Can I kil you now?

His eyes widened, his breathing was ragged, uneven — more like choking than breathing.

And then, at the last second, Hideaki realized what he was about to do.

A sadistic broken grin stretched across his face.

Blood soaked his clothes, his legs trembling under him as if they could give out at any moment.

He took a broken deep breath, struggling to get air into his lungs.

As he did it, Pixie's strange smile caught his attention.

Hideaki blinked, swaying, the world doubling in front of him.

A ripple of confusion cut through his fury.

She whispered something faint — barely a sound.

Hideaki froze.

A sharp, stabbing pang shot through his skull.

A memory snapped to life, uninvited and violent:

Ichiyo's mother's final smile...

that same serene, tragic softness.

"I hope that what you're doing... you're doing it for a good reason..."

Her voice echoed through his mind.

Hideaki's lips curled, not into confidence —

but into a shivering, unstable grin.

"EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!"

He laughed, but his laugh wasn't powerful; it sputtered, hitching every few seconds as pain folded his body forward — but that only made it worse, more disturbing.

"DIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!"

He screamed. His voice cracked midway, raw and wet with blood, but the scream still tore out of him — high, unhinged, piercing.

He gathered the last shreds of strength his broken body could muster and swung the axe sharply.

Not clean.
Not perfect.
But driven by pure, collapsing fury.

The axe chewed through flesh—
and Pixie's head fell.

In that moment, Ken and Rika felt a surge of energy. Their Magic Abilities returned, as if freed from death.

A sickening silence followed as Pixie's lifeless body crumpled to the floor, blood pooling swiftly around her.

The room fell still, the chaos settling into an eerie, suffocating calm.

Hideaki staggered backward a step, nearly losing balance as his knees buckled. His chest rose and fell in harsh, rattling gasps — every breath scraped his lungs like glass. His grin stayed wide, but his face twitched with pain, sweat and blood dripping from his chin.

With a shaky, almost sluggish motion, he dragged a blood-soaked hand across his face, smearing red across his cheek as if trying to ground himself... or keep from collapsing.

Then, out of nowhere, he burst into a manic, broken laugh.

"EEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

It wasn't powerful — the sound cracked repeatedly, strained and breathless — echoing through the silence like the unhinged cry of someone whose body had given out long before their madness did.

His grip on the axe slipped from sweat and blood — he had to tighten it with both hands just to keep from dropping it.

He swayed where he stood, shoulders trembling violently, yet his eyes gleamed with wild delight.

Seiji, Ken, and Rika stared at him — really stared — and a cold realization settled in.

He wasn't just unstable.

He was dangerously unstable...

and dangerously close to collapsing.

"EEE—heh—HEHEHE—!!"

Hideaki let out a low, shaky chuckle, barely more than a rasp.

Ken and Rika exchanged anxious glances.

Were they free now?

Would he help them?

Or would he, in his delirious, feral state, turn on them next?

Hideaki straightened slowly — too slowly — his spine trembling with the effort.

His wide, sinister smile carved itself across his exhausted features, half-hidden beneath blood-clumped brown hair.

His eyes glowed with a feverish, predatory intensity.

And his hands — quivering and stained deep red — lifted Pixie's severed head.

The head sagged in his weakening grip, blood dripping steadily down his wrist, leaving a gruesome trail with every unsteady step.

It wasn't a triumphant display.

It looked like a man at the edge of collapsing from blood loss...

still forcing himself to revel in victory.

With a sudden, clumsy burst of movement, Hideaki climbed onto the table — almost slipping — and thrust the head toward Seiji.

The twisted grin on his face was made worse by the way his body wavered, barely holding itself upright.

Seiji's stomach twisted painfully.

'How can someone be this messed up?'

Pixie's severed head still wore that unsettling, serene smile — as if she had wanted this.

Hideaki's eyes flicked up at Seiji, burning red, feverish, predatory.

"Oi, Seiji..."

His voice was ragged, almost whispering.

