Chapter 7: The Day The World Went Away (6)

Haruka's eyes fluttered open. Her lungs struggled against the weight of her own ribs, each shallow breath dragging the metallic taste of blood across her tongue. Sound reached her as if filtered through water—muffled, distorted, unreal. Her vision swam, the edges dimming as darkness pressed inward. She tried to move and paid for it instantly, pain tearing through her side and locking her in place.

“K-Kuro…?”

He stood at the middle of the monorail car, a statue carved from living flesh. His fingers were locked around his weapon. His face, which should have shown terror or rage or anything at all, was empty.

She forced her eyes away, fixing instead on the door. The glass had spider-webbed with cracks, fractures branching like frost across a winter window. On the other side pressed a wall of hands—palms smearing the surface, fingers curling, fists pounding. She caught sight of a body. Flesh vanished strip by strip under grasping fingers.

That jacket. That haircut.

No.

No—

NONONONONONONO!

The car lurched violently as the infected slammed into it again. Metal groaned. The frame buckled.

“Kuro!” The name tearing from her bloodied lips.

He turned. Vacant eyes met hers. Whatever lived behind them had retreated somewhere unreachable.

The glass gave way. Infected poured through the opening, teeth bared. A woman with half her face missing collapsed onto the floor, torn flesh dangling, her single remaining eye locking onto Haruka.

I’m going to die.

Pale, blood-slick hands stopped inches from her face.

What?

Her body lifted from the floor, legs dangling uselessly in empty space. A shriek of tortured metal filled the car as the ceiling split apart, fragments peeling upward into open sky.

Light flooded in.

Above, the dead hung suspended. Hundreds of bodies drifted amid the debris—concrete slabs, shattered storefronts, twisted beams of metal. Mizuhana Mall had come undone, surrendering itself piece by piece to an unseen force pulling everything skyward.

At the center of it all was Ren. Eyes glowing faintly, features drawn tight with effort. Against the scale of destruction spiraling around him, he looked almost fragile.

Haruka floated too. The city stretched beneath her, the ocean meeting the horizon in an endless line. Wind brushed against her skin, cool and strangely gentle. Glass towers slid past, their reflections catching fractured images of survivors suspended in midair—faces twisted with fear, mouths open in silent disbelief. All of them drawn toward the distant outline of the offshore airport rising from the sea.

The infected fell first, their bodies striking the water with explosive force. Towers of spray erupted where they hit, the once-calm sea shredded into violent white bursts. Then came the wreckage—entire sections of the mall vanishing beneath churning waves.

Haruka’s feet touched solid ground with barely a sound. The world accepted her weight again as if nothing extraordinary had happened. Her knees wavered, but she stayed upright.

Around her, others landed in staggered silence. Sea water fell in sheets as the chaos unwound itself slowly, reluctantly, until only the living remained.

Her attention narrowed to him.

The air itself seemed to bend around Ren as he descended. He knelt at the edge of the fractured landing strip, Reina’s body laid carefully before him. His shoulders were bowed, head lowered. From a distance, he looked small. Diminished.

Haruka’s gaze drifted across the tarmac. A woman clutched her throat, lips working soundlessly. Two men leaned against one another for support. Everywhere, the same aftermath—some staring skyward, others refusing to look up at all.

Her mother stood apart. While others wept or stared blankly, she held herself rigid, arms locked tight around her torso. When Haruka followed her stare to Ren, a chill slid through her—there was no shock there. Her face held the grim certainty of someone watching a long-predicted storm finally break upon the shore.

She searched for Kurobane without thinking.

There. He was where gravity had left him, fingers still curled around his weapon as if he no longer remembered why he held it.

Midori’s grin flashed through her mind, sharp and immediate.

Gone.

Her stomach twisted. Her breath caught. The ground felt suddenly unreliable beneath her feet.

None of this feels real.

She looked back at Ren. Water streaked down his face as he tilted his head toward Reina’s body. The man who had bent gravity itself looked a boy now—stripped down, kneeling in the false rain.

The chaos in her chest ebbed, leaving behind a single, clear impulse. Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up, carrying her toward him. Words rose to her tongue—his name, maybe—but vanished as she struck an invisible barrier.

Her boots scraped as she stumbled back half a step.

Not just her.

Everyone recoiled at once, as though pushed by the same unseen force. She didn’t need to hear him to understand.

“Stay back.”

She bit into her lower lip until she tasted blood.

Through the blur of falling rain, she noticed a single figure standing where the others had been forced back. The girl stepped forward—once, then again—her movements unbalanced, each step threatening to give way beneath her.

“Reina…”

Her fingers hovered above the body, shaking. When the first sob broke free, it tore through her ears—a thin, keening sound that belonged to someone much younger.

“Big sister. Please wake up.”

Footsteps slapped against wet concrete. Haruka turned as a woman in an oversized flight jacket hurried across the runway, soaked hair plastered to her temples. She slowed as she reached the group, breath ragged, eyes moving quickly from face to face.

“Hey—hey!” Her voice was firm, disbelief edging every word. “Are you—are you people okay? Did anyone else—?”

The question faltered.

Her gaze caught on Ren, dropped to Reina, then fixed on the girl kneeling in the rain.

