The air in Elyra's hospital room grew so cold that her breath formed visible plumes. The medical monitors flickered erratically, their screens displaying impossible readings as static electricity crackled through the air, making every hair on her arms stand upright. Then he was simply there - Azar, standing in the middle of the room as if he had materialized from the very molecules of air itself. His celestial markings pulsed with a faint, ominous light that cast shifting constellations across the sterile walls, and his eyes held the cold emptiness of the void between galaxies.
Elyra's breath caught in her throat, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. For a moment, she wondered if the pain medication was causing hallucinations. "Azar...?" she whispered, disbelief and something akin to terror warring within her.
He said nothing, his gaze sweeping over her with clinical detachment, pausing at the flat space where her leg should have been. The silence stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken accusations and shared history, until Elyra could bear it no longer.
"Look at me!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face as she threw back the sheets to reveal the bandaged stump of her leg. The raw truth of her disability laid bare between them like an accusation. "Look what they've done to me! And you... you just left! You abandoned me, you abandoned Naira, you left us all to deal with the consequences of your existence while you played cosmic judge!"
Her voice broke into ragged sobs, years of frustration and pain pouring out in a torrent of grief and anger. "I found you in those woods when you were just a confused being! I brought you into our world, taught you our language, protected you from those who would harm you, believed there was more to you than just raw power! I defended you when everyone called you a monster! And this..." she gestured wildly at her missing leg, her voice dropping to a broken whisper, "...this is what it's cost me! This is what believing in you has cost all of us!"
Azar's expression remained impassive, but when he finally spoke, his voice vibrated with a power that made the glass in the room vibrate ominously and the IV stand rattle against the floor. "I gave humanity knowledge beyond your comprehension. I offered understanding of the cosmos itself. And in return, you created weapons. You tortured children. You proved what I feared most - that your species cannot be trusted with power without corrupting it."
He took a step closer, his eyes burning with cold cosmic fire. "You speak of costs? The true cost is your own failure to remain civilized when presented with gifts beyond your understanding."
Then he was gone, vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, leaving only the scent of ozone and the echo of his devastating words hanging in the air. Elyra collapsed back onto her pillow, the sobs wracking her body as she realized the being she had once considered a friend was now truly lost to them.
High above Beijing, Azar materialized in the stormy sky. The moment he appeared, the black rain intensified, falling in thick, oily sheets that blotted out the sun and turned day into an eerie twilight. Below, emergency alerts blared as the downpour accelerated its corrosive effects on the city's infrastructure, with bridges beginning to groan under the unnatural precipitation.
In the Chinese military command bunker deep beneath the city, generals watched with growing alarm. "Target acquired! All units engage!"
Squadrons of J-20 fighter jets roared into the sky, their advanced stealth technology useless against the unnatural storm. As they approached Azar's position, the black rain worked its terrible magic - metal hulls corroded at impossible speeds, cockpit canopies cracked and clouded, and one by one, the multi-million dollar aircraft faltered, their pilots screaming as control systems failed before the planes fell from the sky like wounded birds, trailing smoke and debris.
"Switching to long-range ballistic missiles!" the commander ordered, his voice tight with tension as he watched the destruction on the monitors.
A volley of DF-21 missiles streaked toward Azar from hidden silos across the countryside. He didn't move, simply watching their approach with detached interest. Then, with a casual gesture that defied physics, he caught one of the hypersonic missiles in mid-air, holding the massive weapon as easily as a child might hold a toy, examining it with what almost seemed like curiosity.
On live television broadcasts around the world, viewers watched in horror as Azar examined the missile for a moment before throwing it back toward Earth with impossible force. It streaked downward, impacting a residential complex in a fireball that vaporized everything within a kilometer radius, sending a mushroom cloud rising over Beijing and turning thousands of homes to dust in an instant.
The message was clear, brutal, and unmistakable: the being humanity had declared a threat had just shown them what a real threat looked like.
In a different, more secure wing of the hospital, Orlov moved with the silence of a predator, his footsteps making no sound on the polished floors. Beside him, Niu shimmered with dark amusement, his form occasionally blurring at the edges as if not quite committed to this reality.
They used keycards stolen from unconscious guards to access a section marked "QUARANTINE - RESTRICTED ACCESS - LEVEL 4 BIOHAZARD." Inside, in a room filled with beeping monitoring equipment, lay a young woman whose skin was marked with faint celestial patterns similar to Azar's, though far less pronounced and luminous. Her eyes opened as they entered, showing no fear, only ancient curiosity.
"It's time to leave this place," Orlov said softly, his voice barely above a whisper. "The world is changing faster than anyone realizes, and you have a role to play in what comes next."
The void child - for that's what she was - nodded slowly, rising from the bed with unnatural grace. "This human form is... limiting. Clumsy. But the experience of being trapped in flesh has been... educational." She stretched her limbs as if testing their limitations.
Niu smiled, a gesture that didn't reach his oil-slick eyes. "Wait until you see what we have planned next. The games are just beginning."
They spirited her away through service corridors and emergency exits, passing confused medical staff who seemed to look right through them, leaving behind an empty room and questions that would never be answered.
Back in Tokyo, in Hana's small but meticulously kept apartment where the scent of lemon polish and ginger tea created a sanctuary against the chaos outside, a different scene unfolded entirely. Naira sat at the wooden kitchen table, carefully drawing pictures with the crayons Hana had miraculously managed to find in the collapsing city. She drew Azar as a star-filled giant protecting a small girl, she drew her father smiling down at her, she drew Elyra pointing at the stars through a telescope.
Hana watched her, her heart swelling with a mixture of profound love and bottomless sorrow. She placed a bowl of warm soup before the child, the simple act feeling like a rebellion against the chaos outside. The steady rhythm of the rain on the roof provided a strange counterpoint to the domestic peace within.
"Grandma," Naira said quietly, not looking up from her drawing, "do you think Azar is lonely up there all by himself?"
Hana stroked her hair, marveling at the child's capacity for empathy despite everything she'd endured. "I think everyone gets lonely sometimes, my dear. Even beings as powerful as your friend."
Naira finally looked up, her eyes holding wisdom far beyond her years. "When I was in the bad place, when the machine was hurting me, I used to imagine he was watching over me from somewhere in the stars. It made me feel less alone." Her small hand trembled slightly as she added another star to her drawing.
Outside, the black rain continued its relentless fall, eating away at the world, but inside Hana's apartment, for one brief, precious moment, there was warmth and safety and love - three increasingly rare commodities in a world that seemed determined to tear itself apart at the seams. The simple normalcy of a child drawing at a kitchen table had become an act of defiance against the darkness gathering outside their door.