The night wind howled through the broken windows, carrying the distant wail of sirens from the city below.
The battle between worlds had only just begun—and none of them would leave this room the same.
Daiki lunged again, shadows whipping around him like a storm. The blue flames on his arms flared brighter, hungry, feeding on every scrap of rage and power the Second General poured into him. He swung low, aiming to cut the girl's legs out from under her, but she was already moving—faster than before, as if the longer the fight dragged on, the more thinner the invisible barrier
between their worlds thinned and lent her strength.
Her dragon-scale blade met his with a screech that rattled the broken glass still clinging to the frames. Up close, Daiki saw her eyes: golden, ancient, pitiless.
"You still don't understand," she whispered, her voice calm even as she twisted her sword and drove the pommel into his solar plexus.
The blow landed like a sledgehammer forged of pure force. Daiki's ribs cracked audibly—sharp, wet pops that sent white-hot agony lancing through his chest. Air exploded from his lungs. He staggered, tasting blood, but the Second General's voice roared over the pain:
*Do not fall! We have to do our job!*
Daiki forced a laugh through bloodied teeth and countered with a shadow spear straight to her throat. The blindfolded man appeared in a blur of gold, his sword deflecting the strike with a barrier that shattered like glass. The recoil threw Daiki sideways into what was left of the conference table. Wood and metal splintered against his back. Something in his spine gave a sickening crunch.
He tried to stand. His left leg buckled. A thin line of black blood—his own, mingled with the Second General's essence—trickled from the corner of his mouth.
The girl didn't waste the opening.
She blurred forward again, her cloak snapping like wings. The dragon-scale blade glowed brighter, threads of gold weaving through the crimson edge until the entire weapon looked as if it had been forged from dying stars. Daiki raised his sword to block, but his arms were slower now, heavy with shock and pain.
The blade punched clean through his guard.
It entered just below his collarbone, angled downward, and tore through muscle, lung, and heart in one merciless thrust. The pain was immediate and apocalyptic—like liquid fire injected straight into his soul. Daiki's eyes flew wide. A strangled gasp tore from his throat as the dragon scales scraped against bone on the way in, grinding, ripping, burning.
He felt every millimeter.
The blade's magic flared inside him. Golden threads exploded outward from the wound, wrapping around his heart like barbed wire made of light. They squeezed. His own blue flames sputtered and died in patches, unable to fight the foreign power now devouring him from within.
"Ghh—!" Blood bubbled up his throat, hot and metallic, spilling over his lips and down his chin. His sword clattered uselessly to the floor.
The girl leaned in close, her silver-white hair brushing his cheek, her voice soft and almost sorrowful even as she twisted the blade deeper. "This is the mercy we can give. The Ninth will not be so kind when he comes for our world."
Daiki's vision tunneled. The office lights above him blurred into halos of white and gold. He tried to speak, to curse them, to call on the Second General one last time, but all that came out was a wet, choking gurgle. His hands clawed weakly at the girl's wrist, nails digging into her skin and drawing thin lines of her blood—yet she didn't flinch.
Inside him, the Second General offered his final farewell:
"I'm sorry you've been through all this. You fought bravely and did your job well, Daiki Raikuro. It was an honor to fight by your side."
But the voice was already fading, growing distant, like someone shouting down a collapsing tunnel.
Daiki's legs gave out completely. He sagged forward, still impaled on the dragon-scale blade, his full weight pulling the edge deeper until the tip jutted out of his back with a wet scrape. Blood poured from the exit wound in thick, pulsing streams, soaking his shirt, his pants, and the ruined carpet beneath him. Every heartbeat—each one slower than the last—sent fresh agony exploding through his chest. His lungs filled with liquid fire, and his vision swam red.
He thought of Ren. Of the promise he had made. Of the shadows that had given him power and purpose… and now abandoned him here, dying like any other mortal.
A single tear—hot and humiliating—slipped from the corner of his eye and mixed with the blood on his cheek.
The girl finally wrenched her blade free.
Daiki collapsed face-first onto the floor. The impact jarred every broken bone and every torn organ. He tried to push himself up on trembling arms, but his strength had vanished. A puddle of his own blood spread beneath him, warm at first, then rapidly cooling against his skin.
His breathing became shallow, wet rattles. Each inhale felt like swallowing broken glass. Each exhale forced more blood out of the gaping wound in his chest.
The blindfolded man stepped forward, his sword lowered now, his voice quiet. "It is done. He is broken."
Daiki's fingers twitched once. His lips moved, forming a final, soundless word—maybe a curse, maybe a prayer, maybe the name of the king he had sworn to protect. No one would ever know.
Then his eyes, still glowing faintly with dying blue fire, went dark.
The office fell silent except for the wind and the faraway sirens.
The two of them stood over the body for a long moment. The girl wiped her blade clean on her cloak; streaks of Daiki's blood now stained her silver hair. The man's blindfold glowed once, scanning the room, then dimmed.
"Take the corpse," the girl said. "That bastard Ninth King will feel this loss. Let it be a warning."
The man said nothing more to her and bent to seize Daiki's corpse—when a new blade slashed across his cheek, tearing through skin and the cloth covering his eyes. Blood sprayed across the floor.
Both turned.
There stood Althric, his eyes burning with merciless fury. "What did you do to Mr. Daiki?" he snarled ferociously.
"Who are you?" the man demanded.
"I'll handle this," the girl said coldly. "Just take the corpse of that human. I'll deal with him."
She thought him nothing more than a mere human and flashed forward. *Pathetic! Weakling—you shouldn't be here.* As she drove her fist at him, he blocked it. For a moment both she and the man froze in shock at what he had just done.
With that, Althric snapped her arm with a sickening crack. She screamed in pain. Then he hurled her into the wall beside the man who had been about to take Daiki's corpse.
"Who are you people?" Althric growled. "And what did you do to Mr. Daiki?"