The Cost of Waiting

Takumi didn’t fall dramatically.

There was no final clash, no heroic push that sent the enemy flying. His knees simply gave out, like his body had reached a conclusion before the world around him had. Kazu caught him before he hit the ground. For half a second, he thought this was fine. Manageable. Takumi had been hit hard before. Too hard, sometimes. He always laughed it off, always said something stupid, always stood back up with that same crooked grin. But this time, Takumi didn’t laugh.

His weight sagged fully into Kazu’s arms, heavier than it should’ve been, like something essential had already left him behind. Blood soaked through Kazu’s sleeve, warm and unreal, spreading faster than his mind could process.

“Takumi— hey. Hey.” His voice sounded wrong. Too calm. Too normal.

Reina stumbled closer, sword still in her hand, knuckles white. The battlefield around them felt paused, as if even the 25th Hour was holding its breath. She knelt on Takumi’s other side, pressing her hand down instinctively, even though she already knew. The wound wasn’t clean. It wasn’t survivable. Takumi’s eyes fluttered open slowly, unfocused at first. When they finally landed on Kazu’s face, recognition took a moment — then settled.

“…Wow,” he muttered, breath shallow. “You look… worse than me.”

Kazu let out a sound that wasn’t a laugh. “Don’t talk,” he said. “Save it. You always talk too much.” 

Takumi smiled faintly. It was small. Tired. Real. “Guess… this is one of those times… I should’ve shut up earlier, huh.”

Reina’s lips trembled. “Takumi, stop. You’re not— you’re not allowed to joke right now.”

He turned his gaze toward her, slowly, like moving hurt. “Sorry… Reina. Didn’t mean to… scare you.”

“You didn’t,” she said too quickly. “You didn’t. Just— just hold on.”

Takumi exhaled, long and uneven.

“…You’re also bad at lying.” Silence pressed in around them.

Takumi tugged weakly at Kazu’s collar. “Oi… idiot. Come here.” Kazu bent down, forehead nearly touching his. Takumi’s breath was shallow, warm against his ear.

“Promise me something.” Kazu nodded before he could speak.

“Take care of her.” Silence.

“And if you don’t…” A tiny smile curved at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t care where I am.” He exhaled. “I’ll find you. And I’ll kill you myself.” 

Kazu’s face warmed instantly, heat creeping up in his neck despite the cold. He swallowed, eyes burning. “…You’re not allowed to say things like that now,” he murmured back, voice unsteady. “She’s… she can take care of herself.” A pause.

Then, softer — honest. “But yeah. I will.”

Takumi’s grip loosened slightly, like that answer was enough.

The Wraith stood several steps away, unmoving. Watching. Not advancing. Not retreating. His presence was oppressive in a way that had nothing to do with power — like a wall that had always been there, unnoticed, until you tried to move forward.

Takumi’s fingers twitched weakly against Kazu’s arm. “Kazu…”

“I’m here,” he said immediately. “I’m right here.” 

Takumi swallowed. It looked like it hurt. “You remember… what you said back then?” 

Kazu frowned. “What?”

“That… waiting is worse than losing.” His breath hitched. “I didn’t get it… until now.”

Kazu’s grip tightened. “Stop. You’re not dying. Don’t say it like that.” 

Takumi smiled again. This one didn’t reach his eyes. “…You always wait too long.” 

Reina shook her head, tears finally spilling over. “Please. Don’t do this. Don’t say goodbye like it’s already decided.” 

Takumi’s gaze softened when he looked at her. “You’re… strong, you know that?” She laughed shakily. “You idiot. I know.”

“…Good.” His breathing stuttered once. Then again. Kazu felt it before he understood it — the subtle slackening, the way Takumi’s weight shifted, not because he moved, but because he stopped holding himself together. “Takumi?” No answer.

“Kazu…” Reina whispered.

He stared down at his friend’s face, waiting for something. A breath that stuttered back in. A finger twitch. A half-formed complaint about how cold the ground was. Anything. “Takumi?” His voice cracked halfway through the name. He tried again, softer, like volume might matter. “Hey. You hear me?” Nothing answered. No rise of the chest. No reflexive tightening of the jaw. The warmth that had soaked into Kazu’s sleeve was already beginning to cool. The world didn’t shatter. That was the cruelest part. There was no sound like glass breaking. No lurch in reality. The air didn’t even change.

Somewhere farther down the street, debris shifted. Something dripped. The 25th Hour continued doing what it always did — existing. Kazu swallowed hard.“…No,” he whispered, like refusal alone could rewind time. He lowered Takumi to the ground with care that bordered on desperation, adjusting his shoulders, straightening his arm, as if posture might still matter. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He pressed his palm lightly against Takumi’s chest once more, then again, too light to be useful, too afraid to press harder. Nothing.

