My thought started taking over, "kazim was dead" a thought started revolving around my head.
It landed fully formed in my head, heavy and absolute, like a verdict that couldn't be appealed.
He wasn't breathing. He wasn't moving. The forest had gone quiet again, the kind of quiet that follows something final. I stared at his body and my mind filled in the rest without asking me.
You failed.
You were too slow.
You always are.
My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe.
If I had gone alone, this wouldn't have happened.
If I hadn't dragged them into this, Kazim would be safe.
Aira wouldn't be shaking.
Ren wouldn't be bleeding.
Only me.
Only I should be paying for this.
The thought kept spiraling, faster, sharper, louder.
You ruin things.
You ruin people.
You should've stayed inside the academy.
The creature moved again.
I didn't notice at first. My eyes were still locked on Kazim, on the way his body lay wrong against the roots of the tree. Then the ground shifted. A shadow stretched across the forest floor.
It was coming back.
And something inside me snapped.
Guilt. Pure and suffocating.
My fingers tightened around the chain and axe without me deciding to do it. My vision tunneled. The world narrowed until there was only the creature and the unbearable weight in my chest.
I won't let it take anyone else.
Something wet touched my skin.
I looked down.
Black liquid was leaking from my hand.
Not dripping. Emerging. Thick, glossy, slimy. It crawled over my fingers like it was alive, wrapping itself around the chain.
The metal screamed as it changed, edges sharpening far beyond steel, the axe heads reshaping into something insane and precise.
I didn't feel pain.
I felt empty.
Ren shouted my name, but his voice sounded far away, distorted, like I was underwater.
The creature lunged.
I swung once.
Just once.
The chain moved faster than my eyes could follow. It sliced through tentacles like they weren't there, through armor, through flesh, through whatever passed for a heart inside that thing. The black edge didn't just tear.
It burnt it.
The creature collapsed in pieces, its body dissolving into ash and shadow before it hit the ground. The forest seemed to recoil, branches creaking softly, like even it didn't want to witness what had just happened.
Silence.
My hands were still raised.
The black liquid retreated slowly, slipping back into my skin like it had never existed.
That scared me more than the creature.
I staggered back a step, suddenly aware of my breathing again ragged, uneven, too loud.
Then I heard it.
"Kiyoto!"
Aira's voice. Panicked. "Alive".
I turned.
Ren and Aira were kneeling beside Kazim. Ren had torn fabric from his sleeve, tying it tightly around Kazim's leg. Aira had one hand on Kazim's chest, the other hovering uselessly, shaking.
"He's alive," Ren shouted. "He's alive!"
The words didn't register at first.
Alive?
I stumbled closer, knees nearly giving out. Kazim's chest rose. Fell. Slowly. Painfully. His face was pale, teeth clenched, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead.
His leg was bent at an angle it shouldn't be.
"Fractured," Ren said quickly. "Bad one. But he's breathing."
Aira looked up at me, eyes wide not with relief, but with something closer to fear.
"You…" she started, then stopped.
I looked down at my hands again.
They were clean.
Normal.
Like nothing had happened.
But I knew better.
Kazim groaned softly, and the sound broke whatever was left holding me together. I dropped to my knees beside him, hands shaking worse than before.
I had been so sure he was dead.
So ready to accept it.
That terrified me.
Because for a moment back there just a moment I hadn't cared what happened to me anymore.
And whatever came out of me in that moment…
I am unaware of it.