The Endless Dark
Silence.
It wasn't just a lack of sound; it was an absolute absence. There was no sky to provide light, , and no direction to give a sense of purpose. Nitsuki stood suspended in an endless, suffocating black void—a place where the laws of the world were not just broken, but nonexistent.
Then, out of the nothingness, a presence manifested.
It was a 1st Grade Soul Reaper.
Unlike the beasts at the river, this creature didn't just inhabit space—it crushed it. Its form was a jagged silhouette of nightmare, crowned with four hollow, lidless eyes that glowed with a distorted, flickering light. When those eyes locked onto Nitsuki, it felt as though his very soul was being pulled through a sieve.
Nitsuki's brow furrowed, his teeth gritting against the sudden, immense pressure. "…Now what the hell is this?"
The Soul Reaper offered no answer. It didn't waste a single heartbeat.
All four eyes pulsed with a blinding, sickly radiance at once.
Reality buckled.
Suddenly, Nitsuki's body was seized by an invisible hand. Space itself contracted, violently dragging him forward at a speed that threatened to tear his limbs from their sockets. It was as if he were being sucked into the event horizon of a black hole.
"AH—?!" Nitsuki's voice was strained, a gasp of pure shock as the void blurred around him. "What's happening?!"
He struggled against the vacuum, his arms flailing as the gravitational force intensified, pulling him deeper into the creature's reach. The Soul Reaper's massive, obsidian-scaled arm began to retract. It wasn't just a punch; it was a payload of compressed, lethal energy—an absolute strike designed to erase whatever it touched.
The distance closed in a fraction of a second. The moment Nitsuki was pulled within striking distance, the four eyes snapped shut. The gravity vanished.
And in that moment of weightlessness—
BOOOOOOM—!
The devastating punch was unleashed.
At the last possible microsecond, Nitsuki's instinct overrode the chaos of the void.
"VERSE SLAYER."
The sword manifested in his palm with a sharp, crystalline echo that shattered the silence of the void. Nitsuki twisted his body mid-pull, contorting himself around the path of the incoming fist. He didn't just block; he countered. The blade collided with the creature's knuckle.
CLANG—!
A shockwave of pure force erupted from the point of contact, rippling through the emptiness like a stone dropped in a black pond.
But Nitsuki didn't stop to catch his breath. He used the very momentum of the creature's punch, spinning like a dervish of violet light. His blade screamed as it tore through the fabric of space itself, carving a path down the length of the Soul Reaper's massive arm.
SLASH—!
Nitsuki landed on the empty air, his boots finding phantom purchase. He turned in a single, fluid motion. With a precise, brutal cut, he finished the stroke.
The Soul Reaper's arm was severed completely.
Dark energy spilled from the stump like thick, oily smoke, swirling into the void. The creature threw back its head and let out a roar that vibrated through Nitsuki's very bones.
The victory was momentary. The Soul Reaper's remaining arm began to vibrate with a terrifying frequency, the air—or what passed for it—rippling outward in jagged, visible waves. It was preparing a sound-wave attack of such magnitude that the void itself began to crack.
Nitsuki raised his hand instinctively, his eyes narrow. "FREEZE."
Nothing happened.
The command that usually stopped time dead in its tracks fell on deaf ears. The void didn't obey.
"What—?"
The Soul Reaper released the attack.
BOOOOOOOOM—!
A wall of pure kinetic sound slammed into Nitsuki's chest. It felt like being hit by a freight train made of glass. He was blasted backward, sent hurtling across the endless dark. He tumbled violently, his vision spinning, before he slammed his heels into the nothingness and barely stabilized himself mid-air.
Nitsuki stood in the center of the nothingness, his chest heaving as he fought for air. The phantom taste of iron filled his mouth.
"…What was that?" he whispered to the silence.
He looked at his hand—the hand that had commanded the world to stop only seconds ago. "I used time manipulation—but it didn't work. Did I do it wrong? Or is this thing just... beyond the laws?"
