The door shut behind me with a soft click. Silence drowned the house.
I locked it. My legs gave out.
And I fell.
The walls of my room were too thin to contain me.
Every breath burned. Every thought cut like glass. My hand bled from my own teeth, my face stung from slaps, but the pain wasn't enough. It couldn't drown the voices.
Souta's mocking laugh.
Miyuki's voice soft, apologetic, but the words still burned: "At least Souta scored higher."
Her friends' giggles. "Pathetic. He's nothing without books."
And my mother's smile, bleeding into Souta's image: "If only you were more like him."
"No stop" I clawed at my ears, rocking on the floor. "Stop!"
My chest seized. My heart roared. And then silence.I collapsed
Not peace.
The silence of a coffin lowering into the dirt.
The air thickened. The floor cracked beneath me. My ceiling melted into a sky of rotting flesh and black thunder. Blood-soaked stone replaced my tatami mats, each slab carved with screaming faces frozen mid-agony.
The smell copper, rot, smoke clogged my lungs.
The ground quaked.
A colossal clock tower burst from the abyss, gears grinding, chains dragging like the cries of the damned. The hands of the clock spun backwards, forwards, time shattering, splintering. With every toll of the invisible bell, the world bled.
And from that tower, something descended.
A shadow. No something darker than shadow. A being wrapped in void, flames blacker than absence, wings that weren't wings but storms of broken souls.
When his feet touched the ground, the earth bowed, cracking under his weight.
Valkyrie.
His presence alone bent the air until I couldn't breathe. My body trembled, every instinct screaming kneel.
But before I could even form words, his hand was already raised. One black clawed finger pressed against my lips.
"Silence."
The command was not sound. It was law. The very atoms of the air obeyed.
My throat locked shut. My heartbeat stalled.
He leaned forward, his burning void-like eyes narrowing.
"You whimper like a child in the dark. Yet I dragged you back from death itself. And you dare question why?"
My body shook, but words spilled through the cracks in my terror.
"W-what are you?"
His lips curved, but it wasn't a smile it was the unsheathing of a blade.
"I am Valkyrie. King of Darkness. The Devil whom men curse, the God whom the betrayed worship in silence. I am the weight that tips the scales of fate. The grave-digger of innocence."
The ground cracked wider with every title, shadows clawing up like serpents to coil around him, writhing, whispering.
"You, Haruto Kurogane, were chosen not because you are strong but because you are broken. And broken vessels are the ones that bleed the most rage."
He extended his hand, and reality split.
Visions ignited around us like screens of fire.
My mother laughing, sitting beside Souta, their voices low, intimate.
"If only my son were more like you."
Miyuki hesitating, then leaning into Souta's arm while he whispered in her ear.
Her cheeks flushed. She didn't push him away.
Souta smirking, talking to Miyuki's friends.
"I don't like him very much. But he's useful. Until he isn't."
The scenes flickered, then twisted further. A funeral. My own. Students whispering. Some crying. Miyuki standing there, stunned, hollow. Souta's hand on her shoulder. My mother smiling through her tears at Souta, whispering: "At least I still have you."
"No… no, stop!" I screamed, clutching my head. "That's not real it's not!"
Valkyrie's laughter cracked the sky.
"Fool. This is your truth. This is the future carved into the marrow of this world. You may deny it, but every denial is a chain around your throat. You are their shadow. Their pawn. Their disposable placeholder."
I fell to my knees, retching, but nothing came out. Only despair.
"Please…" My voice cracked. "Stop showing me please…"
He crouched, tilting my chin up with a clawed finger. His touch burned cold, like frostbite.
"If you cannot endure truth, then you will rot in lies. But know this if you dare forgive them… I will ensure misery clings to your bones until eternity spits you out. Your weakness will not be tolerated."
He leaned close, whispering like venom in my ear.
"Revenge… or rot."
The ground split behind him. From the abyss, a throne rose black steel forged from the skeletons of kings, fused with the wailing faces of traitors. At the top a crown floated, dripping with ichor, its jewels screaming silently.
Valkyrie walked toward it, each step bending the air, each movement a sermon of power.
As he sat, the throne groaned, as though even hell itself feared its master.
With one hand, he gestured.
Clang.
Before me, a dagger appeared obsidian black, its edge alive with shadows that dripped like blood.
Crack.
Beside it, a shattered hourglass floated, its sand bleeding endlessly into the void, staining the ground with wasted time.
"Choose," Valkyrie thundered, his voice shaking the tower itself.
"The dagger revenge. You will carve your pain into their flesh. You will rise, feared, unstoppable."
"The hourglass forgiveness. You bow. You rot. You watch as your enemies take everything, and I curse your name for wasting my gift."
He leaned forward, his aura swelling, the throne's shadows writhing like serpents around his body.
"You want to know why this world breaks you, Haruto? Because humans are the most foolish creation of god. They cling to masks. They love those who betray them. They kneel to liars. Your mother? She already chose Souta over you in her heart. Miyuki? She will choose him when you falter. And Souta? He will gut you with a smile, while they all applaud."
My chest caved in. "N-no… Miyuki she"
"She what?" Valkyrie's voice cracked like a whip. "Defends you? Pities you? Weak. Pity is no crown. Pity is the rope around your neck. And she will tighten it with her own hands when the time comes."
I collapsed, trembling. "Then… then what's left of me?"
Valkyrie stood, the air trembling, the ground splitting deeper with each word. His aura flooded the world like a tidal wave.
"What's left?" His laughter thundered, mocking, holy in its blasphemy. "Everything. You are rage. You are betrayal. You are despair given flesh. That is more powerful than love, than loyalty, than god himself."
He raised his arms.
The sky itself bent, clouds screaming, lightning shattering across the clock tower. The corpses embedded in the ground rose in silent prayer, their sockets glowing with black fire.
"I have seen thousands like you. The weak. The broken. The discarded. And those who took my hand… became monsters who made empires burn."
His eyes narrowed, piercing me.
"So tell me, Haruto will you kneel to weakness, or stand as my chosen?"
The dagger pulsed, shadows crawling across the ground toward me.
The hourglass bled, whispering of surrender, of nothingness.
Valkyrie's voice dropped, low, intimate, poisonous.
"I do not offer eternity. I offer rage. And rage will make the world kneel."
He leaned forward, aura suffocating, his grin burning through the dark.
"Choose. Forgive them… and rot. Or take revenge… and ascend."
The tower bell tolled once.
The corpses screamed as one.
The crown on his throne blazed.
The world demanded my answer.