Ren lurched upright, scanning the treeline, his skin prickling with instinctive dread.
That's when he saw them.
A pair of eyes—discreet, glinting between the trees.
Not animal.
Human.
Watching.
Waiting.
Ren's body tensed. Every nerve screamed at him to move, to run—
A hand emerged from the shadows.
Pale. Delicate.
Palm outward.
No time to react.
The world around him twisted.
An invisible force exploded outward from the figure's hand with a low, shuddering hum, bending the very air in its path. Trees bowed as if caught in a violent hurricane, their trunks groaning under the pressure. Grass flattened instantly.
The sheer weight of it crashed against Ren like a tidal wave.
"Gah—!"
The breath was ripped from his lungs as he was hurled backward, his body flailing helplessly through the air.
A tree rushed up to meet him.
CRACK.
Pain blossomed along his back and ribs, sharp and searing. His vision splintered into white-hot stars as he collapsed at the base of the trunk, his body crumpling awkwardly.
The world spun violently.
Ren's hands scrabbled at the ground, trying to ground himself, but the earth tilted wildly beneath him.
He tasted blood—sharp and metallic, leaking from the corner of his mouth.
His mind screamed at him to move, to get up, to run—
—but his body refused, too stunned, too broken in the moment.
Through the dizzy haze, he forced his head up just enough to see the figure stepping out from the woods. Cloaked in shadow. Impossibly calm.
The air around them shimmered faintly—like heat distortion on a summer road—only this was wrong. Unnatural.
Ren gasped, every nerve on fire, as the whisper returned, curling into his ears like poison:
Ren's hands scrabbled at the ground, nails tearing into the damp earth, desperate for something—anything—to anchor himself.
But the world tilted madly around him, as if the forest itself were trying to throw him off.
His mouth filled with the sharp, metallic taste of blood, dripping from a split lip.
His mind howled at him:
"Get up. Get up. GET UP."
But his limbs barely obeyed, sluggish and trembling.
Through the dizzy, stuttering haze of pain, Ren forced his head up, just enough to catch a glimpse.
The figure from the woods moved closer, stepping calmly into the faint moonlight.
Cloaked in darkness, but not hidden.
Around them, the air wavered—like heat on asphalt, but colder, heavier, wrong in a way that made the back of Ren's skull scream.
He blinked rapidly, breath ragged.
And then—
—the smell hit him.
The smell of death.
Rot. Decay.
The scent wrapped around his brain like barbed wire, dragging memories from the pit where he had buried them.
Ren's eyes widened, heart hammering in his ribcage.
It was it.
The creature.
The same monstrosity that had destroyed his family—the pale, plasticky skin stretched too tight over bone, the hollow, lifeless eyes leaking black, the strands of wet, stringy hair plastered against its skull.
Its body glistened as if it had just crawled out from some putrid, ancient grave.
And now it was here.
Again.
"Why?"
"Why won't it leave me alone?"
Ren tried—tried—to stand. His knees buckled. His arms shook violently. Every muscle screamed in protest, but somehow, somehow, he forced himself upright.
The creature didn't wait.
It moved.
One second it was several meters away—
—the next, it was right in front of him.
Ren barely registered the blur of motion before the creature's palm was already swinging forward, a sharp, violent jab aimed straight at his chest.
WHAM.
The blow didn't feel physical—it felt like being hit by a wall of force, unseen but unstoppable.
Ren's ribs crunched under the impact. His body folded, air blasting out of his lungs as he was hurled backward like a rag doll.
He barely had time to throw up his arms as the world spun wildly and then he crashed through a rotten wooden fence, splinters tearing into his skin.
Momentum carried him further, tumbling helplessly down a narrow slope and straight into the gaping black mouth of an abandoned Okutama mine.
Ren hit the ground hard, his body bouncing once before he rolled across the jagged stone and debris. The impact ripped a broken gasp from his lungs. His skin scraped against the rough floor, tearing open in places. Dust exploded into the stale air, swirling thick around him. Darkness swallowed him, pressing heavy against his senses.
Everything was pain.
Every breath was a blade sawing into his ribs.
He lay there, stunned, his mind swimming.
"Move... get up... move..."
But all he could manage was a twitch, a helpless scrape of his boot against the rocky floor.
From somewhere above, he heard the wet, heavy thud of feet landing inside the mine.
