Snap!
The sharp crack of a biscuit stick breaking echoed through the stillness like a twig snapping under a predator's paw.
It was almost comical how loud it sounded here—
on the edge of the forest,
far from the thunderous chaos consuming the village below.
A lone figure sat perched on the cliff's lip, legs dangling freely over the abyss. The breeze tugged gently at his clothing, carrying with it the distant scent of smoke, blood, and something electric… yet none of it seemed to disturb him.
If anything, he looked entertained.
His gaze drifted lazily toward the burning rooftops, watching each explosion in the village bloom into orange light. He tilted his head like a curious child studying fireworks.
"Hmmm… interesting," he murmured.
The forest behind him was quieter than usual.
Even the beasts sensed it—the fear, the hunger, the raging mana storm.
Animals peeked out from behind bushes: glowing eyes of wolves, the antlers of timid forest stags, the twitching ears of foxes.
Each explosion from the village made them flinch so violently that branches snapped beneath their paws as they retreated deeper into the woods.
The figure didn't look back at them.
Snap.
He broke another stick of his snack—a thin biscuit dipped in a sweet strawberry glaze—and popped it into his mouth with visible delight.
"Delicious," he said, kicking his feet in the air like a child sitting on a riverbank. His katana, resting against his hip, made a soft metallic chime at the movement.
He took another bite.
Snap.
"Playing watchdog is actually pretty fun," he chimed, smiling as if this were a picnic and not the prelude to a massacre.
He leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowing with casual amusement.
"Should I start going down this cliff?" he wondered aloud, tapping the biscuit stick against his chin as if deep in philosophical thought.
The fires below crackled in answer.
Screams rose and fell like the tide.
Thunder magic jolted across the rooftops.
His smile widened.
"But look how beautiful it is!" he added brightly, gesturing toward the carnage with the half-eaten snack as though presenting a scenic view.
The wind shifted. Smoke swirled upward in dark spirals.
For a brief moment, the entire village glowed—
a crimson star blooming in the wilderness.
He watched.
He listened.
He savored another bite.
Snap.
"Nah," he said finally, shrugging with the same energy as someone deciding not to get out of bed. "The others will be alright."
Part 2
Luna knuckles throbbed. Her wrists burned where her mana had been pulled and tugged. She had been the aggressor, the storm that battered Meki into the dirt. And yet the thing that should have been broken rose, whole and smiling, as if the world itself refused to wound it.
Luna closed her eyes and felt for the pulse of the battlefield. Not the physical thrumming of footfalls or the distant cries—something subtler: the ebb and flow of manaflux around them, the tiny eddies where Meki siphoned life like a fish sucking water. It was a pattern. It had a rhythm. It could be read.
A plan came into her the way the tide answers the moon—inevitable, silent, implacable.
She opened her eyes and let the thought articulate itself, not in words to anyone else but in the hard clarity that sharpened the edges of her fighting mind.
Don't let her touch me.
Don't let her breathe my mana.
It sounded almost too simple—childish, even—but simplicity was a blade if wielded without hesitation. Meki fed on contact: skin, blood, breath—anything that let her draw the warm, pulsing thread of someone else's mana. Each collision had been a hand feeding her tank. If that tank could be emptied faster than she could refill it, then the illusion of invulnerability would die the way all fragile gods died—by starving.
Luna paced the space in three short, precise steps, feeling the stones underfoot like a metronome. Her fighting style was a storm of limbs and mana—wild, brutal, unpredictable. But the storm could be led. She thought of her own manaflux as not merely a weapon but as a metered resource, something to spend and deny in equal measure. She could strike without touching. She could launch spells that burned distance and time rather than flesh. She could force Meki to move, and movement cost mana—lightning could be fast, but it fed on the same hunger.
The components of the plan linked together like the snaps of a trap clicking into place.
Make her chase.
Make her spend.
Make her burn herself empty.
