What You Carry VI

Kurobane drifted through the empty corridors, each step heavier than the last. Forty-eight hours. Maybe less. Just enough time to make peace with never seeing open sky again—never filling his lungs with air that didn’t carry the metallic tang of blood. No helicopters would appear on the horizon. No soldiers would breach the perimeter. Their single remaining option was barely worth calling hope.

Is this really how I die? With everything in my life as fucked up as it is?

His feet scraped across the floor as he passed abandoned storefronts, their windows dark.

“This isn’t the time for explanations!”

The voice pierced through the fog in his thoughts.

“Haru, wait—you’re not thinking clearly—”

They burst around the corner, nearly slamming into him. Haruka jerked to a stop, chest heaving. Behind her, Midori’s exhausted face went slack with surprise, shadows carved beneath his eyes. He trailed several steps behind her, palms raised as if approaching something wild and dangerous.

Kurobane glanced from Haruka’s flushed face to Midori’s worry-bleached one, and something constricted inside his chest. He saw them at twelve years old—racing into Kigan’s foaming waves, Haruka collapsing into the sand laughing, Midori extending the last popsicle with a dramatic sigh. Sleeping bags arranged in perfect triangles. Bicycle wheels flashing in summer light.

Memories from a life that no longer felt like his.

“You look good,” he said, the words slipping out before he could stop them. His voice came out softer than intended. “I always figured you’d end up together. It seemed… right.”

He meant it, but bitterness bled through.

Haruka narrowed her eyes. “The world’s ending and that’s where your head goes?”

Even in the dim light, he couldn’t help admiring her—the curve of her jaw, the rebellious strands of hair refusing to lie flat.

Another memory surfaced: fifteen-year-old Haruka on his bedroom floor, her face pulled tight in that serious way that always made his stomach flip. “If neither of us is married by twenty-five, we should just marry each other!” she’d declared. He’d laughed then, never daring to admit how often he revisited that promise afterward.

A furnace lit inside him—rage at their closeness, at an apocalypse that had stolen everything except his most painful feelings. He forced it down.

“Look,” Midori said, pointing to the abandoned food court, “we could sit over there. Maybe clear the air?”

Kurobane braced for Haruka to object, but she didn’t. So they drifted to the food court, where upended chairs surrounded tables glazed with grime and old rainwater. He took the seat across from them, watching as Haruka and Midori settled side by side.

His jaw tightened until it ached.

Silence stretched, thick as the air before a storm.

Finally, Midori exhaled a humorless laugh. “Remember when you said things would only get worse, Kuro? Turns out you were being an optimist.”

“I didn’t mean to jinx us,” he muttered.

Midori cracked a faint smile. “I think we need this. The world’s ending, but right now we have… this moment.” His hand rubbed the back of his neck, tension carved into the gesture. “It’s strange—growing up together, and somewhere along the way, talking became the hardest thing.”

“That’s rich,” Kurobane said. “We’ve watched people torn apart. But sure—let’s talk about how hard conversation is.”

Midori stared down at the scratched tabletop. “When it comes to the three of us… yeah.”

Kurobane started to argue—then shut his mouth. The truth pressed down on all of them.

Midori traced a water stain with his fingertip, then lifted his head. “What happened with Yuka—”

Kurobane jerked. Across from him, Haruka’s fingers tightened around her wrist until the knuckles whitened.

“Don’t. She’s gone. That’s all there is.”

Midori’s voice dropped. “I didn’t even know her that well, but watching her die after everything we survived together… I can’t shake it.” His gaze moved between them, searching for shared grief.

Kurobane’s eyelids fell shut, as if he could block the image behind them. When he spoke, the words were dragged from something deep and wounded.

“If I could go back…”

The knife’s weight flashed in his memory. That wet slip. Crimson spilling like wine.

“None of it should’ve happened,” Haruka murmured. Something cold lived behind her eyes—something sharper than sorrow. She rose abruptly. “I need some air.”

Midori half-rose. “Haru—wait, we haven’t—”

She stopped him with a small, firm gesture.

“Now isn’t a good time. Just… not right now.”

Her footsteps faded down the dim corridor.

Midori collapsed into his chair, fingers raking through his hair.

Kurobane couldn’t stop staring down the hall she’d vanished into. Something twisted in his gut—selfish, pathetic, desperate. The world was ending, strangers were dying by the thousands, and still he orbited her.

