The heavy silence of the room is shattered by the sudden creak of the bed. Akos doesn't speak. He doesn't look at Sora or Tenshi. His eyes are fixed on a point somewhere beyond the walls of the room, fueled by the haunting words of Mikaro and the memory of those seventeen body bags.
He reaches for his signature red jacket draped over a chair. He pulls it on, the fabric feeling like armor against the cold reality he has just inherited.
Akos: "I have to go. Sakoura is still free... and I'm the reason this city is burning."
Sora (leaping up): "Akos! Stop! Where do you think you're going? You can barely walk!"
Tenshi (shouting): "You're a fool! You're walking straight into a trap!"
Akos ignores them. He grabs his katana, the weight of the hilt grounding him. He secures it to his back with a practiced motion that his body remembers, even if his mind doesn't. He bursts out of the room and sprints out of the building, disappearing into the gray, ash-filled streets of Sinish.
Inside the hallway, the commotion wakes the others. Jin emerges from his room, leaning heavily against the doorframe. His chest is wrapped in bandages, and his face is pale from the blood loss, but his eyes are sharp.
Jin: "What's with all the screaming? What's happening?"
Tenshi (looking out the window): "It's Akos. He just took off. He didn't say a word about where he was going; he just... ran."
Jin doesn't hesitate. He winces in pain, clutching his side, but he begins to hobble toward the exit.
Jin: "He's in no state to be alone. Not with the 'Big Three' and the devils hunting him."
Sora: "Jin, no! You're injured too!"
But Jin is already gone, following the faint trail of Akos's nature energy through the ruins.
Akos sprinted through the skeletal remains of the city. The silence was deafening, broken only by the whistling wind through shattered windows.
"The pain... the pressure in my head is gone," Akos thought, his breath hitching. "Sakoura is no longer inside me. But if he's out... if he's truly separate now... what nightmare is he preparing to unleash?"
Suddenly, the air curdled. From the mouth of a dark alley, a distorted, multi-limbed devil lunged at him with a screech. Akos twisted his body midair, the creature's claws missing his throat by a hair's breadth.
"What?! Devils are roaming the streets freely?" Akos gasped.
Before the creature could turn for a second strike, a blur of motion intercepted it. Jin appeared, slamming both feet into the Devil's chest with a thunderous impact. The creature exploded into a spray of black ichor, the gore splattering against the ruins.
Jin landed heavily, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he clutched his bandaged side. He approached Akos, his nerves frayed to the breaking point.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?!" Jin screamed, his voice raw with rage and confusion. "What are you thinking? What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Akos stopped for a moment. He didn't answer. He simply turned his head, his gaze meeting Jin's. It was a hollow, frozen stare—a look that held the weight of a thousand unspoken tragedies. Without a word, Akos took off again, his speed leaving Jin in the dust.
"Get back here!" Jin roared, forcing his broken body to move. "Don't you dare walk away from me!"
The pursuit led them to the base of a massive skyscraper that somehow still stood amidst the rubble. Akos vanished through the entrance. Jin followed, his pace slowing as the agony in his wounds flared with every step up the concrete stairs.
"Akos, stop! We need to talk!" Jin shouted, his voice echoing in the hollow stairwell. Internal Thought: "What happened to him? I have a thousand questions... Akos, don't do this!"
Jin finally reached the heavy steel door to the rooftop. He burst through it, gasping for air, ready to grab Akos by the collar.
But Akos was standing perfectly still at the edge of the roof, frozen like a statue.
Jin walked up beside him, his anger dying in his throat as he looked down at the city below. His blood turned to ice.
The streets were no longer empty. Decades' worth of Devils—hundreds, perhaps thousands—were crawling through the ruins. Colossal, mountain-sized monsters were crushing buildings under their feet, while smaller, swarming horrors filled every intersection like a sea of teeth and claws.
"What in the name of God... is all of this?" Jin whispered, his voice trembling.
Deep within a vast, primordial forest, a surreal sight emerges. Dozens of buildings stand clumped together like a parasitic city, stone and steel merging with the ancient trees. Some structures are unfinished, skeletal frames reaching toward the canopy. It is a city of ghosts and construction.
