Consciousness returned like a slap to the face.
Akai's eyes snapped open, and he was standing in that same cursed alley. The same cobblestones beneath his feet. The same ivory spires scratching at the sky. The same people walking past as if the universe hadn't just reset itself like a broken clockwork toy.
For a moment—just one precious, fragile moment—his mind refused to process what had happened. The burning. The screaming. The catgirl's smile as he cooked alive.
*It was a dream. It had to be a dream.*
But the phantom pain in his chest, the ghost memory of flames eating through his skin, told him otherwise.
His legs gave out.
He hit the cobblestones hard, his whole body shaking as the reality of his situation crashed over him like a tidal wave of liquid horror. He wasn't dead. He wasn't free. He was *back*.
*How?*
*Why?*
*What kind of sick cosmic joke—*
The sound of metal boots on stone cut through his spiraling thoughts.
*Clink. Clink. Clink.*
"No," he whispered, scrambling to his feet. "No, not again. Not f***ing again."
The same guards. The same formation. The same inexorable march toward his location.
This time, Akai didn't run.
What was the point? They'd catch him anyway. They'd drag him to that room anyway. They'd hurt him anyway.
When the lead guard barked his incomprehensible question, Akai said nothing. He kept his mouth shut, his hands visible, his eyes down.
*Maybe if I don't speak, they'll think I'm mute. Maybe they'll leave me alone.*
They didn't leave him alone.
Back in the cell—the same cell, with the same scarred girl in the same corner—Akai sat in silence, his mind racing.
"I need a plan. I need to think this through."
When they dragged him to the interrogation room, he was ready.
The red-haired knight sat across from him, that single eye boring into Akai's skull like a drill.
Questions came in that sharp, foreign tongue.
Akai said nothing. He pointed to his throat, shook his head, made exaggerated gestures of confusion.
The knight's scarred face remained impassive.
More questions.
Akai began signing—random hand gestures he half-remembered from a sign language class he'd taken in high school. Pointing at himself, shrugging, spreading his hands in universal gestures of ignorance.
The knight watched for exactly thirty seconds.
Then he waved to the guards.
The hot iron rods came out.
Only one session this time, but they made it count.
They worked him over with the methodical precision of master craftsmen, each touch of burning metal calculated for maximum effect. By the time they were done, Akai couldn't even scream anymore. His vocal cords had given up the ghost somewhere around the third application to his ribs.
They dumped him back in the cell like a sack of broken meat.
He couldn't move. Couldn't even lift his head off the stone floor. Every nerve ending in his body felt like it had been dipped in acid and set on fire.
Hours passed. Maybe days. Time meant nothing when breathing required conscious effort.
Eventually, a guard came with food—the same sawdust bread, the same flavorless water.
Akai tried to reach for it, but his arms wouldn't obey. His body had simply given up on the concept of voluntary movement.
The bowl sat there, just out of reach, mocking him.
That's when the scarred girl moved.
Without hesitation, without shame, without even looking at him, she lunged for his food like a wild animal. Her small hands grabbed the bread and tore into it with desperate hunger, crumbs falling from her mouth as she devoured what should have been his meal.
She ate like someone who had forgotten that food was supposed to be shared, that other people had needs too. Like someone who had learned that survival meant taking whatever you could get, whenever you could get it.
Akai watched her through eyes that felt too heavy to keep open.
*Give me... just a little...*
He tried to speak, but only a whisper of air escaped his ruined throat. The girl didn't even notice.
The sadness that consumed him then was deeper than the pain, heavier than despair. This broken child, stealing food from a broken man, both of them trapped in a hell that neither of them understood.
He closed his eyes and let unconsciousness take him away from it all.
When he woke up, he was tied to the stake again.
The same crowds. The same eager faces. The same silver-haired catgirl in the front row, watching him with that same serene smile.
The same torch. The same flame.
The same agony as fire consumed everything he was and ever would be.
Akai Ren burned again.
Akai Ren died again.
His third awakening was different.
The moment his eyes opened in that cursed alley, Akai was already moving. His legs pumped before his brain fully caught up, carrying him away from that spot of recurring nightmare.
"Run. Just run. Don't think, don't stop, just f***ing run."
He made it six blocks before he heard the shouts behind him.
Turning back, he saw guards pointing in his direction. One of them held what looked like a wanted poster—and even from a distance, Akai could see his own face staring back at him.
"Of course. Of course they have my picture."
They gave chase immediately.
What followed was the most terrifying hour of Akai's life—and considering he'd been tortured and burned alive twice, that was saying something.
He ran through streets that twisted like a maze, past markets where merchants dove out of his way, through residential districts where children pointed and screamed. Behind him, the sound of pursuit never faded—metal boots, shouted orders, the occasional whistle as more guards joined the hunt.
He ran like prey, because that's exactly what he was. A hunted animal in a world that wanted him dead, and he didn't even know why.
Finally, gasping and shaking, he ducked into a narrow alley between two towering buildings. His lungs burned. His legs felt like jelly. Sweat stung his eyes as he pressed his back against cold stone and tried to become invisible.
"They'll find me. They always find me."
But for now, in this moment, he was hidden.
As the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and crimson, Akai forced himself to think.
"The tracksuit. It's the tracksuit. It makes me stand out like a sore thumb."
He looked down at his clothes—the same gray tracksuit he'd been wearing when this nightmare began. His favorite outfit, the one thing from his old world that still felt like *him*.
"I have to change."
Creeping through the shadows, he searched for anything that might help him blend in. Near what looked like a laundry line, he found a black cloak that had been left to dry. It was rough, scratchy fabric that smelled like it had never met soap, but it would have to do.
Next to it hung something that looked almost like a witch's hat—pointed, wide-brimmed, dark as midnight. Not exactly what he would have chosen, but it would hide his face.
Wrapped in his new disguise, Akai ventured back onto the streets.
The crowds flowed around him like water, no one giving the cloaked figure a second glance. For the first time since this hell began, he felt almost... invisible.
"I need to understand this place. I need to see what I'm dealing with."
The tallest structure in the area was a tower that spiraled into the sky like a stone needle. Working his way through the building, dodging servants and officials, Akai climbed until his lungs screamed for mercy.
At the top, he pushed through a door and stepped onto a balcony that offered a view of everything below.
His breath caught in his throat.
What he had thought was a city... wasn't a city at all.
It was a continent.
Stretched out before him was an expanse so vast it made his mind reel. Districts sprawled in every direction, each one the size of a major metropolis. In the distance, he could make out a church-like structure made entirely of glass that caught the dying sunlight like a crystal mountain. Residential areas spread like veins through the landscape. And there, in one corner that seemed impossibly far away, the dark smudge of what looked like slums—the shadow that every great civilization cast.
"This..." he whispered, his voice lost in the wind. "This wasn't the f***ing journey I was hoping for."
The fantasy he'd dreamed of—adventure, magic, maybe a cute girl or two who actually wanted to hold his hand instead of slapping his face—felt like a cruel joke now.
Standing on that tower, looking out at a world that wanted him dead for reasons he couldn't fathom, Akai felt something die inside him. Some last vestige of the otaku who'd believed in happy endings and protagonist power.
"My only goal now," he said to the darkening sky, "is to survive. And find a way home."
"If there even is a way home."
The wind picked up, tugging at his stolen cloak, and Akai wondered if the next time he died, he'd wake up in this same alley again.
Or if maybe, just maybe, the third time would be his last.