His vision blurred, edges darkening, but he forced himself to stay upright. If he moved too fast, if he reacted too quickly, something inside him felt like it would tear clean through. Reina stepped closer, sword clattering as it slipped from her grip. She reached for Kazu’s arm. “Kazu—”

He pulled away sharply, almost stumbling back. Not anger. Instinct. Like touch itself might break him open. “Don’t,” he said hoarsely. He didn’t know what he meant by it — don’t comfort me, don’t confirm it, don’t make this real. His chest felt wrong. Not heavy. Not tight. Hollow. Like something essential had been removed with surgical precision, leaving behind heat and pressure but no substance. The ringing he expected never came. Instead there was nothing, a wide, suffocating silence where thought should’ve been.

He lifted his head. And looked at the Wraith. Really looked. It stood where it had been moments ago, not planted, not braced, just there. Its shape distorted the air around it, edges bending subtly, as if space itself was unsure how close it was allowed to be. Its arms hung loose at its sides. No weapon. No stance. No readiness in the way fighters understood it. It wasn’t advancing. It wasn’t retreating. It was waiting. No satisfaction in its stillness. No cruelty in the way it occupied the space. Just… presence.

Something inside Kazu snapped — not explosively, not all at once, but like a wire pulled too tight for too long. He didn’t shout. He didn’t warn. He moved. The ground fractured beneath his feet as he surged forward, stone splitting with a sharp crack as his weight and intent slammed into it. His sword was already swinging by the time his mind caught up, a brutal diagonal cut meant to cleave straight through.

The blade hit something that wasn’t flesh.

Impact rattled up his arms like striking a solid barrier, the air itself buckling around the Wraith’s form. The resistance screamed — not metal, not bone — space compacted too tightly to give. The Wraith shifted back a fraction, the street beneath it deforming as if compressed downward by sheer mass rather than motion. Kazu didn’t stop. He twisted, reversed his grip, struck again. Then again. A flurry of blows with no rhythm, no restraint — shoulder, midsection, neck. Each swing faster, heavier, driven by momentum rather than form.

“Move!” Kazu snarled, bringing the blade down with both hands. “Fight me!”

The Wraith lifted one arm. Not to block. To contain. The space around Kazu’s sword compressed instantly. The blade slowed mid-swing, metal screaming as invisible pressure clamped down on it, forcing it to a halt inches from the Wraith’s form. The force drove Kazu to one knee, cracks spiderwebbing outward beneath him. The Wraith didn’t retreat. Instead, it stepped forward. Not with speed — with inevitability.

Kazu felt it immediately.

The space around him shrank. Not closing fast, but steadily, like walls moving inward. His breath caught as pressure wrapped around his ribs, his shoulders, his thoughts. Every instinct screamed to push, to break free, to swing harder. He did. And missed. The Wraith shifted just enough for the blade to scrape past, then struck back — not with a fist, not with a weapon, but with condensed force. The impact slammed into Kazu’s side, crushing the air from his lungs and sending pain flashing white-hot through his nerves.

Kazu staggered, boots skidding, barely keeping his balance. He forced himself upright again.

“You’re reckless,” the Wraith said calmly.

Kazu bared his teeth. “Shut up!”

“You’re hurting,” the Wraith continued, as if stating weather. “Pain makes people rush.” It stepped closer. The pressure thickened, pushing Kazu back inch by inch, bending his posture, forcing reaction instead of thought.

“Rush makes them sloppy.”

Kazu roared — a raw, animal sound, and swung with everything he had. The blade stopped dead. Not deflected. Held. The air around the sword screamed as it was locked in place, trapped between invisible planes of force. Kazu strained forward, muscles screaming, veins standing out in his arms.

The Wraith didn’t move. They were close now. Too close. Close enough for Kazu to see its eyes clearly. They weren’t cruel. They weren’t triumphant. They were tired. Old, heavy, and endlessly worn down — like someone who had been holding something up for far too long and didn’t know how to set it down anymore. Kazu froze for half a heartbeat. And in that suspended moment, it began. Not as a vision. Not as a memory shoved into his head. 

But as something that seeped into the space between them — carried by the pressure, by the closeness, by the weight of a presence that had never learned how to let go.

He wasn’t special. That was the thing no one ever said out loud, but everyone understood. He was the kind of person people leaned on without thinking about it. The kind who answered calls even when he was tired. The kind who remembered schedules, deadlines, grocery lists, emergency contacts. The kind who stood a little closer to the edge so others didn’t have to.

The oldest sibling. The reliable one. Not warm. Not expressive. Just… there.

If something needed to be done, he did it. If someone needed help, he showed up. If a promise was made, it stayed made — not because he felt strongly about it, but because breaking it never crossed his mind. That was how he loved. Quietly. Practically. In ways that didn’t look like love until they were gone.

Kazu staggered as the pressure intensified, fragments of something not his own pressing against his thoughts.

The night it happened wasn’t dramatic. No storm. No argument. No sense of doom. He was late. Again. Work ran long. Someone called in sick. A problem that wasn’t his became his responsibility the moment he noticed it. That was how things always went. He could have left it. He knew that. Someone else would’ve handled it eventually.

But “eventually” felt dangerous. So he stayed. His phone buzzed once.

Are you coming home soon?

He typed back without stopping what he was doing.

