The Truth

Applause echoed.

Slow, deliberate.

From the mouth of the ruin stepped Asahi Ishikawa — unharmed, sharp-suited, and smiling as though he’d just watched the final act of a long-awaited tragedy.

“Bravo,” he said, boots crunching over broken tile. “Yukawa, you really do have a flair for the theatrical.”

Yukawa bowed his head slightly. “The stage was always yours, Sovereign.”

Haruto, slumped on the floor, bleeding and shaking, lifted his gaze.

“You…”

Asahi stepped forward. Calm. Cold.

“I never thought you’d last this long, Haruto. Truly, I underestimated how stubborn broken things can be when they convince themselves they’re whole.”

“You were gone,” Haruto rasped.

“I was never gone,” Asahi said. “I was watching.”

He crouched in front of Haruto, just out of reach. “You think you’ve been manipulating me all this time. Sending letters. Calling me out. But the truth is, you came because I wanted you to. You played your role to the letter.”

Haruto’s eyes narrowed. “That day… at your home…”

Asahi smiled faintly. “Exactly. I invited you, didn’t I? I let you call me out. Why? Because I needed Ren to see it. I needed him to follow us. I needed him to find the warehouse. And I knew you’d protect him like some wounded dog chasing redemption.”

Haruto’s stomach twisted.

“It was always you,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Asahi said, standing again. “I manipulated everything. Every reunion. Every betrayal. I didn’t even need to lie half the time. I just nudged the pieces and watched you destroy the board yourself.”

He gestured at Yukawa.

“Now. Show him.”

Yukawa stepped into the shadows behind him — and returned carrying something wrapped in old, blood-stiffened cloth. He unwrapped it without ceremony.

Aoi’s head.

The severed head rested amidst the debris. Dried rivulets of black blood, thick as tar, snaked from the ragged edges of her neck. Her lips, cracked and pale, were stretched apart in a silent plea that death had brutally interrupted. But it was her eyes that truly held the horror – wide, vacant orbs staring up at the fractured sky, reflecting the chaotic light with a terrifying emptiness. The light itself seemed to catch on the unshed tears that had dried, leaving behind crystalline tracks of unimaginable terror etched onto her cheeks.

Haruto recoiled. “No… How do you…?”

“Oh yes,” Asahi said, voice soft and venomous. “This is what you were ‘protecting’. This is what you cried for. Aoi.”

He dropped to a whisper. “But do you even remember what you did to her?”

Haruto clutched his head.

“You kept her alive,” Asahi said. “Dragged her into hideouts and safehouses. Starving. Bleeding. You told yourself you were protecting her. But the truth?”

He crouched again, this time leaning close.

“You assaulted her. Vented your frustration on her. Used her. Again and again. She begged to die. And you called it love.”

Haruto let out a choking gasp.

Asahi’s voice was steel now.

“I just gave her what she deserved. A peaceful end.”

Ren flinched.

Asahi stood, brushing dust from his jacket. “You want the truth, Ren?”

The boy looked up slowly, face blank.

“Haruto was Yamaguchi,” Asahi said. “The masked man. The one who took Aoi. The one you couldn’t save.”

Haruto shook his head. “No. No, that’s not—”

Asahi moved slowly, almost casually, toward Haruto.

He crouched.

Haruto was too stunned, too broken to react. Blood streaked his temple.

Then Asahi reached into Haruto’s coat — and pulled out a small, weathered locket.

The chain was frayed. The casing dented. But the etched initials on its back were unmistakable.

Kusaragi.

Ren’s eyes widened.

Asahi turned the locket over in his fingers, then tossed it across the floor.

It landed near Ren’s feet with a soft clink.

Ren didn’t hesitate. He dropped to his knees, snatched it up — and held it tight.

He already wore one pendant — Aoi’s — the one Haruto had given him months ago.

And now, with shaking fingers, he held both up together.

The two pendants were different — but when aligned side by side, the curves of their frames interlocked like matching halves of a single whole.

A pair.

Father and sister.

“Do you see now?” Asahi said, his voice cruelly calm. “He gave you Aoi’s pendant because he knew you’d never see her again.”

Haruto’s lips barely moved. “Stop—”

“And your father?” Asahi turned to Ren again. “Kusaragi didn’t die in the breach. He was hidden — in Sanctuary. Alive.”

Ren flinched.

“Until Haruto’s little rebellion exposed him,” Asahi finished. “He died trying to reach you, Ren.”

The locket trembled in the boy’s grasp.

“He didn’t just let him die,” Asahi added, venom creeping into his tone. “He caused it. All of it.”

Ren’s ink tendrils flickered.

“You were wondering why I let you follow that night,” Asahi continued. “When I met those two men, after Haruto’s staged kidnapping? It was no mistake. I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to follow us to the warehouse.”

Haruto’s voice cracked. “You used him.”

“No,” Asahi said coolly. “You used him. I just made sure he saw it.”

A sudden shift rippled through the air.

The remaining members of Haruto’s war-hardened group — those who had once fought beside him — stepped from the corridors, weapons raised. They didn’t speak.

Ren was surrounded.

Haruto froze. “You… you planted them?”

Asahi gave a small, regretful shrug. “Even revolutionaries can be bought. Or broken.”

Guns clicked.

Ren’s eyes darted. Haruto stood on trembling legs.

“You did all this,” Haruto said, voice hoarse. “But the letter… was it yours too?”

For the first time, Asahi hesitated.

Then he laughed. Quietly. “The letter? Please. That was just a trap. Something you faked to lure me out.”

Haruto’s eyes burned. “No. It was real. It was from Aiko.”

Asahi’s smile dropped.

“Don’t you dare mention her name.”

Haruto stood straighter, eyes locked. “She wrote to me. I didn’t understand it then. But now… I think she knew what you’d become.”

Asahi’s hands trembled — just for a second. Then he turned away, voice clipped. “There’s no way. She’s gone. She wouldn’t…”

He didn’t finish.

Silence pressed in.

Ren staggered backward. The pressure in his chest had grown unbearable — a dam about to break.

And then—

Flashback.

A small hand in his. Laughter echoing in a garden behind their old home. Kusaragi — tall, awkward, smiling gently as he tried to teach Ren how to fish. Aoi, teasing them both, balancing precariously on a rock.

“I’ll protect you,” she whispered. “No matter what.”

Then came the fire.

The sirens.

Aoi’s hand gripping his wrist outside the grocery store. “Run, Ren. Run!”

Gunshots behind them. Screams. Aoi staying behind.

He ran.

Into the arms of strangers — Haruto, quiet but strong. Asahi… always watching.

They had become his new family.

He had begun to trust.

And now?

Now, everything had changed.

He looked at Haruto — broken, bleeding, eyes red from loss.

He looked at Asahi — composed, triumphant, but fraying at the edges.

He looked at Yukawa, who had once claimed to want truth.

And he felt it.

The split.

The seed of something dark and boundless stirring in his chest.

The ink inside him trembled.

Haruto reached toward him.

“Ren…”

Ren didn’t answer.

Because he didn’t know who to believe anymore.

He didn’t know if he even wanted to.