Dreyl stared at Yumi through the shattered window.
That smile. He knew that smile.
It was the same one his father wore when he'd cornered a soul into damnation. Cold. Calculating. Victorious.
"Dreyl?" Yumi called out, her voice sweet as honey laced with poison. "Are you okay? You look pale."
The way she said his name made his skin crawl. Too familiar. Too knowing.
"We need to go," Viper whispered, already backing toward the café's rear exit. "Now."
But Dreyl couldn't move. The Fatebreaker felt like lead in his pocket, the rolled one burning against his palm like a brand. Bad luck was coming. He could feel it building in the air like static before a storm.
Yumi took a step toward the café.
Then another.
And with each step, cracks began spreading across the street beneath her feet. Streetlights flickered and died. Car alarms started wailing in the distance.
"The dice," Dreyl breathed. "It's starting."
"What's starting?" Viper hissed.
"The bad luck. When I roll a one..." Dreyl's voice caught. "Everything goes wrong. For everyone around me."
As if summoned by his words, a delivery truck came barreling around the corner, its brakes screaming. The driver yanked the wheel hard, trying to avoid the spreading cracks in the asphalt.
The truck flipped.
Yumi didn't even flinch as it crashed just feet away from her, sparks flying, metal screaming against concrete. She kept walking forward, still wearing that horrible smile.
"Impressive," she said, and now her voice carried the Devil's deeper undertones. "Even when you're trying to be good, you bring chaos. It's in your blood, son."
Dreyl's hands clenched into fists. "Get out of her."
"Oh, but she's so comfortable. Such a sweet girl. She really does care about you, you know." Yumi's head tilted unnaturally to one side. "She's in here, watching. Wondering why you won't come help her."
The words hit like physical blows.
"You bastard," Dreyl snarled.
"Language," the Devil chided through Yumi's lips. "Is that any way to speak to your father?"
Behind them, Viper grabbed Dreyl's shoulder. "We have to move. The whole block's going to collapse if this keeps up."
He was right. The bad luck was spreading like a virus. Windows were shattering spontaneously. A fire hydrant exploded, sending a geyser of water into the air. Somewhere close by, someone was screaming.
But Dreyl couldn't run. Not anymore.
"I'm done," he said quietly.
"What?" Viper's grip tightened.
Dreyl turned to face his friend, and Viper actually stepped back at what he saw in Dreyl's eyes. Something had changed. Something fundamental.
"I'm done running," Dreyl said louder, his voice carrying a new edge of authority. "I'm done pretending I'm not what I am."
He walked toward the shattered window.
"Dreyl, don't—"
But it was too late. Dreyl stepped through the broken glass, his feet crunching on the shards. The bad luck swirled around him like a visible aura now, turning the air itself dark and oppressive.
Yumi—his father—smiled wider.
"There's my boy."
"Let her go," Dreyl said, stopping just out of arm's reach. "This is between us."
"Everything is between us, son. Every choice you make, every person you care about—they're all just pieces on my board." The Devil gestured with Yumi's delicate hands, and the destruction around them intensified. "Look at what you've brought her into. This chaos, this danger—it follows you wherever you go."
Dreyl felt something crack inside his chest. Because his father was right.
The possessed students. The Coils hunting him. Viper getting dragged into supernatural conflicts. And now Yumi, sweet innocent Yumi, being used as a puppet because she'd made the mistake of caring about him.
"I never wanted this," Dreyl whispered.
"But you have it anyway," his father replied. "The question is: what will you do with it?"
The Fatebreaker pulsed in Dreyl's pocket. Still showing one. Still promising disaster.
Around them, the bad luck reached a crescendo. A construction crane in the distance toppled over. Gas lines ruptured, filling the air with the smell of sulfur and danger. The very ground beneath their feet began to crack and split.
And in the middle of it all, Yumi stood perfectly still, perfectly safe, smiling his father's smile.
"You could end this," the Devil continued. "Come home. Take your place. Accept what you are, and I'll give you the power to protect everyone you care about."
"By ruling Hell?"
"By ruling everything." The Devil's voice grew seductive, promising. "Think of it, Dreyl. No more running. No more hiding. No more watching innocent people suffer because of what you are. You could have control. Real control."
For a moment—just a moment—Dreyl wavered.
The power was tempting. God, it was tempting. To never feel helpless again. To never watch someone he cared about get hurt because of him.
But then he looked at Yumi's face. Really looked.
Beneath the golden glow, beneath his father's possessive presence, he could see her. The real Yumi. Trapped. Afraid. Fighting against the intrusion in her own mind.
And Dreyl made his choice.
"No."
The word rang with finality.
His father's expression—wearing Yumi's face—shifted from confident to surprised to coldly furious.
"No?"
Dreyl reached into his pocket and pulled out the Fatebreaker. The die still glowed with hellish light, still showed that cursed one.
"I won't be what you want me to be," Dreyl said, his voice growing stronger with each word. "I won't rule Hell. I won't abandon the people I care about. And I sure as hell won't let you use them against me."
He raised the die above his head.
"I am Dreyl Sakashita. I'm the Devil's son, yeah—but I'm also a high school student who just wants to take his girlfriend out for coffee without the world ending."
His father began to laugh, a sound like breaking glass.
"You think that little trinket will save you? Will save her? You don't even know how to use it properly."
"Maybe not," Dreyl admitted. "But I know one thing."
He looked directly into Yumi's possessed eyes.
"I know I'd rather fail as myself than succeed as you."
And he threw the Fatebreaker.
Not at his father. Not at Yumi.
At himself.
The die struck his chest and exploded in a burst of hellfire and shadow. Power—raw, unfiltered, chaotic power—erupted from the point of impact.
The bad luck that had been building around them suddenly reversed, flowing backward like a film rewound. The destruction began to unmake itself. Cracks sealed. Broken glass reformed. The toppled crane righted itself with impossible grace.
But the power didn't stop there.
It reached out, seeking its target with supernatural precision, and slammed into Yumi like a battering ram of pure will.
The Devil's presence shrieked as it was forcibly expelled from her body, his shadow-form materializing in the air above them before being yanked back toward whatever hellish dimension he'd projected from.
"This isn't over!" his father's voice echoed as he faded. "You cannot run from what you are forever!"
And then he was gone.
Yumi collapsed.
Dreyl caught her before she hit the ground, his arms wrapping around her as gently as he could manage. Her eyes fluttered open—brown again, beautifully, perfectly brown.
"Dreyl?" she whispered, confused and disoriented. "What happened? I remember... gold, and cold, and..."
"Shh," he said, brushing hair from her face. "You're okay. You're safe."
Behind them, Viper whistled low.
"Well," he said. "That was either the stupidest thing I've ever seen, or the smartest."
Dreyl looked down at where the Fatebreaker had struck him. There was no wound, no mark—but he could feel something had changed. The die was gone, but its power remained, integrated into him somehow.
He was still the Devil's son.
But now, maybe, he was something else too.
Something entirely his own.
"Come on," he said, helping Yumi to her feet. "Let's get out of here before the cops show up."
As they walked away from the mysteriously repaired street, Yumi leaned against his shoulder.
"Dreyl?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you ask me out, can we maybe try somewhere that doesn't have windows?"
Despite everything—his father, the Coils, the impossible choices still ahead—Dreyl found himself laughing.
Maybe being the Devil's son didn't have to mean he couldn't be human too.