"Can I... kill you now...??"

His grin widened—

and then his legs nearly gave out beneath him.

Seiji's pulse spiked, adrenaline coursing painfully fast through his veins. The vile curl of Hideaki's smile twisted something cold in his stomach.

'He wants to kill me... right now...'

"No... I can't die. Not... like this. Not when it's still so much to make." Seiji whispered, gasping for breath. "And most importantly..." he quickly gazed at Ken and Rika, "I... can't let him... go even crazier."

Hideaki was seconds from collapsing.

Barely standing.

Bleeding out.

Seiji couldn't overpower him physically.

He had only his mind.

So he forced his breathing to steady — even if it trembled.

"Hideaki."

His voice was low, controlled, steady.

Not pleading — commanding.

"Look at me."

Hideaki's head twitched slightly, eyes unfocused but drawn to the tone.

"You're losing too much blood," Seiji continued calmly. "If you kill me, you won't survive the next minute."

Hideaki blinked, swaying.

Seiji pressed on — his words sharp, calculated.

"You didn't kill Pixie just to die right after, right?"

His voice remained cold, almost surgical.

"Tch-" Hidekaki hissed "I... I just wanted to kill her... Kill everyone.. in this room.. Eheh.. Heheheh..." his laugh was desparate, clinging to the growing faint unconcuesness that started to overwhelm him with every passing minute.

"You're wrong. And you are not thinking clearly," Seiji said calmly. "Put the axe down... and I'll help you. If you collapse now, you won't get another chance at anything."

A flicker of confusion crossed Hideaki's face. Then, his breathing hitched, his body shuddering.

Step by slow step... the manic haze in his eyes wavered.

His grip loosened.

And then—

the axe slipped from his hand with a heavy thud.

Hideaki's knees buckled.

His eyes rolled back slightly from exhaustion, blood loss, and adrenaline crash.

Seiji whispered sharply:

"Sit—down."

Hideaki obeyed more from instinct than thought, sinking to his knees, swaying violently.

And then his body finally gave out — collapsing forward, unconscious.

A dull THUD echoed through the room.

The entire metal table jerked, its legs screeching. One side dipped several inches.

Click.

Seiji blinked.
"That… sounded like a mechanism."

"Hide—" Rika tore her eyes from her own wrist and looked at the unconscious man with horror. "Is h-he… is he dead?!"

"He’s alive," Seiji muttered, already studying the table instead of the person lying on it. Determined. Focused. "But he just did something useful."

The cuff on his left wrist loosened — barely, but definitely.
Ken tugged at his own restraints, but nothing budged.

"Seiji, w-what’s happening?" Ken whispered, panic rising. "The table’s moving…?!"

Seiji pressed his wrist against the metal, testing the resistance.
When the table tilted more, the cuff slackened.

"Weight-triggered mechanism," he explained with the tone of someone talking calmly while the world was on fire. "The more the table tilts, the weaker the pressure on the lock."

"H-how the hell do you even know that?!" Ken snapped.

"From things I’d prefer you never have to verify in your life."

He lifted his leg and pushed Hideaki’s unconscious body further toward the edge of the table.

The metal sheet dipped.

CLICK—K!

His cuff released.

Seiji immediately sat up — unsteady, his arms numb — then slid himself toward the underside of the table, inspecting the mechanism.

Just as he suspected.
A crude system of levers, a tension rod, and a weight trigger.

"Okay," he said in a tone that allowed no argument. "You two need to hang on for a second."

He grabbed Hideaki by the arm, dragging his limp body even farther to the edge while pushing the metal bar underneath with his other hand.

The table tilted sharply.

Rika screamed, Ken froze—

KLAK—!

Ken’s cuffs popped open.

CLICK.

Rika’s followed.

Ken's eyes remained fixed on the gruesome aftermath left by Hideaki and Pixie.

The blood, scattered everywhere.

"What the f—?!"

His heart beated like crazy.

He took a small step back, swaying slightly.

