Riko felt her body shudder as she watched the rubble fall, the sound of stones reverberating throughout the place, making the ground tremble. But even with the danger of getting hurt, her feet moved on their own.
From her throat, a torn and desperate cry echoed:
"Ryaaaaaaaaaaan!"
Tears began to roll uncontrollably. She couldn't bear to lose him. It was already too much to have to deal with the doubt about Kuroi's fate. Her chest heaved, and adrenaline burned in her veins as she advanced through the debris. With a clumsy leap, she climbed a rock and finally spotted the huge crater formed by the impact.
The air was still saturated with dust and residual energy from the blow. In the center of the devastation, there were deep marks in the rock and curses crushed against the walls. But it was when her eyes met Ryan's that her heart almost stopped.
She brought her hand to her mouth, a sob stuck in her throat as she instinctively recoiled. Her gaze trembled, refusing to accept what she saw.
And then, a hoarse and dragging voice broke the silence:
"Damn... Looks like I held onto a grenade until it exploded..."
Ryan's voice was weak, almost breathless, but still carried that mocking tone. In the same instant, Riko ran to him, her knees almost buckling under the whirlwind of emotions.
"Y-you're alive!" Euphoria mixed with panic in her voice.
The cave's light revealed the boy's deplorable state. His right arm was completely burned, the tissues lacerated as if consumed by the heat of an explosion. His torso was covered in deep scratches, his clothes in tatters, and blood flowed freely from open wounds.
Inside? The pain was unbearable. His internal organs seemed about to collapse. The impact of his own blow had destroyed him more than he could imagine. The ricochet effect of the technique was a disaster.
Between his fingers, he still held the blade that almost killed him. The knife hissed with intense heat, its blade bright red, pulsating as if still impregnated with the force that propelled it.
Riko trembled, trying to think of something useful. Her voice choked with sobs:
"I-I'm going to call an ambulance! You need to go to a hospital and—"
Ryan coughed, leaning forward, the pain taking his breath away. The remnants of divine energy in his body were the only reason he could still move, even though every fiber of his being screamed in protest.
He almost toppled forward, but Riko held him, her hand pressing against his chest. "Y-you're hot! You feel like you're boiling!"
Ryan searched for breath to answer. Each word came at a cost, but he didn't want to see her in that state.
"You... don't need to worry about the person who's still conscious..." He exhaled heavily. "I think he's worse off than me..."
In the next instant, a dull thud echoed. Geto fell beside Ryan, like a rag doll, face first against the ground. Despite having used his curses to reduce the impact, his body still absorbed most of the collision. And now, blacked out, he was at the mercy of gravity.
Luckily, because he hadn't fought, Geto's energy was at its maximum, allowing him to use it to minimize the damage to his body... Well, it seems it only worked halfway, after all, he blacked out.
Riko looked at him, uncertain, before murmuring:
"W-well... I guess he's strong enough to handle it, right?"
Ryan tried to force a smile, but even that hurt.
He coughed again, this time tasting the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. The pain in his lungs increased, each breath feeling like a dagger plunged into his ribs.
Riko gently wiped the corner of his mouth. It was a small gesture, but loaded with desperate affection. However, before either of them could say anything more—
A hoarse voice echoed through the cave.
Toji.
Even on the verge of death, even with half of his body shattered, he was still breathing. Ryan's blade didn't need to hit him fully. The force of the explosion had obliterated an entire side of his body, exposing lacerated organs in a grotesque sight. Blood gushed freely from his wound, forming a dark pool around his feet.
Ryan watched the expressions dance across the assassin's face. First, surprise. Then, a hint of frustration. Finally, a vague smile, loaded with a strange pride.
"Maybe… You weren't stronger than the Six Eyes brat..." His voice was just a whisper, hoarse and dying. "But definitely, you're much more lethal..."
A glimmer of presumption persisted in his gaze. "But that doesn't change the fact that a primate beat the Six Eyes brat..."
Ryan continued to stare at him in silence, ignoring the ramblings of the dying man. But there was something about him that deeply bothered him.
Toji's appearance.
That face.
That posture.
He was identical to his uncle in his past life.