In the hollow, gray center of this concrete labyrinth, the air is thick with the copper stench of death. Inside one of the main halls, the floor is covered beneath a sea of corpses. Blood drips from the ceiling.
Sakoura walks through the carnage, his boots splashing in the red pools. He is the one who caused this massacre. "Filthy scum," he mutters, wiping a drop of blood from his cheek. "The deal is over. Everything is finished."
At the end of the hall, a man stands with his back to the slaughter. His hair is swept high, and his presence is suffocating. He turns slowly, his eyes devoid of any human warmth. This is Yugo Kanji.
"I don't care about your deals, Sakoura," Yugo says coldly.
Sakoura: "Eh
Yugo: "I have a dozen ways to kill the user of the Infinite Eyes. Most of my goals are already in motion. I imprisoned Tenji forever, just as I sealed the DEVIL'S BLOOD. But I have something even more insane planned—something that will lift this world up only to grind it into dust. The absolute enemy of this existence."
Sakoura narrows his eyes, a flicker of genuine curiosity crossing his face. — "What a piece of filth you are. You've spent decades planning just to get a 'flower' that will let you control and create new life forms?"
Yugo: "Are you afraid, Sakoura? Afraid to meet him? No one has ever managed to defeat him. He is the KING OF DEVILS."
Sakoura's face twists into a mocking, ironic grin. "Bring him out then. Find a vessel for him. I swear on my life, I will be the one to kill him myself."
Yugo (with a chilling calm): "You won't have the chance to kill him. Before you even realize he has emerged, half of this world will have been vaporized in the fraction of a second it takes for him to breathe."
Sakoura begins to laugh—a loud, manic roar that echoes through the forest. — "Hahahaha! I love it! I love this era! There are so many powerful monsters to devour. I'll eat them all!"
Yugo: "I'm sorry to break your excitement, but all the sorcerers currently in Sinish are already dead. I sent one million Devils to that city. It is their graveyard. It is the end of their line."
Sakoura stops laughing. He leans in closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. — "Don't forget... She will do everything in her power to stop you. Everyone in this world has their eyes on a target."
Sakoura turns his back to leave, his coat fluttering in the drafty hall. "I know what you're preparing, Yugo. You're going to turn Japan itself into a living hell."
As Sakoura vanishes into the shadows of the forest, Yugo Kanji remains in the center of the slaughter. A slow, demonic smile spreads across his face—the look of a man who has already won.
"You have no idea," Yugo whispers to the empty room. "There is so much more coming."
The sky over Sinish was no longer visible. A black, writhing wave of a million devils ascended the sides of the skyscraper like a rising tide of obsidian. The chittering, the roars, and the flapping of leathery wings created a symphony of death that promised to drown every living soul in the city.
Akos stood at the very edge of the rooftop, his red jacket snapping violently in the wind. He didn't look back as the first wave of monsters reached the lower floors.
Akos: "Jin... you know it, and I know it too. These enemies won't stop coming. The threats will never end. My goal... is to stop the cycle of violence in this world once and for all."
Jin clutched his side, his face pale as he watched the horizon crawl with nightmares. He looked at Akos's back, his voice heavy with the wisdom of a man who had seen too much.
Jin: "Akos, I understand your heart. But this world—with its gangs, its sorcery, and these twisted creatures—is considered unstoppable. It's not just a war; it's a system. It's hardwired into human nature itself. You can't stop the cycle because the cycle is the world."
The roar of the approaching horde intensified. Akos finally turned his head. His eyes weren't filled with the confusion of his amnesia anymore; they were burning with a terrifying, cold clarity.
Akos: "If it's hardwired into the world... then I'll just have to be the one to disconnect it myself."
Jin (eyes wide in total shock): "Eh...?"
The sheer weight of Akos's words hung in the air. He wasn't talking about winning a battle or killing a leader. He was talking about tearing down the very fabric of their reality.
Before Jin could utter another word, Akos stepped off the edge of the roof, falling straight into the mouth of the million-strong swarm.