"Huh?? Where am I?"
Yuuta's voice echoed into nothing, swallowed by a darkness so complete, so absolute, that he could not tell if he was standing or falling or floating.
The space around him stretched endlessly in every direction, a vast, timeless emptiness that had no beginning and no end.
It was like drifting through space, like being buried in the deepest ocean, like being lost in a dream that would not end.
He tried to scream. "Hello? Is anyone here?"
His voice bounced back at him, hollow and small, the echo of a man who was alone. No answer came. No light appeared. No figure emerged from the darkness to tell him where he was or how he had gotten here.
He rubbed his chin, thinking. How did I end up here? The question circled in his mind, unanswered, until something hit him—like a stone dropped into still water, like a memory rising from the depths.
The stew. Running toward Erza. The pot in his hands, the chicken bouncing, the smile on his face. And then—pain. Sudden, sharp,陌生. Something hitting his chest. Something tearing through him.
His eyes went wide. Horror flooded his face.
"Something hit me," he whispered. "And I died."
He laughed. It was a small laugh, nervous, the laugh of someone who could not believe what he was saying.
"I died."
He said it louder this time, testing the words, letting them settle in his mind.
"I AM DEAD."
The words echoed through the void, bouncing off nothing, returning to him like accusations. He was dead. He was standing in an endless darkness, and he was dead. He did not know if this was a dream or reality, if he was trapped in his own mind or somewhere else entirely, if there was any way out.
"Wait," he said, his hand moving to his hair, his fingers threading through it in the gesture he always made when he was nervous. "If I am dead, what happens to my home? Who is going to pay the rent? And who is going to feed my dog—" He stopped. "Which I do not have."
He laughed again. It was a broken laugh, the laugh of someone who was falling apart.
Then he stopped.
His hand dropped to his side. His face went pale. His voice, when it came, was barely a whisper.
"What happens to Elena if I am dead?"
The question hung in the darkness, unanswered, terrible. His daughter. His little princess.
The words came out slow, heavy, like stones dropped into still water.
"What happens to Elena if I am dead? Who is going to cook for her? Who is going to tuck her into bed? Who is going to tell her stories and wipe her tears and call her my little princess?"
His voice cracked.
"And Erza," he said. "Is she okay? I saw her weeping for me."
He remembered her face. The horror in her eyes. The tears streaming down her cheeks. The way she had held him, pressed her hands against his chest, tried to stop the blood that would not stop. She had been crying. She had been crying for him.
"I am really dead," he said.
He looked around at the darkness. The endless, empty, terrible darkness.
"Is this my afterlife?" he whispered. "Is this all there is?"
His eyes filled with tears. He stood in the emptiness of vast, timeless space, and he wept. This was not what he had imagined.
He had believed that after he died, God would stand before him, judge his sins, and decide whether he deserved heaven or hell. He had believed there would be light, or fire, or something. He had not believed there would be nothing.
But this was nothing.
Endless, absolute, terrifying nothing.
He was trapped here forever, for eternity, with no way out, no one to talk to, nothing to do except exist in the darkness and wait for something that would never come.
Panic rose in his chest. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. His hands shook. His legs gave out. He fell to his knees in the void, his body curling inward, his arms wrapping around himself.
He tried to run.
He pushed himself to his feet and ran into the darkness, his footsteps echoing, his breath ragged. He ran until his legs burned, until his lungs screamed, until he could run no more. There was no end. There was no wall. There was no door. There was only the darkness, and the silence, and the terrible, crushing weight of being alone.
He screamed. "Erza!"
His voice cracked. The darkness swallowed his cry.
"Sister Mary!"
He called for the woman who had raised him, the woman who had loved him, the woman who had been the closest thing to a mother he had ever known. But she was not here. No one was here.
He did not know his mother. He did not know his father. He had never known them. When people were afraid, when they were dying, when they were lost in the darkness, they called for their parents. They called for the people who had brought them into this world, who had held them when they were small, who had promised to protect them.
Yuuta had no one to call.
