The rooftop of Sainan High was no longer a place of concrete and steel. It had become the epicenter of a localized singularity.
The Peace-Keeper-kun, once a harmless blue gyroscope, was now a screaming, vibrating sphere of angry purple light. It hovered ten feet in the air, a miniature black hole that roared with the sound of a thousand tearing metal sheets. The wind it generated wasn't just air; it was a gravitational pull, dragging everything loose, pebbles, leaves, lost school supplies, into its crushing center.
And trapped in that gravitational well, suspended helplessly five feet off the ground, was Golden Darkness.
"Yami-chan!"
Rito stood at the edge of the vortex, his arm shielding his eyes from the stinging debris. The wind tore at his clothes, ripping the sleeve of his shirt.
He could see her. Yami wasn't fighting anymore. Her limbs were limp, her golden hair whipping around her face in a chaotic frenzy. The dark smoke, her life force, her very essence as a Trans-Weapon, was being siphoned out of her in thick, oily streams, feeding the machine's malfunction.
Her eyes were half-open, dull and resigned. She looked like a doll whose strings had been cut.
"Rito! Don't go!" Lala's voice was a shrill scream over the roar of the wind. She was on her knees near the stairwell, holding onto the railing with one hand and clutching Peke with the other while pushing her brain to figure out a way to save Yami. "The energy density is critical! If you get close, it will tear you apart!"
"I don't care!" Rito shouted back. The words were ripped from his mouth by the gale, but the sentiment burned in his chest.
He looked at Yami. He saw the girl who fed kittens in the rain. He saw the girl who read his manga in an alleyway. He saw the lonely weapon who had started to believe she could be human.
He once again remembered his vow. 'I'll protect them all.'
The spoiler knowledge told him this kind of thing shouldn't be happening. In the original story, Rito survived everything by luck. But this wasn't something that could be left to luck. This was a catastrophe born of his own interference, his own desire to change things.
'I changed the story,' Rito thought, his fear hardening into a cold resolve. 'So, I have to fix the ending.'
He dug the toes of his sneakers into the roof tiles. He crouched low, like a sprinter on the blocks.
"RITO! NO!" Lala screamed, realizing what he was about to do.
He launched himself.
He dove straight into the storm.
The moment he crossed the threshold of the vortex, the world turned sideways. Gravity became a suggestion. The air was thick, heavy, and tasted of ozone and copper. It felt like wading through deep water while being punched from every direction.
"Gah!" Rito gritted his teeth, forcing his legs to move.
Debris slammed into him. A piece of loose piping struck his shoulder, bruising the bone, but he didn't stop. He focused on the splash of gold in the center of the purple chaos.
He reached her.
Yami was floating, weightless in the eye of the storm. Up close, Rito could see the damage. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. The Darkness was leaking from her pores, leaving her hollow.
"Yami-chan!" Rito roared, grabbing her wrist.
Her skin was ice cold. Her eyes flickered open, focusing slowly on his face.
"Yuuki Rito...?" she whispered, her voice a ghost of a sound. "You...?"
"I told you," Rito grunted, pulling her toward him, fighting the suction of the machine that hung just feet above them, pulsing with lethal energy. "You're my friend."
He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her flush against his chest. He felt how light she was, how small.
He looked back at the safety of the stairwell. It was twenty feet away. Too far. The machine was whining, a high-pitched keen that signalled the end. He couldn't carry her out. He wasn't fast enough.
But he was strong enough.
"Lala!" Rito screamed, locking eyes with the princess. "Catch her!"
Lala's eyes widened. She nodded, bracing herself.
Rito looked down at Yami. He smiled, a sad, honest, terrifyingly brave smile.
"Sorry," he said. "This is gonna be rough."
He spun. Using the centrifugal force of the vortex and every ounce of muscle he had built during his training, he swung Yami around.
"GO!"
He threw her.
Yami flew through the air like a golden projectile. She cleared the edge of the vortex, tumbling out of the danger zone. Lala leaped, catching her mid-air, the two of them crashing safely onto the concrete near the door.
Rito watched them land. He let out a breath of relief.
Then, he looked up.
