Kouhei's gaze locked onto Himeno Yui.
His heart pounded with a strange, unshakable certainty.
He didn't know how—hell, he didn't even know why—but just by looking at her, something inside him screamed the truth that she was the one who did this to him.
This world, this fake reality, this suffocating illusion—she was the one who had trapped him here.
The hows, the reasons, the mechanics of it all remained veiled in mystery. But that gut-deep knowing was impossible to ignore.
It had to be her. No one else.
"That hurt, senpai~," Yui cooed, voice light and teasing, but laced with venom just beneath the surface. Her lips curled into a mock pout as she tilted her head. "Calling me Himeno-san all of a sudden… after all this time of affectionately calling me Yui-chan?"
There was a bitterness hidden in the sweetness of her tone. A playful jab masking something deeper.
But Kouhei didn't waver.
That nickname… he hadn't used it out of love.
She'd made him believe she was someone she wasn't. She had made him think she was his girlfriend.
She had twisted his perception.
"Even after kissing me?" she continued, taking a slow, almost seductive step forward. Her voice dropped into something more sultry. "And then almost fucking me, senpai… now you're calling me Himeno-san?"
Her mischievous grin widened, eyes sparkling with dark amusement.
"That's because you made me believe it," Kouhei said, his voice steady.
Yui just shrugged, her shoulders rising and falling in a motion that was both casual and unnervingly uncaring. "Mmm, well, I guess my charm wasn't strong enough to completely pull you under. I tried, you know? I really tried to keep your memories locked away. But they just kept bubbling back up like a stubborn curse."
She sighed, almost dramatically, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.
"I went through all this trouble—setting up everything perfectly—just to keep you from remembering. But, well… here we are." Her voice turned wistful for a moment, soft and airy. "Aaaaah~ I honestly wanted to keep playing forever. Just you and me, in this little make-believe world. But I guess I can't keep the Child of Anti-Prophecy bound by my powers forever, huh?"
The moment the words left her mouth, a chill swept through Kouhei's entire body.
His eyes widened, breath catching in his throat.
"You… know what I am?"
"That you're the Child of Anti-Prophecy?" Yui echoed with a warm, sincere smile, as if she were commenting on the weather. "Yes."
There wasn't a shred of doubt or deception in her eyes.
Kouhei swallowed hard. "How?"
Yui giggled and threw her hands up. "Well, it's not like you or your little demon crew were doing a great job hiding it. You practically had a neon sign over your head."
He had never—not once—considered that she might know not only what he was, but who was with him. The others. The demons. Everything.
But if she knew that…
Then she was no ordinary kouhai.
She wasn't just some underclassman who happened to be caught up in things.
She was something else. Something far beyond human.
Yui tilted her head again, eyes glinting like a cat ready to pounce. "Thinking to yourself now, huh? 'What is she really?'" She let out a soft, almost melodic laugh. "Fufufufu~ You're ruining all the fun, senpai~!"
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. When they opened again, they were shimmering with anticipation.
"But I guess I shouldn't hide it anymore," she said slowly. "You've already seen glimpses of me, haven't you? Bits and pieces here and there. So… showing you the full picture shouldn't really matter now."
Suddenly—snap—it happened.
Without warning, without fanfare, two massive wings erupted from her back.
There was a loud, wet flesh-tearing sound as they sprouted from beneath her skin, gray and gnarled, unfurling with a haunting elegance.
They were not the radiant white wings of a heavenly being. No… these were dull, ash-colored wings—stained with a corruption that pulsed through every feather.
Kouhei took a staggering step back, his breath caught in his chest.
"…A fallen angel?" he whispered, almost disbelieving.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Yui burst into laughter—genuine, loud, and mad.
"That's right! That's right! Bravo, senpai! You nailed it!"
She flapped her wings with a flourish, feathers scattering like ash in the air.
"I am a fallen angel! Pretty cool, huh?!"
Kouhei's thoughts were spiraling.
All this time… right beside him… she had been a fallen angel?
Pretending. Watching. Manipulating.
Playing him like a puppet.
Of course it made sense. There was no way a normal human could've constructed a world . No way an ordinary person could bend reality and trap him in an illusion of what could have been.
"This must be such a shock for you, huh, senpai~?" she purred, voice dripping with amusement. "You can't believe you almost had sex with a fallen angel, can you?"