Yeah. I’ll be right back. He meant it. That was the cruelest part — he meant it completely.

Kazu’s breathing hitched as the Wraith shoved him back, sending him skidding across the fractured ground.

The accident happened in minutes. That’s what they told him later. As if time could be measured cleanly like that. Something simple. Something stupid. Something that never makes sense when explained afterward. By the time he arrived, lights were flashing. Voices were calm in the way they get when it’s already too late. He searched faces before he searched facts. He already knew. They told him what happened. They told him it was quick. They told him no one could have stopped it. They told him he shouldn’t blame himself.

They were all wrong. Because the last thing the person had done — the very last — was to wait.

Reina shouted Kazu’s name, but he barely heard her.

After that, everything broke quietly. He didn’t scream. He didn’t collapse. He didn’t even cry at first. He kept doing what he always did. Handled arrangements. Answered calls. Thanked people for condolences with the same calm voice he used for work meetings. People praised him for being “strong.” For “holding it together.” They didn’t see what happened when he was alone. How he stopped leaving rooms until he checked them twice. How he flinched when someone said “I’ll be back soon.” And the slow realization that waiting was where people disappeared.

The Wraith advanced again.

“When I entered the 25th Hour,” he said, voice low, almost distant, “I wasn’t angry.”

Kazu forced himself upright, sword trembling in his grip.

“I was terrified.”

Everything felt fragile. Like glass held together by timing alone. Every moving thing felt like a threat. Every second felt like it could steal something if he wasn’t watching. So he stayed close. Too close. He stopped letting things move freely. Stopped letting people pass without scrutiny. If something came near what he was protecting, he pressed back. Harder than necessary. Harder every time. He told himself it was protection. But protection turned into control. And control turned into pressure. And pressure crushed things — even the things he was trying to save.

That was why he attacked without hatred. Why his blows didn’t look like strikes, but like walls closing in. Why he never chased — only closed distance. Why his final form didn’t reach outward, but inward. An embrace that never loosened. Because the last time he let go, someone waited. And waiting killed them.

The Wraith didn’t push. He pulled.

Kazu felt the space around him fold inward, like an embrace that wouldn’t loosen, crushing the air from his lungs.

“Let go,” the Wraith said quietly.

Kazu screamed — not in pain, but in refusal. “No!” 

Something inside him shifted. Not power. Resolve. He thought of Takumi’s smile. Not the reckless grin from earlier — the small one. The one Takumi wore when things were bad but manageable. Like if he smiled first, the world might follow. He thought of Reina’s hands, still shaking even now, fingers curled too tight around a sword she hadn’t realized she was gripping. How she’d hesitated, not because she was weak, but because she was afraid of choosing wrong. He thought of all the moments he’d waited. Waited for the right time. Waited for certainty.

Waited until the cost was already paid by someone else.

The pressure around him swelled again, instinctive, desperate — the Wraith tightening, closing, trying to protect something that no longer existed. Kazu inhaled. Then exhaled. And for the first time since Takumi fell, he didn’t move out of instinct. He chose. Not rage. Not grief. A choice. He stepped forward into the pressure instead of pushing against it. Let it press against his ribs, his shoulders, his heart — let it remind him why it hurt. Then he pushed back. The space screamed. Not in resistance, but in release.

The pressure shattered outward, collapsing in on itself as if it had been holding its breath for far too long. The street cracked, the air rippled, and in that sudden opening, Kazu drove his blade forward. Straight through the Wraith’s center.

There was no resistance this time.

The sword passed through like breaking the surface of still water. A shockwave rolled outward, gentle compared to the violence before it, rattling debris, lifting dust into the air. The Wraith froze, his form locking in place. For the first time, his eyes widened. Not in fear. In recognition. His body began to fracture, not violently, not all at once — but slowly, like something carefully assembled finally allowed to come apart.

In the end, he didn’t scream. He didn’t curse the world. He didn’t beg to live. His arms moved on their own, closing inward, careful and instinctive — the way someone holds something precious when they’re afraid it might disappear. Like someone small. Like someone who trusted him completely. His voice barely carried, thin and unguarded, stripped of all pressure. A name. Just one. It wasn’t loud enough for anyone else to hear.

But Kazu felt it — not in his ears, but somewhere deeper. The last thing the Wraith left behind wasn’t his body, or his power. It was a sentence.

“Don’t wait the way I did.”

Then the Wraith began to dissolve, not into light, not into spectacle but into fine ash, drifting downward, settling quietly against the ruined street as if returning to where it had always belonged. The pressure vanished. No recoil. No aftershock. Just absence. The battlefield fell silent. Not the silence of victory. The silence of something finished. Kazu stood there, chest heaving, sword still extended, staring at the empty space where the Wraith had been — like he was waiting for it to say something else. Like some final justification might still arrive. Nothing did.

Reina approached slowly, steps careful, as if loud movement might disturb the quiet. She placed a hand between his shoulders, warm and real.

“It’s over,” she whispered.

Kazu didn’t answer. Because some endings don’t feel like relief. They feel like the moment waiting ends — whether you’re ready for it or not.