The silence was heavy.
Heavier than the air.
Heavier than the ground.
Heavier than life itself.
Tekio was on his knees.
His knees pressed into the hard soil, but he felt nothing. His muscles trembled, but he did not react.
A few meters ahead…
Aisha's body.
Face down. Her still-warm blood flowed between the stones, as if wanting to write something on the ground—some final message Tekio would never know how to read.
And right behind her…
Akira.
No.
It was not Akira.
The name echoed, but his soul refused it. His mind refused it.
His hands still dripped blood.
Aisha's blood.
His fingers stained.
The skin on their tips dirty and alive—as if that flesh had been born only to kill.
But Tekio…
Could not accept it.
Could not.
He kept staring. Motionless. As if his mind were still trapped in another time. One second ago. An instant before the blood flowed. Before the death. Before the world broke.
His eyes trembled, cracked from within.
His pupils danced, but he did not blink.
Tears fell—one by one—so silent they seemed to flow from his soul, not his eyes.
He made no sound.
He did not breathe right.
He did not cry as if living.
He cried as if dying.
Everything was…
collapsing.
His soul.
His mind.
The faith that still resisted within him.
There, on his knees, Tekio stared at that scene as if the universe had split in two—and he had been buried exactly between the shards.
Aisha.
She was there.
Still there.
Still…
But no.
She did not move.
Not anymore.
Her skin was beginning to pale.
The light… was gone.
Seconds ago…
She was smiling.
She was alive.
Breathing. Speaking. Reminding him of who he was.
Now…
There was only silence.
An empty body.
An absence screaming in her form.
Aisha had always been with him.
Always.
In the fight against Kaze, she was the one who stood between him and death.
On missions… she was his eyes when his own trembled.
In training, she held his hand even when he wanted to quit for being weak.
She was a shield.
An unbreakable wall.
A sister, a guide, a mother without the name.
And now…
She was gone.
Because he failed.
Because he did not protect her.
Because he hesitated.
"Yara warned me…"
"She screamed inside me…"
"And even so…"
"Even so, I did nothing."
"I let Aisha die."
Inside…
Tekio was coming undone.
Shattering.
Tearing apart in silence.
And somewhere inside him, Yara—desperate—felt every fragment break.
"Tekio... please… please come back to me, to yourself… listen to me…"
"I'm here…"
But she knew.
He was… out of reach.
Buried in a depth even she could not reach. An emotional pitch black where no light passed.
Their bond—spiritual, intimate, alive—depended on harmony. On balance. On mutual feeling.
And now…
Tekio was isolated.
Locked away.
His soul, a cell.
And Yara on the other side, only… feeling.
And praying.
That was when a voice cut through the void.
— Pathetic.
Cold.
Devoid of emotion.
As if judging a crushed insect.
Akira.
With slow steps, he walked through the death as a king surveying a battlefield.
The blood still dripped from his fingers.
Each drop fell to the ground like a nail in a coffin.
— I imagined you would be different, Tekio. — he said, in a neutral tone, almost disappointed. — But looking now… you are exactly what I thought you were.
Tekio did not react.
His breath barely existed.
His head was low.
His hands dug into his own knees.
His nails already tearing the skin.
— You always lived around incredible things. People greater than you. Aisha. Mei. Dan. Stella...
— And you?
— Just another shadow. Dead weight hanging on luck.
Another step.
Closer.
— But luck, boy… it always… runs out.
Tekio felt the words.
Not in his ears.
But in his bones.
In his spine.
As if they were breaking him from within.
He stopped.
His shadow now covered Aisha's body. Like a dirty eclipse.
— And yet… there's something that bothers me. — Akira tilted his head, curious. — How did you separate my soul from Dan's body?
— How did you create my original body with such precision?
— You never saw me. You didn't even know what I looked like.
It seems the soul truly defines the body.
He raised his hands, stained red. Observing them as an artist observes his own work.
— Perhaps you were cursed by the Great Web…
The cosmic web plays these games sometimes.
But the chosen ones have already been selected.
And you are not one of them.
— Because if you were, if what you did was done consciously… you would be dangerous.
— But no. It was just… luck.
— And luck, Tekio… — he smiled, softly. — … has an expiration date.
Tekio trembled.
But it was not fear.
It was tension.
A knot.
His soul still trapped.
But something inside…
… was writhing.
And then…
The memories came.
Fragments.
Lost memories returning like fires in a dark sky.
A mission.
The sky was beginning to darken, tinged with purple and gray.
Tekio was sitting on the rough ground of the hillside, his knees tucked to his chest.
His eyes downcast. His hand dirty with dust and dried blood.
He had been injured, but that wasn't what tormented him.
People had died.
People he was supposed to protect.
People he had prayed would not die.
He closed his eyes, but only saw the blood.
Only saw the bodies.
Only heard the screams.
And, above all…
The fear.
The fear that it would happen to Dan.
To Stella.
To Mei.
To anyone he loved.
He didn't care about himself.
But the mere thought of losing them crushed him.
He trembled.
That was when he felt footsteps. Light, careful.
Aisha approached slowly, her uniform somewhat tattered and her face still dirty from the mission.
She didn't say anything at first.
She just sat down beside him with a tired sigh.
Tekio kept his eyes on the ground.
— They… died. — he murmured, without strength.
Aisha looked at him from the corner of her eye, listening.
— I should have done something. I could have… I should have… — he stopped. The words failed him.
The air seemed stuck in his throat.
