Hina had seen this before.
A vision she once hoped would never come true… now unfolding before her very eyes.
That image burned into her memory.
Kouhei—lying motionless in a crimson pool of his own blood.
The moment Masayoshi's time manipulation finally dissipated, the invisible shackles that had bound her limbs were gone.
Hina could move again.
But her body didn't react the way she wanted it to.
Her legs felt heavy, like walking through a dream soaked in dread, and she approached him with painstaking slowness, as if each step would make this nightmare even more real.
Her feet dragged across the blood-stained earth.
Part of her didn't want to see it.
Part of her wanted to turn away, to flee, or to pretend it wasn't real.
But another part needed to see it.
Needed to feel every inch of the pain that was coming.
As if letting it hit her like a truck would somehow make it easier to accept.
The darkness that had once swallowed the world was now beginning to peel back.
Faint streaks of twilight sunlight broke through the suffocating gloom like divine spears, illuminating the horror before her.
The dome Masayoshi had created was gone now.
Everything was back to normal.
But what was "normal" anymore?
Inside that dome—inside that sphere of frozen time—no second had passed in the real world.
It was like a moment cut out of reality itself.
That's how powerful Masayoshi's ability was.
Even though they had fought inside for what felt like hours, even though it was a battle where life itself trembled, no time had passed outside.
And so, to anyone looking from the outside… one second Kouhei was standing.
And the next... he was dead.
From life to death in the blink of an eye.
The moment the dome cracked and vanished into nothingness, Hiyori rushed out of the infirmary, her heart pounding in her chest like a war drum.
Relief swept through her at first, thinking the danger had passed.
Hina... kneeling. Frozen. Facing something sprawled on the ground.
A flash of dread struck her like a bolt of lightning.
She moved closer, and the moment her eyes confirmed what lay there—who lay there—her breath caught in her throat.
Her hands flew up to her mouth as a guttural gasp escaped her lips.
She couldn't breathe.
Her knees gave out. Her body crumpled under the weight of what she was witnessing.
Pure, unfiltered despair.
Like an endless abyss had opened under her and swallowed her whole.
Hina's expression mirrored the same agony.
She wasn't seeing anything anymore.
Not the trees, not the sky, not the light of twilight breaking over them.
All she saw was Kouhei.
Her reflection rippled in the blood pooled beneath him.
A twisted, broken reflection.
An expression shattered by sorrow.
A raw, soul-crushing despair.
A faint sound slipped from her lips.
It was cracked and hollow.
Then her legs buckled, and her knees sank into the blood.
She didn't even notice it soaking into her skin, staining her.
Her hands hovered above him—shaking—as if afraid that even the smallest touch might hurt him more than what had already happened.
His name trembled out of her lips like a prayer.
He had always answered when she called his name.
Now, he wasn't moving.
She screamed his name.
The first time she had ever screamed his name like that.
A sound torn from the deepest part of her.
There was rushed footsteps. Four figures burst onto the scene.
The Student Council members.
Their eyes landed on him.
And widened in horror.
Voices overlapped. The sounds were panicked, breathless and cracking with disbelief.
They had rushed back to the school the moment Yuuna sensed something… wrong. Something in the air that reeked of unnatural silence.
But none of them could have imagined this.
Kouhei who was lifeless.
Hina who was kneeling, trembling and covered in blood.
His eyes… they were gone.
The life in them—the spark that had always been there—wasn't just dimmed.
It was completely gone.
Yuuna's lips barely moved. Her voice didn't even sound like her own.
"Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
It was the kind of scream that cracked the soul.
Like the world around her had just shattered into a million jagged pieces.
Nagisa stood there like a statue.
Her eyes darted around, looking anywhere but at Kouhei. Anywhere else.
"This is a lie... This is not real, right? This is a dream. I mean, this has to be... I mean, it doesn't even make sense… Kou is still alive..."
Her voice was barely coherent.
A string of panicked denial tumbling out of her mouth like she was grasping at reality.
A reality that refused to grasp her back.
She was running from it.
Misuzu, meanwhile, didn't hesitate.
