A surge of guilt and rage coursed through him. He had stood by, paralyzed, while the two women fought to protect him. The weight of their sacrifices pressed heavily on his chest, threatening to crush him.
The assassin turned her gaze toward him, a smirk playing on her lips. "Ah, the coward awakens," she taunted, her voice dripping with disdain.
Toki's fists clenched, nails digging into his palms. "No more," he growled, stepping forward. "I won't let their deaths be in vain."
The assassin raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Finally found your spine? Let's see if you can use it."
Toki lunged forward, each heartbeat a thunderclap in his skull. The threads screamed through the air behind him, like whispers of death, slicing through empty space as he rolled under them. His boots slammed against the blood-soaked floorboards, his entire body propelled by adrenaline and grief.
Utsuki's sacrifice still echoed in his mind — that final look, that terrible, beautiful final act — and Tora's shattered, twitching form clawing toward him in defiance of death itself. There was no coin now. No chance. No choice. Only this fight.
The assassin saw him coming.
A smirk curved on her crimson-stained lips, and with a flick of her fingers, a shimmering ribbon of filament snapped toward his throat like a whip.
Toki ducked under it — barely. The filament tore through a tuft of his hair, slicing it cleanly as it zipped past. He didn't flinch. He charged.
He twisted his hips mid-run and drove his fist — hard — into her midsection.
THUMP.
The breath hitched from her lungs. She staggered backward, the impact forcing her to reel several steps. Her ribs had taken the brunt, and for the first time, Toki saw something unexpected in her gaze: surprise.
— "You're not dead?" she hissed, voice rasping. "Shame. I was just starting to enjoy myself."
Toki's eyes burned. Blood from his cheek wound — the one she'd sliced earlier — dripped into his mouth, tasted like rust and resolve.
— "You killed them," he spat.
— "So many have. Why should you be different?"
She whipped her arm to the side — and a dagger sprang from her sleeve, glinting obsidian in the firelight. Her other hand danced, weaving fresh threads in a circular arc like a spider resetting its web. Toki heard them whistle again — impossibly fast.
He moved. Instinct. Desperation. Rage.
He ducked low and sprinted at an angle, the threads snapping behind him like gunshots. One grazed his shoulder — slicing through his shirt and into skin. Warm blood poured instantly. He didn't care.
The dagger came down in a diagonal arc.
Toki caught her wrist just in time.
Their bodies locked together — hers wiry and cold, his trembling and overdriven. She snarled and twisted, the dagger inches from his neck. Toki bared his teeth and wrenched her wrist with everything he had.
CRACK.
She cried out — a sharp, clipped sound — and the dagger tumbled from her fingers, clattering across the floor.
He didn't wait.
Toki drove his knee up into her stomach.
Once.
Twice.
She gagged, coughed blood onto his shirt.
He followed with a brutal uppercut, smashing his knuckles into her chin. The impact lifted her off the floor slightly, her head snapping backward.
She stumbled, crashing into the doorframe behind her with such force that the old wood splintered, fragments raining around them.
— "This… this isn't who you were," she said through bloodied teeth, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "The scared little coin-flipper. You're new."
Toki panted, stepping forward. His eyes burned. His body was on fire. But he felt alive. Finally. And he was furious.
— "I was him. Until you killed them."
The assassin snarled, shaking her hand — and from her boot, another weapon slid free: a thinner blade, curved like a sickle, jagged at the edge. She spun it once, then lunged toward him, threads dancing around her like wings.
Toki reached down, fingers closing around her fallen dagger.
She struck — a flurry of slashes, precise and merciless.
He parried one strike, then twisted his body, the second grazing his ribs — a searing flash of pain.
She was faster. Trained. A killer. And she fought like art in motion: a dance of blades and wire. But she wasn't expecting him to match her ferocity.
Toki grunted, dropped low, and slid beneath a horizontal thread, then sprang upward with an elbow aimed at her jaw.
She blocked — barely — but he felt the shock of impact through his forearm. She responded with a backhand slice that caught his lip and opened it wide.
Blood spurted. His lip hung, shredded.
He ignored it.
She spun again, aiming her sickle at his exposed side.
He caught her wrist.
But she was faster — her free hand snapped forward, fingers curling.
Toki saw only blackness, then blinding agony.
She had plunged her thumb into his left eye.
— "LET'S EVEN THE ODDS!" she screamed, digging it deeper.
Toki shrieked — a sound primal, inhuman. He dropped his dagger, his body twisting violently as he tried to push her off. His eye was being ripped out of his skull, pressure exploding behind it.
He slapped wildly, struck her face, felt her teeth crack.
She yanked.
POP.
Something warm and slick and horrible disconnected from his socket.
Toki collapsed to his knees, clutching his face. Blood gushed through his fingers in pulsing jets. He could see only red and white through the other eye. His vision swam.
The assassin stood above him, holding the eye between two fingers. She studied it as though it were a pearl.
— "Still amber," she whispered. "Even after all that rage."
She tossed it over her shoulder.
Toki sobbed.
But not with despair.
With fury.