Before the thought could even settle, the space in front of him emptied. The Soul Reaper didn't move through the air; it simply existed in a new location. It blinked.
In the heartbeat it took for Nitsuki's pupils to dilate, the creature was already behind him, its massive silhouette blotting out the dark. A punch was already in motion, a wall of kinetic force screaming toward his spine.
Nitsuki didn't think. He let his body take over. He spun, the Verse Slayer whistling through the air to catch the blow. The collision vibrated through his teeth, but he used the impact to propel himself backward, jumping away just in time.
The fist whistled past his ribs, missing him by a fraction of an inch.
"Damn… that was close." He skidded across the invisible floor, his boots sparking against the void. "So it's fast, too. Not just strong."
He planted his feet, his fingers white as he gripped the sword. The weight of the blade felt impossibly real here, a heavy anchor in a world of ghosts. Its power was undeniable, pulsing like a second heartbeat against his palm.
"That skin is insanely hard," he muttered, glancing at the severed limb dissolving in the distance. "Cutting that arm nearly drained me. Without this sword, I wouldn't have been able to cut it at all. I would have just broken my hands against it."
The Soul Reaper's four eyes flared with a synchronized, sickly light.
Gravity inverted. Nitsuki's stomach dropped as his body was suddenly seized and hoisted into the air. He floated higher and higher, the creature below becoming a smaller and smaller speck of darkness.
"If I fall from this height… I'll die."
He looked down, forced to analyze the threat from a bird's-eye view. His gaze snapped to the crown of the creature.
"…Its head."
He squinted, noticing the way the dark energy swirled less densely there. "It doesn't look as hard as the rest of the body. That's it. That has to be its weakness."
The Soul Reaper didn't wait for him to fall. It didn't want gravity to do the work; it wanted to feel the impact. The creature coiled its legs and leaped.
The distance vanished in a heartbeat.
Its remaining fist clenched, glowing with the friction of its ascent, coming down on Nitsuki like a fallen meteor. Nitsuki gritted his teeth and threw his sword up in a desperate block—
CRASH—!
The force was like being hit by a tectonic plate. Nitsuki was slammed straight back into the ground below with such violence that the entire void shook. He hit the invisible floor with a sickening thud, a crater of fractured space forming around him.
The Soul Reaper landed a moment later. Slow. Cold. It began walking toward him, the heavy thud of its footsteps sounding like a funeral march.
Nitsuki coughed, a spray of blood hitting the floor. He groaned, every fiber of his being screaming for him to stay down, to let the darkness take him. But he forced his palms against the ground. He forced his legs to lock. He stood anyway.
"No… I won't give up." His voice was a raspy growl. "Not now. Not here."
He lifted his head, his eyes burning with a light that didn't belong in this void.
"I can't die yet."
The faces of his past and present flickered across his mind.
"For everyone. For my dead family… and for my second family." He thought of Sami's smile, of Takashi's rivalry, of Kento's laughter. "For peace."
He started running.
He didn't use superhuman speed. He didn't teleport. He just ran—the desperate, honest sprint of a human being fighting for his life.
The Soul Reaper snarled, its four eyes narrowing in rage as it charged to meet him. They closed the distance in a blur of black and violet. The creature swung a devastating, wide-arc punch intended to decapitate him.
Nitsuki didn't jump. He slammed his sword into the ground instead.
SLASH—!
He triggered a burst of violent wind pressure beneath the blade. The backdraft shot his body upward, his boots grazing the top of the Soul Reaper's fist as it obliterated the ground where he had been standing a millisecond prior. The impact shook the very foundations of the void.
Using the opening, Nitsuki twisted his body mid-air, gravity finally working in his favor. He reversed his grip on the Verse Slayer and brought the blade down with every ounce of will he possessed.
SLAAAAASH—!
The blade didn't just cut; it erased. It sheared through the Soul Reaper's head, biting through the crown and continuing down to the core.
The massive body split in two. The Soul Reaper collapsed silently, its form dissolving into the blackness like ink in water.
