Ren didn't feel his knees hit the ground. Didn't register the shards of steel slicing into his thigh. He crawled without thought, without voice, just the blind instinct of grief.
"Aiko… AIKO!" His voice cracked until it bled. His fingers clawed at the rubble, tearing skin and snapping nails. Stone after stone, his body moved through pain like a machine of sorrow.
Not again. Not again.
*"You promised, Ren!"* Sora's laughter danced in the back of his skull. *"You promised you'd protect me!"*
He dug until her hand emerged—pale, bloodied, fingers twisted in final tension. He pressed his lips to them, tears carving trenches through the ash on his face.
"Stay with me," he begged, dragging the wreckage away, ignoring the fire in his bones. "Stay…"
Then—Yui.
A tug on his sleeve. A whisper: "Papa… up."
He barely registered the words. But something moved behind them. A shadow. Violet and massive. An Argwan commando, larger than the rest, descended with blade drawn. Death incarnate.
And Ren didn't care.
He closed his eyes, welcoming the end.
But Yui screamed—not in fear, but fury. The sound wasn't human. It shook the air itself. The Argwan paused, its blade halfway down, as if struck by some invisible force. Then, before Ren's stunned eyes, its body began to unravel—skin, muscle, bone all peeling away into vapor and ash.
When it collapsed, it didn't fall. It disintegrated.
Yui collapsed too, unconscious in the rubble. Her small body trembled like a dying flame. Ren grabbed her, pulled her close—and then saw it.
Aiko's face, half-buried. One eye gone milky. Lips moving.
He dropped to her side, ear to her mouth. Her voice was barely a breath.
"…live… for her…"
Then silence. Cold, heavy, final.
Ren screamed. A primal, ruptured cry that tore at the sky. He cradled her against his chest, her blood mixing with his. He rocked her like a child, like she might wake, like the past could reverse itself if he just *loved* enough.
He'd failed Sora. He'd failed Aiko.
All that was left was Yui.
She curled against him, her tiny body trembling. "Mama… Mama's here."
She pointed to the locket. Sora's tear.
It was cracked now. A vein of Aiko's blood staining the silver.
Ren broke