“Midori.”

His oldest friend lifted his head, exhaustion etched deep.

“When they ask for volunteers to clear the station tomorrow,” Kuro said quietly, “stay behind.”

Midori’s lips parted, but Kuro raised his hand.

“Just this once, let someone else carry the weight. Don’t be a hero.”

A muscle twitched in Midori’s jaw.

Kurobane saw the protest forming and knew it wouldn’t change anything. The distance between them yawned wide and unbridgeable.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Moonlight filtered through the shattered dome overhead, casting a pale glow across the mall’s indoor trees. Their leaves shimmered faintly; shadows pooled like liquid darkness across cracked stone. On one of the benches, Ren sat with his neck tilted back, eyes fixed on the sky beyond the ruined ceiling.

At least the sky is the same…

Since arriving in this world, that thought had been his single comfort. The sun and moon and stars remained unchanged—silent witnesses to the life he’d lost, and the one he’d stumbled into.

He flexed the fingers of his remaining hand, the movement stiff with strain. His attention drifted to where his arm ended abruptly—a jagged memory carved into flesh.

It had been just another wound when he first arrived here, one more scar among many. But now, beneath fractured glass and silver light, the absence throbbed. Memories crashed over him: his mother’s final smile before the pyre. Blackbarrow swallowed by flames. Renfield turning away. Evelyn’s face—hate and sorrow twisting together—as her blade severed far more than a limb.

And underneath it all—a hollowing ache.

Mana draining, bit by bit.

When the last of it vanished, he knew what would follow.

His hand clenched hard enough for tendons to stand out.

What was the point of any of it? The prophecies, the throne, the endless bloodshed. All meaningless here. Even if she—even if Evelyn lived—he’d draw her far from this place. Away from the mall. Away from these people.

Away from Reina.

Maybe I was never meant to be here, but I’ll fight for this world anyway.

He exhaled, shoulders sinking. Tetsuya wouldn’t vanish into the dark unseen.

“I know you’re there,” he said softly. “You might as well join me.”

Leaves rustled behind him. He turned—

—and found Reina standing at the garden’s edge, framed in a beam of silver light.

Something unfurled inside him—the recognition that her beauty transcended worlds. Not just this one. Not just his own. Any world. Every world.

“I should’ve known you’d be hiding somewhere like this,” she said with a faint smile. She crossed patches of shadow and silver, settling close enough that he felt the warmth of her arm beside his.

Wind slipped through the shattered dome, the moon hanging like a silver coin in an endless well.

“I looked for you after they told us about tomorrow.”

“Aki wanted a word.”

“Should I be worried?”

“No. Not this time. I’ll make sure of it.”

She leaned closer, concern flickering across her expression. He let something real break through—a smile that didn’t hide the pain but reached his eyes anyway.

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

Reina’s expression softened. “The color’s gone from your face.” Her fingers hovered before settling lightly on his sleeve. “I’m worried, Ren. For you.”

Her features blurred with others—faces he’d loved, faces he’d lost. He forced himself to look away. “Do you want me to tell you where I’m going? What I’m doing?”

Her lips parted, but at the look on his face, whatever questions she carried fell silent. She nodded instead.

“Before I do,” he said, “I need you to promise me something. Don’t do anything reckless while I’m gone. Don’t follow me. No matter what happens… wait for me right here.”

The air stilled.

She nodded again—slower this time, heavier.

“I promise.”

He studied her expression, ensuring the promise held. Only then did he breathe—one slow inhale pulled from somewhere deep.

“I told you I was from another world,” he began, “but that isn’t telling you much, is it?” A humorless breath left him. “Ren Hanashiro isn’t my real name.” His focus drifted to the full moon above. “It’s Kaelren. Kaelren of Blackbarrow. But most knew me by another name.”

He turned back to her.

“Kaelren, the Demon King.”

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Outside her room, Haruto had fallen asleep against the wall, his body folded inward with his head on his knees, a blanket over his shoulders. Even in sleep, his fingers remained hooked around the chair leg, as though he’d fought to keep watch until exhaustion finally claimed him.

With the care of someone approaching a minefield, Kurobane stepped past him and eased the door open.