Ren's blood froze.
"It's here."
Panic surged through him. He forced his arms to work, dragging himself forward through the rubble, fingernails splitting against the stone.
And then—
A voice.
A sick, twisted voice that slithered through the cavern, low and dripping venom.
"Yeah, crawl,"
the voice sneered.
"Crawl like the little bitch you are."
Ren's breath hitched sharply.
The creature took slow, deliberate steps closer, the sound echoing in the cavern, each one hammering Ren deeper into terror.
"That's the only thing you can do, isn't it?"
The voice taunted again, cruel and gleeful, savoring his weakness.
Ren's mind screamed that something was wrong—something was wrong with that voice.
It wasn't the same monstrous growl he remembered from that night.
It was—
It was—
His trembling fingers clawed at the ground as he tried to turn, tried to see.
And when he lifted his blood-smeared face toward the figure, realization punched the air from his lungs.
"...K-Kaito...?" Ren stammered, voice a broken whisper.
The figure—half shrouded in shadow, half illuminated by the faint moonlight filtering into the mine—grinned.
A grin full of hate, twisted and far too wide.
"So, you remember me now, huh?"
Kaito's voice slithered through the cavern. Distorted. Stretched. Mutated.
Yet unmistakably him.
The face that had once sat at the back of Ren's class—quiet, awkward, bruised too often—now stared down at him, filled with something inhuman.
Kaito took another step forward.
"You ran away."
His voice wasn't angry at first. It was hurt. Deeply, crushingly hurt.
Ren swallowed hard, tears stinging his eyes as he whispered, "I'm... I'm sorry..."
Kaito's face twisted violently, rage snapping through his features.
"LIAR!"
He roared, and the very walls of the mine seemed to vibrate with the force of his fury.
"You're not sorry! None of you are!"
Kaito's foot slammed into a nearby rock, shattering it to dust as his voice cracked with something raw and ugly.
"You ran away,"
"Just like everyone else. Just like those shitty 'friends' of mine. Like that cowardly teacher. Even my own parents."
Ren could only stare, heart hammering painfully against his ribs.
Kaito's voice grew harsher, bitterer.
"You think I forgot? Huh?!"
"You think I forgot all the times they stuffed my head in the toilet bowl? When they made me drink mop water, when they pinned me down and beat the shit out of me after school?"
"And you—"
Kaito's trembling, accusing finger stabbed the air between them. His shadow loomed huge against the crumbling walls of the mine.
"You were there."
His voice was raw, guttural, like every word carved its way out of a bleeding wound.
"You all were there."
"And you all just fucking watched."
Each word struck harder than the last.
Ren flinched with every syllable, as if Kaito's voice alone could break bone.
"Everyone fucking watched while I begged. While I screamed. While they ripped away whatever little dignity I had left."
Kaito's voice cracked — not with rage this time, but something deeper. Something so small and broken that, for a moment, Ren saw not the monster standing over him... but the boy who used to sit silently in the back of the classroom.
The boy no one ever saved.
Kaito shook his head slowly, bitter laughter bubbling up from his throat.
"But, of course,"
"Daichi's dad is a politician. Yuto's uncle is some big-shot businessman."
His words were poison, spat out like they burned his tongue.
"So they get away with it. That's how it works, right? Power protects power. Connections keep the bastards safe, while people like me—"
He slammed his fist into a rock wall nearby.
The stone shattered.
Dust rained down from the ceiling.
"People like me rot."
Ren crawled back a few more desperate inches, but there was nowhere left to go.
Kaito's eyes glowed faintly in the dark, wild and bloodshot.
"Everyone just wants to save their own backs."
His voice was hollow.
Flat.
Like he wasn't even angry anymore—just stating a truth he'd swallowed a long time ago.
Kaito smiled then.
A slow, gruesome curl of his lips that never reached his eyes.
"But it doesn't matter now," he said, voice low.
"Thanks to that freak with the magic tricks, I got what I needed."
"I already killed Yuto and Daichi."
He tilted his head, like remembering something minor.
"That cowardly teacher too."
The words hit like ice water, sending a fresh bolt of horror through Ren's veins.
"My own mom and big bro..."
Kaito's voice wavered — just for a breath — then hardened again.
"They're gone too."
Ren could only shake his head, tears slipping silently down his cheeks.
"Only my dad escaped," Kaito growled.