The Peace-Keeper-kun was directly above him. The purple light had turned black. The whining stopped.
Everything was suddenly silent.
The explosion didn't begin with fire. It began with silence.
For a microsecond, the world inverted. The sound, the light, the very air was sucked into the machine, creating a vacuum that popped Rito's ears.
Then, it pushed back.
KRA-KOOOOOM.
It wasn't a chemical explosion. It was a release of pure, concentrated Darkness Energy, the raw, mutable matter that made up Yami's existence, compressed to the point of nuclear fusion.
A dome of black and gold light erupted from the center of the roof. It expanded faster than thought, swallowing everything in its path.
Rito didn't have time to run. He didn't have time to scream.
The wave hit him.
It didn't burn like fire. It felt... liquid. It felt like being dunked into a pool of molten gold.
The energy slammed into his body, shredding his clothes instantly. His shirt disintegrated. His pants tore away. But the energy didn't stop at his skin.
It invaded him.
Rito gasped, his mouth opening in a silent scream as the Darkness poured down his throat, into his lungs, into his very pores. It felt heavy. It felt alive. It felt like a million tiny needles stitching themselves into his muscles, his bones, his DNA.
'It hurts,' his mind screamed, the pain overwhelming his ability to think. 'It hurts everywhere. What… is it doing to me?'
He saw flashes of color behind his eyelids — Gold. Black. Red.
He felt his muscles twitching and spasming as the alien energy bonded with his human cells. The unique physiology that made him the harem protagonist — the adaptability, the stamina, the pheromones — was reacting to the intrusion. Instead of rejecting the Darkness, his body was drinking it. It was absorbing the Trans-matter, fusing it with his own biology.
His bones creaked, density increasing. His skin hardened. His blood boiled, turning a darker shade of red.
From the outside, it looked like Rito had been vaporized. The black dome covered the entire rooftop, dissolving the ventilation units, the fencing, and Lacospo's drone, which vanished in a puff of metallic dust.
Lala, shielding Yami with her own body near the door, watched in horror through her fingers.
"RITO!" she shrieked, her voice breaking.
The dome held for just five seconds, but it felt like an eternity. It was a sphere of absolute destruction.
Then, it collapsed.
The energy imploded, rushing back to the center point before dissipating into the night sky like a reverse firework.
The roof was silent. Smoke curled from the melted concrete.
In the center of the blast crater, a figure lay prone.
Rito was face down. He was naked, his clothes gone. His back was a map of angry red welts and strange, glowing golden tattoos that pulsed like veins before slowly fading into his skin. Steam rose from his body.
He wasn't moving.
"Yuuki Rito..." Yami whispered, pulling herself out of Lala's grip. She scrambled across the hot concrete on her hands and knees, ignoring the burns on her palms.
"Rito!"
She reached him. She grabbed his shoulder and turned him over.
His face was peaceful, though streaked with soot. His chest was still.
"No..." Yami choked out. "No, no, no. You cannot die. You are the target. You cannot die for the weapon."
Lala crashed to her knees beside them, Peke scanning frantically.
"Vital signs!" Lala yelled. "Peke! Tell me!"
"Heartbeat detected." Peke beeped, his voice sounding shaken. "It is... slow. Very slow. But strong. His internal temperature is 105 degrees. His cellular structure is... fluctuating."
"He's alive?" Yami gasped, clutching Rito's hand.
"Thank god he's alive." Lala sobbed, burying her face in Rito's chest. "But... what's this…?"
She looked at Rito's arm. Even unconscious, the muscle looked denser, harder. And under the skin of his forearm, a faint golden light pulsed, moving like a living thing.
Above them, the stars shone down on the boy who had sacrificed his humanity to save a weapon, unaware that he had just become something far more dangerous.
*****
A little support goes a long way! If you'd like to help me keep creating, you can do so at
https://ko fi.com/rroy28 (put a "-" between "ko" and "fi")
Support me on my patr eon and gain early access to my creations.
https://www.pat reon.com/RroY_r18 (remove the space)
You can access all the advanced chapters of this book and even make request for addition of some specific scenes.
Also, I have added Chapter-wise Uncensored NSFW Illustrations, available only in Patr eon.