Don't Make It Mean Nothing

Kazu felt the pull before he saw anything. It wasn’t directional at first — just a persistent pressure in his chest, like gravity had decided to lean. The city around him continued its careful stillness: lights obedient, shadows misplaced, time stretched thin and uncooperative. But beneath it all was something heavier than silence. Something exerting itself.

He adjusted his path without consciously deciding to, turning down streets that bent subtly toward the pressure, following distortions only someone familiar with the 25th Hour would notice. Bent reflections in windows. Sound arriving a fraction too late. Cracks in pavement that hadn’t been there the last time he passed. This wasn’t a small manifestation.

This wasn’t someone losing control in a single room. This was structural.

Kazu slowed when the ground vibrated not sharply, not violently, but with a dull, sustained tremor that carried through his boots and into bone. He stopped walking entirely, palm resting against the cold brick wall of a shuttered store.

That’s new, he thought. The 25th Hour usually swallowed sound. Muted it. Smothered chaos until it became intimate. Whatever was ahead of him wasn’t being smothered at all. It was pushing back. A block later, the air smelled wrong. Metallic. Burnt. Blood, faint but unmistakable. Kazu exhaled through his nose and moved again, faster now but not rushing. He didn’t draw his weapon yet. Panic made sloppy choices, and sloppy choices got people killed, especially here.

The first body lay near the curb. Not dead, not yet — but unmoving, chest barely rising. A shattered storefront behind him suggested how he’d landed there. Blood slicked the pavement beneath his shoulder, spreading slowly, unhurried. Kazu knelt, two fingers at the man’s neck. Alive. Barely. He stood again, jaw tightening. Okay. So it’s already started.

The street ahead opened into a wide intersection — and that was where the pressure became impossible to ignore. The wraith occupied the center of it. Kazu stopped short, breath catching not in fear but in involuntary recalibration. He’d seen wraiths before. Fought them. Killed them. This one wasn’t louder or more grotesque than the others. It was heavier. Not taller, just… denser. Like the space around it had been compressed to make room.

Its feet were planted in cracked asphalt, fractures spiderwebbing outward with each subtle shift of weight. Blood, dark, viscous — ran freely from multiple wounds, dripping without urgency. It did not care. People surrounded it in a loose, broken arc — not a team, not coordinated, just survivors who hadn’t run yet. Steel rang and rebounded. Someone screamed a name that didn’t change anything. And then Kazu saw him.

Takumi stood off to the left, braced against a bent light pole, shirt soaked red, breathing shallow but controlled in that familiar way that meant he was fighting through pain rather than reacting to it. Kazu’s brain stalled. Takumi? Here? In the 25th Hour?

“—Takumi!” he shouted before thinking better of it.

Takumi’s head snapped up. His eyes widened, not in relief, not in fear — but disbelief so sharp it almost looked like anger. “Kazu?” he rasped. “What the hell are you doing here?” Kazu didn’t answer. He was already moving, drawing his weapon in a smooth, practiced motion, positioning himself instinctively between Takumi and the wraith’s line of attention.

“You’ve been fighting these things?” Kazu asked, low, incredulous. Takumi huffed a laugh that ended in a cough. “You say that like you haven’t.” Kazu glanced at him sharply. “You know about the Hour?” Takumi didn’t look away from the wraith. “Apparently I do now.” There was no time for more.

The wraith turned. Not abruptly. Not aggressively. Its gaze settled on Kazu like weight being redistributed.

“…another,” it said.

The voice was wrong, not distorted, not monstrous, just exhausted. Worn thin. Like someone speaking through damage they hadn’t acknowledged yet.

Kazu felt Reina before he saw her.

A shift in the air. A tightening behind his ribs. He glanced to his right just as she emerged from a side street, coat torn at the hem, crimson blade already in her hand, eyes sharp and already cataloging the scene with frightening speed. Her gaze locked onto the wraith. Then flicked to Takumi. Then to Kazu. Of course, she thought. Of course he’s here too. “Kazu,” she said, breathless but steady.

“That thing’s not isolated.”

“No kidding.” She didn’t smile.

The wraith moved. This time, it stepped forward. The ground buckled beneath the motion, a visible wave rippling through the asphalt. Two fighters were thrown off balance instantly — one slammed into a parked car hard enough to dent metal, the other collapsing with a scream as something in their leg bent the wrong way.

