Kanesaki felt the floor drop out from under him.
'Nishihara, NO—!'
His voice cracked, broken both from panic and the physical fractures still running through him. 'You know me! You know I'd never—'
'Stand down, Kanesaki,' Nishihara said quietly, lowering the radio. 'Or I will cut you down.'
Kanesaki backed up a step. Then another.
His legs wobbled—still trembling from Maeda's flames, from the cracking eating at the edges of his sanity. His breath rasped raggedly, his vision doubling. He could barely keep his blade raised.
'Nishihara… please…' he whispered, chest heaving. 'I don't… I don't want to fight you. I can't—I'm not even—I'm not your enemy.'
Nishihara didn't shift. Didn't soften.
He took one step forward.
Kanesaki's heart stuttered.
Behind them, Maeda dragged himself across the stone, slipping on the blood, crawling toward the deeper shadows of the cave. He held his stomach, forcing his body to heal, each second knitting him closer to functional.
None of them looked at him. He almost smiled.
Kanesaki tried to focus, but everything inside him was tearing, his mind crackling with static, his muscles twitching, his vision still fractured like broken glass. Each breath burned his lungs. Each heartbeat sent pain surging through him.
'I didn't betray you…' Kanesaki whispered, almost to himself. 'I didn't betray ANYONE…'
Nishihara's expression remained carved from stone.
'Drop your weapon.'
Kanesaki shook his head, eyes wide, frantic.
'Not like this... I'm not dying like a rabid dog—not by your hand—'
'Kanesaki,' Nishihara repeated, raising the odachi,'Dropit.'
The command cut through the air like a blade.
Kanesaki's grip trembled on his sword hilt. His knees buckled. The weight of his own exhaustion nearly dropped him to the floor.
'I can't…'
He swallowed hard, voice small and broken.
'I can't fight you, Nishihara…'
'Then you'll die where you stand.'
Nishihara stepped in—and Kanesaki staggered backward, slipping on blood-infested water, barely keeping his footing.
His cracked eyes flicked between Nishihara's blade, the shadow Maeda had crawled into and finally the exit behind Nishihara that was now blocked by steel.
His breath caught.
He was trapped.
Broken.
Falsely accused.
'Nishihara…' he pleaded, voice shaking. 'Please… just listen—'
But Nishihara raised his odachi, stance shifting into a killing posture, and the cave seemed to shrink around them.
Kanesaki's legs trembled.
He wasn't ready.
He wasn't healed.
He wasn't sane.
But Nishihara was coming for him anyway, and Maeda watched from the shadows, silently smiling through his wounded mouth.
Kanesaki barely had time to lift his blade before Nishihara moved.
Not a shout.
Not a warning.
Just a blur of motion and cold steel.
SHLNK—!
The first strike carved across Kanesaki's forearm, the impact tearing the blade from his weakening guard and sending pain lancing up to his shoulder. He staggered back, feet slipping in the blood-slick water, breath crushed from his lungs.
'N-Nishi—!'
VSHNK!
The odachi slammed down again, sparks flashing. Kanesaki barely twisted aside, the edge cutting a clean line across his ribs, blood spraying in a fine arc. He gasped, dropping to one knee, fire burning through his side as his already-damaged flesh struggled to knit itself fast enough.
Nishihara pressed forward with machine precision—no anger, no hesitation—just lethal, efficient movements that showed exactly why he was one of the strongest soldiers they had.
Kanesaki raised his blade weakly.
CRSH!
Nishihara kicked him in the stomach, boots crashing into half-healed burns. Kanesaki lifted off the ground, rolling across stone and water, coughing blood as he scraped to a stop.
He pushed himself up on trembling arms, blood pouring from his mouth as he yelled.
'Nishihara—please—just LISTEN—!'
Another flash of steel.
TRSK!
The odachi grazed Kanesaki's cheek, splitting skin open to the bone. Kanesaki fell back again, rolling desperately to avoid the next strike, the blade smashing sparks from the stone inches from his skull.
He scrambled to his feet, unsteady, vision swimming with static and fractured light. His mind still fractured, every thought like glass grinding.
Nishihara advanced.
'You are rogue,' he said quietly, almost gently. 'I won't let you harm anyone else.'
'HARM!?' Kanesaki barked out a broken, hysterical laugh. 'You think I did this!? maeda—he—!'
CLANG—CLANG—SHHK!
Nishihara drove him back with a flurry of blows, each one heavier and more precise than the last. Kanesaki parried two—barely—then the third carved open his shoulder, sending his blade spinning from his grip.
Kanesaki's eyes widened.
His empty hand trembled.
His knees buckled again.
'Nishi—hara'
Nishihara raised the odachi for the finishing strike.
And then—
KA-THOOOOOM—!!
The roof exploded.
Stone rained down. Dust and fog blasted through the cave as two blurred figures crashed through the ceiling—one of them twisting mid-air, the other locked around her like a striking predator.
Yasui hit first, crashing through a stalactite and smashing onto the cave floor in a spray of debris.
The masked figure landed above her and delivered a savage downward kick.
WHUMP!!
The strike buried itself into Yasui's stomach, firing her like a cannonball into the far cave wall. She hit so hard the rock cracked outward in a spiderweb pattern, dust and blood bursting from her lips as she slid down the stone, struggling for breath.
