A freezing silence fell over the room.
Heavy. Crushing. Almost tangible.
The nurse and Shinobu exchanged uneasy, shaken glances, as if searching in each other's eyes for an answer neither of them dared to voice out loud.
Mizunashi, on the other hand, remained perfectly neutral.
So much so that one could almost believe he felt nothing at all.
He simply kept watching Sakuya's eyes, focused, attentive, refusing to be drawn into the suffocating tension that filled the room.
After a few seconds, Sakuya pressed again.
"How is Kanao?"
His voice was firmer this time.
And heavier with emotion.
"Where is she?"
Shinobu opened his mouth to answer…
But no words came out.
His lips trembled.
And tears took their place, flowing freely, speaking for him.
The nurse turned her gaze toward Sakuya.
She froze.
She didn't know what to say.
Not after everything he had just been through.
Not knowing how unstable his Seimei had been over the past weeks.
The silence stretched on.
Then Mizunashi took a step forward, approaching the bed where Sakuya lay, never once breaking eye contact.
"Sakuya… have you looked at your eyes?"
Sakuya clenched his fists.
His body leaned forward slightly, as if under the weight of tension held back for far too long.
Then he snapped his head up and stared straight at Mizunashi.
His gaze was hard.
Determined.
Demanding.
"You…"
His voice shook.
"I've seen you. Your face… it means something to me."
He inhaled deeply.
"I know you know where she is."
A pause.
"Answer me. Now."
Mizunashi let out a brief breath.
"She's dead, Sakuya."
The world stopped.
Sakuya froze, his expression locked in raw, unreal disbelief.
"Tell me where she is. Right now."
His voice trembled.
"Stop messing with me."
Then something broke.
His eyes emptied, swallowed by a flood of uncontrollable thoughts.
A flash.
A monster.
A hand closing around his throat.
The sensation of dying.
Then a voice.
His name.
Spoken just before the creature was torn apart.
Another memory followed.
A figure walking toward him.
An agent.
And then… darkness.
(Is it him…?)
Sakuya slowly lifted his head.
His eyes settled on the man standing before him.
On those fuchsia eyes, impossible to forget.
Recognition hit him like a blow.
An A.N.C.S. agent.
Brilliant blond hair.
And during the incident, an aura so dense it seemed to bend the air itself.
Sakuya leaned forward slightly.
"I've seen you before."
A pause.
"We know each other…"
Mizunashi let a faint smirk tug at the corner of his lips.
Just a trace of amusement.
"In a way… yes. We grew up together."
Sakuya narrowed his eyes, then opened them wide.
Certainty set in.
"You're Mizunashi Seishō."
His voice was steadier now.
"We were in the same class, weren't we?"
Mizunashi nodded slowly.
That simple gesture was enough to make something inside Sakuya give way.
He bent forward, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on his knees, as if his body instinctively tried to fold in on itself.
Memories came back without order, without logic, fragments torn from a past that had never been given time to heal.
School.
Overly white hallways.
Tests.
Numbers.
The stares of other children.
Then familiar faces.
Classmates.
Shinobu.
Laughter.
Silences, too.
And finally… her.
Kanao.
Her smile.
Her voice.
The warmth of her hand in his.
Then the image shattered.
He saw her body twist and deform under a force that no longer obeyed the laws of the living.
A figure stretched too tall, too long, almost translucent in places.
Flesh that seemed unsure whether it still existed or was already dissolving.
Limbs with no human proportions left, as if her body had been pulled apart by a foreign will.
He remembered her eyes.
Or rather… their absence.
The shattered white, streaked with red veins.
A gaze emptied of all humanity.
Then the crash.
Screaming metal.
Shattering glass.
His own body crushed, broken down into a total, formless pain.
And Kanao.
What remained of her.
An ethereal monstrosity, almost floating, with only a few details betraying its origin:
the curve of a cheek, a broken collarbone, the familiar length of a strand of hair that no longer belonged to her.
His hands clenched until his knuckles turned white.
His jaw tightened until it hurt.
He thought of her birthday.
The day before the accident.
He remembered promising they'd make up for it.
That they'd do something simple.
Just the two of them.
Then he saw the projectile.
The light.
The impact.
The creature's body pulverized, ripped straight out of existence.
And then… him.
That agent.
Mizunashi.
Tears burst free without restraint, in an almost obscene flood, streaming down his face without him even trying to stop them.
His breathing became uneven, ragged.
His expression twisted into an unbearable mix of grief, hatred, and incomprehension.
He jerked his head up.
His green eyes, red from tears, burned with raw fury.
"YOU KNEW WHO SHE WAS."
His voice trembled, but it was loud. Too loud.
"YOU KNEW WHAT THAT CREATURE WAS."
He sucked in air violently, as if suffocating.
"You killed her, you piece of shit!"
The words tore out of him in a broken scream.
He was crying so hard he could barely breathe, every breath cutting into his chest.
