The van door slammed shut.
Riah sat near the front, her shoulders tense, gaze locked out the window. Her fingers dug into her knees.
Tyrone was silent in the back, eyes down. Even he didn't know what to say.
Kazimir sat alone by the window, in the last row. No one dared sit near him.
The engine rumbled to life, but inside the vehicle, it felt like the world had stopped breathing.
Rain began tapping the windowpane, softly at first—then harder, like the sky was trying to hide the shame below.
Riah turned slightly, just enough to see him through the rearview mirror.
His eyes weren't glowing. There was no flicker of Imaginary Essence. No aura. Just a young man staring into nothing.
And yet… he looked centuries older.
[Kazimir's Inner Thoughts]
She screamed like I was a nightmare that walked into her home.
No one even asked what I felt.
Why I chose to be there. Why I stayed alive. Why I kept fighting.
They saw me and they saw Nebula. As if I was just a shadow following her command.
Not even a moment of hesitation.
Just—'why do you even exist?'
His fingers curled, nails biting into his palms. Blood beaded between his knuckles, but he didn't care. The pain was a whisper. The silence in his chest was screaming louder.
I didn't kill Ingress because I wanted to.
I killed him because no one else could.
And I still lost everything.
Even Riah's mother… saw through me. Not as a person—but as a prophecy she wished hadn't been born.
Riah finally turned around. Her voice was low.
"Kaz…"
He didn't respond.
She climbed out of her seat, sliding toward the back, quietly settling beside him.
Still, he said nothing.
Riah looked down at his hand. Blood had smeared across his palm. She reached for it—he flinched.
"I'm not afraid of you," she whispered.
"…Maybe you should be."
Her heart broke a little. "Don't say that."
"You heard her," he murmured. "She didn't see me. She saw Nebula. She saw destruction. Death. And she wasn't wrong."
He leaned his head against the glass, voice barely above breath.
"Everywhere I go, something falls apart. I try to protect the world because even if I am a disciple of Nebula, I sill view mortal lives are still worth living i didn't want to be a hero I never wanted that role, because I know the weight it carries … and yet all it does is spit me back out like a mistake it regrets."
"You're the only thing that makes me believe I still belong in this timeline, Riah. But today—just for a second—I felt like I didn't even deserve that."
Riah's throat tightened. She reached for his face gently, turning it toward her.
"She was wrong. They're wrong. You're not some harbinger of doom. You're the one holding the sky up when it wants to fall."
His lips barely parted. "And if I let it fall… would anyone even mourn me?"
Riah leaned in, her forehead pressing against his.
"I would."
He finally blinked. His breath hitched.
She whispered, her words trembling against his skin.
"You think you've lost humanity. But they're the ones who lost you. They lost the chance to know the one who fights for them in silence. Who bleeds for them without asking anything in return. They don't deserve you, Kazimir."
For a brief moment, he let himself breathe in her warmth. Her hands. Her voice. The only proof he was still tethered to something—someone.
Rain continued to streak down the windows, blurring the outside world.
Inside the van, he closed his eyes and leaned forward just slightly—forehead to forehead.
And for once, he allowed the tears to fall.
No essence.
No pride.
No battle.
Just a boy, haunted by the echoes of gods, who wanted to believe that maybe—just maybe—he could still be human.
Tyrone's POV — Inner Thought
He saw it.Not the tears—Kazimir would never cry like that in front of anyone if he had the choice.
But Tyrone wasn't just anyone anymore. He had seen Kazimir once in that state before.
Back then, it was on the throne of the Vrasnai. The black citadel ruined and burning behind him. The souls of his people echoing in the void. And his mother—Her spirit fading in his arms.Her last words soft against his chest:"You were never meant to carry all this alone."
Kazimir hadn't wailed. He hadn't screamed.He just sat there, his crown tilting, his sword dragging the ground, and tears falling like blood from a wound too old to heal.
Now, Tyrone saw it again. In the back of the van.Different place. Different pain.Same boy.
A void-walker. A friend.
And yet, all Tyrone could think was:
He cries like the world forgot he was ever human.Like somewhere deep inside, he's still begging someone to see him before the mask resets again.
Tyrone looked down at his own hands, clenched and useless.
He always thought Kazimir was unshakable—unbreakable. But the truth was…
He wasn't unbreakable.He just had no one left to break for.
And now that someone had finally broken him again…Tyrone hated how familiar it felt.
He's not a king right now. Not a warrior. Not Nebula's weapon.
He's just Kaz.And we keep asking him to survive our storms… while pretending not to notice when he drowns in his own.