Moonbeams sliced through a crack in the window, casting pale bands across the floor and catching on Satsuki’s figure. She lay alone on the thin mattress.

“Hey,” he murmured. “Am I bothering you…?”

She didn’t turn. Her gaze stayed fixed on the window. “Isn’t the moon beautiful tonight?” she said, the words drifting from her lips.

Something in her tone—a distance—sat wrong with him. Each syllable felt like it came from somewhere beyond the room, as if she stood on the opposite side of a widening chasm. He circled the bed, his footsteps unnaturally loud in his ears.

When her face came fully into the light—

—his breath vanished.

Her left eye had clouded over entirely: a milky white orb threaded with red veins. Her skin, once warm and bright beneath electric blue hair, had turned the color of old paper. When she tried to smile, he saw dried flecks of blood crusted at the corners of her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said. “Looks like I’m infected.”

The world outside went on—wind stirring, distant sounds echoing faintly—while inside this room, everything froze. He stood rooted to the floor as something fundamental in him began to crack apart.

Finally, she spoke again. A pill bottle rattled in her weak grip.

“Hayami-san told me what’s happening. Too much infected blood at the school. That’s all it took.” Her stare drifted to the medication. She traced the bottle’s edge with her thumb. “They said these would make it… easier. Painless.” The last word broke as it left her tongue.

“No.” Louder—raw, unraveling: “No. No, no, no—”

He didn’t remember closing the distance, only that suddenly he was kneeling beside her bed, hands shaking as he lifted her arms, checked her wrists, tilted her head to examine her neck, pushed back her pants leg to check her ankles—searching desperately for a wound that didn’t exist.

“There’s no bite mark,” he choked. “No scratch. Nothing. How can you—? It’s wrong—this is—”

Her fingers, cold and trembling, brushed his hand and stilled him. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek—light as a butterfly.

He collapsed against her, forehead pressing into her lap as silent, violent sobs wracked him. Her fingers moved through his hair, then down his back, tracing gentle circles as his tears soaked through the thin blanket.

“Kuro… I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to take my own life,” she whispered.

His head snapped up. “Satsuki, please—” His voice splintered. “There has to be another way.”

“What way?” A sound escaped her—a broken laugh swallowed by a sob. “Wait until I’m biting at your throat?” Her voice thinned to a fragile thread. “The infection’s been spreading for a while now. I can feel it crawling through me…”

She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek, guiding his face up until he was looking directly into her mismatched eyes. In the dim silver light, he saw it: a terrible, aching peace beneath the fear—just like Yuka.

“Kuro,” she said gently, “if I asked you to… would you kill me?”

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

“Demon… King?”

The title in her mouth split open a seal he’d kept shut for years. Suddenly he was a child again, sprinting beneath dappled sunlight through the grove’s ancient trees, his mother’s laughter weaving with birdsong while his father pointed out which herbs to gather.

Then fire.

Fire swallowing the sacred grove. Fire turning every tree into a torch.

Through the smoke came a figure in gleaming armor, sunlight flashing off polished plate as his family screamed around him.

“Skitter away, insect.”

Ren forced his eyes closed, then open—dragging himself back to the present. When his vision cleared, Reina sat before him, waiting.

“Where I come from, magic isn’t fantasy. It’s as real as you and me. As tangible as flesh and bone.”

She looked like someone witnessing snowfall for the first time—awed and bewildered in equal measure.

“My world had no glass towers reaching for the clouds. No roaring machines. No lights powered by invisible currents. We had something else—mana. It flowed through everything. It raised empires from dust and returned them to ash just as easily. A skilled mage,” he said, lifting his palm, “could bend reality. Shape flame. Command storms. Call the stone beneath our feet to rise.”

He stopped, searching for the words buried under a lifetime of silence.

“Where others channeled mana through staves and tomes,” he said slowly, “I absorbed it.”

With a slight twist of his wrist, a flame the size of a firefly bloomed above his palm.

Reina startled—then leaned in, transfixed. The tiny flame painted warm light across her face as she hovered her fingers near it.

“How is this possible?”

“Remnants,” he murmured. “Without both hands to shape the flow, I’m a painter with broken brushes.”

“Your arm…?”

“Weaving requires gestures,” he said. “They guide the spell—like a conductor leading an orchestra. Without it, most spells are wasteful. I can’t afford to waste anything anymore.”