Ryan narrowed his eyes, a discomfort pulsing in his mind. He took a step forward, and Riko instinctively raised her hands to hold him, fearing he would collapse right there.
"Hey," Ryan called, his voice echoing in the silence of the devastated cave.
Toji raised his eyes, his consciousness rapidly fading, but still lucid enough to hear.
Ryan hesitated for an instant. There were so many questions, so many possibilities. But in the end, he formulated the only one that mattered.
"Does the name Ryan Gosting remind you of anything?"
Toji frowned, confused. A wry smile formed on his bloodied lips.
"Should it?"
Ryan held his breath. And then, he let out a long, heavy sigh. A mixture of weariness and resignation colored his voice when he finally replied:
"I see."
His gaze hardened, becoming cold, resolute. He felt the exhaustion crushing every cell in his body, but he remained firm.
"Anything else you want to say before you die?"
Toji let out a weak laugh, his lungs failing in the process. Blood bubbled in his mouth, but still, he maintained that damn presumptuous smile.
"Nothing..."
Toji's eyes fixed on the void, as if a memory buried in some obscure corner of his mind had finally found a path to the surface.
"In two or three years… my brat… will be sold to the Zenin clan..."
His voice came out almost as a whisper, each word loaded with a weight that contrasted with the indifferent tone he maintained throughout the fight. His smile, that cynical trait that always adorned his lips, began to wither little by little, as if, for an instant, his own existence was swallowed by the inevitability of fate.
Ryan remained silent, watching him. There was no rush to answer. Only the wind danced among the rubble, carrying away the last words of a man whose strength had defied even the most blessed.
"Do whatever you want with the information."
And then, Toji stopped. His body relaxed, his last breath slowly escaping his lungs. His eyes, once full of ferocity and presumption, were now empty, fixed on nothing. But the most impressive thing? The bastard died standing.
Riko, who had watched everything with bated breath, took a hesitant step forward, swallowing hard. "I-Is he dead?" Her voice was low, hesitant, as if afraid of the answer.
Ryan sighed, turning with difficulty to walk to Geto, his muscles protesting with every movement. "Dead as a doornail..."
He bent his knees, preparing to lift Geto's unconscious body. The simple effort made his chest burn, his lungs seemed to implode with the internal pressure, but he ignored it. His arms trembled, his bones creaked in protest, but he managed. Geto was thrown over his shoulders, a weight that anyone would say was impossible for someone in Ryan's state to carry.
Riko let out a small gasp of disbelief. "Y-You're going to carry him yourself in this state?"
Ryan cast a tired look at her. "I could leave him here… But I ended up owing him one..."
The words echoed, loaded with a meaning that only he understood.
It was then that Riko clenched her fists, her eyes welling up with growing panic. Her breathing became erratic, her words coming out in a choked sob. "R-Ryan... Kuroi!"
Ryan's world trembled for a second.
His eyes widened, his voice became more serious, urgent. "Let's go to her now, Riko!"
She nodded frantically, spinning on her heels and running through the tunnel, her steps echoing in the destroyed environment. Ryan followed close behind, Riko felt her heart beat faster, but not from exertion – but from fear. A deep and corrosive fear of what she might find.
And then Riko saw.
The shock was overwhelming.
She stopped abruptly, the world around her spinning. Her legs lost their strength, and her body toppled forward. A strange sound escaped her throat – something between a sob and a mute scream.
Ryan arrived right behind, feeling his chest tighten as he saw the scene before them. He didn't need to get too close to understand.
"Damn..." The thought came like poison. "She's already..."
But Riko didn't accept it.
She fought against her own body, crawling forward with trembling hands, sinking her fingers into the dirty earth. Thick tears fell from her eyes, sobs tore through her throat as every cell in her being refused to accept the reality before her.
She reached Kuroi, the woman's body crushed against the ground, limbs twisted at grotesque angles. Blood flowed in dark streaks, staining the surrounding rocks.
Riko knelt beside her, her breathing ragged. With a hesitant and pain-laden gesture, she ran her hand over Kuroi's face, her trembling fingers brushing away some bloodied strands of hair.
