The End Begins

Yuka’s morning unraveled the moment she blinked awake. All night she tossed beneath clammy sheets, pillow damp with sweat as questions gnawed at her: Had she sacrificed too much for her career? Were her best years slipping by? Could she still start over, find someone to share her life with? When the alarm’s shrill bleat finally jarred her from her half-dream, her heart pounded.

In the dim living room, her two cats tumbled over a sun-withered houseplant, dark clods of soil marking their fight. With no time to sweep it up, she yanked on shoes, grabbed a piece of stale gum from her purse, and chewed the flat sweetness for breakfast.

Outside, the streets lay empty beneath a sky the color of old pewter. At Seiryo University, her inbox overflowed with the dean’s terse email: nearly half the staff out sick. By nine o’clock, the stack of unfilled reports on her desk had doubled.

“Don’t worry, Fujimori-san. I’ll take care of everything!”

And now this…

Yuka looked up at the overcast heavens. Thick clouds sagged low like wet blankets, smothering the sun’s warmth. A breeze carried the sharp, silvery tang of gathering rain, ruffling the petals of marigolds and pansies along the stone paths.

I can’t shake this feeling.

She slipped her hands into the pockets of the crisp white lab coat Hayami-san had lent her and inhaled slowly, trying not to sigh.

“Hey, don’t tell me you’re scared,” came a mocking drawl from behind her. Yamamoto’s heavy palm crashed onto her shoulder so hard she nearly drooped forward.

She stiffened. His smug grin—yellowing teeth glinting, hair greased slick—made her skin crawl. The cheap nylon of his tracksuit squeaked as he rolled his shoulders, flaunting the bulge of muscle beneath.

“Relax. Probably just some wasted drunk or a drug addict,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll scare him off. Things have been boring around here anyway.”

“I won’t let you do anything stupid that drags the school’s good name through the mud.”

Yamamoto feigned hurt. “You wound me, Yuka-chan.”

She bit her lip to keep silent and shoved past him. He jogged to catch up, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Whoa! Sorry. Maybe I’m coming on too strongly. Look, I’m serious. This guy’s not right in the head. Have a look for yourself.” He pointed his chin toward the main gate. There, a lone figure pummeled the iron bars with the persistence of a man possessed, as if he believed his body could squeeze through steel. No car in sight, no one else near.

Yuka felt bile rise in her throat.

And yet, she had a job to do.

“Sir?” she called out, stepping forward. Her voice sounded brittle even to her own ears. “This is private property. You need to leave.”

The man’s head snapped toward her on a thin column of neck. A low hiss rattled from his throat. His eyes glistened like cracked marbles, darting without focus. He stretched slender, corpse-white fingers through the bars, curling them in the air.

“See? I told you it was weird.” Yamamoto leaned in, voice slick with sarcasm. “What’s the matter, friend? Bad day? What? Got nothing to say?”

“Don’t—” Yuka began.

“C’mon. He looks like he’s itching to bite someone’s head off.” Yamamoto chimed right over her.

Before she could stop him, Yamamoto swung a punch between the bars. The man’s nose gave way with a sickening snap. A spray of dark crimson exploded across the gate. The man staggered back, one nostril flattened.

“How’s that?” Yamamoto smirked, flexing blood-slick knuckles. “Feel like talking now, asshole?”

The answer came in an inhuman shriek—a brutal, cavernous roar that rattled her bones. The man slammed into the gate with a force that rent loose strips of flesh, the deathly pale skin peeling and slithering in sticky ribbons. He didn’t stop. He didn’t seem to feel pain.

“What the hell—” Yamamoto backed off, eyes wide. “Hey—take it easy—”

In an instant, the stranger lashed out. His long, claw-like grip latched around the trapped forearm and yanked.

“Let go, you freak—let go!” Yamamoto’s scream split the air as he fought back, trying to pry free.

The man’s mouth opened unnaturally wide, blood-slick teeth glinting. Yuka watched in horror as those teeth closed over exposed knuckles, biting two fingers clean off Yamamoto’s hand. The wet crunch echoed in her ears like a drumbeat.

