Akari stared at the boy in the tube.
Someone she had barely noticed before—quiet, forgettable, a presence that slipped through crowds without leaving ripples.
And yet here he was.
The boy who was supposed to be dead stood inches away, suspended in pale green fluid.
His eyes—blacker than night—met hers through the glass.
Foggy. Unfocused. As if sleep still clung to him like frost.
Her hand stayed pressed against the surface as her soul weapon flickered awake.
A green aura shimmered faintly around the tube—not the shade of healing magic she knew.
Not quite.
It shared the same foundation as healing spells, but its structure was warped, altered into something uncanny.
This wasn't how her own magic behaved.
Nor Ataki's.
She didn't know what those subtle differences meant…
She didn't need to.
Her palm pressed harder, heat blooming beneath her skin.
Mana surged up her arm—clean, smooth—as she slipped it past the twisted veins of her suppression bracelet.
The glass softened under her touch, glowing red-hot, then finally melting.
The green liquid spilled through the cracks as though eager to escape.
Akari widened the opening and caught Akatsuke as he collapsed forward—body limp and cold.
The viscous fluid cascaded out with him, splashing against the tiled floor.
"Akatsuke, can you speak?"
She sealed the softened glass with a controlled sweep of mana, closing the tube before any more leakage could alert someone.
Akatsuke coughed violently, hacking up the fluid that had filled his lungs.
Akari glanced at her hands—scorched red—and healed them automatically while studying his face.
His eyes shifted before her—the blackness receding first, the brown trickling back in like rising dawn.
Akatsuke blinked rapidly. Then—
"Whoareyou—! Where… where is he!?"
The words tumbled out in a frantic, slurred rush.
He tried to stand, but his limbs trembled, moving with the clumsy uncertainty of someone who hadn't used his own body in months.
"Calm yourself—what happened to you?"
Akari stood with him, looping her arm beneath his to keep him upright.
She glanced back at the seemingly endless rows of tubes—faces locked in silent, unnatural sleep.
She couldn't save them all.
Not yet.
Someday…
She swallowed the promise and guided him toward the exit.
Akatsuke coughed again, wheezing as each breath dragged through his throat.
He stumbled through the doorway with her help.
"Ranni… Evvls… no—no, that doesn't matter right now—where is Akio!?"
His voice gained strength with each step—emotion flooding into the cracks of his awakening mind.
He remembered something.
He felt urgency.
He felt fear.
Akari studied him as they walked—drenched hair plastered over his face, dripping with the strange green fluid.
She vaguely remembered him having an afro before, so the wet mess made sense… but he didn't push the hair away.
Liquid slid into his nose and mouth each time he breathed, fueling another round of coughing.
"Where is he!?"
Akari snapped out of her thoughts.
She shoved open the Warden's door to let him through.
"They're in the courtyard," she said quickly. "The fire alarm went off."
"Fire alarm?"
By now Akatsuke's movements were nearly natural.
He was adapting to the strain of revival with unnatural speed.
And then she noticed it.
A glow.
A faint white light seeped from his skin—something she'd never seen before.
His hair dried in seconds, fluffing back to its natural shape.
Liquid slid off him like it was being repelled, rolling away as though time itself were rewinding on his body.
"What's happening to you…?"
He didn't even hear her.
His entire focus had narrowed to the courtyard door ahead.
Akari opened it for him, blinking as sunlight hit her eyes before they adjusted.
A wave of noise washed over them—the murmurs of gathered kids, the hum of the prison speakers.
The first thing she saw was the stage, surrounded by nearly every child in the prison.
Ranni, Shinto, Sylvia, Akio—others she recognized—and even Travis were among them.
But Evvls wasn't standing with the others.
He was on the stage.
Beside Ken.
"Finally, you've made your grand entrance!"
Ken's voice thundered across the courtyard—broadcasted through the speakers despite the fact he carried no microphone, no visible device at all, other than the gun he always had on him.
"Akio!"
Akatsuke tore himself from Akari's support and rushed forward.
Akio turned, eyes widening to an expression Akari had never seen on him—pure, raw disbelief.
"Akatsuke?!"
The shock hit him harder than any blow.
Akari had only ever seen him quiet, grieving, stone-like.
She had never once seen his jaw drop.
"How—how are you here?"
Akio couldn't understand it.
He had seen Akatsuke's mutilated body before it was taken away.