Reina reacted without hesitation, crimson sword snapping up as she closed the distance in a sharp diagonal sprint. She didn’t slow. Didn’t hesitate. The blade carved across the wraith’s shoulder in a brutal, committed slash, tearing into flesh already wounded. Blood sprayed. The wraith staggered half a step. It did not retaliate. It looked at her.

“…you,” it said. “You left.”

Reina froze. Not for long — just long enough. The wraith’s arm swept outward. Takumi shouted her name.

Kazu moved on instinct, tackling Reina sideways as the shockwave tore through the space she’d been standing in. They hit the ground hard, breath knocked from both of them, debris raining down in sharp fragments. Reina rolled to her feet immediately, sword raised, knuckles white around the hilt, pulse racing.

“What did it say?” Kazu demanded. She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze stayed fixed on the wraith. “It recognizes language,” she said instead. “Specific phrases.” The staff-wielding man from earlier staggered forward, blood streaking his temple. “Now’s not the time for analysis!”

“I disagree,” Reina snapped, already repositioning, blade tracking the wraith’s center mass. “It hesitates. Watch it.” As if to prove her point, the wraith paused when one of the fighters screamed — a young woman clutching her arm, blood soaking through torn fabric. The wraith’s head tilted. Its fingers twitched.

“…don’t,” it said quietly.

No one understood what it meant.

Takumi lunged anyway. He moved badly — injured, exhausted — but deliberately, blade flashing as he drove it deep into the wraith’s side where earlier wounds had weakened structure. The strike landed clean. The wraith convulsed. Its reaction wasn’t rage. It was grief. The pressure surged outward, uncontrolled this time, flinging Takumi back like a discarded object. He hit the pavement hard, skidding, blood smearing in his wake. Kazu swore and ran. He slid to Takumi’s side, hauling him upright just enough to assess damage. Broken ribs. Internal bleeding. Maybe worse. 

“You idiot,” Kazu muttered, voice shaking despite himself.

Takumi grinned weakly. “Still not more than you.” He chuckled, then winced. Kazu huffed a short laugh. “Your jokes are still terrible. Even now.” Reina joined them, crouching low, sword planted into the ground for balance as she scanned the wraith’s movements. “He can’t keep moving like this.” Takumi coughed. “Good thing I don’t plan to.”

The wraith loomed closer. Step. Crack. Step. Crack. People scattered now — not retreating, just repositioning desperately. Someone tripped and didn’t get back up. Someone screamed a name that had already stopped answering. The wraith spoke again, louder this time, not shouting, just no longer restraining itself.

“I waited,” it said. “I stayed. I held the door. I said I would be back.” Its gaze swept across them, unfocused, distant. “They believed me.” Reina felt it then. Not sympathy. Recognition. Her grip faltered, just for a fraction, and the wraith’s attention snapped back to her instantly. “You,” it said again. “You know.”

Reina stood slowly, crimson blade lifting with her. Kazu shot her a look. “Reina—”

“I know,” she said quietly. “I know what it feels like.”

The wraith stopped advancing. Around them, the fight didn’t pause. Steel rang. Blood flowed. But between Reina and the wraith, something held.

“I didn’t mean to leave,” the wraith said. “I just thought… later would be enough.”

Reina’s throat tightened. “Later never is,” she replied.

The wraith’s shoulders slumped — just slightly.

Takumi pushed himself up, shaking. “Reina, I don’t think—”

The wraith’s hand moved. Not toward Reina. Toward Takumi. Kazu reacted instantly, intercepting with a brutal, reckless strike that tore deep into the wraith’s forearm. The limb jerked back, blood spraying across the street. The wraith roared. Not in anger..In pain that had waited too long. The pressure exploded outward. Buildings groaned. Windows shattered. People were thrown like debris. Kazu hit the ground hard, vision blurring. Reina slammed into a wall, breath knocked out of her in a sharp, panicked gasp.

Takumi screamed — not from pain, but warning.

“Kazu—!”

The air compressed violently around its arm, space folding inward like something being crushed in a fist. Kazu rolled just in time, the force slamming into the ground where his head had been a second earlier. The pavement imploded, asphalt fracturing and lifting like broken teeth.

Someone wasn’t fast enough.

The staff-wielding man screamed as the pressure caught his torso mid-step. There was a sound, wet and final — as ribs collapsed inward. He hit the ground wrong, spine bending at an angle bodies weren’t meant to take. He didn’t die immediately. He gasped, hands clawing uselessly at the ground, blood bubbling from his mouth in short, desperate bursts.

