Chapter 7: The Day The World Went Away (8)

Every muscle in Haruka’s arms screamed in protest. She staggered forward, her mother’s unconscious form a deadweight that left twin furrows in the dust as her heels snagged on shattered concrete.

Pain stabbed through her skull with each lurching step, white flashes pulsing at the corners of her vision. Around her, the terminal had transformed into a hellscape—walls sagging like candle wax, metal beams contorted into impossible angles, and smoke so dense it scraped her lungs with each breath. The ground shuddered beneath her feet, an endless, nauseating tremor that refused to subside.

Above, the crimson twilight fractured as blinding light slashed through it without warning. Her body recoiled at the flash, but her legs kept moving.

“Come on,” she whispered through cut lips.

“Sumire-san!”

The voice cut through the chaos a moment before Haruto materialized through the wall of smoke, his face a canvas of grime. In one fluid motion, he was beside them, muscles tensing as he took on half her mother’s weight.

“Let me help,” he said, voice strained but determined.

Hayami followed, dragging one leg, her arm supporting a boy—the eldest of Ren and Reina’s rescued children. His eyes ping-ponged between the terminal’s disintegrating walls and the light above them.

The sight of them alive knocked the wind from Haruka’s lungs, a wave of relief so intense she tasted bile at the back of her throat.

Haruto’s voice cracked. “What now?”

His plea yanked her back to reality. Every pair of eyes fixed on her face—expectant, desperate. As if she held answers she’d never claimed to possess.

Her lips parted—

A violent plume of smoke erupted beside them. Amira lurched through the haze, hair plastered to her forehead, eyes fevered and darting. She bypassed the others completely, her focus snapping onto Haruka with an urgency that bordered on madness.

“You…”

Amira’s lips trembled. The word barely reached Haruka through the chaos.

“You have to come with me. Now. It’s him…”

She found her mother’s bloodied face. For one heartbeat, vengeance seemed meaningless—until Amira’s next words carved through her hesitation.

“He’s going to do it again.”

Haruka squeezed her mother’s limp hand before rising.

“Keep her safe,” she commanded the others, her voice steadier than her legs. “Hide. We’ll be back.”

With a curt nod to Amira:

“Show me.”

Only once did Haruka falter, her gaze catching on her mother’s limp body cradled in Haruto’s arms, on Hayami’s bewildered expression, on the terror etched across the faces of the survivors who had made it this far against impossible odds.

Her feet were moving, pounding against broken concrete, lungs burning as she chased Amira’s retreating figure. Overhead, the red sky fractured, white light erupted in violent pulses, each flash freezing the world in grotesque tableaux—billowing smoke, bodies caught mid-fall—before darkness swallowed everything again, leaving only the burning glow of twilight.

Amira’s scream cut through the chaos.

“What the hell is happening?!”

When Haruka caught her eye, she saw only wild panic there—pupils blown wide, as though Amira were witnessing the end of everything she’d ever known.

The shattered hallway windows screamed with wind, each gust sweeping bodies from the tarmac like autumn leaves. Haruka watched in horror as limbs cartwheeled skyward, until one corpse slammed against the remaining glass. It exploded inward—a grotesque missile of torn clothing and mangled flesh that sprayed crimson across the walls before tumbling past them.

A blade of light sliced through the aircraft lineup, cleaving steel and shearing wings as if they were paper. Some planes erupted in fireballs, while others simply separated, bisected with surgical precision.

The twilight’s crimson glow surrendered to blinding white.

Far below, a lone figure moved through the devastation. Unmistakable even at this distance.

No.

Not him.

Each halting step drew him closer to the precipice where the tarmac gave way to nothingness. The ocean hurled itself against the cliff face, sending geysers of foam skyward with each assault. He teetered at the edge.

“Kur—”

Her voice abandoned her.

His silhouette froze against the inferno above.

Gravity claimed him.

Gone.

Haruka’s lungs seized mid-breath, her chest a hollow cave. The horizon lurched sideways as fingers dug into her bicep, anchoring her to the present.

“Move it!”

The command shattered the vacuum, and suddenly there was noise again—deafening, relentless noise. She stumbled forward, legs moving on instinct alone as the sky continued to tear apart overhead.

Amira halted so abruptly that Haruka nearly slammed into her back. On the floor ahead lay Mizuki’s crumpled form. Her flight jacket glistened black with blood.

Haruka dropped to her knees beside the motionless body, fingers brushing her throat while her gaze fixed on the dark, matted hair where something had struck with brutal force.

Not twenty feet away, a compact jet waited with its hatch ajar. Someone spoke from within—words indistinct, but tone unmistakable. Metal steps rang under deliberate footfalls.

Shigure appeared in the doorway.

His designer suit hung in tatters, the fabric dark with grime and darker still with what could only be blood. Despite this, he descended with the casual grace of a man stepping onto a yacht rather than into the apocalypse.

When his gaze locked onto Haruka, his lips curved upward—not in greeting, but in triumph. His voice sliced through the air, casual as a dinner invitation.

“There you are.”

Ice crystallized in Haruka’s veins.

She pivoted.

Behind her stood Amira, arms extended, pistol leveled at Haruka’s chest.