He had seen the lifelessness.
Yet the boy stood before him, very much alive.
Akatsuke spoke—but Akio heard nothing.
The world around him muted, thick and heavy like he'd fallen into concrete.
He saw everything but heard nothing except the violent pounding of his own heart.
The moment shattered with a single voice:
"Now that everyone's here, how about we begin?"
Ken.
He didn't look surprised to see Akatsuke—if anything, he looked faintly entertained.
His voice once again boomed through the courtyard speakers.
"It is time to begin the public execution of Evvls."
Gasps tore through the crowd.
The courtyard froze.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
Evvls' head jerked toward the Warden, eyes widening—not with his usual dull confusion, but with real, sharp fear.
"What do you mean? Execution? Is this some kind of joke?"
His voice cracked in a way Akari had never heard before.
Ken didn't answer immediately.
He let the silence stretch, thick and suffocating—drawing every pair of eyes toward him as if the courtyard itself was leaning in to listen.
When he finally spoke, his tone was almost cheerful.
"I mean exactly what I said. You were the main reason for Akatsuke's death, after all."
Akari felt her stomach drop.
'Main reason?'
So there was more she didn't know.
Evvls flinched—not physically, but in spirit.
Confusion twisted his expression, his hands curling subtly at his sides.
Ken turned toward Akatsuke.
"Why don't you explain what happened? Who better than the one who experienced it all?"
But Akatsuke wasn't listening.
He was still in front of Akio, checking him over frantically, eyes darting across every scar, every scratch.
Fresh wounds, but nothing fatal.
Relief washed across his face in shaking waves.
For a moment, the noise of the courtyard faded again—just the pounding of Akio's heart and the trembling breath of a boy who should not be alive.
Ken tapped the microphone-less podium lightly, drawing attention back with deliberate ease.
"Akatsuke," he said again, this time with a sharpened edge, "go on. Give your story."
The boy finally tore his eyes from Akio.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned toward the stage.
He saw Evvls' eyes on him, a look of fear and a bit of hope seen behind his expression.
Akatsuke lifted a hand and pushed his hair back—his afro fluffing back into place as though rewinding time again.
His expression steadied.
Hardened.
"Fine then," he said, voice firm, resonant, no longer slurred or foggy.
"This is how I died."
Akatsuke inhaled sharply, his eyes dimming as the memory resurfaced.
***
The night he died, he had been walking back to his cell, fighting a heavy, unnatural drowsiness.
Each step felt like sinking into wet concrete. His eyelids drooped. His thoughts fogged.
He wasn't alone.
Ranni staggered toward him from the opposite direction, equally unsteady—like she was drowning in the same invisible sleep-miasma he felt.
She brushed the wall, scraping her arm in the process.
A bead of blood surfaced.
Ranni froze.
Then began to panic—hyperventilating, trembling violently.
Akatsuke blinked hard, trying to force his mind awake enough to help her.
But then—
Something changed.
The sight of her own blood didn't intensify her fear.
It erased it.
Her hair turned silver—strand by strand, as if frost crept over midnight.
Her expression twisted from terror into something cold, foreign… furious.
She rose, head bowed, hair veiling her face.
A sword manifested in her hand.
A pristine white carnation blossomed from its guard.
The blade was flawless, smooth—made entirely of wood.
Beautiful.
Wrong.
Impossibly wrong.
"How dare you…"
The voice wasn't Ranni's.
The girl—whatever lived inside Ranni—advanced with murderous intent dripping from her gaze.
Akatsuke flinched as she raised the wooden sword.
She swung in a perfect execution arc.
He dove to the ground, the blade smashing into the tile where his skull had been.
"Wait—Ranni, what are you—"
He never finished.
Her head snapped toward something behind her.
Disgust warped her features as she swung backward.
Something leapt away—barely avoiding the strike.
Evvls.
But not the Evvls he knew.
His eyes were rolled back, whites staring emptily.
A black blade hung from his hand, oozing an aura that rotted the air.
Then—
A voice.
But no lips moved.
"Ah, my first victims. This'll be fun."
Akatsuke's blood froze.
Evvls blurred forward, moving with inhuman speed.
The dark blade carved a wide arc—half the hall turning pitch black, like ink flooding reality itself.
The wooden sword met it mid-swing.
A thunderous shockwave tore through the hall.