Luna pictured the mechanics in her head: long-range pulses fired from the palms like snapping cords of light—quick-launch spells that detonated at Meki's predicted footsteps; feints that baited a lightning dash, then a sudden withdrawal that forced the demon to fling out another expensive surge. Each evasion, each pursuit would be a transaction. Meki would spend. Meki would take. Meki would waste.
And while Meki tore at the air for mana, Luna would not offer herself. Her feet would keep her outside the radius of contact; her breaths would be measured so the scent of her manaflux did not hang like an open invitation. Her hands—capable of brutal concussive power—would be used sparingly for the moments that demanded instant, non-contact output: a palm blast that shoved the demon into a wall, a shockwave that shattered footing without ever closing the distance.
She thought of tanks—of the notion that Meki's immortality was not metaphysical invulnerability but a reservoir. Regeneration instantaneous, yes—only as long as the fuel burned. The moment the supply fell beneath a threshold, the shell would crack. The immortal would bleed. The predator would taste failure. Under that threshold, Meki would become mortal: brittle, breakable, human.
Luna's mind tracked the small calculus of battle—how much mana each thunder-lash cost, how much a single leap drained the demon's reserves, how much Luna herself could afford to pour into the field without becoming prey. It was a game of attrition where she was the one who set the pace. She would not exhaust herself; she would extend the fight into the slow death she could endure and Meki could not.
She let her shoulders drop and a cold smile touch the corner of her mouth. There was no cruelty in the thought—only the grim kindness that comes from knowing what a monster needs to be undone.
She readied her stance. The next moves would be deliberate: lead, prod, withdraw, force expenditure, conserve. No contact. No breath given. No mercy for a thing that had feasted on a village.
Luna tightened the ring of mana around her fists until it thrummed like a trapped pulse.
The ruin listened. The sky leaned in. The fight resumed—not a contest of who could strike harder, but a measured siege, and Luna had drawn the lines. She would not break her people. She would not break herself. She would let the demon grow hungry and watch as the hunger cracked the armor that had seemed eternal.
And when the moment came—when Meki's glow faltered and the shouldering tank beneath that monstrous smile emptied—Luna would close the distance. Not to feed the sickness with more blows, but to end it, clean and quick, so the thing that had been a person could maybe, in death, slip free of what had made her a monster.
The air cracked—lightning, dust, and the trembling hum of manaflux colliding in a rhythm too fast for human eyes.
Luna slid backward across the stone, her heels carving shallow lines through the rubble. Meki flashed forward in a burst of thunder—too fast, the kind of speed meant to overwhelm, to consume, to devour. Her shan fan carved a screaming arc through the air, electricity biting at the edges of the world.
To anyone watching—
It looked like Luna was losing.
Stumbling.
Panting.
Retreating with desperation in her eyes.
A perfect facade.
But Luna's pupils were steady.
Her breath measured.
Her heart—a silent drum.
Her manaflux—controlled like a coiled serpent.
Good. Keep chasing. Eat your mana. Eat it all.
Meki darted again, zigzagging in a lightning-pattern that split the air with white scars. "You're slow!" she sang, her voice tinged with the childlike delirium unique to gluttony demons.
Luna did not answer.
She flicked her wrist.
A pulse of light snapped from her palm—
quick-launch spell, no contact, minimal mana cost.
It wasn't aimed to hurt Meki.
Just to force instant regeneration of the scorch it left across her cheek.
Meki laughed as the wound closed in the same instant. "That tickles!"
But the mana cost paid itself behind her eyes in a faint dimming of her aura.
One point drained.
Luna blurred sideways—her mana rings flaring around her wrists and ankles, accelerating her movement without so much as brushing Meki's skin. She twisted mid-air, palms flipping open—
THRUM.
Another blast.
Then another.
Then a third.
Each one struck true.
Each one healed instantly.
Each one siphoned a sliver of Meki's precious reservoir.
It was a war of subtraction.
And Meki didn't yet know she was losing.
"RUNNING? RUNNING? Running is boring!" Meki giggled, her feet sparking with violet lightning. She vanished and reappeared behind Luna—
But Luna had expected it.