So he called for the people who had become his family. The ones who had chosen him, who had stayed with him, who had made him believe that he was not alone.
"Erza!" he screamed again, louder this time, desperate. "Elena!"
His voice broke on his daughter's name. He wept. He was afraid of being trapped in this darkness forever, of never seeing them again, of never hearing Elena's laugh or feeling Erza's cold hand in his. Death could not free him. No one could rescue him. He was all alone.
He looked at his finger.
The ring was gone.
The silver band that had bound him to Erza, that had pulsed with the same light as hers, that had been a promise and a chain and a gift—it was gone. He remembered the moments he had spent on Earth. The meals he had cooked. The dances he had learned. The hands he had held. The family he had found.
He thought about the traffic noise, the sound of the city waking up outside his window. He thought about the coffee shop where he bought his morning bread, the manager who always saved him a loaf, the customers who smiled at him and never knew his name. He thought about Fiona, about Chef Melory, about all the people who had crossed his path and left their marks on his heart.
He thought about Elena. Her silver hair. Her red eyes. Her laugh that could light up a room. He thought about the way she called him Papa, the way she ran to him when she was scared, the way she trusted him completely, absolutely, without question.
He thought about Erza. Her cold voice. Her warm hand. Her tears when she thought no one was watching. He imagined her voice, the way she would scold him if she knew he was giving up.
"You idiot mortal. How long are you going to sleep? Get up already."
He imagined her saying it. He imagined her standing over him, her arms crossed, her face annoyed, her eyes worried. He imagined her calling him an idiot, a fool, a pathetic excuse for a husband. He imagined her hand reaching out to help him up.
He wept.
He did not know how long he cried. Hours. Days. Years. Time had no meaning in this place. There was only darkness, and silence, and the slow, painful realization that he was trapped forever.
Then something shifted within the darkness, not with sound, but with presence, as if the void itself had begun to breathe.
From that endless black, a shadow slowly gathered, forming not all at once, but in layers, like smoke folding into itself. It did not simply appear—it emerged, stretching forward with a weight that made the space around Yuuta feel smaller, tighter, suffocating. Its form refused to stay still, constantly shifting, flowing as though it could not decide what shape to take, or perhaps existed beyond the need for one.
It grew larger with every passing second.
Taller than any man.
Taller than any structure he had ever seen.
Its existence alone filled the emptiness, dominating everything without needing to move.
Yuuta's body reacted instinctively, his foot sliding back against the unseen ground as his balance faltered. His breath caught midway, refusing to come out, as his chest tightened under a pressure he could neither fight nor understand. He lowered himself without thinking, pressing closer to the ground, his body curling inward as if reducing his presence might somehow save him from being noticed.
A thought forced its way into his mind, raw and unfiltered.
Is this… a devil?
The question felt too small for what stood before him.
Am I… already in hell?
He tried to look at it—tried to understand what he was seeing—but his eyes refused to cooperate. The shape in front of him was there and not there at the same time, something his mind could not fully grasp no matter how hard it tried. It was like staring at something that existed outside the rules of form itself.
And yet—
There was one thing he could see.
Its eyes.
They shone within the darkness, distant and pale, like stars suspended in a sky that did not exist. They did not flicker, did not move, did not change—only watched, silently and completely.
Yuuta's breath trembled as he stared back.
And then he realized—
Those eyes were crying.
From that vast, formless presence, thin streams of light fell slowly downward, like tears escaping from something that should not feel. They drifted into the void beneath, vanishing before they could ever reach anything, swallowed by the nothingness as if they had never been there at all.
The sight unsettled him more than anything else.
Fear was there, gripping his body tightly, refusing to let go. But beneath it, something else began to surface—something heavier, something unfamiliar that he couldn't put into words.
The entity did not move closer, yet it did not need to.
Its gaze was enough.
It looked at him—not just at his body, but beyond it, through it, as if peeling away everything that made him who he was. Under that silent observation, Yuuta felt exposed in a way he had never experienced before, as though nothing within him could remain hidden.
