Interlude: God May Forgive, But I Won't

While Naomi settled into a chair in the medical center's waiting area, Eiji realized the sterile walls around him offered a rare, heavy opportunity. They were already here, suspended in the downtime of Honoka’s reunion, and the proximity to his own ghosts was too close to ignore.

With cautious steps, Eiji approached the receptionist. The nurse looked up, her expression a mask of professional neutrality. He cleared his throat, the words feeling like gravel in his chest.

“I’m here to see Kanzaki Setsuko. My name is Kanzaki Eiji.”

“Kanzaki Eiji? Are you her son?”

Eiji gave a curt nod. The woman offered a small, sympathetic smile before checking her terminal. After the formalities were settled, a staff member guided him through the labyrinthine corridors to the long-term care wing.

The ordeal with Honoka and her mother had acted like a mirror, reflecting a reality he had spent months trying to bury under the weight of delinquent brawls and exorcisms. The door to the room slid open with a hushed hiss, revealing an interior bathed in the cold, clinical glow of fluorescent lamps.

“Take your time,” the nurse whispered, her hand resting briefly on the doorframe. “It’s been a while since she’s had a visitor, Eiji-kun.”

She closed the door, leaving mother and son in a vacuum of silence.

Eiji swallowed hard, his feet feeling heavy as he approached the bed. There she lay. Kanzaki Setsuko was a ghost trapped in a shell, her arms mapped by plastic tubes and her chest rise-and-falling to the artificial rhythm of machines. Her head was turned toward the window, where the rain continued its soft, rhythmic assault on the glass.

The room was too quiet. It was the kind of silence that didn't just indicate a lack of noise, but a lack of life.

His mother existed in a perpetual "in-between." The day the news of her daughter’s fate reached her, the cord connecting her soul to the physical world had frayed beyond repair. She drifted in a sunless sea, lost somewhere between a waking dream and the void.

Eiji didn't visit regularly. The guilt of it was a constant, gnawing ache in his gut, but seeing her was a reminder of every failure he had ever notched in his belt. He blamed his father for leaving, but he blamed himself for staying—for being the son who couldn't protect the family, for being the one who was simply there while their lives burned down.

He shuffled closer and sat on the edge of a chair. The rain outside grew heavier, blurring the lights of Shina into jagged smears of neon.

“Mom...” he muttered.

The word felt foreign, brittle. He reached out, his hand trembling slightly before he slid it over hers. He squeezed gently with his thumb, a silent plea for her to return, even if just for a second.

Slowly, her head turned.

Her dark, hazy eyes eventually found his. People used to tell Eiji he had his mother’s eyes, but the orbs that met his now were unrecognizable. They were bloodshot and hollow, devoid of the warmth he vaguely remembered from his childhood. They were like a withered bouquet of memories—a snapshot of a life that had been bleached white by trauma. They were empty.

Eiji’s expression froze. His grip on her hand tightened involuntarily, his knuckles turning white.

If only he had been stronger. If only that day had never happened.

If only the one responsible for this—the one who had turned his mother into a living statue and his sister into a memory—could finally be made to bleed.

Eiji’s jaw set into a hard, jagged line. His eyes, usually so apathetic, began to smolder with a dark, concentrated rage.

“Don’t worry, mom,” he breathed, his voice a low, dangerous rasp.

“I will find them. I swear on my life, I will.”