FA lay in silence.
The glow from Anari's message had long since faded.
Only the darkness remained — heavy, endless, absolute.
Tears streamed down his face, mixing with blood, carving trails into a soul already fractured.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered into the void.
No one heard.
No one ever did.
Somewhere in the last echo of light, her voice still played inside his head—
"And I want an Asahi who doesn't cry so much."
FA smiled — a trembling, broken thing.
A smile not born of hope.
A smile born from the remains of a heart that still wanted to believe.
"Asahi..." he whispered.
Their eyes had met once.
In that fleeting memory.
And she had said—
"When it's all over... I'll be waiting with a surprise."
Then the light vanished.
The warmth disappeared.
And only the suffocating silence remained.
FA sobbed.
A laugh escaped — wet, painful, stitched with regret.
He clutched his shirt, curling into himself, the last heat of her words slipping away...
until even memory forgot how it once sounded.
FA exhaled.
Long.
Slow.
He slapped his own face — weakly at first, then harder.
"Come on... FA..." he muttered.
"Come on..."
Another slap.
And another.
Until finally — with shaking legs — he stood.
His body swayed, but he didn't fall.
"I have to do this..." he whispered.
"After all... I want that surprise."
A small grin cracked his lips.
He stuck out his tongue playfully — just like old times.
Then he started walking.
Slow.
Unsteady.
But forward.
"I just have to walk," he said under his breath.
"Walk and walk... and someday... someday I'll find it."
That lost dimension.
The one where all the broken memories were hidden.
The one that held everything he was still fighting for.
He didn't know how long it would take.
He didn't know how much of himself would be lost.
He didn't even know if time here flowed the same way.
"This dimension... might consume more time than my own..." he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.
"But it doesn't matter."
He exhaled.
"Asahi... just make the miracles happen, my boy..."
Suddenly —
the void trembled.
The darkness began to glitch.
The floor — if it could be called that — rippled like broken glass.
FA stumbled, his breath hitching.
"Agh...!"
He looked at his hands.
They were glitching.
Fading.
Pieces of his fingers pixelated into nothingness.
"H-Huh...? What's happening...?"
The space around him distorted — a black hole tearing itself apart.
"No... it's not breaking," FA realized.
"It's... pulling me somewhere."
His legs kept moving.
Even as his arms blurred.
Even as his body slowly disappeared.
"Every minute I walk... I'm disappearing..."
He exhaled again — short, sharp, almost laughing.
But he didn't stop.
He kept walking.
The darkness howled.
Reality peeled away.
Still — he walked.
Then —
FA's eyes widened.
His entire form collapsed into fragments.
His body vanished into the glitching nothingness.
One last breath escaped him:
"I'm coming..."
And just like that —
FA disappeared into the unknown.
he was gone.
Vanished into the dark.
Swallowed by a realm even memory feared to remember.
Only silence remained.
Only echoes of a man who refused to surrender—
even when existence itself tried to erase him.
—
Somewhere else—
A pair of eyes snapped open.
Asahi gasped—
A sharp, desperate breath.
His chest rose violently, lungs fighting for air that didn't feel real.
Pain screamed through his jaw.
But his body didn't move.
His left eye… wouldn't open.
His right eye, bloodshot and hollow, stared blankly at the ceiling above him.
"Where…?"
The ceiling looked familiar.
Too familiar.
A cracked lightbulb.
A yellow stain.
Home.
But this wasn't peace.
This wasn't safety.
This was the prison after the war.
Asahi lay there—his body limp, trembling.
The bed beneath him creaked with each breath.
His arms wouldn't lift.
His legs didn't respond.
His mind was fractured—floating between layers of madness and silence.
From his mouth—
a strange, broken sound escaped.
Not words.
Not sobs.
Just something inhuman.
"Grrh—hhh… ka—hh…"
His jaw looked normal—
but pain pulsed through it like something inside had been torn apart and stitched back with needles.
His body was still.
But his head—
sometimes, it jerked sharply to the right, as if possessed.
Twitching.
Mad.
Automatic.
Asahi didn't speak.
He couldn't.
There were no words left.
Not for MA.
Not for FA.
Not for himself.
The room around him was quiet.
No MA voice.
No guidance.
No dimensional hum.
Only the quiet shiver of a boy who had broken past breaking—
a boy left behind after time shattered.
He was alone.
Again.
And all he could do...
was breathe.
Barely.
—
Then—
a knock on the door.
Knock knock knock.
A voice.
Warm. Familiar.
Too familiar.
"Hey, Asahi! Wake up! It's time for school!"
His mother's voice.
Joyful. Light.
Like nothing had ever gone wrong.
Like there weren't bodies buried in memory.
Like time hadn't devoured her son.
Asahi didn't respond.
His lips parted slightly.
But no words came.
Only a soft, broken exhale.
"Come on, sleepyhead… open up!"
The door stayed closed.
No creaks.
No steps.
No wind.
No life.
Asahi lay in the bed.
Twitching.
His left eye sealed shut.
His right eye blank.
Staring.
He couldn't move.
He didn't believe what he was hearing.
"Still not waking up, huh?"
(a soft laugh)
"Must be a nice dream…"
Then—
a pause.
"Sorry… I'm coming in."
The door opened.
Slowly.
His mother stepped in—
clothes in her hands.
Her smile still on her lips.
"Asa—"
She stopped.
The clothes slipped from her hands.
Dropped to the floor without a sound.
Her eyes locked onto the figure on the bed—
and her soul shattered.
Asahi.
But not her Asahi.
Not the boy who used to run through the hallways.
Not the boy who used to fake a smile just to calm her down.
This boy—
wasn't moving.
The light in the room was dim.
The curtains didn't move.
There was no breeze.
No sound.
No warmth.
He lay there like a corpse that hadn't accepted it yet.
His jaw slightly parted.
His hands limp.
"A… Asahi…"
Her voice cracked.
She took one step forward.
Then another.
Each footstep slower than the last.
Each breath more uncertain.
She couldn't recognize him.
His skin was pale.
His arms thinner.
His chest barely rising.
His eye staring at nothing.
And his body—
shaking.
She knelt beside him, trembling.
Her fingers reached out—
touching his hand like it might shatter.
"Asahi…"
Tears welled in her eyes.
But she held them back.
Until—
Asahi moved.
Suddenly.
Violently.
His body twisted—like a beast reacting to an unseen attack.
Jerking. Twitching.
Like his body remembered pain before his mind did.
Like he was afraid of being touched.
"Asahi… it's me…"
Her voice broke.
"It's mom…"
She sat beside him, sobbing now—tears falling one by one, quietly landing on the sheets.
"I'm here… I'm right here…"
But Asahi didn't speak.
His head tilted again—violently, like a puppet yanked sideways.
His arms twitched.
His jaw clenched.
A low, animalistic sound escaped his throat.
"Ghhhhrrhh…"
His eyes—wild.
Hollow.
Still not seeing her.
He was afraid.
Not of monsters.
Not of nightmares.
But of everything.
"Asahi… please…"
Her fingers wrapped around his shaking hand.
"It's over now… you're safe…"
But the boy on the bed…
didn't believe in safety anymore.
He made no words.
Just a low, broken hum.
A dying whisper from a mind that had forgotten how to speak.
He twitched again.
His head snapped right.
And he whispered something—
Not a name.
Not a word.
Just pain made into sound.
His mother cried harder—
not because he was gone,
but because somehow, he was still here.