Chapter 0: Hero or Demon Lord (Future)

“All right, team. For the last time—hold the line.”

The words didn’t echo.

They landed.

Masayuki nodded—sharp, silent. His grip on the katana trembled, but he didn’t speak. He never did when it mattered most.

Minami flicked her wrist. Illusions bloomed like glass petals. One faltered mid-air, refracting light like a broken promise. She didn’t blink.

Renji and Luna steadied their shared body. No banter. No deflection. Just breath—syncing, silent, strained.

Kotaro and Kokoro moved as one, magic carving through wraiths with practiced grace. But when Kokoro’s footwork faltered for a beat, Kotaro adjusted without thinking. Their synchronicity wasn’t perfect—it was desperate habit.

The Demon Lord had faced hundreds of heroes.

But this battle felt unscripted. Unstable.

Kyle moved through it all, the massive blade trembling with conviction. He ducked under a claw, rolled past a shockwave, feinted left—then tilted Sunbreaker just so.

The dwarven-forged steel flared—blinding, searing, final.

“This is it.”

The Demon Lord smiled. Its jaws split wide, grinning with delight. With one swift motion, it snapped the blade in half.

Sunbreaker—the weapon said to slice the sun—shattered.

The sound wasn’t an explosion. It was a violation. A high-pitched structural failure that tore through the air like a scream denied.

The team froze.

Even the wraiths paused.

Kyle stared at the broken blade in his hand. His fingers trembled. His breath caught.

The fragments tinkled faintly on the bone floor—an agonizingly small sound after the deafening destruction.

“Are you familiar with acupuncture?” he finally spoke, cutting through the silence. “Not swordsmanship. Manipulation.”

Kyle looked up, meeting its gaze. His voice was quiet. Measured.

“When you stimulate a certain area, you influence reactions in the body.”

The Demon Lord tilted its head, confusion replacing its contempt.

“Is this the last stage of your breakdown? A philosophical rant?”

Kyle ignored the taunt. His gaze traced a line up the Demon Lord’s massive, armored body.

“I realized something while fighting you. Cutting through your armor is impossible. But if you aim at the nodes…”

He moved—not with power, but with clinical precision.

The Chi he exerted was cold, exacting. Not radiant. Not heroic. The air stilled as Kyle exhaled. Petals—shimmering, unreal—spiraled around the broken blade.

[Chi First Stance: Scattering Sakura Petals]

***

Even with a broken blade, the stance looked like a dance.

Not to destroy.

To disrupt.

Kyle moved—not with force, but with precision. The momentum of Sunbreaker pierced the Demon Lord’s core like a whisper through silence.

No scream.

No recoil.

The Demon Lord froze—utterly still—and began to dissolve.

Black ichor spilled—but didn’t splatter. It solidified into white light, sharp and unnatural, like corrupted data. The implosion wasn’t a death.

It was a tear.

Kyle dropped to one knee, breath ragged. His fingers trembled around the broken blade.

They had won.

But it didn’t feel like victory.

It felt like silence wearing a mask.

A high-pitched frequency vibrated in their teeth. It made their bones ache as the citadel shuddered. The air tore open with a sound of structural screeching. A dimensional void pulsed behind them—jagged, and wrong. It didn’t look like salvation.

It looked like a wound trying to close before the bleeding stopped.

The Demon Lord’s final essence coalesced into a static, white visage before it vanished. Its last words echoed through the collapsing realm:

“I hope you understand what you’ve unleashed.”

Kyle flinched. The words didn’t feel like a curse.

They felt like a warning.

Before anyone could speak, his knees buckled again. The ground beneath him cracked—not from impact, but from something deeper.

He gasped, clutching his chest.

It wasn’t pain.

It was absence.

Cold. Weightless. Like the world had exhaled—and forgotten to inhale.

“What even is the point of a hero,” he whispered, voice barely audible.

The others turned, scanning the void for the source of the sound. Only then did they realize— The frequency was coming from Kyle. His eyes were wide. Unfocused. Staring through the world.

“The planet’s Chi,” he murmured, barely audible.. “It’s unraveling. The world’s core… it’s hollow.”

A tremor split the sky. Thunder cracked sideways. Lava burst from the mountains in the distance, carving molten scars across the horizon. The air itself fractured, as if reality were a pane of glass under pressure.

Minami landed hard beside them, her face grim. She stared at the void, her voice unnaturally calm.