Her body dipped, twisting in a fluid martial sweep that bent like water and snapped like a whip. She slid just outside Meki's reach—close enough to feel the static, far enough to deny Meki even a drop of mana-rich air.
Meki's fingers grazed nothing.
Luna's palm lit.
BOOM.
The shockwave sent Meki crashing through a half-burned wall. Timber splintered. Dust exploded outward. Meki hopped up laughing, brushing debris off her hair, already healed.
More mana spent.
Another point gone.
Luna kept moving.
Kept firing.
Never touching.
Never breathing too close.
The village square had become a shifting landscape of stone and thunder—Luna drawing elegant, sweeping arcs; Meki streaking like a lightning bolt chasing a phantom.
"You're—haaah—getting weaker," Meki panted, but the manic grin remained. "Your spells are thinner… your movements are messy!"
Luna didn't argue. She let her shoulders sag. Let her breaths deepen. Let sweat bead along her brow.
All lies.
All bait.
Her manaflux stayed pristine beneath the skin.
Meki, you fool. You're eating your own strength just to reach me.
Another quick-launch shot.
Another lightning dash.
Another regeneration.
Another chunk of mana lost.
Luna's stance shifted almost imperceptibly—lower, tighter, no longer aggressive. A dance of controlled exposure.
She pushed Meki harder.
Pulled back faster.
Gave openings that meant nothing.
Invited attacks that cost Meki ten times more mana than Luna spent dodging them.
She was like a child who didn't understood the value of money and had infinite amounts to spend.
She had turned the entire battlefield into a draining field.
Lightning cracked behind her—Meki flinging herself forward in a wild, explosive burst that dug trenches into the ground. Her fans sliced the air, leaving zigzagging cuts of electricity in their wake.
Luna dipped beneath the arcs, pivoted, and fired a wide sweeping blast—
Meki tanked it with a grin.
Healed.
Burned more mana.
Chased again.
Another dash. Another pursuit. Another regeneration.
Bit by bit, her aura flickered.
The brilliant, overflowing thunder that had lit the battlefield at the start of the fight…
Dimmed.
Just slightly.
But enough.
Luna saw it.
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips curled into the faintest smile.
Meki froze mid-charge.
Her pupils trembled.
A shiver ran down her spine.
Her breath hitched—not from exhaustion, not from pain—
From realization.
"…You…" she whispered, voice low and raw, no longer playful.
Luna straightened, finally dropping the act, her manaflux glowing steady and unshaken around her body.
Meki's fingers twitched.
"…you're not… losing…"
Luna's smile didn't reach her eyes.
She lifted her palm, the mana ring around it humming like the calm before a storm.
"No," she answered softly.
And in that moment, Meki finally understood—
She hadn't been hunting Luna.
Luna had been draining her.
"You're starving me," Meki breathed, terror flickering for the first time.
Luna's eyes sharpened.
"Welcome to reality."
The instant realization dawned in Meki's eyes—
Luna moved.
Not fast.
Not explosively.
Not with the wild, reckless momentum she normally used.
She moved with certainty.
A crushing, overwhelming certainty that turned each step into inevitability.
The mana rings around her wrists and ankles flared, humming like celestial restraints trying to contain a monster far more destructive than the demon she fought.
And Luna no longer dodged.
She advanced.
Meki staggered back as Luna closed in, launching a barrage of long-range blasts with machine-gun rhythm—
THRUM! THRUM! THRUM!
Each one struck true.
Each one forced regeneration.
Each one devoured another shred of the demon's dwindling reserves.
Meki's smile twitched.
Her steps grew lighter, unsteady, like a child who ran too fast downhill.
But instead of fear—
She giggled.
"Eh—hehe—my legs feel funny—"
Another blast slammed her sideways, knocking her into a half-collapsed wall. Stone cracked. Dust sprayed.
Luna didn't even look winded.
She followed through with another volley, each shot ripping through the air with surgical precision.
Meki tried to dash.