“Hey— hey—” he rasped, eyes unfocused. “I— I didn’t—”

No one knew his name. No one could help him. His eyes rolled back, breath stuttering once more before stopping entirely.

The wraith didn’t even look at the body.

“Fragile,” it said calmly. “All of you.”

Reina staggered upright, ears ringing, vision swimming. She forced focus, locking onto the wraith despite the instinct screaming at her to run. “Kazu!” she shouted. “It’s testing reactions, not finishing strikes!”

“As if that helps!” someone yelled back.

The woman with the short blade, the first one Takumi had noticed earlier, darted forward again, desperation sharpening her movements. She moved low, fast, blade flashing toward the wraith’s knee, exploiting the same wounded joint others had struck before. She almost made it. The wraith’s leg shifted. Not quickly. Precisely. Its foot came down on her ankle. There was a crack so loud it echoed off the buildings. She screamed — raw, animal — collapsing as bone pierced through skin. Before she could even fall fully, the wraith’s hand closed around her head.

Takumi shouted. “NO—!”

Too late. The pressure spiked inward. Her scream cut off mid-sound, skull collapsing with a sound like breaking pottery. Blood sprayed across the street in a wide arc, spattering storefront glass and Takumi’s already soaked sleeve. Her body dropped bonelessly. Silence followed — thick, suffocating.

The wraith finally looked down.

“…messy,” it said. “I hate when it's messy.”

Kazu felt something inside him snap. He lunged. This time, he didn’t bother with precision. He drove his weapon straight into the wraith’s side again, twisting hard, muscles screaming as resistance fought him every centimeter of the way. Blood poured out more than before — slick and heavy, coating his hands.

The wraith turned its head slowly.

“You’re angry,” it observed. “Good. Anger makes you predictable.” Its elbow drove backward. Kazu took the hit square in the chest. The impact lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the side of a delivery truck hard enough to dent metal. He slid down, gasping, lungs refusing to cooperate.

Reina screamed his name and charged.

She didn’t unleash power — she unleashed herself. The crimson sword flashed again and again in brutal, reckless arcs, each strike carving deep, tearing wounds across the wraith’s torso. Flesh split open. Blood poured freely. Something darker pulsed beneath the damage.

The wraith staggered. Actually staggered. For the first time, irritation bled into its expression. Takumi forced himself upright, vision tunneling, blood soaking through his side faster now. Every breath was a knife. The wraith’s gaze snapped to him instantly.

“You,” it said. “You’re still standing.”

Takumi wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah,” he said weakly. “You seem disappointed.”

“I am,” the wraith replied without hesitation. “You should have stayed down.”

Its hand moved. Faster than before. Takumi didn’t dodge. He couldn’t. The force hit him like a collapsing building, slamming him into the ground face-first. The impact crushed breath from his lungs, ribs giving way with sickening ease. Reina ran. Kazu dragged himself upright, screaming Takumi’s name, legs barely responding. They were too far.

The wraith loomed over Takumi, blood dripping steadily from its own wounds, pooling around both of them.

“You fight like someone who thinks effort matters,” it said. “That kind of belief is… stupidly admirable.”

Takumi laughed — wet, broken. “You talk too much.”

The wraith tilted its head. Takumi looked past it, not at the wraith, but at Kazu. Their eyes met. Takumi smiled.

“Hey,” he said, barely audible. “Don’t— make it mean nothing.”

The wraith brought its arm down. The ground exploded. When the dust settled, Takumi didn’t move. Reina dropped to her knees mid-run, a sound tearing out of her that she didn’t recognize as her own. Kazu hit the ground beside Takumi seconds later, hands shaking as he reached for him. No pulse. No breath. Just blood — too much of it — soaking into broken asphalt. The wraith stepped back. Not hurried. Satisfied.  “See?” it said, addressing no one and everyone. “I don’t need rage. I don’t need hate.” 

It looked at Reina. Then at Kazu.

“I just need you to keep choosing wrong.”

The pressure began to build again — heavier than before, the city itself groaning in protest. Reina stood slowly, tears streaking her face but eyes burning with something sharper now.

“You’re wrong,” she said. “We’re still here.”

The wraith’s expression hardened. “Then,” it said quietly, “let’s correct that.”

And the 25th Hour screamed — not breaking yet, but no longer holding.