「 ✦ Shizuku Yaegashi ✦ 」
The massive claw was inches from my face when everything changed.
I was staring death in the eye—this monstrous wolf the size of a house bearing down on me with claws that could rend steel—and the next moment, a familiar boy materialized from the shadows between us. My heart nearly stopped, but not from fear this time.
Rimuru.
His hand closed around the wolf's claw, and I heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking. The creature barely had time to register what was happening before he squeezed, and the flesh exploded like overripe fruit. Then his mouth opened, and the creature was pulled into nothingness.
The massive wolf disappeared so quickly it didn't even finish screaming.
"Shizuku." His voice was calm—so different from the chaos around us. "You alright?"
I nodded mutely, still processing what had just happened. A thousand questions raced through my mind. How did he find us? When did he get here? Are we actually going to survive this? But all I could manage was that single nod.
He turned to survey the chamber, and I followed his gaze. Kouki bloodied against the wall with Kaori desperately trying to heal him. Our classmates huddled together like frightened animals. Meld-san hanging limp in that horse-faced monster's grip. The demon woman who'd been orchestrating this nightmare, her confident smirk faltering for just a moment.
And then there was the other figure. Even without knowing what he was, I could feel the wrongness radiating from him.
I was still taking it all in when something slammed into Rimuru with the force of a freight train.
He went flying across the chamber, crashing into the stone wall with enough force to crack the masonry. Dust and debris rained down as he slid to the floor, and for one terrible moment, my heart stopped completely.
Around me, I could feel despair washing over our classmates like a tide. Hope, snuffed out as quickly as it had appeared. But I kept my eyes fixed on the rubble where he'd landed, waiting.
He's fine, I told myself. He has to be fine.
And then he stepped out of the crater, dusting himself off like he'd simply tripped over a stone.
The gray-haired man—Nelson, as Cattleya called him—was smirking as he lowered his fist. "Lord Nelson," she said, "it seems we have an unexpected guest."
"Hey," Rimuru called out. "Who's tougher, you or Hel?"
The question seemed to catch Nelson off guard, but his smirk widened. "So you're the pup Hel's been in heat with lately?"
The crude comment was barely out of his mouth when five lances of crackling darkness materialized around Rimuru. Black Lightning and Black Flame twisted together in weapons that screamed of concentrated death. They streaked across the chamber faster than my eyes could follow.
Nelson's eyes widened as the lances impaled him from multiple angles, pinning him against the far wall. For a moment, I thought it was over.
"You jealous?" Rimuru walked closer as Nelson struggled against the lances, his body already beginning to heal and force them out.
"Cute trick," Nelson said, dropping to the ground as his wounds closed. "But I'm afraid you'll have to do better than—"
Rimuru's blade—when had he drawn it?—sliced through Nelson's wrist in one fluid motion. The severed hand hit the floor with a wet thud.
"You're definitely jealous."
The rage that flashed across Nelson's features was terrifying. "You little—
They collided in the center of the chamber, and suddenly I understood what it meant to witness a battle between gods.
They moved too fast for me to follow—blurs of motion that left afterimages and sonic booms. Every impact sent shockwaves through the chamber, every missed strike carved through stone like paper. I found myself pressed against the wall, my katana raised defensively, though I knew it would be useless if either of them came my way.
But Rimuru was being careful. Even in the midst of this impossible battle, I could see him calculating trajectories, intercepting attacks that might have hit us, keeping the worst of the destruction away from where we cowered.
He's protecting us, I realized. Even while fighting a god, he's still protecting us.
I glanced toward the demon woman—Cattleya. Her expression had changed from confident amusement to something approaching disbelief. Her god, her supposedly invincible ally, was being pushed back by someone who looked barely older than me.
That's when the ceiling exploded.
A man dropped through the debris—white hair, an artificial arm that gleamed, and an expression that spoke of someone who'd seen too much and cared too little.
"What the hell are you doing here, you bastard?!" The man snarled at Rimuru, his artificial arm already shifting into weapon configurations. "Of all the goddamn places in this shithole world, why the fuck do you have to show up everywhere I go?!"