Nitsuki landed on his feet, his knees buckling under the weight of his own exhaustion. He stayed there for a long time, his breathing violent and ragged, echoing in the now-empty void.
"…That was tough."
He looked at his trembling hands, the Verse Slayer fading back into his spirit.
In the middle of the silent, cooling void, a sudden flicker of light broke the darkness. It wasn't an attack, but a hum of data—crisp, clean, and undeniable.
A translucent system card manifested in front of Nitsuki's face, pulsing with a soft, ethereal glow that cut through the shadows of his mind.
Congratulations! You have achieved a Unique Phore — [Phantom Switch]
Nitsuki blinked, his reflection caught in the shimmering surface of the notification. "…Huh? Phantom Switch? I've never heard of that."
The text on the card rippled like water, shifting to provide more detail:
[Phantom Switch] is a unique Phore that only one individual can possess. As long as you are on the same planet, you can switch your position instantly to any location where a Phore is sensed. Effect: A true spatial override.
Nitsuki's eyes widened, the gears in his head turning. A spatial override. It wasn't just speed; it was the ability to rewrite his location in reality itself. "…So that's how it works."
Before he could process the sheer weight of that power, the void around him fractured. Two massive, glowing white doors materialized out of the nothingness, standing side-by-side like monoliths.
The first door read: [Back to Your Earth] The second door read: [Back to My Memory]
Nitsuki's gaze lingered on the labels. "…Back to my Earth? So I can really return? I can go back to them?"
He glanced at the second door, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. "…And back to my memory? This isn't even my memory. None of this ever happened to me." He shook his head, pushing the mystery of his origins into the back of his mind. "I'll deal with that later. Right now—I need to go back."
Without another moment of hesitation, he reached out and gripped the handle of the first door. [Back to Your Earth].
The door swung open, and a wave of pure, blinding white light consumed him, erasing the void, the monster, and the cold.
The door vanished, leaving Nitsuki suspended in a sea of brilliance.
"…This is supposed to take me back—but where am I?"
The white surface beneath him suddenly evaporated, and Nitsuki began to fall. He wasn't tumbling through space; he was falling through time. As he plummeted, the white expanse was replaced by flickering scenes—vivid, glowing records of everything he had missed while his soul was trapped in the dark.
He saw it all: He saw Takashi, Sami, and Kento dragging his limp, unconscious body through the thickets of the jungle, their faces caked in mud and desperation. He saw their arrival at the Underground Shelter in Kyoto, the hidden fortress where they had sought refuge. He saw the brutal training—the sweat, the broken bones, and the raw determination as they pushed their bodies past human limits just to stay alive. He saw their planning sessions over low-light maps, their frantic search for any information that could save their world.
Then, the emotions hit him. He saw Sami huddled in the corner of his room, her shoulders shaking as she wept over his unresponsive form. He saw Takashi standing guard by his bed, silent and statuesque, his worry hidden behind a mask of stone. He saw Kento punching the walls of the training room, furious at his own perceived weakness.
Then, He saw the hundred 4th Grade Soul Reapers swarming the convoy. He saw the three of them surrounded, exhausted, and broken. He saw the five 2nd Grade Soul Reapers closing in for the final kill right now.
Nitsuki's face went completely cold. The confusion was gone. The warmth was gone. Only a razor-sharp resolve remained.
The fall came to a sudden, jarring halt. Reality reformed around him with the weight of a hammer.
Earth.
His body began floating upward, hovering just above the scorched grass of the riverbank. Black and purple particles—the residue of the Verse Slayer—spiraled violently around him in a miniature cyclone. The air twisted in agony, the pressure of his presence causing the winds to howl like wounded beasts.
Nitsuki opened his eyes. They were no longer the eyes of a victim. They were cold, focused, and unshaken. He sensed them—the Phore signatures of his friends, miles apart, yet all crying out in the same moment of terror.
He didn't move a muscle. He didn't need to.
He spoke one word, and the world obeyed.