Her voice came out in a thread, weak and brittle. "Kuroi… Don't leave me..."
Despair took over.
And then came the scream.
"MAMA... DON'T DIE!"
Riko's anguish tore through the silence like thunder, echoing through the tunnel like a haunted lament. She fell onto Kuroi's inert body, her small body trembling in uncontrolled sobs.
Ryan closed his eyes for a brief second. The scene hit him like an invisible blade piercing his chest. He knew exactly what she was feeling. He had been there before.
Slowly, he placed Geto on the ground and approached, his knees touching the earth beside Riko and Kuroi.
Ryan brought his hand to Kuroi's wrist, his thoughts plunging into a sea of melancholy.
He saw something. Not there, but within his own mind.
A familiar image. A nightmare from another life.
Yuno.
Bent over Yuuki's lifeless body. Crying. Screaming. Her pain turning into an invisible wound, impossible to close.
His chest grew heavy.
"How would I feel if I had failed Riko? If I hadn't saved her, just like… I didn't save her..."
The memory of a distant day, a day he would never forget, returned with overwhelming force.
Ryan took a deep breath, his expression becoming somber.
"I know very well how I would feel… No… I know exactly how I felt…"
Riko's crying continued, each sob piercing Ryan's eardrums like invisible knives. Her pain was real. Tangible. He could feel it weighing in the air around them.
He clenched his fists. A cruel and ironic thought formed in his mind.
"The karma is a bitch…"
A weak and cynical laugh escaped his lips.
"Unfortunately for him…" He exhaled, his gaze hardening with a cold determination.
"I'm a fucking selfish man."
Riko, lost in her suffering, heard Ryan's murmur behind her. Her body reacted instinctively, turning with reddened and swollen eyes, tears streaming down her dirt-stained face. She stared at him as if he were her last anchor in reality, as if he were capable of twisting the very laws of the world to fix everything.
There was something devastating in the way she looked at him. It wasn't just despair, it was faith. Blind trust, a silent plea that he — the man who had changed her life, her hero, the one beside whom she wanted to spend the rest of her days — would do the impossible.
Ryan sustained that gaze for an instant. Even exhausted, even feeling every fiber of his body breaking with pain, a smile loaded with irony and resignation played on his cracked lips.
"I think I've acquired a weakness for cute girls crying in this new life."
He sighed, suppressing a short, hoarse laugh. His body was in tatters, but there was no turning back now.
With a slow and determined gesture, he brought his trembling hand to Kuroi's pale face. The heat that remained in her was minimal, her icy skin betraying that time was running out. His fingers slid to her neck, searching for a sign of life.
There was.
Weak.
Almost imperceptible.
A trembling, insistent pulse, fighting against the inevitable.
Her breathing was irregular, shallow. Maybe she had seconds... Minutes, at most.
And then, Arona's voice echoed within his mind.
"You're not thinking of doing that, are you?"
Ryan closed his eyes for a brief moment, taking a deep breath before mentally answering.
"You know I am, Arona. Why even ask?"
An indecipherable noise sounded in his mind, as if Arona was trying to contain a mixture of frustration and resignation.
"The worst part is that I know exactly your arguments… Aaaah, you're so reckless, senseeeei!"
Ryan ignored Arona's wheedling tone in his mind, turning his gaze back to Kuroi. Her face still, life draining from her fingertips of fate like dry sand.
"I can pull her back."
But at what cost?
As he forced himself to think rationally, Arona intervened, her voice taking on a more serious tone — a rare glimpse of the genuine concern she had for him.
"Remember when I warned you that if that man was determined to kill you and your energy ran out, you would enter an eternal loop?"
The question hung in Ryan's mind like a dark warning. He remembered.
"So... There's a way to be able to use your technique even without energy..."
Ryan felt a chill run down his spine. Arona hesitated. Her voice, once so lively and provocative, now seemed sorrowful.
"But I wish you would let it go..."
It was almost a whisper.
A request.
Maybe even a plea.
Ryan remained silent, feeling his own heart pounding against his ribs. He knew.
There are no miracles without a price.
But he was ready to pay it.
____________________________
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