Time Rewind… Round Two Begins
There was no sensation of death—no pain, no feeling of falling into darkness.
Just a leap through time.
One moment, Nullus was shattering Kara's jaw…
The next, he was standing again in the white space, at the very start of the fight.
---
Nullus Activates His Conceptual Vision Again
He wasted no time this time. The moment he regained awareness, he opened his eyes with his Conceptual Vision, searching for any new information about Kara.
The words appeared again.
"Vengeance. Despair. Justice."
Then, beside them, a new word emerged:
"Acceleration."
He wasn't surprised. He had seen her ability in action. This wasn't a shocking revelation—just confirmation.
But just as he was about to close his vision, he noticed something else—a word he hadn't seen before.
"Contracted."
He paused for a moment, trying to analyze its meaning.
"Contracted? Contracted with what? With whom?"
But he didn't dwell on it.
"Not important right now. I have a plan."
He shut his vision, ready to move.
---
Kara's Unexpected Reaction
But before he could do anything… he saw Kara tremble.
Then, she collapsed to the ground, her hands shaking, her body convulsing as if she had just suffered a nervous breakdown.
She was breathing rapidly. Sweating.
Then, in a trembling voice, she whispered:
"I can't do this."
She shook her head violently, as if trying to wake herself from a nightmare, then lifted her eyes to look at Nullus again.
She gazed at him as if she were seeing a ghost.
Then, in a fearful voice, she asked:
"Are you… human?"
Nullus remained silent, staring at her without answering.
But Kara continued, her voice rising slightly, filled with shock:
"Didn't you notice? You just died. And you killed me too. And here you are… trying to attack again as if nothing happened!"
---
For a moment, he felt something strange inside him.
She was right.
He had died. He remembered breaking her jaw, the darkness, the fall.
And yet… here he was, standing, as if nothing had happened.
"How can I handle this so casually?"
Then, somewhere in his memory, an image appeared…
Céline.
He remembered how she looked at life. How she believed that human lives weren't simple—they weren't just equations to be solved with violence or logical decisions.
"Human lives aren't simple."
For a moment, he felt that everything he had done so far was wrong.
For a moment, he thought that there had to be another way besides killing.
But…
Within seconds, he erased the thought from his mind.
"No. There's no other option."
"I can't leave here… unless I kill her."
His life was no longer his own—it had become a series of irreversible decisions.
His gaze locked onto Kara again.
There was no hesitation anymore.
"This is reality now. I will get out of here, no matter the cost."
---
Kara was still sitting on the ground, her body trembling, her crimson eyes watching Nullus cautiously. But deep inside, she wasn't just seeing an opponent in front of her… perhaps, she was seeing someone who could understand.
She took a shaky breath, then spoke in a low voice:
"I was a child when he came in… with a sword."
She paused for a moment, as if just recalling the memory was tearing her apart from the inside.
Then she continued:
"There was no warning. No reason. One moment, I was sitting with my parents, and the next… there was a man in the middle of the room, holding a sword drenched in blood. I didn't understand… until I saw my mother's body hit the ground."
Nullus remained silent, his eyes fixed on her, but he didn't interrupt.
"Then he turned to my father. There was no screaming, no pleas for help, no resistance. Just… a clean stab to the heart, and he fell too."
Kara closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain control of herself, but her voice began to shake even more:
"He wasn't a hired killer. He wasn't a thief. He came in, killed them, and left as if he was never there. No one knew who sent him… but I knew one thing: they were a target, and the Agency was behind it."
"There was no justice. No punishment. Just silent death—without a trace, without an explanation."
She lifted her head, her gaze filled with hatred, with despair:
"That's why I'm here."
Nullus didn't respond.
But slowly… he started to move closer.
---
She saw his heavy, slow steps approaching her.
There was no threat in his expression, no anger or clear intent to kill.
He was just… calm.
For a moment, she thought he understood.
For a moment, she thought her words had reached him.
For a moment, she thought he might choose to help her instead of killing her.
Then, suddenly—
She felt something hot tearing through her throat.
Hot blood exploded from her mouth, pouring out like a crimson fountain, soaking her hands as she tried to grasp what had just happened.
She hadn't even processed it yet. She didn't feel pain immediately.
But her body… began to collapse.
---
Her Weakness… It Was There All Along
Nullus' hand was still extended in front of her, his fingers now longer and sharper than knives.
He had amplified the concept.
Nails… sharpness… cutting.
"Acceleration," her ultimate strength, was something she hadn't been able to use this time.
Because it wasn't innate to her.
Because it wasn't truly her ability.
"Contracted."
Only now did Nullus realize… that she needed time to connect with that power.
If he had given her another second, he might have lost.
But he didn't.
Kara was trying to breathe, but all that came out of her throat was blood.
She felt a slow paralysis creeping through her body.
Loss of blood…
It was over.
---
At first, Kara didn't understand what had happened. All she felt was a sudden warmth in her throat, as if something had exploded inside her.
Then she saw the color.
Dark red.
My blood? Why…?
She tried to take a breath, but her chest didn't move. She tried to speak, but something thick spilled from her mouth instead of words.
Shock hit her first.
"He… he betrayed me?"
Nullus, who had approached so calmly, without any obvious threat, without warning…
He wasn't trying to comfort her. He wasn't trying to understand her.
He was simply… finishing the job.
Her mind rejected the truth at first, as if this was just a mistake, as if her body would figure out how to move again after a moment.
But that moment never came.
---
Then came fear.
Her hand instinctively reached for her throat, pressing against the deep wound, but the blood kept pouring through her fingers.
The warmth was fading fast.
Her limbs were growing cold.
Her knees collapsed beneath her.
"No… no no no no…"
This wasn't how it was supposed to end.
She had fought too hard to get here. She had suffered for years, destroyed her life just to find this damned organization.
She was supposed to get in, infiltrate them, destroy them from within.
She was supposed to get her revenge.
But she couldn't even survive another second.
---
And finally, despair.
She slowly lifted her head, struggling, her crimson eyes filling with tears she hadn't even realized were falling.
She looked at Nullus, searching for something… anything.
"Is there regret in his eyes? Did he feel even a moment of guilt?"
But no.
All she saw was inevitability. Acceptance.
As if he knew this was how it had to be.
As if he had discarded his humanity long ago.
A single tear slipped down her cheek. Not from pain.
But from futility.
"This… isn't justice…"
Then, darkness consumed her vision.
Kara died, and the last thing she saw was Nullus' cold face. The last thoughts in her mind were curses directed at him.