The universe did not explode.
It did not scream, fracture, or collapse into light.
It simply… stilled.
Kyuroto Mitsuyo stood alone where the war had ended, the air around him unnaturally calm. The cosmic distortions that once twisted space into impossible shapes were gone, folded back into nothingness as if they had never existed. The void was quiet—too quiet—like the breath held between heartbeats.
He lowered his hand.
The pressure that had once crushed entire realities receded, flowing back into him like water returning to the sea. Power folded inward, layer after layer, until only a faint presence remained.
One percent.
That was all he allowed himself.
The rest stayed sealed, locked behind something far deeper than will—behind discipline.
Kyuroto exhaled slowly.
The universe stabilized.
Stars resumed their paths. Time remembered how to move.
And yet, something was wrong.
He felt it in the silence.
Not danger.
Not hostility.
Absence.
He turned his gaze across the endless dark, eyes reflecting faint starlight. Nothing moved. No enemy lingered. No presence pressed against his senses.
Still… something had watched.
Kyuroto closed his eyes.
The echoes of the battle were already fading from reality's memory, but within him they remained perfectly preserved. He could trace every thread, every distortion, every decision that had led to the end.
And yet, among all those threads—
There was one he could not follow.
It vanished the moment he reached for it.
His brow lowered slightly.
"So you're still hiding," he murmured.
The void did not answer.
He stepped forward, and the scenery shifted.
The fractured battlefield dissolved into a quiet metropolitan skyline. Neon lights reflected off rain-soaked streets. Traffic flowed. People laughed, argued, lived—unaware that moments ago their existence had nearly been erased.
Kyuroto walked among them, unseen, unrecognized.
A man passed through him without noticing.
A child laughed at a street vendor's stall.
Life went on.
He felt something tighten in his chest.
This—this was why he held back.
Power without restraint would shatter this fragile normalcy. He had learned that long ago.
He stopped beneath an elevated rail line and looked up, rain dripping from his dark hair.
His thoughts drifted, unbidden.
A memory surfaced.
A warm hand on his shoulder.
A quiet voice saying his name.
Then blood.
The sound of something collapsing.
A scream cut short.
His fingers curled.
"Still hiding," he whispered, not in anger—but in certainty.
Whoever had orchestrated that night had done so with precision. Not recklessness. Not emotion.
Intention.
Kyuroto closed his eyes and reached outward—not with power, but with perception.
The world responded in whispers.
Fragments of causality. Faint distortions in probability. Old scars in the flow of events.
There.
A thread.
Not bright. Not loud.
But wrong.
He followed it.
The trail led him far from the city, beyond ordinary space, into a region where reality grew thin and unresponsive. A place that should not exist—yet did.
An echo of something older than memory lingered there.
Kyuroto stopped.
His instincts screamed caution.
Not danger.
Recognition.
For the first time since the battle, his calm cracked—just slightly.
"…So you were there," he murmured.
The presence did not answer.
It did not need to.
Its absence was loud enough.
He straightened, expression unreadable.
"I won't chase blindly," he said quietly. "Not anymore."
The air stirred, as if acknowledging the declaration.
He turned away.
Not retreating.
Preparing.
Because now, he knew.
The one responsible for his parents' deaths was not gone.
Not erased.
Not destroyed.
They were watching.
And soon—
They would be found.
Kyuroto stepped forward, disappearing into the flow of the world once more.
Above him, unseen by all, the fabric of reality trembled ever so slightly.
Something ancient shifted.
And somewhere far beyond comprehension…
Something waited.
End of Chapter 51