Lightning sputtered around her feet—
not the roaring thunder of before,
but the weak crackle of a candle struggling to stay lit.
Even her lightning was starving.
Meki stumbled.
Her head snapped sideways.
Her nose wrinkled.
She sniffed.
Twice.
Her pupils dilated—so wide they nearly swallowed her irises.
"I… smelled it," she whispered, voice trembling with childlike desperation. "Infinite mana… somewhere… here…"
She turned like an animal catching its prey's scent.
Her gaze locked—
toward Tatsuya.
Toward Ruza holding him.
Toward the others—
toward the one whose scent had pierced her hunger earlier.
"No," Luna breathed.
Meki bolted.
A straight line toward them.
As fast as her trembling, mana-starved body could manage—
jagged, staggering lightning flickering around her like dying fireflies.
Luna was faster.
MUCH faster.
She appeared in front of Meki, palm glowing.
"Don't even think about it!"
The impact blast didn't send Meki flying.
It dropped her.
She collapsed on her hands and knees, body spasming.
Hunger—pure, rotten hunger—twisted her limbs.
Her back arched.
Her fingers clawed into the dirt.
"N-No… no mana… no mana…" she whimpered, voice cracking.
Lightning sputtered uselessly around her face.
Her eyes rolled.
Then—
She screamed.
A raw, animal cry ripped from her throat.
And Meki—
began biting into her own arm.
Luna's breath caught.
Meki's teeth sank into her forearm, tearing through her own flesh with greedy, frantic violence.
Blood splattered.
Flesh shredded.
But each bite—
each mouthful of her own body—
glowed.
Regenerated.
Burned another piece of her mana tank.
She was eating herself in a frantic, instinctive attempt to refuel—
but each bite left her more starved than before.
A demon devouring her own immortality.
"No," Luna snarled. "You're not getting anything from that."
She fired a blast across the ground—
not at Meki—
but at the dirt beneath her.
The shockwave launched Meki into the air, interrupting her self-cannibalization and flinging her backward like a ragdoll.
The demon tumbled across the rubble, limbs twisting unnaturally until she skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust.
She twitched.
Then whimpered.
Then—
"Heh… heheh… hungry… hungry…"
Her voice cracked with a child's panic, fragile as glass.
She crawled.
Not to flee.
Toward Tatsuya again.
Driven only by scent.
By instinct.
By hunger.
Luna stepped forward and the ground cracked under her heel.
She didn't run.
She didn't dash.
She simply moved—
and the distance vanished.
A flick of her wrist launched a shockwave that sent Meki slamming into a stone pillar.
Another flick turned the rubble around Meki into shrapnel.
Another palm blast hammered her into the ground.
Luna's voice cut through the chaos—low, steady, merciless:
"You're done."
Meki coughed.
Another spark flickered uselessly on her fingertips.
But she only whispered again—
"H… hungry… need… mana…"
Her eyes rolled toward Tatsuya—
"Need… master…"
Luna appeared behind her.
And placed a glowing palm against the back of Meki's skull.
"No," Luna whispered, deadly calm. "You're not touching him."
And threw her against a wall.
Lightning flickered—weak, twitching, starving.
Meki staggered onto her feet like a puppet with half its strings cut, her breaths short, fast, wet. Every limb trembled. Every muscle twitched. Her hunger had reached the edge of insanity.
Her voice scraped out in a cracked whisper:
"Mana… mana… need… need… more…"
Luna took a step forward—
but stopped.
Something in the air changed.
The battlefield stilled.
Even the ash seemed to hold its breath.
Meki lifted her head.
And for the first time since the fight began—
her expression was not childish hunger.
It was reverent fear.
As if she were praying to a god only she could see.
Then—
She bit down on her thumb.
Hard.
Blood spilled.
Dark, shimmering.
Not mana.
Anima.
The life force.
Her life force.
Luna's eyes widened. "No. You can't—!"
Meki drew the blood across her arm in a single trembling stroke, carving a jagged rune that pulsed with a sickening, primordial glow.
Every bolt of lightning around her died.
