--- Takeshi's POV ---
I used to think being sharp was enough.
Sharp makes doors open. Sharp keeps choices small. Sharp feels like truth because it cuts first and cares later.
I wore that belief like armor. I measured my life by what died when my knife moved. I called that strength. But it wasn't. It was just a space filled with fast victories. A hollow space.
The room around me is quiet now. Black walls, broken red lines, white mask fragments scattered like shattered snow…
Now, I sit with my back against the wall and let my breath struggle. The plates in my arm loosen every second. Under my ribs, the wound burns, then cools, then burns again. Blood keeps slipping out, darker than it should be - purple, almost. My legs feel too heavy, like someone poured concrete into them.
But I'm not surprised. I've watched lives ending from the wrong side for too many times to be surprised by my own.
Revenge is like a small animal. It eats you from the inside. Feed it long enough and it learns your anger better than you do. It keeps you walking when sleep is deserved. It makes any door look like a target as long as pain waits behind it. It wears whatever name it needs to be let in - duty, rebellion, debt…
But I fed it anyway.
For a long time, I thought that made me honest! I mean… At least I didn't pretend. At least I didn't dress hatred up in pretty words. But you can be honest and still be wrong. You can be relentless and still be empty.
My vision blurs at the edges, and the poison is spreading fast.
Faces come to me as clearly as if they were sitting across the room.
Raizen - a boy with a heart that refuses to trade kindness for power. Anger that would rather break its own teeth than bite. He'll fail sometimes, yes. Actually, he'll fail many times. But he'll fail so much, until there won't be any room left for error.
Then there's Hikari - a girl who didn't ask to be forged, but learned to be careful anyway. I can just hope her silence hides mercy, not emptiness.
I should've told them these things out loud.
But I'm a coward. So I wrote instead.
Raizen. Hikari. This is my last wish for you. Please listen to it, because you'll only hear it once.
Do not let your hands decide a life is cheap just because it's within reach. If you can win without taking a life, do that.
Cut the chains, not the throat. Break the weapon, not the one holding it. Every death costs. It takes pieces you don't get back - even when you're right, even when no one sees. It takes more and more… Until you aren't human anymore.
Spare more than I did. Leave room in the world for someone to change. There are enemies you can turn into people again.
More names drift in my mind and settle.
Louissa, who can seat chaos at the table and make it behave.
Obi, who turns scrap into miracles and pretends he doesn't care who's watching. Loud enough to keep fear away.
Kori... Old friend. Strongest soul I've met - and one of the few who understands that strength isn't being dangerous. It's knowing when not to be.
If there's such a thing as a perfect family, this is what mine became at the end.
The world behind me will be less dangerous for whoever comes after, now that the Moirai are gone. I just hope that's enough.
Hope.
I used to think hope was just a trick people used to fall asleep. A bedtime story for those who didn't know how to reach their goals.
Then I watched a city rebuild itself under its own bones and call it shelter.
Then I watched forgetting crawl in like a parasite. Lamps dim. Maps tear.
Then I watched two kids walk into the worst of it and insist on being themselves.
Hope survived that.
So I'll say it simple. Hope isn't a story you tell yourself to sleep.
Hope is a hand that finds yours in the dark and doesn't let go even when it's tired.
Hope is lighting a match and guarding it from the wind, again and again, until the shadows run out of places to hide.
The red glow in my arm is gone now. The metal hummed once, then agreed to rest. The poison keeps crawling. Warm inside, cold at the edges.
I'm not afraid.
Not because I'm brave.
Because I've mistaken silence for safety before, and I won't do it again. This isn't safety. This is just… The end of a life.
There are things I want for them that I never thought to want for myself.
I want someone to say Raizen's name from another room and mean it kindly. I want him to carry weight and feel it lift, not because he dropped it - but because others reached in and took some on their shoulders.
I want Hikari to see a day where she doesn't have to choose between being kind and being strong. I want her to be able to set her weapon down without being ashamed.
Throughout my life, people called me many things.
Killer. The Legendary Assassin. Ghost. Strongest in the Underworks.
None of those names had room for being called father.
My breathing gets shorter. The room stays the same. The broken masks don't look away. The red lines on the walls flicker once in the cracked glass and die.
If I could leave one last thing behind, it wouldn't be a weapon. That won't save them.
It would be forgiveness. Not as a pretty word, but as a decision.
My vision darkens at the edges again. That darkness grows, patiently, certainly, as if it has always known it would win eventually.
Somewhere behind my eyes, a lantern is waiting. A warm light. A beautiful girl and a wife that looks just like her. A kitchen. Three small bowls on a wooden floor. Laughter. A smile wide enough to warm the whole room.
I don't regret coming here.
I regret what it took me to learn what strength really is.
If the last thing I did was remove a hungry shadow from the world, then I'm satisfied.
Farewell.
The room falls still.
And the man who tried to keep the world lit finally runs out of light.
And somewhere above this darkness, I can feel it - A new vow taking shape.
Protect her.
Protect them all.
Whatever it takes.
...That's what I told him.
And little does he know... That this vow would one day become the brightest spark this world has ever seen.