But before Rimuru could respond, something caught my attention.
Nelson was... biting himself. Tearing chunks of his own cauterized flesh away with his teeth, spitting out the flame-tainted meat until he reached clean tissue underneath. His regeneration kicked back in with disturbing speed.
"Cool," Rimuru admitted, watching the display. "Disgusting, but cool."
"Hajime," Rimuru's tone shifted completely, becoming serious. "Just focus on protecting your classmates."
Hajime?
"N-Nagumo-kun?" Kaori's voice was barely a whisper. "Is that really…?"
"Wait, huh?!" I breathed, unable to reconcile what I was seeing with what I knew to be true. "You died. We saw you fall. Is that really you? Wait, really?"
Impossible. We'd all seen him fall. We'd mourned him. And yet here he was, looking nothing like the bullied boy who'd been summoned with us. This person radiated danger in a way that made my instincts scream.
Behind him came a beautiful blonde girl who floated rather than walked, and a rabbit-girl with an enormous warhammer. And bringing up the rear, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else...
"Endou-kun?!" I breathed.
And then Rimuru's aura began to flare, mixing with Nelson's own.
I'd felt Rimuru's presence before, but this was different. This was power on a scale that made my knees want to buckle. His eyes blazed golden, pupils deepening to a rich crimson that seemed to hold depths I couldn't fathom.
The air itself began to press down on us with murderous intent that made breathing difficult. Beside me, I heard Daisuke whimper. Even Nagumo seemed to recognize something in Rimuru's expression, because his angry retorts died in his throat.
Nelson raised his hand, crimson energy coalescing into a massive scythe. Rimuru responded by condensing dark plasma into a straight sword. They settled into fighting stances simultaneously.
What followed wasn't a battle—it was a dance of death performed at impossible speeds.
Nelson's scythe carved through the air like crimson lightning, each strike powerful enough to split mountains. Rimuru met every attack with that plasma blade, their collisions sending shockwaves that made my bones ache.
Cattleya's expression had turned from disbelief to something approaching horror. Her god—her supposedly invincible deity—was being pushed back by someone looking no older than me.
The battle reached its climax when Nelson committed to a devastating horizontal sweep, putting his full strength behind the blow. For just a moment, he was overextended.
Rimuru dispersed his sword and closed his hand into a fist.
"Antithesis."
When Rimuru's fist connected with Nelson's torso, the world... inverted. There was no explosion, nothing remotely volatile—just a moment where everything seemed to fold in on itself before the world snapped back with silent, terrible finality.
When my vision cleared, Nelson's lower half was simply... gone. Only stubbornness kept him alive, his regeneration struggling uselessly against wounds that defied healing itself.
But it was Rimuru that made my blood run cold.
He swayed slightly as he stood over Nelson's broken form, and when he looked around the chamber, his expression was... wrong. His pupils were dilated, his movements too smooth and too controlled. There was a manic quality to his grin that I'd never seen before.
"Any last words?" His voice sounded distant, detached.
Nelson tried to speak, blood frothing at his lips. "How dare—"
Rimuru's blade took his head before he could finish.
"Really..." he muttered, that terrible grin spreading wider as he stared at the corpse. "So much for wanting some semblance of normalcy."
The laugh that followed sent ice through my veins.
This wasn't the Rimuru I knew. This was something else entirely, something drunk and high and euphoric on power and destruction.
His movements were too fluid like he was moving to music only he could hear. When his gaze swept the chamber, I saw something in those eyes that terrified me more than any monster we'd faced.
For the first time since I'd known him, I was genuinely afraid of Rimuru Tempest. And from the way everyone else in the chamber had gone completely silent, I wasn't the only one.
He looked at us—really looked—and that manic smile widened as if he found something amusing about our terror. The euphoric detachment in his expression made it clear that right now, in this moment, we weren't his friends or allies.
We were just interesting specimens in his field of vision.
The realization that the person who had just saved us might be more dangerous than anything we'd faced down here… was absolutely frightening.