The masked figure straightened slowly, turning toward the others.
Kanesaki froze.
Nishihara lowered his blade an inch.
And the cave fell into stunned silence.
Eyeing up the newcomer, Nishihara took a half-steps back—the moonlight above shining a light on his blade, reflecting in his eye.
'Who are you!?'
His eyes flicked between the figure and Yasui. She was still conscious, her breathing unsteady.
The figure straightened slowly, cracked mask turning toward Nishihara. Half of it was gone—shattered by Yasuko's assault. What remained clung to their jaw and cheekbone, but the upper left of their face was exposed.
The once-destroyed eye had regrown, socket knitting itself together with sinewy threads of pale flesh, the iris snapping open in a violent twitch.
A red glint burned at its center—bright, unnatural, predatory.
Nishihara kept his stance tight, odachi lowered but ready, rainwater dripping from its edge.
'Who are you!?' he demanded again, voice echoing through the cavern.
The figure didn't answer.
Instead, it shifted its weight just slightly—enough to reveal the faintest turn of the head toward Kanesaki, who lay twitching, barely conscious, breaths shallow and uneven as the cracked red in his eyes slowly fizzled out.
Nishihara moved instinctively, stepping between them.
And the figure moved.
It was a blur—SHFMP!—a sudden displacement of water and dust as it lunged. Nishihara swung immediately, odachi sweeping a violent arc—steel singing through the cave.
TCHNNK!
The figure parried with its forearm, sparks exploding off bone-hard skin. The impact cracked the stone beneath its feet, sending water splashing up. The figure's arm bled from the wound—the parry was effective, but left it's marks.
Nishihara gritted his teeth and pressed in, slashing again—horizontal, then vertical, then diagonal, each strike fast enough to break stone.
The figure slipped between them, movements spider-like, folding and unfolding at impossible angles, each dodge followed by a snapping counterstrike.
WHUD! A palm strike to Nishihara's ribs.
TKKT! A knuckle to his jaw.
CRACK—! A heel kick caught mid-swing against the odachi.
The figure's red eye didn't blink. Didn't waver. It moved only with purpose.
Kanesaki.
Realizing this, Nishihara lunged again, thrusting forward with full weight. The figure sidestepped, but Nishihara kept going, twisting his grip, elbowing the figure in the face, sending it skidding across the damp ground.
A small victory—brief.
The figure regained its footing instantly, sliding backward without losing balance, cloak dragging through the water. It flicked its head once, resetting its shattered jaw with a muffled crk.
Then it vanished into motion.
FWMP—!
One step.
A leap.
It shot past Nishihara entirely.
'NO—!!'
Nishihara spun, but too late—the figure was already kneeling beside Kanesaki, hooking an arm under his limp torso with eerie gentleness.
For a split second, it looked up at Nishihara, red eye burning.
Then—
KRNNCH!
It launched itself upward, kicking off the cave floor so hard it shattered, spraying debris and bloodied water in every direction. Nishihara shielded his face. When he looked again, the figure was already halfway up the cavern, leaping from stalactite to stalactite.
THMP—!
SKK—!
FWM—!
Each impact echoed like cannon fire as it carried Kanesaki's body across jagged formations, using the cave like a vertical maze.
'STOP!' Nishihara roared, sprinting after them, his voice bouncing off walls.
The figure didn't stop.
It reached the upper ridge of the cavern, crouched low—and with a final explosive leap, it disappeared into the fog-layered night above, Kanesaki's limp body disappearing with it.
Leaving Nishihara alone in the cave.
Odachi dripping.
Breathing hard.
Jaw clenched with fury, fear, and the crushing dread of what this meant.
Behind him, Yasui coughed weakly, sliding down the wall.
The cave fell silent.
Except for the faint, rhythmic dripping of blood from the ceiling where the figure had broken through moments earlier.
Nishihara's radio blared.
KSSHK!
'Nishihara—! We've lost contact with the two captains—! We've cleared the Yatzuls—repeat—We've cleared the Yatzuls!'
KSSHK!
Sakaguchi's voice—cutting out occasionally as Nishihara reached for the device, holding it up to his mouth with a bloodied hand, voice shaky.
'I've got them both here... But the Chimeras—'
He took a second, glancing up to the moon as it mocked him in the darkness.
'—The Chimeras are unaccounted for... They escaped...'
Swallowing, he muttered a final sentence.
'Kanesaki was taken by a rogue, and Yasuko—I'm not sure.'
Silence.
The static from the radio was a deafening sound as it echoed along the cave walls.
Bowing his head to gaze along the blade, Nishihara lowered the radio, holstering it by his belt before swiping the odachi, dicing through air as the blood was swatted off, landing in the water and rock below.
He sheathed the blade on his back and moved to Yasui, still struggling to stay awake.
'That bastard... Took Yasuko...'
She glanced up at the officer, eyes strained, shutting slowly.
Nishihara didn't react, moving down to pick the captain up, carrying her as he wandered back to the cave's exit. She finally passed out in his arms as he reached the end, gazing ahead to see a small squad of soldiers awaiting him—Maeda with them. Two medics darted over to grab Yasui from his arms, although he was reluctant to let go at first.
Gazing up to the sky, Nishihara exhaled a cold, shallow breath.
The nightmare in that was over.
Chapter 57 — end