Three Shattered Souls (Part II)

The Shinjuku concert hall lay in ruins.

Rei had been fighting for what felt like hours. His muscles screamed in protest. Blood ran from several wounds—his cheek, his shoulder, his side. His silver flames flickered, weaker than they should have been after absorbing Akane’s corruption.

And facing him, Tsubasa was no longer truly Tsubasa.

The rapper had transformed into something hybrid, monstrous. His body wavered between humanity and a creature made of solidified sound. Cracks ran across his skin, revealing fragments of black light beneath, and his eyes had become empty screens where frequency bars pulsed endlessly. In his clenched hand, his smartphone was still streaming a live broadcast of Nekomata_Hikari.

Every attack he unleashed followed a perfect, relentless, inhuman rhythm.

Beats became shockwaves.
Bass struck like hammers.
High notes sliced like razor blades.

Rei dodged a sonic wave that pulverized the wall behind him. Bricks exploded into fragments. Dust burned his eyes.

Too slow. I’m too slow.

He counterattacked—an arc of silver flame toward Tsubasa’s torso. The yūrei-idol absorbed the impact without flinching, then retaliated with a scream that made the air itself vibrate.

Rei was hurled backward, crashing into a concrete pillar. Something cracked in his ribs.

He staggered to his feet. Around him, the concert hall barely existed anymore. Cracked walls. Sections of the ceiling collapsed, exposing electrical cables that spat sparks. Broken neon lights flickered weakly, casting a nightmarish strobe across the ruins.

Tsubasa advanced, methodical, each step landing on an invisible beat.

And then Rei heard it.

Between two assaults, in the brief silence before the next attack—

A different melody.

Soft. Familiar. Terrifyingly familiar.

A lullaby.

The same one he had heard ten years ago, when she used to sing to calm herself before concerts.

Rei’s heart clenched painfully.

“Tsukino-chan?” he whispered, his voice breaking.

Tsubasa stopped abruptly.

His body froze mid-motion, like a paused video. His eyes—glassy and empty—suddenly filled with a violet glow that had nothing to do with corruption.

Something else. Someone else.

His mouth opened. But the voice that emerged was not his.

It was a woman’s voice. Warm. Gentle. Affectionate.

Far too gentle to be honest.

“Rei-kun~”

Rei instinctively stepped back, his flames crackling a little stronger despite his exhaustion.

“Did you miss me?”
The voice came from Tsubasa’s mouth, but it belonged to Hikari. Each syllable carried the weight of years of silence, resentment, and shared memories.

“Hikari…” The name left his lips like a broken prayer. “Stop this. Leave him alone.”

Laughter echoed through the hall—not just from Tsubasa’s mouth, but from everywhere at once. Speakers spat static. The walls seemed to vibrate. Even the air trembled.

“Stop?” The voice turned almost playful. “But I’m only helping those who suffer. I help them survive the hatred of social media. I’m their friend. Their confidante. Their only ally in this cruel world.”

Tsubasa’s face glitched violently.

Feline ears appeared and vanished. Two spectral tails briefly materialized behind him, swaying like those of a satisfied cat.

Then everything snapped back to normal.

Tsubasa blinked—and for a brief instant, it was truly him. Terrified. Aware. Trapped inside his own body.

“Help… me…” His own voice, trembling, desperate. “Please…”

Then Hikari’s presence surged back, stronger, smothering Tsubasa’s voice like a hand over a mouth.

“No, no, no.” Her tone grew colder, possessive. “Tsubasa-kun, I’m protecting you. I love you. I would never abandon you. I’m your only true friend.”

A sigh, almost wistful.

“Unlike you, Rei-kun. You abandoned me when I needed you the most.”

“I didn’t abandon you!” Rei almost screamed, guilt bursting out of him like an open wound. “I tried to protect you! I tried to—”

“To what? Save me?” The laughter was bitter now, sharp as shattered glass. “You let me go. You refused to help me. And look at what I’ve become.”

Silence.

The words hung in the air, heavy with truth. Heavy with regret.

“But it’s fine, you know.” Her voice softened, almost tender. “Kageyama-sama granted my wish. He did what you never could.”

Tsubasa screamed—a sound blending human pain, raw despair, and digital distortion.

His body transformed completely. No hesitation. No lucidity. No trace of humanity.

Just a yūrei. Pure. Furious. Desperate.

He attacked with renewed violence, amplified by Hikari’s presence.

Rei blocked the first strike with a wall of flame. The impact forced him back two meters. The second assault—a concentrated sonic wave—hit him square in the chest.

He collapsed, coughing up blood.

His vision blurred. His flames almost went out entirely. The world swayed around him, and he felt his strength slipping away like sand through his fingers.