“It was only a theory,” she said, piecing it together aloud. “But I guess it’s true. The Demon Lord wasn’t a threat. It was the keystone.”

Kyle’s breath caught.

Minami continued, eyes wide.

“You didn’t slay a monster. You disrupted the system. You broke the framework.”

It is often said that for life to persist, something else must end.

But if that cycle is disrupted—if death is denied—then nothing survives.

That is the framework.

Luna’s breath hitched. Her posture crumbled—not from pain, but realization.

“No… Father…” Her voice cracked. Not with grief. With guilt. “You said you were protecting the realm. I thought you meant from it. Not with it.”

She staggered back, eyes wide.

“That must be why Father maintained the pact... by keeping the malice contained.”

The citadel groaned again—louder this time.

Not like stone.

Like something sacred unraveling. Cracks deepened across the floor, splitting like seams in the fabric of reality.

Kyle forced himself upright, pushing against the crushing atmospheric pressure.

His body trembled. His breath caught.

But his voice—brittle, steady—became a shield against the roaring doubt.

“It’s time for you to return to your world.”

Behind him, the portal pulsed erratically—a ravenous tear, shrinking and shrieking. It didn't look like salvation. It looked like a wound.

He turned his back to it, planting his feet firmly on the cracked bone floor, fighting the urge to run.

“Go,” he said quietly. “There’s still something I have to do.”

The words hung in the air like ash.

A terrible silence followed—heavy, suspended, broken only by the shrieking portal.

Kokoro stepped forward, her voice trembling.

“What are you talking about?”

Kotaro followed, his tone firm but fraying.

“Kyle. I thought you’re coming with us.”

Kyle looked at them, his gaze falling deliberately on Kokoro's eyes, which held a pure, unselfish, demanding love he didn't deserve. He felt the immense, raw weight of the bond he had chosen.

His gaze drifted to the horizon—fractured sky, bleeding light, mountains split like broken ribs. He was staring at the visible, terminal wound he was choosing to press against.

“The planet needs a new anchor,” he said, voice quiet. “If I leave… this world will truly die.”

He shook his head.

Then he spoke—final.

“That world doesn’t need me.”

The words hit harder than any spell.

The group froze. Their journey’s end suddenly turning into his chosen grave. They had fought for two years—for the chance to return home. And now, Kyle was choosing to stay behind.

The portal pulsed behind him, unstable and shrinking. Its light wasn’t warm. It was the cold, sterile glare of a closing door.

Time was running out.

Renji and Luna moved first.

Luna seized control, her voice cracking—not with rage, but refusal.

“Stop talking hogwash. You’re not the tragic princess. That role is already filled.”

She slapped Kyle across the face. The sound was sharp, cutting through the high-pitched shriek of the dimensional tear.

It wasn’t fury. It was the ache of someone who’d lost too much—and refused to lose him too.

Kyle touched his cheek, stunned. It hurt more than the Demon Lord’s claw. The sting was human. Real. It cleared the fog.

Renji surged forward, voice raw and unfiltered.

“Let me guess. You remembered your past. Some lab. Some experiment. So now you think you have to die for us?”

He jabbed their delicate finger into Kyle’s chest.

“Newsflash: we all have baggage. You’re not special because you’re broken. You’re special because you got us.”

Kyle looked at them—at all of them.

Masayuki, bruised but steady, his hand already on Kyle’s shoulder, ready to pull.

Minami, her illusions forgotten, gaze locked on the portal’s narrowing light.

Kotaro and Kokoro, shoulder to shoulder, breaths syncing in quiet grief.

Renji and Luna, still arguing over whether they had time to loot the monster corpses.

They fought. They argued. They survived.

They were more than a party.

Kokoro stepped forward, her voice soft but unwavering.

“Come on. Let’s go home.”

The world cracked again.

A final, wrenching quake split the citadel. Dust rained from the ceiling like ash. The portal shrieked—high, metallic, desperate—as it contracted violently.

Kyle didn’t move.

His legs felt heavy. His heart, heavier.

He wanted to scream his final protest—I have to stay! I’m the only one who can!—but the words stayed buried.

They didn’t wait for his answer.

Even if he didn’t want to, they were going to drag him—exhausted and protesting—toward the collapsing light.

As they tumbled into the vortex, the last thing Kyle saw was the broken half of Sunbreaker, lying forgotten on the jagged bone floor.

On that day he left the hero behind.