— They were just civilians. And now… — he gritted his teeth. — Now there's only blood left.
Silence.
Aisha looked at the sky, thoughtful. Then, she leaned her body slightly, resting her arms on her knees.
— It was your first solo mission, wasn't it?
Tekio didn't answer.
But his throat clicked. The answer was there, shriveled up.
— I thought it would be easier. — he said. — But not for me. I don't care about me. I just…
— …I'm so weak... And I'm afraid of losing the people I love...
It was the first time he had said it out loud.
Aisha stared at him.
A calm look. But not an empty one.
A look from someone who had felt that before.
— You lost someone, didn't you?
Tekio took a deep breath. He was silent for a while, but his exhaustion made his heart open up as never before.
— My sister... — He murmured quietly, but Aisha heard him with clarity and attention.
— What was she like?
— As the eldest, she had to bear all the pressure from our parents. She was forced to go on a mission, just to meet mere expectations and quotas. And she never came back, she died by the hands of Reapers...
I was young, if I had been stronger, if I had been born a few years earlier I could have gone with her...
Maybe it would have been different...
Or at least I could be with her now, wherever she is...
Aisha listened.
She didn't respond immediately.
But her expression softened.
— That's why you fight so desperately for others. — she said, as if unraveling something.
Tekio looked at her, surprised.
Aisha shrugged one shoulder, without irony, without judgment.
— You're afraid of death. But not your own. You're afraid of theirs.
He lowered his head.
— And that's why you freeze, right? — she continued. — You get tense, anxious, you see a thousand possibilities, a thousand ways to lose them.
— I… I don't know how to deal with it. — Tekio shook his head. — If I fail again… if someone I love dies and I'm still alive… I don't know if I can take it again...
Aisha was silent for a few seconds.
Then she moved closer and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Firm. Warm. Present.
— Tekio… in this line of work, we die.
— …
— That's not a threat. It's a fact. A truth everyone here accepts when we put on the Sif uniform.
— What if it's you? — Tekio asked, almost in a whisper, as if trying to avoid that image.
She took a deep breath and answered without hesitation:
— Then you will continue.
Because if you stop…
… more will die.
Tekio clenched his fists. Tears threatened, but he held them back.
— I don't want to see anyone die again.
Aisha looked at him with more tenderness now. Her voice softened.
— I know.
— I see it in you, Tekio.
— You fight like someone who is afraid to lose, but also like someone who wants to protect. That is… noble. But dangerous, if you don't know how to balance it.
— How do I do that? — he asked. — How do I stop feeling this?
She smiled slightly, almost sadly.
— You don't.
You learn to live with it.
And you use that fear as a compass. As strength.
Not as an anchor.
She was silent for a moment, then added:
— And if one day I fall… — she looked into his eyes — …I want you to continue.
Not just for me.
— But for those who will still need you.
Flashes.
Training.
Missions.
Laughter.
Scoldings.
Hugs.
Her. Always her.
Aisha, bleeding, still protecting him.
Aisha, saying:
— "You are stronger than you think."
She believed in him.
Even when he did not believe in himself.
And then…
Like a blade slowly piercing the fabric of his soul…
Tekio knew.
He had not understood before.
But now...
He felt.
It was not Akira.
It never was.
Even with that face.
Even with that voice.
Even with every perfect detail.
It was not him.
It was the void behind the eyes.
The poison suspended in the air.
The weight of the world around him…
changing.
The words he had said—words Akira would not know, words that did not belong to him—drove into his consciousness like nails.
There was only one name capable of carrying them.
Dante.
The true one.
The one who killed Tenklyn.
The one who made Dan a puppet.
The one who dragged the world into the abyss.
The one who now stood there, with Aisha's blood on his hands.
He was the root.
The rotten seed from which all suffering grew.
The reason for so many deaths.
The reason… she was there now.
Cold. Empty. Beyond return.
The dead do not bleed.
But Tekio...
Tekio bled inside.
He bled as if a thousand thorns had been driven from the inside out.
As if every memory of Aisha had now become a knife.
And then, within that hole that once held only silence...
Something was born.
Hatred.
Pure hatred.
Raw hatred.
Nameless hatred.
Like molten iron, expanding in his chest.
Like a star about to explode.
The air seemed to catch in his lungs.
His skin, to burn.
And then, Tekio murmured.
Low.
Hoarse.
Dead inside.
— … Why?
Dante arched an eyebrow.
Almost as if he didn't understand.
— Why?
Tekio raised his gaze.
His eyes…
Still trembling.
Still wet.
But something there was beginning to burn.
— Why, Dante? — he repeated. — Why… do you do this?
His voice did not come from his throat.
It came from deeper.
From the broken center of his soul.
— Why kill?
— What do you gain from this?
He took a step.
— Aisha… she never did anything to you.
Another step.
— None of us did!
And then…
He screamed.
But it was not a common scream.
It was a scream born in the heart and ruptured the world.
— WHY?!
And in that instant…
Yara heard.
Not just with her senses.
She felt it.
Like a lightning bolt coursing through the soul from the inside out.
The connection returned.
The bridge between them… rebuilt by pain.
Because now, they both hated the same man.
And what united them…
was no longer fear.
Was no longer training.
It was loss.
It was mourning.
It was vengeance.
Dante had not only killed Aisha.
He had stolen loved ones from each of them.
And that…
That would not be forgiven.
The air cracked.
The light changed.
And the thunder, which until then had waited in silence...
… roared as if the very sky had awakened in anger.
To be continued...