"Why did you kill her?!
Why her?!"
He shook his head, unable to understand, unable to accept it.
"Answer me!!"
Mizunashi didn't move.
Impassive.
Only the slight tightening of his jaw betrayed a restrained tension.
"Then why am I not dead?!"
Sakuya's voice cracked.
"Why is she the one who died?!
Why am I still here?!"
He had to stop, gasping for air, almost choking.
Then the questions poured out, wild, chaotic, uncontrollable.
"And what did you do to me?!
What is this?!"
He yanked violently at a lock of his hair.
"What's with this hair?!
What is this place?!
How long have I been here?!"
He screamed so loudly his voice echoed down the hallway beyond the closed door.
Mizunashi clenched his teeth.
Before him, Sakuya was shattered.
Crying. Trembling. His shoulders wracked by uncontrollable sobs.
His green eyes, once calm, were now bloodshot, drowned in a despair so deep it was almost unbearable to witness.
Mizunashi held his gaze.
And for the first time in a long while, his silence didn't feel cold.
It felt heavy.
Mizunashi looked at him again.
But it wasn't the same look.
The clinical distance was gone.
Something had cracked.
His eyes hardened, glinting with a restrained, ancient anger, one that didn't scream yet, but already weighed down the air.
"Who do you think you are, exactly?"
His voice was low. Sharp.
"Do you have any idea what you look like right now?"
"Pathetic."
He stepped closer, closing the distance.
"You think you're special because you lost someone?"
"You think you're the only one who's watched everything that mattered die?"
A bitter grin twisted his lips.
"Think again.
I see that every single day.
Every fucking day of my life."
At that moment, something in the room shifted.
Mizunashi's Seimei was released.
Not an explosion.
Not a display.
Pressure.
A raw, dense aura that seemed to weigh down the air itself.
The walls vibrated faintly, as if struggling against a presence they were never meant to endure.
"And since we're talking about responsibility… let's talk about you."
He locked eyes with Sakuya.
"Do you have any idea how close you came to killing everyone here?"
"Myself included."
His voice rose.
"You unleashed an obscene amount of Seimei in your sleep.
Rooms were torn apart.
Four nurses were taken out.
He clenched his jaw.
"Your decompression nearly turned this hospital into a mass grave."
He struck the wall.
Not wildly.
Precisely.
The wall cracked violently, plaster exploding outward.
"I had NO obligation to keep you alive."
His voice shook now, not with weakness, but with rage.
"And yet, I insisted.
I defended you.
I protected you."
A brutal silence fell.
Sakuya remained frozen.
His gaze empty, unable to absorb what he had just heard.
The words slammed into him without finding any hold.
Mizunashi looked at him one last time.
"Listen carefully."
His voice went calm again. Too calm.
"If dying is what you want… then die.
I don't care."
He leaned in slightly.
"But if you leave this place knowing what you're capable of…
If you lose control even once more…"
His stare was absolute.
"I will be the one who ends your life."
He turned away.
Without another word, he extended his hand toward the wall he had shattered.
Fragments of plaster lifted, drawn to his palm, reforming, sealing themselves until no trace of the damage remained.
Even the vinyl coating restored itself, smooth, intact.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Mizunashi stepped through the doorway.
And disappeared into the corridor.
Without looking back.
Shinobu stopped near the doorframe again.
He hesitated, like he was afraid of crossing an invisible line, or of breaking something too fragile to touch.
His gaze settled on Sakuya.
And his chest tightened.
Sakuya wasn't moving.
His body was there… but his mind seemed to have retreated far behind his eyes.
His stare was empty. Broken. Fixed on nothing, like he was staring into an abyss only he could see.
He was trembling.
Not from cold.
Not from physical pain.
Something deeper.
A visceral, uncontrollable tremor, as if everything holding him together had finally given way.
His breathing was shallow, uneven.
Every breath seemed like a conscious effort,
as if breathing had become a choice, not a reflex.
Shinobu moved slowly.
His wheels slid softly across the floor, the sound almost indecent in the crushing silence.
He stopped beside the bed, close enough to be seen, but without forcing anything.
He lifted his head slightly, trying to meet Sakuya's eyes.
But Sakuya didn't look at him.
He was elsewhere.
Trapped in an inner space too tight to breathe in, too vast to escape.
A place where loss had no words yet.
Only weight.
Absence.
Pain that no longer even screamed.
Shinobu swallowed hard.
It took a few seconds before his voice came out.
When it did, it was low. Slightly trembling. But sincere.
"You know, Sakuya…"
He paused, because he had to hold back what was rising in his throat.
"No matter what you become."
A breath.
"No matter what you go through."
He moved half a meter closer.
"I'll be here."
His hand rested gently on the edge of the bed.
Not on Sakuya.
Just close enough for him to know.
"Always."
He didn't wait for an answer.
He knew there wouldn't be one.
But he stayed.
Present.
Like a fixed point in a world that had just collapsed.