His thoughts.
His memories.
His very existence.
Everything felt laid bare.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't speak.
Even breathing felt like an act he was no longer allowed to perform freely.
The weight of that presence pressed down on him, not violently, but undeniably, like something vast and ancient acknowledging something far smaller than itself.
And yet, there was no hostility.
No killing intent.
No desire to destroy.
Only a quiet, overwhelming awareness.
The shadow continued to loom, its form endlessly shifting, its silent tears falling into nothingness as it watched him without interruption.
As if it had been there long before him.
As if it had always been there.
Waiting.
"Do you want to live, my child?"
Its voice was not loud. It was soft, gentle, the voice of someone who had been grieving for a very long time. It echoed through the void, wrapping around him, filling him with something that was not quite warmth and not quite hope.
Yuuta should have been afraid. He should have run, should have hidden, should have done anything except answer.
But he was not afraid.
He looked into its star-white eyes, and he saw something familiar.
Grief. The same grief that had been in Erza's eyes.
The same grief that had been in Sister Mary's voice.
The same grief that had been in his own heart.
"I want to live," he said.
The shadow watched him. It did not move. It did not speak. Its tears continued to fall, silent and endless.
"I want to live," he said again, louder this time. "I want to see my family again. I want to see my daughter grow up. I want to cook for my wife. I want to hear her call me an idiot. I want to hold Elena's hand. I want to—"
His voice broke. The tears came again, hot and fast.
"I WANT TO LIVE."
The shadow's eyes glowed brighter. Its form shifted, moved, leaned closer.
"Very well, my child," it said.
The darkness disappeared.
Yuuta felt himself being pulled, dragged, swallowed by something vast and ancient and impossibly gentle. The shadow entity watched him go, its star-white eyes fixed on his face, its endless tears still falling into the void. He tried to reach out his hand. He did not know why. He only knew that he wanted to touch it, to thank it, to feel the warmth that he had felt when it spoke to him.
His fingers stretched toward the darkness.
The entity did not move. It simply watched him, its form shifting like smoke, its presence filling the void with something that was not quite love and not quite grief and not quite anything he had ever felt before. It was old. It was ancient. It had been waiting for a very long time.
And then it smiled.
It was the first time since its creation that the entity had smiled. The expression was soft, sad, beautiful in a way that made Yuuta's chest ache. It looked at him like a mother looks at her child, like a father looks at his son, like someone who had been searching for something and had finally found it.
The darkness swallowed him whole.
Sister Mary prayed.
Her knees were pressed into the frozen grass. Her hands were clasped around Yuuta's still body. Her tears fell onto his face, mixing with the blood, melting the snow. She had been praying for hours. She had been praying since the storm began, since the port was destroyed, since she felt Erza's grief spreading across the city like a plague.
"O Great Zareth," she whispered, her voice trembling with reverence and desperation. "Lady of Silence, Mother of Shadows, Keeper of the Eternal Frost. Hear my prayer. Lend me your power. Hear the grief of a mother who has lost her child."
She knew it was foolish. Zareth was sealed. The gods had made sure of that centuries ago, locking her away in a prison that no mortal could reach, no prayer could breach, no power could break. There was no history written that Zareth had ever answered a prayer. There was no record of her saving anyone, helping anyone, even acknowledging the existence of those who called her name.
Elves had their own gods. Their own spirits. Their own queen who could lead them through darkness and despair. Sister Mary should have been praying to them. She should have been calling on the powers that had protected her people for millennia.
But she prayed to Zareth.
She did not know why. She only knew that she believed, somehow, that Yuuta could be saved. That he would be saved. That the darkness that had swallowed him would not keep him.
She knew it was foolish. She knew it was hopeless. She knew that there was no chance, no possibility, no miracle waiting to happen.
But she wanted to believe. Just once. Just one last time. Even if it was false. Even if it was impossible. She would pray until she was heard, or until she had nothing left to pray with.
The grief washed over her.