She laughed harder, nearly doubling over from how funny she found it.
His chest was tight. His mind raced. This—everything—was beyond comprehension.
"What would Hina-senpai, Yuuna-senpai, Nagisa-senpai, and Misuzu-senpai think…" she said, pacing a bit now with a thoughtful finger on her chin, "if they heard that you almost fucked me, senpai?"
She glanced back with a wicked grin. "Would they break up with you? Hmmm, no… I doubt it. They're way too in love with you. But they'd definitely be pissed~"
She even knew about his relationships.
Kouhei's breath hitched.
How much had she seen?
How long had she been watching?
A realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
The corruption of Takahashi. The madness that overtook the girls who attacked the city. The seething rage, the envy, the twisted desires…
Wasn't all of that the work of a fallen angel?
If that's true—then it could only mean one thing.
It was certain that Yui was the one who corrupted them.
It wasn't a guess anymore.
It was the only possible truth.
"That's right, senpai," Yui said sweetly, as if reading his thoughts. "I was the one who pushed Takahashi-senpai into his jealous little spiral. I let envy eat him alive. And Watanabe-san? Rage. Sweet, burning rage."
"I manipulated them. Corrupted them. Made them mine. Then I sent them right at you. Because honestly? There's nothing more entertaining than watching you squirm while fighting people I broke."
She giggled, spinning once, arms wide like she was dancing on a stage.
Kouhei's voice was low. "Why would you do this?"
"Hah?" she blinked. "That's simple, really."
Her voice was calm. Almost… bored.
"Because I was bored."
No prophecy. No grand plan. No divine retribution.
"Watching you, senpai… I felt like I could have so much fun," she said, her wings flexing behind her. "So I kept throwing the corrupted ones your way. I wanted to see how you'd handle them. What choices you'd make. Who you'd protect. How far you'd go."
Kouhei stared at her. "What if they killed the others?"
Yui met his gaze with a blink, her answer coming so fast it felt rehearsed.
"Well, I guess that's just life," she said flatly. "I mean, the only one I'm really interested in is you, senpai. Not those demons."
There was no hesitation.
"Don't be mad at me, senpai," Yui said softly, her voice dripping with a mix of mischief and sincerity. Her lips curled into that signature playful smile, one that now felt far more sinister than endearing. "I mean, really—there's nothing that could've been done, alright? The only thing I want… is you. No one else matters to me. So I did what I did. Plain and simple."
Kouhei stood there, eyes locked onto her as if trying to see through the illusion of the girl he once thought he knew. His chest tightened, lungs aching for air that suddenly felt too heavy.
Slowly, he inhaled, the silence between them stretching with unbearable weight as he tried to make sense of everything unraveling in front of him.
So this was it. The truth.
Himeno Yui... was the fallen angel they had been hunting all along. The same one responsible for all the chaos, and the corruption.
And knowing that... he knew instinctively—there was no way he could defeat her.
She wasn't just powerful. She was terrifying. The kind of existence that didn't just bend reality—but rewrote it.
Still, even in the face of that overwhelming truth, something inside him burned with the need to understand. To know.
"...Can I ask you something?" he asked.
Yui tilted her head slightly, strands of her hair shifting over her shoulder as she gave a cheerful little hum.
"Go ahead. Anything for you, senpai~" she said, as if none of this was even remotely serious.
The moment those words left his mouth, a sudden hush fell over the space. The playfulness in her eyes dimmed, just for a second—but her lips remained curled in that unreadable smile, as if she already knew what was coming.
Kouhei didn't stop and continued.
"I know for a fact... that I died before coming here. I remember it. The end. The moment everything faded to black. So why am I here now? Why does it feel like I'm still alive?"
For a moment, Yui just looked at him.
Then, after a heartbeat, her eyes lit up with a glint of something both tender and twisted.
"Well... fufufu~" she giggled, the sound echoing like wind chimes in a graveyard. "Here's the thing, senpai," she said, slowly stepping toward him with the poise of a predator cloaked in innocence. "You're already dead."
Her words struck like a thunderclap.
She didn't dance around it. She didn't ease him into the truth. She dropped it like a blade, straight and clean.
"Or at least," she added with a tilt of her head and a devilish glint in her eye, "you should have been. But thanks to me… I kept you alive."