Rimuru began moving toward us. He felt like a wild animal that had just tasted blood and wanted more. His dilated pupils swept across our group with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
I felt Nagumo tense not far from us. Yue's golden magic circles began spinning faster, brighter, while Shea's grip tightened on her warhammer until her knuckles went white.
Even they recognized the danger.
This wasn't our Rimuru approaching us. This was something else wearing his face—a predator drunk on the high of godslaying, operating on instincts that viewed everything around him as either prey or obstacles to be removed.
My hand found the grip of my katana, though I knew it would be useless. We all knew it would be useless. If he decided we were threats...
The tension in the chamber was suffocating.
I could hear Kaori's ragged breathing behind me, could feel the way our classmates had pressed themselves against the walls as if trying to disappear entirely. Even Cattleya and her remaining monsters had gone still, recognizing that something far more dangerous than her god now occupied the space.
Rimuru took another step forward, and I saw Hajime's finger move toward a trigger—
"Oh, my bad."
The words were so casual, so normal, that for a moment I thought I'd imagined them.
But then his aura vanished. Not gradually, not slowly—it simply disappeared, like someone had flipped a switch. The oppressive weight that had been crushing down on us was gone, replaced by, well, nothing. Just Rimuru, looking suddenly, painfully normal.
His expression shifted from that terrifying euphoric grin to something I recognized—the look he got when he realized he'd done something wrong. Apologetic, almost sheepish, like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
His golden eyes swept across our faces, taking in the fear, the tension, the way we were all still poised to fight or flee. I watched his expression crumble further with each terrified face he saw.
The apologetic smile that tried to form on his lips died before it could fully take shape, replaced by something sadder.
He's upset, I realized. He's genuinely upset that he scared us.
I'd seen this before, though never quite this extreme. Rimuru trying so hard to be understood, to be seen as more than just the monster his power made him appear to be. He'd been working on it—learning to control his presence, to be approachable, to make people comfortable around him despite what he was capable of.
And he'd just undone all of that work.
"I..." he started, then stopped. I saw something break in his expression. "I should go."
The words were quiet. He raised his hand, and space tore open beside him—a portal that showed glimpses of an elegant room beyond. A hotel suite, from the looks of it.
"Rimuru, wait—" I started to say, taking a step forward.
But he was already stepping toward the portal, his shoulders slumped in a way that made my chest ache.
"Take care of yourselves," he said without looking back. "And I'm really sorry."
The portal closed behind him, leaving us in the sudden, overwhelming silence of his absence.
"Tch." Hajime's weapons dropped down, though he kept scanning the chamber. "Fucking drama queen."
But even his usual harsh tone seemed muted. We'd all felt it—that moment when Rimuru had become something that made even him hesitate.
"Shizuku-chan?" Kaori's voice was small, uncertain. "Was that really...?"
"It was him," I said quietly, still staring at the spot where the portal had been. "That was still Rimuru."
Hajime was already turning toward Cattleya and her remaining monsters, his artificial arm shifting back into combat configurations. "Alright, you witch. Your pet god is dead, and I'm having a really bad day. Let's get this over with."
But even as the sounds of a new battle began, my mind remained fixed on that last image of Rimuru. The defeat in his voice when he'd apologized. He'd saved us. Killed a god to protect us. And then he'd left because he was afraid of what we'd think of him.
Idiot, I thought, gripping my katana tighter as I prepared to help with the remaining enemies. We're not afraid of you. We're afraid for you.
··—–—⚜—–—···
「 ✦ Iu ✦ 」
The wine was already half-empty by the time I heard the portal open.
I didn't turn around, just continued leaning against the kitchen sink in nothing but my nightgown, swirling the dark liquid in my glass.
The hotel suite was quiet at this time.
Daisy had fallen asleep hours ago after I'd read her three bedtime stories, and Tio had retreated to her room not long after.
Which left me alone with my thoughts and a bottle of expensive wine I'd liberated from the hotel's collection.
"Daisy?" Rimuru's voice carried exhaustion I hadn't heard from him before.
"Asleep," I replied without looking back. "Has been for hours."
"Tio?"
"Also asleep." I took another sip of wine, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. "Just you and me now."