Tsubasa advanced toward him, slow, methodical. Each step rang like a death knell.

To deliver the final blow.

Rei tried to rise. His legs shook uncontrollably. His arms no longer responded. The corruption he had absorbed from Akane was poisoning him from the inside, and he had nothing left to give.

I’m going to die.

The thought was strangely calm. Almost peaceful.

After four centuries… this is how it ends. In a basement in Shinjuku, killed by someone I should have saved.

Tsubasa raised his arm. A blade of solidified sound formed in his hand, gleaming with black light.

Aoi…

Then he felt it.

A familiar pulse. Warm. Golden. Desperate.

She was coming.

And through the Resonance binding them, he felt her absolute determination, burning like a sun.

Aoi burst through the hall’s door with her shoulder, ignoring the pain that exploded through her body.

The scene before her froze her blood.

Rei on the ground, broken, bleeding. A yūrei looming over him, ready to strike. And between them, a spiritual pressure so dense she could barely breathe.

She didn’t think.

She ran.

“REI!”

Her golden light erupted around her—not controlled, not precise. Just pure. Raw. Desperate.

She threw herself between Rei and the descending blade of sound.

The impact was devastating.

Golden light collided with black energy in an explosion that shook the entire building. Aoi was hurled backward, but she had deflected the strike. The blade missed its target.

Rei was alive.

Tsubasa staggered back, destabilized by the intervention. His form wavered, unstable.

Aoi forced herself upright, swaying. Her legs threatened to give way. She had already given everything to save Ren, and now—

But she felt Rei through their bond. Weak. Injured. But alive.

Together, she thought. We have to do this together.

She reached out her hand toward him.

Rei looked at her—his golden eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. He understood. Without words. Without explanation.

He took her hand.

The Resonance activated.

Not a partial, cautious, controlled fusion.

This was total. Absolute. Two essences recognizing each other, embracing, becoming one.

The resulting light was blinding—silver and gold intertwined, pulsing like a single heart.

Tsubasa screamed.

Hikari’s presence screamed as well—surprised, terrified, fascinated.

Rei and Aoi moved together. One body, two souls, one will. They knew where the other would strike before the thought even formed. Their powers were no longer separate—they were one.

Rei attacked Tsubasa’s left flank, silver flames consuming layers of corruption. At the same instant, Aoi struck the right, golden light purifying the emotions holding the yūrei together.

Tsubasa faltered.

A second attack. Coordinated. Perfect.

A third.

The yūrei’s form began to disintegrate. Fragments of solidified sound dissolved into luminous particles. The screens in his eyes flickered, then went dark.

And at the center of it all, Tsubasa—the real Tsubasa—emerged.

Exhausted. Terrified. But human.

He collapsed, unconscious but alive.

Rei and Aoi separated, gasping, and fell to their knees side by side. The Resonance still pulsed between them, stronger than ever. Deeper.

More dangerous.

“We… we did it,” Aoi whispered.

Rei nodded, unable to speak. Blood still flowed from his wounds, but a faint smile touched his lips.

They stayed there for a long moment, leaning against each other, unable to move.

Kuzunoha materialized amid the debris as if she had always been there—immaculate white kimono, enigmatic smile, pink eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“Well then,” she said, surveying the carnage. “You two certainly know how to throw a party.”

She knelt beside Tsubasa, checking his condition with an expert gesture.

“I’ll be taking him in for observation as well.” She looked up at Rei and Aoi. “You both look awful.”

Rei tried to answer, but his phone vibrated.

So did Aoi’s.

At the same time.

They exchanged a glance, then looked at their screens.

A video. Sender: unknown number.

The image showed the Tokyo Dome. Empty. Silent. Endless rows of vacant seats stretched beneath cold, pallid lighting.

Then Kageyama appeared at the center of the stage, arms spread wide, a predatory smile on his face.

“Still alive? Congratulations.”

His voice echoed through the empty Dome like that of a god in his temple.

“Did you enjoy yourselves? You deprived my ōyūrei of its main courses, but it won’t change a thing. I still have the appetizers… and desserts.”

Behind him, an immense shadow materialized. Something colossal, made of screens, emotional threads, and screaming faces. The ōyūrei. Nearly complete.

“It fed on their suffering and the hatred directed at them. And now…”

Kageyama’s smile widened.

“…it’s ready to be born.”

The shadow behind him pulsed—alive, hungry.

“See you at the Tokyo Dome. Keep entertaining me.”

The screens went black.

Silence fell once more over the ruined concert hall.

Rei and Aoi looked at each other. Exhausted. Broken. But unbroken in spirit.

Kuzunoha vanished with Tsubasa in a shimmer of white light.

Outside, the moon rose over Tokyo.

A blood-red moon.