"…SWITCH."
Right after that. The scene came back to present.
The convoy moved in a tight, disciplined formation. Armored transports and ambulance trucks cut through the settling dust, their headlights piercing the haze of the ruined road. For the first time since the first alarm had blared hours ago, the world was hauntingly quiet. There were no bone-shaking explosions, no desperate screams, and no sirens. Just the steady vibration of heavy tires against asphalt.
Inside one of the central vehicles, the air was thick with the scent of ozone and antiseptic.
Sami was deep in a heavy, dreamless sleep, her head resting on Nitsuki's lap. The brilliant silver aura that had once defined her presence was gone, leaving her looking small—fragile in a way that felt foreign. Her face was pale, shadowed by the deep lines of exhaustion that only a war of survival could etch into someone so young.
Nitsuki looked down at her, his expression unreadable. He traced the quiet rise and fall of her shoulders. This was the confident warrior who had stood against gods; the girl who had lifted tanks and crushed Soul Reapers to save entire divisions.
Now, she was just a girl who had reached her limit.
His jaw tightened, a hard glint flickering in his eyes. She suffered so much… he thought. From now on—whatever pain comes next… I'll carry it myself. She won't face it alone anymore.
He reached out, his touch lighter than a feather, and gently adjusted his jacket over her to act as a blanket, making sure she was comfortable.
From the opposite seat, Kento watched the entire display with a completely deadpan expression. He sat with his legs crossed, leaning his chin on his palm.
"…Oi," Kento muttered, his voice flat. "What's with this drama club nonsense? Are we filming a movie now?"
Nitsuki's stoic, hero-like expression shattered instantly. His face turned completely goofy, a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck. "EH—?!"
Before Nitsuki could even stammer out a defense—SMACK.
Takashi's hand moved in a blur, connecting with the back of Kento's head.
"Ow—! What the hell, Takashi?! Why did you hit me?!" Kento barked, rubbing the sore spot.
Takashi didn't even look at him. He remained leaning against the metal wall of the transport, his arms crossed over his chest. "Stay quiet," he replied calmly.
Kento stared at him, genuinely offended. "…What kind of logic is that? I'm just stating facts!"
Ignoring Kento's grumbling, Takashi finally shifted his gaze to Nitsuki. The atmosphere turned serious again, the weight of their unanswered questions filling the small space.
"So," Takashi said, his voice low so as not to wake Sami. "Care to explain, hero? Where exactly did you disappear to for all this time, you idiot?"
Nitsuki scratched his cheek awkwardly, forcing a sheepish, dumb smile. The terrifying warrior who had just erased five 2nd Grades was gone, replaced by the friend they remembered. "Ehh—I'm not an idiot. And honestly… I don't even know how I ended up somewhere else myself. It's all a bit of a blur."
Kento, unable to stay serious for more than thirty seconds, suddenly shot up in his seat, his eyes wide with a different kind of desperation.
"ALL THAT FIGHTING—I'M STARVINGGGG!!" he wailed, his stomach let out a roar that rivaled the engine. "I NEED FOOD!! RIGHT NOW!!"
The entire vehicle went dead silent. Everyone—from Nitsuki to the driver in the front—slowly turned to stare at him.
"...." "...."
Nitsuki blinked, his goofy smile frozen. Takashi let out a long, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire day's frustration.
Nitsuki looked back down at Sami's peaceful face, then met Takashi's eyes again. The humor faded, replaced by a quiet understanding.
"…Let's just reach the shelter first," Nitsuki said softly. "After we rest—I'll tell you everything."
The convoy continued its slow crawl forward. Ambulances carrying the broken, military vehicles carrying the weary, and survivors holding onto the hope of a tomorrow—all moving together toward the underground shelter of Kyoto.
Outside the reinforced steel of the transport, the sky was finally, truly clear. Sunlight broke through the last of the gray clouds, bathing the world in a warm, golden glow.
And for the first time in a long while—no one was fighting.
Not yet.