He roared, launching himself at her knees, tackling her with the force of a bull. They crashed into the wall — this time it shattered, dust and wood splinters raining down.
She tried to stab down with her sickle.
Toki caught her wrist with his bloodied hand and bit into it — hard. Her skin broke. Blood spurted. She screamed — a real scream, raw, shocked.
He headbutted her — again and again — until her nose bent sideways.
With one hand, he wrenched the sickle from her grasp, tossing it behind him.
And then, with the strength of a man possessed, he lifted her by the collar and slammed her against the doorframe — again.
CRACK.
He noticed the coin clutched tightly in Tora's delicate grasp. It was his coin, the one that had decided his path that morning, now stained crimson.
"Was it worth it?" he whispered, his voice hoarse and broken. "Was it worth dying for a half-dressed girl and a stubborn one? If a coin brought me here, then a coin will decide."
Toki collapsed to his knees, blood pouring from the ragged socket where his eye had been. The world spun violently. Every heartbeat echoed like a drum in his skull. His hand clutched at the doorframe for support, smearing blood across scorched wood.
The assassin stood just a few paces away, her body battered, her breath ragged. Her lips were split, blood trickled down her chin, and one eye was swollen nearly shut. And yet… she laughed.
Low at first. Then louder. Guttural.
— "Hah… Hahaha. You're a mess," she rasped, grinning through broken teeth. "A glorious, brutal, beautiful mess."
Toki said nothing. His jaw clenched. His one remaining eye glared up at her, burning with hatred and grief.
She stepped forward slowly, limping, a hand pressed to her broken ribs. But her posture wasn't defensive — it was proud, satisfied.
— "You gave me a better fight than half the nobles who've hired me," she said, circling him like a cat around prey it no longer intended to kill. "And you bit me. You bit me like a wild animal. Took my blade, broke my fingers, ripped my face open…"
She tilted her head, eyes gleaming.
— "I haven't enjoyed myself like that in years."
Toki spat blood onto the floor. — "Then finish it. Kill me."
Her smirk faded into something more dangerous — softer, almost pitiful.
— "Kill you?" she asked. "Oh no, boy. I'm giving you a gift."
She leaned in close, her breath warm and coppery against his face.
— "You get to live. With their screams echoing in your head. With one eye. With their blood on your hands. That's your reward."
Toki trembled.
— "You think this is a mercy…?"
— "It's a masterpiece," she whispered.
Then she stepped back, slowly, turning toward the exit of the ruined tavern. She didn't even look over her shoulder.
— "Farewell, coin-flipper."
And just like that, she vanished into the smoke and the wind.
Silence.
Toki sat slumped against the wall, his hands slick with blood — most of it his own. His chest heaved with sobs he didn't let escape. Every inch of him screamed in agony. But the pain in his body was nothing compared to the weight in his heart.
He looked down. Near the threshold, her hand still rested — cold and severed — the delicate fingers of Tora, clutched tightly around a single object.
The coin.
His coin.
The one that had started it all.
His fingers brushed hers, prying the blood-soaked coin from her grip. He stared at it, dazed, as flames crackled in the distance.
Utsuki's eyes. Her scream. Her body twitching in that tangle of wires.
Tora's determination. Her pain. Her hand — gone. Her life — gone.
They had died because of a decision he'd left to chance. Because he flipped a coin.
He clenched the coin so tightly it cut into his palm.
— "I did this," he whispered. "They died because I couldn't choose."
He stood slowly, swaying, staring down at the copper disc in his bloodied hand.
Then he raised it.
And tossed it.
The coin flipped once, twice, catching the flickering firelight.
— "Twenty minutes... that should be enough."
He reached down, picked up the assassin's dropped blade, and — without hesitation — drew it across his throat.
A burst of hot agony.
Blood gushed from the wound like a severed artery of guilt, painting the floor redder than it already was. Toki sank to his knees again, the coin spinning still on the floor beside him.
— "World Authority... Eco of the Moment…" he gasped, voice bubbling. "New anchor."
The world tilted.
The world around him shattered like glass, and the piercing screams of the dying echoed into silence.
Then, Toki gasped, his eyes snapping open. He was back in the marketplace, ten minutes before the assassin had burst through the tavern door. The sun beat down with the same relentless intensity, and the clamor of the crowd was just as deafening. He looked around, disoriented and his heart pounding in his chest. Had it all been a nightmare? But the raw ache of loss and the crushing weight of guilt still lingered, a phantom pain in his soul.
He saw Utsuki approaching, her dress torn, her eyes filled with the same desperate plea. This time, Toki knew what was coming. He knew the unspeakable horrors that awaited them if they stepped into that seemingly ordinary tavern.
"I hope it's worth it," he whispered again, his voice cold with a newfound resolve. This time, he wouldn't flip the coin. This time, he would make a different choice. The weight of the past ten minutes, though not truly lived, pressed down on him, a stark reminder of the fragility of life and the brutal randomness of fate. He would not let them die again. He wouldn't let her die again.
People's lives are like roads. Some intersect, others diverge and never meet again. A road disappears when it no longer has any purpose. I am willing to take this path even if all that remains in my back is chaos and destruction."My existence defies fate."