The girl pushed him back—effortlessly.
She was faster. Stronger. Calculated.
That wasn't Ranni.
Couldn't be.
"And who are you supposed to be?" she asked, voice empty of recognition.
The reply scratched through Evvls' throat—dry, ancient:
"The last person you'll ever see."
Yet Evvls' mouth never moved.
He was a puppet.
And something else held the strings.
The girl swung again—each strike filled with the absolute confidence that it would land.
The fight dragged on, blurred into a surreal nightmare that felt like hours.
At some point, Akatsuke realized he was bleeding.
The black ink-like aura from Evvls' blade had extended its reach, slicing him even though the puppet's true target was the silver-haired girl.
The girl remained unscathed.
Evvls—no, the thing using him—was sweating.
She stared at the puppet with frigid calm.
She released one more slash—not at the blade, but at his hand.
Evvls' wrist snapped. His fingers shattered. It was as if his hand were bending from the blade's force.
It was unnatural.
The black sword flew from his grasp.
In the same instant, she kicked him under the jaw—sending him hurtling down the hall.
She watched him tumble into the shadows before turning to Akatsuke, who was bleeding heavily on the floor.
"There's too much blood. I can't leave her like this."
Those were the last words he heard.
She wasn't talking to him.
She was talking to herself.
***
Ken lifted a hand, pausing the flashback like he was controlling a slideshow only he could see.
"As you can see," he said lightly, "not only has Evvls committed crimes against the gods, he even dared to commit murder in my prison."
The courtyard erupted in whispers.
Ranni's hand flew to her mouth.
Sylvia's jaw hung open.
Shinto's eyes narrowed, a storm building behind them.
Akio didn't react at all. He just stared at Akatsuke with a look that was half grief, half disbelief.
Evvls stood frozen on the stage—eyes shaking, face drained.
Akatsuke's story filled the holes in his memories like ice water.
He knew it was all true.
And yet knowing didn't bring clarity—it brought fear.
Deep, suffocating fear.
Akari was piecing things together faster than anyone.
Her eyes narrowed.
"But… How is he alive?" she asked. "If Akatsuke survived… how can you condemn Evvls for murder he didn't commit?"
The courtyard fell silent.
Ken smiled as if he'd been waiting for that exact question.
"His execution was already scheduled for his previous crimes," he said smoothly.
"This merely… accelerated the timetable."
'He changed his tune too fast,' Akari thought.
Before she could speak again, Ken drew his gun in a single fluid motion and pressed it to Evvls' forehead.
Evvls flinched so hard he nearly collapsed.
"I'm not here to hold a trial," Ken said quietly.
"I'm here to finish it."
"WAIT!"
Akari's shout cracked through the courtyard.
Her hand was already in her pocket—hovering over the remote.
The single object that could release every child from their suppression bracelets.
Ken didn't even look surprised.
"What now?" he asked softly. "Going to free everyone? If you do that, you force a different kind of execution."
Akari froze.
Ken continued, his voice patient, almost fatherly:
"The greatest crime in this prison is attempted escape. You know that. So if you free them…"
His smile widened.
"…they all die. Not just Evvls."
A ripple of panic spread through the courtyard.
'How does he know?'
Akari's heart dropped into her stomach.
Her hand trembled over the button.
Everyone's lives balanced on her palm.
She could feel dozens of eyes on her—kids holding their breath, waiting for a decision she had no right to make.
'Can we beat him…?'
Her throat tightened.
Across the stage, Evvls' gaze locked onto her.
He mouthed something—barely moving his lips.
"Akari… be a good girl and give my remote back."
But the voice that filled the courtyard was Ken's.
Mocking.
Taunting.
Inescapable.
Akari felt enraged.
She walked toward the stage slowly—remote in hand, holding it loosely as though defeated.
The kids whispered.
Ken watched her like a curious scientist studying a mouse approaching a trap.
She climbed onto the stage, face lowered, shoulders tight.
Ken extended his hand.
She placed the remote into his palm—
—then pressed the button.
A single click echoed through the courtyard like a gunshot.
Dozens of suppression bracelets unlocked at once.
Metal hit the concrete in a violent cascade—
*CLACK—CLACK—CLACK—CLACK—*
The courtyard fell dead silent.
Every kid stared at Akari.
Ken stared too.
But his smile… finally cracked.