Every spark flattened into stillness.
And then—
the world sank inward.
As if gravity thickened, dragging at flesh and bone and breath.
Luna staggered, her knees buckling. The air felt heavy. Too heavy.
Meki's voice came out soft and broken:
"Feint… of Gluttony…"
Her pupils dilated until only the smallest golden ring remained.
"…Adephagia."
A vortex of sickly light spiraled around Meki's wrist—
not electricity, not mana—
something older, deeper, and forbidden.
Luna felt it instantly.
Not in her mana veins—
but in her heart.
Her pulse stuttered.
Her lungs tightened.
Her vision trembled.
Because this magic did not steal mana.
It stole lifespan.
A chunk of her being.
A bite of her existence.
"No—!" Luna tried to leap back, but her legs refused. Her body felt anchored, like the spell had reached inside her ribs and grabbed her heartbeat.
Meki's fingers extended toward her chest—
and Luna's spirit lurched.
A thread of shimmering silver—her Anima—peeled itself away from her like silk ripping from skin.
Her breath shattered.
Her ring of mana fizzled and died.
Her strength vanished in an instant.
And Luna—
the unstoppable bruiser,
the wild-hearted fighter,
the glowing fox of battle—
collapsed.
Her knees hit stone.
Her palms hit dirt.
Her vision blurred into streaks of gray.
"No… dammit… not like—"
Another pull.
Her spine arched backward in agony.
Her hair lifted by unseen wind.
A second thread of Anima was wrenched free from her body.
Meki inhaled—
and color flushed back into her cheeks.
Lightning danced at her fingertips.
Her eyes brightened with stolen vitality.
The stolen lifespan.
Meki leaned forward, the rune on her arm pulsing hungrily—
"I need more…"
She reached out.
Her shadow stretched toward Luna's throat.
Right before her fingers closed—
"Stop!! That's enough."
Part 3
Every crackle of lightning froze.
Meki's head snapped toward the sound with a jerking, animal motion—
and when her eyes landed on Tatsuya—
Her entire body twitched.
Not in hunger.
In devotion twisted into madness.
"Ma…ma…master?"
Her lips stretched into a smile far too wide, far too bright.
Lightning fizzed wildly under her skin, pulsing like veins of deranged joy.
"Master! Master! Master!"
She stumbled forward, giggling through tears, through drool, through hunger.
"You're here—you're finally here! I missed you—missed you—missedyousomuch—!"
Her hands clawed at her cheeks as if trying to hold in the emotion exploding from her chest.
"I love you! I always loved you! You smell so sweet—so warm—so filled—overflowing—overflowing—overflowing—"
Her voice pitched up into a childlike shriek, eyes swirling.
"Darling, gimme your mana! Let me eat it—no, let me eat you, I'll become one with you—"
"Shut up."
His voice didn't rise.
It didn't crack.
It didn't carry.
It simply cut through her words, slicing them clean from the air.
Meki blinked.
Confused.
Tatsuya wasn't listening.
He wasn't even looking at her.
He was looking at Luna.
Crumbled. Drained.
Barely breathing.
A surge of heat flooded his chest.
A rising pressure, violent and unfamiliar, curling like an awakening beast beneath his sternum.
His heart hammered.
His pulse roared.
He remembered Paul's lesson—
the way Paul had bent the air around his body,
compressing the mana veins,
snapping open every pathway at once—
Velocity Surge.
Tatsuya had failed it every day.
He had tripped, choked, collapsed.
But right now—
There was no fear.
Only certainty.
And that certainty felt like thunder.
He inhaled—
A jagged, sharp breath that tasted of lightning.
The air around him tightened, spiraling inward.
Mana lines in his arms flared open.
The world shrank to a single point.
Meki's eyes widened.
"Ma…master?"
He stepped.
The ground cracked.
The air burst.
Light exploded under his heel.
His voice followed a heartbeat later—
"Velocity—"
There was no time for Meki to scream, smile, or reach for him.