Yamamoto howled. The attacker pulled him in, threw him to the ground, then lunged again, this time tearing at his throat. A hot spray arced through the air. The sound of tendons popping carried a hollow, surreal quality that made Yuka’s chest feel hollow too.

Yamamoto crashed onto the flagstones, limbs flailing, his face a mask of red and bone. Around them, doors burst open: students stumbling out, stained with blood; faculty rushing haphazardly, some already limping, some already collapsing. Overhead windows shattered as people jumped—bodies thudding onto concrete like sacks of wet grain.

A low hiss whispered in Yuka’s ear. Her blood ran cold.

She spun.

Yamamoto’s battered form had risen—or something wearing his face. His stare was vacant, pupils clouded over. His head lolled at an ungodly angle, half-severed from his shoulders. A dark rivulet of bile dripped from shredded gums.

I’m going to die, she realized.

Yuka shut her eyes.

Something whistled past her ear—a blur of movement, a displaced rush of air that stung her cheek. Her eyes snapped open in time to see Yamamoto's body airborne, limbs splayed like a broken marionette, his tracksuit fluttering as he crashed into the flower bed. Pink petals exploded upward, swirling in his wake as the azalea stems snapped with wet, splintering pops.

“Are you all right?”

She blinked through tears. “R-Ren?”

He knelt, gaze steady, voice measured. He waved his good hand gently before her face, breathing even.

“You’re in shock. Can you stand?”

Bodies rose like puppets on strings, even as more bodies fell. Students in torn uniforms lurched forward with broken gaits, their limbs twitching at impossible angles. Dark red splattered the pristine white walls of the administration building, hand-prints smeared down its length. The manicured lawns and stone pathways that had once hosted graduation ceremonies now served as a macabre stage for the dead.

“Am I dreaming?” she whispered, voice cracking.

“I’m afraid not.”

Tremors shook her limbs. “Then… leave me,” she sobbed. “I can’t—just go. Save yourself.”

He cocked his head. “That’s not very optimistic, Doc.”

Without another word, he swept her up, slinging her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing. The coarse weave of his jacket dug into her cheek.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “This will be uncomfortable.”

Her tongue felt too heavy to form words. The light around the edges drained away, colors bleeding into black. The last thing she heard was Ren’s footsteps fading as darkness claimed her.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Haruka’s arms shook so violently the bat almost tumbled from her grip. When it finally hit the tile, the clatter cut through the ringing haze filling Midori’s ears. He followed her gaze.

What was left of Yumi scarcely looked human—her skull had caved inward like a broken eggshell, dark red pooling around fragments of white bone and hair matted in blood.

“Haru…” Kuro’s voice was low, cautious.

Midori glanced between them. Kuro stood a few paces off, faint scratches streaking his arms, his uniform collar and sleeves matted with blood—his or someone else’s, he couldn’t tell.

“She…” Haruka’s voice fractured. “She was going to kill you.”

Kuro’s eyes flicked from the body to the bat and back to Haruka. He didn’t speak. He took a slow step forward, as if approaching something dangerously fragile. When he wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t move. Locked stiff, muscles taut as strings.

Midori didn’t stop to think. He lunged at them both, pressing into a clumsy, trembling embrace. “You’re okay. You’re both okay.”

Haruka blinked, as though just realizing where she was. Warm arms, familiar voices surrounded her, but she kept flexing her fingers, testing the sticky blood like glue. She started to tremble again.

Midori released them and stepped back, nodding at Kuro. “I don’t know what to say. If you hadn’t dragged us out—”

Kuro cut him off. “It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. On the way here, I saw something odd. I thought I was imagining it, but…”

“You weren’t,” Midori whispered.

Silence pressed in, broken only by distant screams that felt too close.

“…What do we do now?” Kuro finally asked.

Midori's racing heartbeat suddenly slowed. His hands, trembling seconds before, steadied. The screams outside faded to a distant hum as he took a long, deep breath that filled his lungs completely.

He found himself staring at a crack in the tile floor, tracing its jagged path rather than looking at his friends. When he finally spoke, his voice came out quiet, like someone else was using his mouth. His spine straightened of its own accord, shoulders squaring beneath his blood-spattered uniform. “You two keep going. Get to the roof. There’s another fire door up there—you’ll be safe.”