“So then… what happened back at the—?” She caught herself, the question hanging unspoken between them.

“I was born different in two ways,” he went on. “The mutation you’ve seen. And something else—a gift of mana.”

He raised one finger.

Reina’s body lifted clean off the bench.

“Ren!” she gasped, flailing as her feet left the floor. “Put me down this instant!”

A quiet laugh escaped him as he lowered his hand. Gravity reclaimed her, setting her down as gently as falling snow.

“Manipulating gravity costs me almost nothing,” he explained. “It’s the one thing I can still do freely. Even with one hand.”

Reina’s voice thinned to a whisper. “These… reserves you mentioned. What are they, really?”

Ren looked down at the space between them. “My body breathes mana. Needs it. Back home, it was everywhere. But here—here, there’s nothing. I’ve been living off what I had when I arrived, and that wasn’t much.”

“And if it runs out…?”

“I’ll die.”

She inhaled sharply, panic flooding her expression. Her hands flew to his shoulders, gripping the fabric like she could anchor him to life through contact alone.

“That’s what she asked you to do, isn’t it?” her voice cracked. “She wants your magic. Your life. Ren, you’ll die, you’ll—”

“Reina.” His hand covered hers, steady despite the weight of everything he’d said. “Aki doesn’t know. And I’ve already made my choice. I have to do this. I want to do this. I can’t watch anyone else slip away.”

His thumb stroked slow circles over her knuckles. Her trembling eased beneath his touch.

This time would be different.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

The door clicked shut behind him with a soft, final whisper. Haruto still slept against the wall, the blanket slipping from one shoulder. Kurobane stopped long enough to pull it back into place.

Each breath felt like shards of ice scraping down his throat. The hallway blurred at the edges; sounds dulled until the world seemed distant and underwater.

The knife hung from his hand. Tremors crawled from his fingers up his wrist. Fresh blood—warm, impossibly warm—painted his skin and the metal.

No one else could do what he’d just done. No one else would.

His chest tightened, threatening to collapse in on itself. He took one step forward, then another, slipping into the dark corridor. The shadows swallowed him without a sound.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

“I was just a child when they came. A man in polished gold armor stood over me while my home burned to cinders and everyone I loved screamed their last breaths. He could’ve ended my life with a single strike. Instead, he watched me crawl through the ashes… and chose to let me live.”

Ren’s hand curled against his knee, knuckles whitening.

“That mercy,” he said, “was the cruelest thing he ever did to me. I devoted the rest of my life to vengeance. Found others he’d ruined. Made them my family. We grew strong… but the hatred—” his breath shook, “—it only grew with us.”

His focus drifted past the broken statuary, past the garden, past this world entirely.

“He made me into his Demon King.” The words carried a lifetime of weight. “I wore that title all the way to the heart of his Holy Kingdom, where Saint Renfield waited.” He spat the title. “After years of planning, of dreaming how I’d make him pay… when I finally stood in front of him…” He swallowed hard. “I still see that day every time I close my eyes.”

Ren stared down at his remaining hand, turning it slowly as though searching for answers in the lines of his palm.

“On that day, I realized neither of us had ever really been in control. Evelyn and I… we were just pieces on someone else’s board. Puppets tugged by a hand we couldn’t see.”

“You and Evelyn were…?”

“Two sides of the same coin. She, the radiant Hero. I, the dreaded Demon King.” A humorless twist pulled at his lips. “Though ‘Kaelren the Pretender’ fits better in the end.” He drew a long, steadying breath before meeting her eyes. “That’s the truth you wanted, Reina. All of it.”

Tears clung to her lashes, threatening to fall with each blink.

His tone softened into something small and unbearably human. “After everything… I found myself at war with ordinary days. The small things. I kept one foot in the grave of my old life, refusing to fully step into this one.” He exhaled shakily. “Living like that has worn me down. So this time… let me go.”

There was no bitterness in his words. No resignation.

Reina lifted a hand to his face, her touch featherlight. She leaned in and kissed him.

Her lips were warm, soft. Heat unfurled in his chest, every heartbeat a confession he didn’t have words for. His hand slid into hers, fingers tightening. She pulled back just enough to breathe, their foreheads resting together, their breaths mingling.

“Come back to me,” she whispered.

“I will.”