His fist blurred through the air—
shredding sound, slicing vision—
a streak of raw force aimed straight at her chest.
"—SURGE!"
Tatsuya's blade struck Meki's guard with a detonation of force that split the air open.
The shockwave ripped through the street, uprooting dust, shattering windows, and hurling both of them backward like rag dolls caught in a hurricane.
Velocity Surge—
a technique meant to slice, not punch—
should have carved clean through its target.
But Tatsuya was no Paul.
His form was wild, raw, unrefined—
and Meki, for all her starvation and madness, was still The Demon of Gluttony.
She caught the blow.
Barehanded.
With a single, instinctive thrust of her fan, she redirected the slicing arc just enough that instead of cleaving her, it slammed her backward.
"Ghhh—!!"
Meki's feet skidded, lightning sparking violently from her heels.
Tatsuya didn't stop pushing.
Their combined momentum blasted them through the outer wall of a building—
wood caving, stone bursting, furniture exploding into splinters—
as they crashed through one room, then another, then out the opposite side.
Tatsuya roared.
Not a word, not a cry—just raw force tearing from his throat as he poured everything into the strike.
Meki gritted her teeth, arms shaking, thunder spasming around her wrists as she held her fans crossed in front of her neck to keep the blade of compressed mana from slicing through.
It continued cutting, slicing, shredding—
an unstoppable torrent of force still pushing them across the ground even after they left the second building.
They slid, smashed, tumbled—
a trail of demolished stone in their wake—
until finally, finally the momentum died.
They jerked to a brutal halt.
Tatsuya's arm was still extended, his fist still pressed against her crossed fans, the mana edge still burning hot between them.
If she let it hit—
Even a sloppy Velocity Surge would split her cleanly in two.
She knew it.
He knew it.
Her lightning flared in desperation as she poured more mana into her arms, her veins bulging as they tried to withstand the pressure.
"Mana… mana… give me…!"
Her voice cracked, shrill with hunger.
And then—
Her head snapped forward.
She lunged.
Her teeth sank into Tatsuya's shoulder.
Hard.
She drank.
Drank.
Drank—
And her eyes went wide.
"…huh?"
She jerked back, pupils trembling.
There was nothing.
No flow.
No warmth.
No mana.
"W–why…?"
Her voice shrank to a whisper, confusion crawling over her features like frost.
"Why is there… nothing to eat…?"
The pressure of Velocity Surge pressed closer to her throat.
"…Meki," Tatsuya said, his voice breaking on the edges of her name. "If you can hear me… then listen."
"Do you remember the alleyway?" he said. "The first time I saw you?"
"You were lying there, bleeding, shaking like the world had already decided you weren't worth saving. I should've walked away. I told myself I didn't need anyone. But when I saw you reach out—barely breathing, still fighting to live—something in me moved. And for the first time since I came to this cursed world… I wanted to save someone."
"Stop…" she murmured, voice torn and trembling.
"When I carried you back to that cabin, I thought I was doing you a favor," he continued, his voice thick with memory. "But that first night… when you opened your eyes and saw me by the fire—you smiled. Just a little. Like you couldn't believe someone had stayed."
His throat tightened. "That smile… it was the first thing that made me think maybe I hadn't been reborn to suffer. May be there was something worth staying for."
"I remember how you'd complain about everything I did. The bread was too hard. The stew too bland. You said I was hopeless at cooking."
His lips curved faintly. "And when I burned my hand on the pan, you scolded me like a child—and then healed it with your own hands. You pretended it was nothing, but your hands were shaking."
Her head lowered. She was fighting it. She was still in there.
"You told me once that you hated silence," Tatsuya said softly. "That the deep kind felt like everyone had left you. So I promised myself I'd keep the fire alive. I thought it was for you—but it was for me too. Because as long as you were there, that silence couldn't reach me."
"When we hunted together in the snow, you said I was terrible. You laughed when I fell. You threw snowballs like you wanted to kill me."
A single tear slipped down his cheek, freezing in the wind. "And I laughed too. For the first time in years, I laughed like I wasn't carrying the whole world's guilt on my back."