It was not her own. It was Erza's. The Dragon Queen's grief had reached its final stage, the stage that came before the end, the stage that could not be stopped. Sister Mary had studied dragon grief in her centuries of life. She knew the stages. She knew the signs. She knew that once a dragon reached this point, there was no saving her. She would destroy herself. She would destroy everything around her. She would burn until there was nothing left to burn.
If Yuuta did not wake up, everything would be lost. There would be no stopping her. There would be no saving her. There would be no future for anyone.
Sister Mary prayed harder.
"O Great Zareth, Lady of the Silent Void, who watches from the darkness beyond the stars, hear my prayer. I am but a fallen elf, unworthy of your gaze, unworthy of your mercy. But I beg you—I beg you—look upon my child. He is innocent. He is kind. He does not deserve to die."
The sky above her grew darker. The clouds thickened, spread, swallowed the light. The city was freezing—not just the port, not just the college, but the entire city. People huddled in their homes, their breath misting in the air, their heaters failing, their hope fading. There was no way to survive this. There was no way to stop it.
Sister Mary felt them rise.
The Legion of Eternal Frost.
She had heard stories of them, whispered in the courts of elves, spoken in the halls of dragons. They were the queen's shadow, her protectors, her army. They stayed hidden in her shadow, waiting for the moment when she needed them most. They appeared only when she was making the hardest decision of her life, when she was standing at the edge of something that could not be undone.
They were here now.
Ice soldiers rose from the ground around Erza, their armor gleaming, their swords raised, their eyes burning with violet fire. Ice golems stomped through the port, their massive fists crushing the containers, their roars shaking the earth. Ice wyrms filled the sky, their wings spread, their screeches echoing across the city. And in the ocean, the ice dragon roared, its voice carrying across the country, across the world, a warning to anyone who might try to stop her.
The Legion of Eternal Frost was the reason dragon wars were so brutal. Not because of the dragons themselves—they were powerful enough. But because when a dragon fell into grief, when she lost control, when she decided that the world should burn, she did not fight alone. Her shadow fought with her. Her army fought with her. And together, they turned oceans red and mountains black.
Sister Mary's hands trembled. Her voice shook. Her tears froze on her cheeks.
"O Great Zareth," she whispered, "I know I am not worthy. I know I have no right to ask for your blessing. But I am begging you. I am begging you, on my knees, with tears on my face and blood on my hands—please, save my child."
She felt something shift.
Sister Mary saw it first.
Yuuta lay on the frozen grass, his body still, his face peaceful, his hands folded on his chest. But something was changing. Something was emerging from him, leaking from his skin like smoke from dying embers. The aura was reddish-black, dark as blood, dark as night, dark as something that should not exist in this world. It was the same aura that had once made the elf nation tremble, the same presence that had caused the High Elves to seal their borders and whisper prayers to gods who had long since stopped listening.
It crawled slowly from his body, spreading across his legs, his arms, his chest. It moved with purpose, with intent, with the hunger of something that had been waiting for a very long time. Sister Mary watched as the aura covered his wound, and the wound began to heal. The hole in his chest, the place where the bullet had torn through his lung and shattered his ribs—it closed. The blood that had spilled onto the grass, that had stained Erza's dress, that had frozen in the snow—it flowed backward, defying gravity, defying death, defying everything she had ever known about the laws of the world. It returned to his body, seeping back into his skin, into his veins, into his heart.
Sister Mary felt fear.
It was not the fear of a soldier facing an enemy. It was not the fear of a mother watching her child die. It was something deeper, something older, something that had been buried in her elven blood since the first of her kind walked the earth. It was the fear of standing before something that should not exist, something that had no place in the natural order, something that made the very air tremble. It was like standing before a god.
She could not withstand it. The aura pressed against her, choking her, crushing her, threatening to shatter her into pieces. She was a High Elf—fallen, yes, but still High Elf, still powerful, still ancient. And she could not stand in the presence of whatever was waking inside Yuuta.