I heard him coming, and when he finally appeared in my peripheral vision, he looked just drained.
He said nothing, just leaned against the counter beside me and reached for the wine bottle. I watched him pour himself a generous glass, and then we just stood there in comfortable silence for a moment—two people drinking wine in a darkened kitchen while the rest of the world slept.
"Rough evening?" I asked finally.
He nodded once, bringing the glass to his lips.
That's when everything started going sideways.
I found myself staring at him—really staring. The way the moonlight from the window caught the sharp line of his jaw. The exhaustion that made his usually perfect composure seem more... human. There was something beautiful about seeing him like this, vulnerable and sad and completely unguarded.
"It's hot," I said before I could stop myself.
"What is?"
"You being sad. It's hot." The words came out before my brain could catch up to my mouth. "Show that to me more often."
He turned to look at me, confusion clear on his face. "What are you even saying?"
Good question, Iu. What the hell are you saying?
Instead of answering, I set my wine glass down and stopped leaning against the sink. My bare feet were silent against the cold tile as I moved toward him. He was perched on the edge of the counter, and suddenly all I could think about was how his legs were slightly parted, how easy it would be to step between them.
So I did. I stepped between them.
His eyes widened as I approached, and I watched him edge further back on the counter as if he could escape what was happening. But there was nowhere to go, and when I pressed closer, I felt the warmth of his legs against my thighs through the thin fabric of my nightgown.
This is a terrible idea, some distant part of my mind whispered.
I ignored it and kissed him.
His lips were soft, warmer than I'd expected, and tasted of wine and something uniquely him. For a moment he was perfectly still, frozen in surprise, before his mouth began to move against mine with hesitant reciprocation.
When I finally pulled back, a thin string of saliva connected our lips before breaking.
"Why'd you kiss me?" His voice was barely above a whisper.
"Right. We kissed..." I stared at him, my mind scrambling for an answer that made sense. "I just did it. What other reason is there to kiss someone? Why? Was it not very good?"
"Do you even like me like that?" he asked, his golden eyes searching mine. "Or do you not at all?"
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. Do I? The honest answer was that I didn't know. I'd been attracted to him since the day we met, but attraction wasn't the same thing as... whatever this was supposed to be.
My silence stretched long enough to become an answer in itself.
"Obviously you don't then." His voice carried a tone of 'whatever' that made something twist in my chest. "I don't kiss my friends. So let's not do anything other than what we can do as friends. Wanting comfort from someone because you're lonely, I get that. But that feeling can fool you. You'll get hurt that way."
Hurt? The assumption stung more than it should have. "Hey, you're such a bore. Why do you take everything so seriously? It's not like I asked you to be lovers or to have sex with me."
"Well, it felt great... the kiss I mean." He admitted. "And I don't want to feel that way over something meaningless, alright?"
Something in his tone made me want to reach out, to touch his face, to tell him it wasn't meaningless. But that would be a lie, wouldn't it? I didn't know what it was, which made it dangerous territory for both of us.
"It's okay to feel great from me," I said instead, forcing my voice to sound casual and mocking. "Everyone does and then gets over it. You think you're any different?"
The words tasted bitter on my tongue, but they were safer than the alternative.
I turned and walked away before he could respond, my bare feet silent against the tile as I made my way toward my bedroom. Behind me, I could feel him still sitting on the counter, probably staring at the spot where I'd been standing.
What the hell was that about? I thought as I closed my bedroom door behind me and leaned against it. Why did I kiss him?
The wine was a convenient excuse, but I knew it wasn't the real reason. I'd been drinking, yes, but not enough to explain away what had just happened. There had been something about seeing him so exhausted, so beautifully broken, that had made me want to...
What? Comfort him? Claim him? I didn't even know.
I slipped under the covers of my bed, but sleep felt impossibly far away. Instead, I stared at the ceiling and tried to understand why I'd just complicated the most stable relationship I'd had in years.
Everyone does and then gets over it, I'd told him.
But as I lay there in the dark, replaying the feel of his lips against mine, I wondered if I was trying to convince him or myself.