Her breathing grew uneven—ragged sobs breaking through the monster's growl.
"You saved me, Meki," he said, voice cracking. "Not the other way around."
Her eyes flickered between monstrous hunger and fragile humanity. He could see her fighting it. He could see her.
"When I hated myself, when I thought I should die, you didn't pity me. You yelled at me. You told me to stop running. You made me see that I didn't have to carry everything alone."
He swallowed hard. "You made me see the strength not just in myself—but in the bonds around me. You made me imagine something I never dared to before… belonging."
Her head snapped up, her pupils widening. "Stop… please—"
He smiled through his tears, his voice rising above the storm.
"You made me imagine a world where I could live, not just survive. You made me believe I could wake up beside someone who needed me. You made me believe that even a failure like me could protect someone again."
Her body shook violently, Gluttony's hunger screaming inside her like a storm trapped in a cage. Cracks of light split the air around her—divine, agonized.
"Do you remember when it snowed for the first time, you wore that stupid hat with cat ears and said you were fun-sized. We had a snowball fight. You cheated, of course. You always did. But when you laughed—really laughed—I thought… maybe I could stay in that sound forever."
He reached out a trembling hand.
"I love you, Meki," he said. "I've loved you from the moment I saw you refuse to die in that alley. I loved you when you yelled at me for cutting bread wrong. I loved you when you called me stupid, when you healed my hand, when you smiled at the snow. I loved you when you told me I wasn't alone."
Her eyes widened. Tears spilled down her cheeks—dark at first, then clear.
"I…" she gasped, clutching her chest as the marks of Gluttony burned brighter. "I don't… want to eat anymore… I just… want to see you…"
"Meki…" He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around her. The stench of iron and ozone filled the air. "Then come back. Come back to me."
She trembled in his arms, her fingers clutching his kimono. Her breathing slowed, steadied. For the first time since the battle began, her eyes—those bright amber eyes—looked at him with clarity.
"Tatsuya…" she whispered, her voice fragile and human again. "It hurts…"
"I know," he whispered back, pressing his forehead to hers. "It's okay. You don't have to fight it anymore."
Her body shivered, the last remnants of Gluttony writhing under her skin. "I'm… sorry. For everything."
He shook his head, tears falling freely. "Don't be sorry. You came back. That's all that matters."
A faint smile touched her lips. "You always were… terrible at cooking…"
He laughed—broken, hoarse, beautiful. "Guess I'll never get to prove I improved."
Her hand reached up, brushing the side of his face, leaving streaks of blood and warmth. "Thank you… for loving me."
And then her eyes softened—no fear, no hunger, just peace.
"Do it," she whispered.
His heart clenched. "Meki—"
"It's okay." Her voice was steady now, even as the light within her began to collapse. "Let me go before it takes me again. Please. For me."
He froze. Every part of him screamed to refuse. But she smiled—gentle, tired, full of that same warmth that had once lit their cabin. And in that moment, he understood.
He nodded. "Alright."
He tightened his grip around her, pressing her closer one last time.
"I'll find you," he whispered. "Wherever you go next. I'll find you."
Meki smiled faintly, her breath warm against his neck. "Then I'll be waiting."
Tatsuya's sword trembled as he raised it. The world fell silent. Only the snow moved—softly falling between them like blessings from a distant sky.
"I love you," he said one last time.
And with a single, gentle motion, he plunged the blade through her heart.
Light burst outward—brilliant, blinding, pure. The corruption shattered like glass. For a heartbeat, he swore he saw her standing in that alley again, smiling at him, eyes bright with life.
Then she was gone.
The sword slipped from his hands, clattering against the frozen earth.
Tatsuya fell to his knees, the silence roaring around him. The storm had stopped. The valley lay still.
Snow drifted down—slow, tender, endless.
And in the stillness, his whisper broke the air.
"…Thank you… for letting me love you."
And so Meki Fortuna, The Demon Of Gluttony was killed by Tatsuya Fukushū.