“I’m sorry…”

Shigure straightened his gore-spattered tie, fingers moving with the precision of a man adjusting cufflinks before a gala.

“Our story deserves a proper ending, wouldn’t you agree?”

His eyes darted toward Mizuki’s still form.

“Poor thing believed she was special.”

The corners of his mouth curled upward, revealing teeth.

“As if she alone could fly.”

“This can’t be happening,” Haruka whispered, her words meant for no one and everyone. The ground seemed to fall away beneath her feet.

Though Amira’s pistol wavered slightly, its aim never left Haruka’s chest.

“You’re all idiots,” she rasped. “He’s right about that. If I stay with you, I’ll die. Someone plays hero. Someone snaps. We were a ticking fucking time bomb from the very beginning.” The muscles in her neck went taut. “Look around us. There’s no surviving this. Not for me.” Moisture caught the crimson light in her eyes. “I’ve crawled through hell to keep breathing, Haruka. I won't die here.”

Her mouth twisted with disgust.

“You really are family. So why drag me here? Why not fly away with your brother and leave us all to die?”

“Because I instructed her to bring you,” Shigure interjected. Each footfall on the aircraft steps rang with deliberate precision as debris crunched beneath his shoes. “And she made the wise choice to obey.”

Stepping over Mizuki’s body as if it were nothing more than discarded trash, he closed the distance until Haruka could smell his cologne beneath the metallic scent of blood.

“Don’t worry about her killing you,” he said, nodding toward Amira. “That privilege belongs to me alone. Though not at this moment. Not in this place. You’re coming with us. I want to take my time with you.”

Her hand moved before his mind could catch up. Shigure’s face transformed from smug confidence to naked alarm.

“Shit!”

Too late—her fingers had already found what they sought inside her jacket. The small revolver slid into her grip with the familiarity of an old friend, its weathered metal sending a chill through her fingers.

Her father’s words echoed in her memory as muscle memory took over.

Thumb on hammer. Hips squared.

Locked on target.

Shigure’s voice shattered the air.

“SHOOT HER!”

His face contorted—those reptilian features she had grown to despise now crumpling under raw terror.

Her sight compressed to a pinpoint. Nothing existed beyond her ragged breath and the deafening drum of blood in her temples.

The standoff held.

Neither pulled the trigger.

Shigure went rigid, eyes fixed on the black hole of the revolver barrel.

The sky erupted in flame. Harsh white brilliance washed over the runway, obliterating every shadow, carving each silhouette into stark relief.

Haruka caught it—that infinitesimal tell. A hairline fracture raced across Shigure’s composure.

His arms shot outward.

His chin jerked skyward.

His face contorted.

“Fine! Do it! Shoot me!”

A thread of saliva hung from his bottom lip as he lurched forward.

“Pull the trigger! Shoot me! Shoot me! FUCKING SHOOT ME!” His words devolved into a feral howl. “Do it if you can! DO IT IF YOU’VE GOT THE GUTS!”

Haruka’s jaw clenched until pain shot through her temples. Something molten and vicious coursed through her, igniting every nerve ending.

This monster.

This cancer.

How many had he broken—fathers, mothers, children without futures, her own reflection each morning, hollowed by his cruelty. Wrong after wrong. Wound after wound.

Do it.

The thought clipped through her consciousness, sharp and cold.

He deserves to die.

A laugh burst from him.

“You can’t do it!” His grin stretched too wide, corners quivering. “Just as I predicted.” He lurched forward again, eyes fever-bright with victory. “This is why I’ll always be above you.” Each breath came in shallow gasps, words spilling faster than he could control them. “Ordinary people—followers—servants—you collapse under real freedom!” His lips spasmed at the edges. “ I knew it! I’ve always known. I’m superior!”

The gun dragged her arm downward, its barrel dipping toward the blood-spattered concrete.

Was he right?

Her grip constricted around the revolver until her knuckles blanched white. She leveled the barrel at the center of his forehead, where a single dark dot would end everything. Her mind gave the command. Yet something invisible seized her trigger finger, paralyzing it against her will.

Shigure’s manic laughter withered on his lips. His triumphant grin flattened. His glare hardened into glacial contempt.

He barked an order.

“Amira! To me!”

Haruka caught the movement in her peripheral vision—Amira’s silhouette pivoting, her body careening toward him with the jerky rhythm of a marionette. The merciless light above them faded, leaving only crimson twilight bleeding across the horizon.

“Now you—into the—”

Shigure’s command died mid-sentence. His mouth froze half-open.

A thunderclap stole all sound, leaving nothing but a high-pitched whine vibrating through Haruka’s skull.

She watched his face transform in slow motion, understanding dawning in perfect silence. A crimson flower blossomed between Shigure’s eyes. His expression slackened, gaze unfocusing as if trying to glimpse the bullet lodged in his brain. His body crumpled in stages—shoulders, spine, legs—before striking the concrete with terrible finality.

Amira remained frozen in the firing position. Silent tears carved paths through the dust on her cheeks. The pistol hung suspended for one heartbeat more—then fell. Her legs dissolved beneath her as an unrestrained, animal sound clawed free from somewhere deep inside her chest.

Haruka closed the distance between them, collapsing to her knees and gathering Amira against her chest.

The blood spreading from Shigure’s skull reflected nothing but empty sky.