She rushed forward, stumbling over herself to get to him.
"Kouhei-kun… please… please…!"
Her voice cracked with desperation.
If only Yumi were here. Maybe she could fix this. Maybe she could bring him back.
Deep down, she knew the truth.
No healer, no matter how skilled, could fix something .
The wound was too deep.
There was too much blood. Too much damage.
Still, Misuzu collapsed beside him and reached out, as if pouring every ounce of her soul into that single touch.
"P-Please, Kouhei-kun… Don't leave me… please…!"
Tears fell like rain.
Endless. Shaking her whole body.
Her tears fell freely now.
And the last among them… standing in silence, paralyzed by what she saw… was Kozue.
She didn't have a deep connection with Kouhei like the others.
They weren't close. Not really.
But even so… this broke something inside her.
Maybe it was because she had seen him every day. Lived with him. Shared space, time, and a sense of community with him for months.
Blood-stained. Empty.
It didn't matter if they were close.
Death had a way of piercing through every wall.
And this... this was no exception.
A pain shared by all.
A moment none of them would ever forget.
The Yuuna Faction had just suffered a devastating blow.
One of its most precious members...
A ripple tore through the fabric of space as a figure emerged from the swirling portal. The air crackled faintly around it. The gateway closed behind him with a subtle snap.
Natsuya, the one controlling the portals, stepped forward and sighed heavily.
"Didn't I tell you to be careful?" he said, shaking his head. "Even if it was just two of them, they're still powerful. They carry the power of the Child of Anti-Prophecy, don't they?"
His voice carried a sharp edge, underlined by the wet sound of something squishing in his hand.
He was holding it casually—like one might hold a fruit—and it was Masayoshi's eyeball. The only part of him that had remained after he received the full brunt of Hina's power.
If Natsuya had been a second too late, even this grisly piece would've been lost to the void. The eyeball, slick with fresh fluids, pulsed faintly in his grip. Masayoshi was still alive.
A grotesque evolution unfolded in his palm.
From the rear of the eyeball, nerves slithered out like worms, threading together and stretching outward.
The tissue began to swell and bubble, forming the pulsating mass of a brain, veins bulging and twitching beneath a translucent sheen.
It looked like something out of a nightmare.
The organic matter shaping itself from nothing, guided by some biological memory.
The brain soon erupted with small, bulbous orbs along its network of veins... like tumors budding from diseased roots.
Then came the shielding membrane, a thin, fleshy cocoon that wrapped around the mass.
Layer by layer, muscle fibers crawled across it, fusing into shape with wet slaps and the sound of tendons snapping into place.
The skull followed, knitting together in jagged pieces, encasing the brain in bone.
And finally, it was flesh. Pale, damp skin stretched over the face, twitching and spasming as nerves lit up for the first time.
The head was whole again.
"Ugh… why is my regeneration so fucking slow?" Masayoshi's voice slithered out, hollow and weak, bubbling through a throat not yet fully formed.
"You're probably running dangerously low on mana," Natsuya said, adjusting his grip as he now held the partially restored head by the jagged stump of its neck. "That's likely why your time manipulation isn't functioning at full capacity."
"Shut the fuck up," Masayoshi hissed, his still-forming eyes narrowing slightly. "I still can't believe I lost that goddamn suit..."
Natsuya gave a faint shrug. "It's fine. You managed to inflict pain exactly where it hurts most."
Because despite everything, they had succeeded in one objective.
Masayoshi had killed the Child of Anti-Prophecy.
And with that final blow, the Yuuna Faction had been thrown into chaos and despair.
Without the Child, they were vulnerable.
Their strength would crumble against the advancing force of the Souichiro Faction.
"Let's head back and report to Souichiro-sama," Natsuya said, his tone light, almost teasing now. "Maybe he'll reward you with something… fitting. A new set of clothes, perhaps."
Masayoshi groaned, disgusted. "How about we fucking wait for my body to heal first?"
The two demons from the Souichiro Faction turned their backs on the human world and disappeared—returning to the depths of hell.