And then,

His stomach lurched violently, and within seconds, he was hunched over, vomiting.

Seiji barely spared him a glance. "Ken, get it together," he said sharply, his mind already racing through their next steps.

'No time for this. No time for breaking down.'

Rika stood there as well.

But she was literally stoned.

Her eyes were wide open. She darted with them around the whole scene.

She saw: the bloody massacre, Ken's vomit, Pixie's severed head and on top of that Seiji being so calm as he was used to seeing such sick shit.

Rika stepped back two steps, covering her mouth with her hands. Now in her eyes were forming tears.

'It isn't Hideaki... it isn't real...'

She breathed rapidly, hardly able to process it.

Ken seeing in what state Rika was dashed to her – with shaking steps, and heavy breathing.

He wiped his mouth from his vomit.

'Shit... She's terrified, she's paralyzed, I can't let h-her feel not safe!'

He said in his mind, being equally paralyzed by fear.

He kept some distance at first, unsure of what to do, but slowly moved closer.

"Rika... i-it's okay now. We're safe," he said softly, though his voice trembled. He wasn't sure what else to say, but he wanted to help her calm down.

Rika nodded slightly.

Ken leaned in a bit more, trying to steady his nerves while focusing on helping her.

Awkwardly, at first. It was clear he was struggling to steady his own nerves, but he tried to do his best.

Then, he shakingly stared at Hideaki… and then at Seiji.

"Seiji… he—he... He murdered Pixie. He laughed like a psychopath. And you’re just" he motioned helplessly at Hideaki’s limp body "shoving him around like a sandbag to save us?"

"Yes. Because it was the most logical way to get us free." Seiji replied.

'…Christ. How are you even still alive?' he said while looking at Hideaki.

Then he checked Hideaki's pulse and looked as he was considering something.

Ken saw it. "You STILL want to help him?!"

Seiji stopped.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze to Ken.

Cold.
Exhausted.
And pissed.

"Ken," his voice dropped, low and firm. "If he hadn’t done what he did, you wouldn’t be standing here complaining right now. You’d be a corpse. All of us would."

Ken shut his mouth.

"How he is," Seiji continued steadily, "doesn’t erase the fact that he fought for us. He collapsed because he protected us. So yes. I intend to help him."

Rika stared at both of them, pale and speechless — realizing how horrifyingly complicated this situation truly was.

Seiji turned away, grabbed Hideaki under the arms, and pulled him toward the center of the table to keep him from slipping off the tilted edge.

Then…

He began to work.

First aid. In absolute silence.

He tore strips from Hideaki’s ruined shirt and wrapped them tight around gaping wounds.
He pressed hard on the deepest ones to stop the bleeding.
His hands were covered in Hideaki’s blood, but he didn't care.
Once the bleeding was more or less under control, Seiji checked Hideaki’s arms.

'He didn't use his Magic Ability. So apart from recovering physically from this, he should be able to use it normally.'

Then, he wiped blood from Hideaki’s face and hands, inspecting every injury with a level of precision that made even Rika stare in quiet shock.

When he finished, Hideaki still hadn’t regained consciousness —
but his breathing had steadied.

Seiji finally sat down beside him.

And only now did he allow himself to exhale.
Long.
Slow.
Like the adrenaline had only now stopped letting him pretend he wasn’t terrified.

He wiped his hands on his pants, stared at the floor for a moment…

Then stood.

"We’re tying him up.
When he wakes up, he won’t be able to move an inch."

He said it calmly, then pulled his own belt from his pants and bound Hideaki’s wrists together.

He stared down at Hideaki, cold and unblinking.

"We’re moving," he said firmly. "We need to get out of here before we lose anyone else."

For the first time that day…

Ken had nothing left to say.

Seiji took a deep breath, surveying the chaotic room.

'He turned this place into a den of madness even worse that Pixie already did. It's like a sick play to him... He's completely unhinged... And the worst of it...'

He glanced at Ken and Rika

'They saw it all.'