She scrambled backward, away from him, away from the aura, away from the thing that was rising from the body of the boy she had raised. She did not stop until she was standing beside Elena, her hand pressed against the shield that protected the sleeping child, her breath coming in ragged gasps. If she stayed any longer, she would die. The aura would shatter her like glass, would tear her apart, would leave nothing but fragments.
The aura spread.
It covered Yuuta's body completely, a shroud of reddish-black darkness that pulsed and shifted like something alive. For a moment, he was nothing but shadow—a shape, an outline, a suggestion of a man lying in the snow. Then the shadow sank back into his skin, disappearing as quickly as it had come, leaving him looking exactly as he had before.
Sister Mary stood at Elena's side, watching from a distance. The entire field was freezing, the cold spreading outward from Yuuta's body, turning the grass to ice, turning the air to frost. But the place where Elena lay, the small circle of ground that Sister Mary had shielded, remained warm. The child slept on, unaware of what was happening, unaware that her father was rising from the dead.
Then Sister Mary felt it. Her eyes grew heavy. Her legs gave way. The exposure to whatever power had emerged from Yuuta had drained her, weakened her, stolen the strength she had spent centuries building. She fell to her knees, then to the ground, her body collapsing beside Elena, her arms wrapping around the child's sleeping form. She did not know if she would wake. She did not know if she would survive. She only knew that she had prayed, and something had answered.
Yuuta's body began to absorb.
Mana. God particles. Zani. Esper. Every form of energy that existed in the world, every source of power that flowed through the air and the earth and the stars—he drew it toward him like a vacuum, like a black hole, like something that had been starving for centuries and had finally been given permission to feed.
The energy swirled around him, visible now, a vortex of light and shadow that spun faster and faster, sinking into his skin, into his bones, into his soul.
His body glowed. It was the light of new life, of rebirth, of something that had been dead and was now waking.
The glow spread across his chest, his arms, his face, illuminating the darkness around him, pushing back the shadows that had gathered.
Then everything stopped.
The vortex disappeared. The glow faded. The energy that had been swirling around him was gone, absorbed completely, leaving nothing behind. The field was silent. The storm above the port, which had been raging for hours, seemed to pause, as if even the sky was waiting to see what would happen next.
Yuuta's chest rose.
It was small at first—a flutter, a whisper, a breath that barely moved the air. Then it rose again, deeper this time, stronger, more certain. His skin, which had been pale and cold and blue at the edges, began to warm. Color returned to his cheeks. The wound in his chest was gone, healed completely, leaving only a scar that gleamed faintly in the dim light.
His ear twitched.
It was a small movement, barely visible, but it was there. The muscles in his ear, dead since the bullet had torn through him, were working again. He was listening. He was hearing. He was returning.
His eyes opened.
He gasped.
Yuuta's body jolted as his chest rose sharply, a violent gasp tearing through his throat as air rushed back into lungs that had forgotten how to live. It wasn't a normal breath—it was desperate, raw, as if he had been drowning in an endless abyss and had only just broken the surface.
His fingers twitched against the ground.
His body followed, trembling faintly, struggling to remember motion.
For a moment, he didn't understand where he was.
Or if he was.
His vision was blurred, drowned in a haze of darkness and light that refused to settle. Shapes twisted above him, unclear and distant, until slowly—very slowly—the world began to take form.
The sky.
Dark.
Heavy.
Unfamiliar.
It pressed down on him, vast and silent, as if the world itself was watching.
His breath came unevenly, each inhale sharp, each exhale unstable, his chest rising and falling as his body fought to stabilize itself. A faint warmth began to spread through his limbs, replacing the cold emptiness that had once claimed him.
Life.
Returning.
His eyes widened slightly, not in fear—but in quiet disbelief.
He was… alive.
Somewhere deep within him, something stirred. Not loud. Not violent. But present.
Awake.
Yuuta Kounari lay there, staring into the unfamiliar sky, caught between what had ended… and what had just begun.
He had crossed the boundary once.
And somehow—
he had come back.
Yuuta Kounari…
Had risen from death.
To be Continue...