“I—Okay. Okay.” The woman straightened, drawing herself together. “My name’s Aoyama Mizuki. I’m a pilot. Commercial. Or—I was. If you’re looking for the military or the police, they’re gone. I stayed behind. Thought maybe… maybe someone else would make it. If you can walk,” she said gently, “follow me. Please.”

Aircraft littered the runways—some pristine, others split open and burned. In the distance, control towers stood against a washed-out sky, their shattered windows framing the still forms inside. Bodies lay everywhere—whole and broken alike.

The sanctuary was gone.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

They clustered along the runway’s edge, arranged like luggage.

“This place was safe, for a while.”

Attention shifted to Mizuki, and Haruka turned with the rest.

“On the first day,” she continued, “before anyone really understood what was happening, they thought they could contain it. Checkpoints at every entrance. Medical staff in hazmat suits. Temperature scanners. Blood tests.” Her lips twitched. “It didn’t matter. A few sick people were already inside. More than a few. Panic spread fast. Whole wings were shut down and sealed off. I’m sure you know how the rest goes…”

Her shoulders lifted and fell in a measured breath.

“When the news about the bombs came, it was only a matter of time. The final evacuation group left two days ago. I stayed behind. I begged them to let me,” she went on. “They told me there was no one left. That waiting was pointless. That I’d die here.” She looked up again, and this time the smile reached her eyes. “But here you all are.”

Her mother stepped forward, fingertips brushing Mizuki’s sleeve with unexpected gentleness. “You’re very brave.”

“Or very stupid. Survival instinct was never my strong suit.”

Someone near the back shifted. “So what are we standing around here for, then?” a man snapped. “We need to go.”

A few voices echoed the sentiment. Shigure joined them, smoothing his suit jacket with practiced fingers, water beading along the expensive fabric. His expression settled—a mask of reasonableness. “Exactly. Every second we waste here is another second closer to the bombs, to our untimely demise. Pretending we have choices is a luxury we can’t afford.”

Haruka met those beady eyes. “And where have you been?”

“Securing provisions,” he replied, voice smooth as polished stone. “Following directives from those with crisis expertise. And you, Sumire-san? What exactly was your contribution?”

The accusation should have ignited rage—indignation, anything at all. Instead, she felt her insides hollow out, replaced by a cold, heavy weight sinking through her stomach to the soles of her feet.

“You’re pathetic.”

Shigure stiffened. “What did you just say to me?”

She left the question unanswered and glanced past him to where her mother stood, eyes wide with that familiar look—part warning, part plea—that had followed Haruka since childhood.

“We will leave,” she said to the group, her voice carrying over. “But we wait for everyone first. All of us made it this far. No one gets left behind now.”

Shigure let out a short laugh. “How naive. The bombs won’t wait while you play hero.”

Heat surged beneath her skin, molten and sharp. For a heartbeat, she saw herself lunging at him—hands closing around his throat, squeezing until his smugness drained away. The image flickered and vanished. He wasn’t worth the energy it would take to hate him. Not anymore.

“Spoken like a true coward.”

"Fighting now only wastes what precious time we have left. For God's sake, look around you. Hasn’t there been enough fighting already?" Hayami pleaded, limping forward, Sakura steadying her weight.

“I’m the only pilot here,” Mizuki said, her calm voice cutting cleanly through the tension. “So unless someone’s been hiding an aviation license, you’re stuck with my decisions.”

Her gaze traveled from face to face, quietly assessing. When it finally landed on her, something passed between them—recognition, maybe understanding. Haruka didn’t bother hiding the plea in her expression.

Mizuki nodded.

“We’ll stay. Just a little longer.”

Shigure spun on his heel and stalked away. Amira hesitated, then followed.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Lilly knelt opposite Reina’s body, hands resting uselessly in her lap. The tears were gone, though the grief remained. Her throat felt scorched from the inside out. Every few breaths her chest caught on some invisible hook.

She forced herself to look up.

Salt water streaked Ren’s face in thin rivulets, clinging to his pale lashes before dripping from his chin. His attention remained fixed on Reina’s form, as though nothing else existed. The man who had torn concrete and steel apart, who had made corpses rain from the sky, looked impossibly small now.

“How did she die?”

A tremor passed through him as he inhaled. “When I reached her, she was already—” His breath stuttered. “I tried. I really did. But I…”

It was the most he had ever said to her.

Anger flared in Lilly’s chest—hot and immediate. He should have been there sooner. He should have saved her. He should have used whatever impossible power he possessed before it was too late. The accusations crowded her throat, ready to spill.

Her gaze dropped to his hand, caught the tremor—fingers digging in as though the ground itself were the only thing keeping him together. The fire guttered out.

She wiped her sleeve across her face and swallowed hard.

“You—”

Ren convulsed.

One moment he was still; the next he lurched forward, spine arching as if something inside him were tearing free. She recoiled instinctively.

“Ren—?”

A wet, tearing sound escaped him before dark blood spilled from his mouth, splattering across his lap.

“Oh—oh god—Ren!”

Behind him, the sky split open. A pillar of radiance erupted upward, impossibly bright, carving through the clouds as though they were smoke.

Terror and awe collided in her chest.

He lifted his head. Blood traced the corner of his mouth, his breathing shallow and uneven. Yet his eyes were clear—sharp, focused, almost painfully lucid.

The column of light roared behind him.

“Lilly,” he said quietly, “you need to go.”