"But I'll find him. After I'm done with you."
His smile widened, grotesque.
"Just like your precious daddy and mommy."
The cavern seemed to tilt.
Ren's breath came in sharp, broken gasps.
He did the only thing his body would allow him to do.
He screamed.
"HELP!"
Ren's voice cracked, raw with terror.
"SOMEBODY! PLEASE!"
His voice echoed off the stone walls, bouncing back at him, warped and lonely.
Silence answered.
And then—
Laughter.
Low. Hollow.
Amused.
Kaito tilted his head, almost curiously, like a dog watching something squirm.
"How does it feel, Ren?"
Kaito's voice wrapped around him, thick and suffocating.
"How does it feel to scream for help... only to be ignored?"
He took a slow step forward.
Ren shrank back instinctively.
"How does it feel to know that no one's coming for you?"
The words pierced deeper than any claw or fist could have.
Kaito crouched slightly, meeting Ren's terrified gaze.
"Just like no one came for me."
Ren's lips trembled violently.
"Kaito..."
The name barely made it past his shaking throat.
"Please," he whispered.
For a moment — a heartbeat — something almost human flickered in Kaito's expression.
Almost.
Kaito exhaled through his teeth, an ugly sound.
Then his face stretched into something mockingly pitying.
"Well,"
He hummed, straightening.
He lifted a hand — a sick, unnatural glow pulsing at his clawed fingertips.
"I guess even you deserve some form of mercy."
Kaito's fingers curled, that sickly glow at his fingertips intensifying—crackling with unstable energy that made the very air feel wrong. The faint hum built into a low, pulsing whine that rattled Ren's bones.
"I'll make it quick."
Ren couldn't move.
Couldn't scream.
His body felt like dead weight, pinned beneath the crushing force of his own fear.
"So this is how it ends…." he thought,
The creature's arm raised, palm aimed directly at his chest.
Ren's heart badumped, fast and uneven, like it was trying to claw its way out of his body.
Tears blurred his vision, hot and frantic.
"I wish... I could've done things differently," he whispered, voice raw but steady. "Maybe been a better person."
There was no anger. No desperation. Only a quiet sadness as he watched the attack surge toward him, the air distorting violently around Kaito's outstretched hand.
"Maybe this is what I deserve."
He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable.
But the crushing force never came.
Instead—
A sharp crack split the air, followed by a burst of light.
Ren's eyes snapped open.
A shimmering yellow shield had materialized right in front of him, glowing bright against the suffocating darkness of the mine. The impact of Kaito's attack struck it head-on, sending ripples of golden energy pulsing outward.
Standing between Ren and the monster was a girl.
Her back was to him, but he recognized her immediately—the same girl who had appeared the night his parents were murdered, the one who had pulled him from the jaws of death.
The one who had vanished before he could even ask her why.
"You're not dying here," she said firmly, her voice cutting cleanly through the chaos, like a blade slicing through fog.
Kaito—or whatever was left of him—let out a wet, distorted laugh. The creature's translucent skin stretched grotesquely over his skeletal frame, his dull, leaking eyes glinting with twisted amusement.
"Are you having withdrawals now, you coward?"
The creature's voice slithered through the air, mocking and venomous.
Ren stared at the girl's back, heart pounding in confusion and disbelief.
"Why… why are you here?"
The girl didn't flinch.
Her focus stayed on Ren.
"Run."
Ren blinked, blood still roaring in his ears.
"...Wh-why are you—?"
"RUN."
The word hit him like a slap.
He shook his head, pushing himself up with trembling arms. "I— I can't— my legs— I'm—"
The shield cracked again.
Kaito's laughter echoed through the cavern, loud and gleeful.
"Coward. Always hiding. Always running."
"Face me like a man."
The girl's grip tightened.
The yellow barrier flickered dangerously.
"I'll hold him," she said, her tone cold but sure. "But you have to move."
Ren stared at her, panic flooding his veins. "Why? Why are you even doing this? You don't even know me—!"
She didn't look back at him.
"Because its the right thing to do."
Her voice was softer now, but resolute.
"So save yourself."
Another deafening impact slammed into the shield.
Cracks spiderwebbed outward violently, the golden barrier trembling under the monster's relentless assault.
Kaito's twisted figure loomed just beyond, the sickly glow of his body seething with hate.