering its countdown.
The calamity was evolving.
The doll was growing.
Reiko Mikami remained useful.
And Kaelthorn's damaged body still needed far more than time could give.
'Kaelthorn: It is time I begin recovering my revenant power.'
.
.
.
During his time in the Interstice, Kaelthorn had not spent those countless ages merely surviving.
He had studied.
He had observed that place, endured its pressure, learned its behavior, and slowly corrected his own understanding of the power that had carried him this far. Until then, he had used that power without fully knowing what it truly was. He had felt its effects, benefited from its evolution, and followed the path it opened for him, but the name and deeper structure of that system had remained hidden.
Now he knew.
The system that had made him Ascended was called ■■■.
And through that understanding, he had learned something far more important.
Revenant and Ascended were not the same thing.
A Revenant was a supernatural race and power system. It was a framework that allowed a being to wield abnormal strength, regenerate, manipulate blood, and exist beyond ordinary life and death. It made Kaelthorn powerful, dangerous, and difficult to kill.
But Ascension was something else entirely.
Ascension was not merely a stronger form of the same power. It was an existential evolution, a transformation of the being itself into a higher and more complete state. It did not simply add strength to the body. It changed the foundation of what that being was.
In simpler terms, the Kaelthorn who first entered the Dark Multiverse and faced the infected was a Revenant.
But the Kaelthorn who entered Yashiro Station and faced the Entity was Ascended.
The difference between those two versions of him was not like earth and sky.
It was far greater than that.
Even if his Revenant self became a million times stronger, Ascended Kaelthorn could still erase that version with a single thought. The gap was not one of raw strength alone. It was the difference between a being that wielded power and a being whose very existence had evolved into something higher.
That was why Kaelthorn had dared to enter the Entity's presence.
That was why he had dared to look at something that existed on a level far beyond the ordinary structure of worlds.
He had lost.
That loss had been inevitable from the beginning.
But the gains he obtained from that so-called audience with the Entity were enormous. Even defeat had given him direction. It showed him the scale of what waited inside the Dark Multiverse and what kind of beings he would one day have to face.
Most importantly, it showed him the path forward.
The Revenant power had made him strong enough to stand above countless beings.
But ■■■ was different.
That system did not merely strengthen him. It evolved him. It was the path that would one day allow him to stand on the same stage as beings like the Entity.
Perhaps even beyond them.
For that reason, Kaelthorn's true objective was to recover his power as an Ascended. However, Ascended recovery was slow and difficult. The damage he had suffered had reached the foundation of his existence, and wounds at that depth could not be healed quickly.
His Revenant power, however, was different.
That could be restored much more easily.
The relationship between the two could be understood through a simple comparison.
Imagine a massive tree.
Its trunk is strong. Its roots go deep. Its branches stretch far, covered in leaves, flowers, and decorations. Now imagine that the tree becomes weakened. Its roots dry. Its leaves fall. Its branches become brittle. The entire tree begins to lose its vitality.
The decorations hanging from the branches may still exist, but they cannot function properly while the tree itself is dying.
In this comparison, Kaelthorn's Ascended state was the tree.
His Revenant race, his golden heart, and the other powers he had acquired were the decorations attached to it.
The tree had been damaged.
Because of that, everything connected to it had weakened as well.
Restoring the tree would take a long time.
But repairing the decorations was easier.
That meant even if Kaelthorn could not fully return to his Ascended condition yet, he could still restore his Revenant power first. If he found the right materials and repaired the weakened parts attached to his existence, he could regain the strength he possessed before becoming Ascended.
And he already had one of the most important materials.
Kabane blood.
In the previous world, while Kaelthorn had been pursuing his own objectives, he had ordered the drone to hunt Kabane and gather their blood. As a result, he still had a large stock stored away. If he injected enough of that blood into himself, his golden heart could recover completely.
Once that happened, his Revenant power would return.
Not his Ascended power.
Not yet.
But the strength he possessed before crossing that final boundary would become available again.
Of course, the process would still take time. His body was no longer in the condition it had once been. When he first left the Interstice, he could not have endured even a single drop of Kabane blood without risking collapse. But now, after partial recovery and one month of stabilization, his body had reached the bare minimum condition required to begin.
The method was not simple.
He could not inject all of it at once.
He would have to take large amounts gradually, absorb them slowly, and allow the golden heart to rebuild itself piece by piece. The process would be painful, dangerous, and constant.
But it was possible.
At most, his Revenant recovery would take six months.
Compared to the years—or perhaps far longer—required for Ascended recovery, that was short.
Almost convenient.
Kaelthorn remained seated in the quiet clinic, his thoughts cold and orderly as the city outside continued moving toward its end.
'Kaelthorn: Six months, huh…'
A faint silence followed.
'Kaelthorn: Too bad this city will no longer be here by then.'
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*To be continued…
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