Haruka’s eyes widened. “Wait—you're not coming?”

“I have to do something.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Kuro bristled. “Are you insane? We barely made it here as it is. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Midori,” Haruka pleaded, tugging at his sleeve, afraid he might vanish if she let go. “Don’t go. Not alone. Please.”

He hesitated. “I have to. I’ll move faster alone.” He met her teary gaze. “Go. Lock the door behind you. Don’t open it for anyone but me.”

“You’re so fucking selfish…”

Midori swallowed the knot in his throat. Kuro's words stung because they were true. But somewhere in his chest, a certainty burned: Ren wouldn't abandon him.

“I’ll be back. I promise.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. His palm met the stairwell door's handle, cold metal biting against his skin. He paused, glancing back at the two faces that had marked every memory since kindergarten—Haruka's tear-streaked cheeks, Kuro's clenched jaw. Three lives, braided together since before they could tie their own shoes.

The hinges groaned, momentarily drowning out the screams and his pounding heart. He stepped out, waiting for the click of Kuro sealing the fire door to echo in his ears. The stairwell beyond was darker than he remembered. It was here Midori wondered if he could keep that promise.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Ren Hanashiro was no stranger to bloodshed—the War had shown him plenty of it. But this… this was on another level.

He crept through Seiryo University’s corridors, Yuka draped limply over his shoulder. Blood spattered the white tiles in wild arcs. Shards of glass and toppled frames crunched beneath his boots.Corpses lay piled like forgotten laundry. The stench of iron and rot clung to the air, burning his throat.

He sidestepped a girl dragging a grotesquely bent leg—bones jutting through torn flesh. Nearly blind. No pain. They flailed into walls, into each other. Some collapsed in quivering heaps, gnawing at the air. This world had no mana. No artifacts. These things weren’t made of magic. So what was this?

A bite? A scratch?

He clenched his teeth. These were people—with lives, families, dreams—who didn’t deserve this fate.

The floor trembled beneath him. Glass fragments danced across the tiles. The windows vibrated in their frames as a deep rumble approached from above. Ren looked up to see military helicopters blotting out the little bit of sunlight, their rotors slicing the air with such violence that he could barely hold a coherent thought.

At once the creatures convulsed—pupils bulging, limbs jerking—and erupted in a guttural frenzy. They surged toward the windows, ripping at the glass and hurling themselves into the void.

Yuka's head brushed against his back as she stirred, a soft groan vibrating through his shoulder blade. Her fingers twitched against his side. She’d be awake soon.

Not to mention…

Behind his eyes, a face kept appearing—red hair, blue eyes—pushing aside any other thoughts with the force of a battering ram. He couldn’t abandon Yuka in this state—but every second he wasn’t searching for Reina might be her last. He couldn’t stop imagining her alone somewhere in the chaos.

His gaze swept the opposite building—half hoping to glimpse her—and instead he caught sight of Midori. The man swung a chair leg with desperate fury, back pressed to the wall. Ren reached out almost on instinct, thinking to help, then hesitated. He caught sight of a few terrified faces peering from a cracked door down the hall. Red camera lights blinking above. The helicopters moved off. The frenzy waned, the things slumped back into their slow shuffle.

He surveyed the bodies again. Some still had color, only bruised or bitten.

Alive, or trapped inside?

A faint buzz snapped him back. His phone glowed in his pocket, the screen bearing one name: Hayate.

Ren answered.

Heavy, ragged breaths came through the other line. “Don’t talk… Listen. I’ve never asked anything from you before. I saved you that night, and never expected anything in return. Now, I’m begging you. Please. My granddaughter. Protect Haru.”

The call ended. His grip tightened before he realized it—plastic groaned, glass spider-webbing beneath his thumb. Hayate had kept him safe. Fed him. Given him a home in this strange, new world.

He glanced back to the courtyard—Midori was gone, having run into the nearby classroom.

You’d better be alright, old man.

The creatures clustered at the far end, sealing off the hallway that connected the two buildings.

Sorry, Aki.

He lifted the phone she’d gifted him and, with a sharp flick, sent it flying into the far wall. It burst apart with a brittle crack.

Every head swiveled to the noise. They charged. Ren slipped through the opening—Yuka clutched tight.