---
[Scene 1: Death Dance Under a Shattered Moon]
Location: Serenia City — The Bowing Skies
The Kaimon's technique detonates—a (black-star singularity) swallowing six city blocks in an instant. Buildings fold like paper, their debris floating weightlessly before disintegrating into swirling ash. At ground zero:
- Ryo's body skids through molten concrete, his borrowed kimono now more blood than fabric. His sword arm hangs limp—bone visible through charred skin. (His pupils flicker between human-round and hunter-slit as consciousness wavers.)
- Yua stands anchored, her boots carving trenches into the earth as she deflects gravity-distorting waves with brute swings of her violet-flaming blade. Every parry sprays (her own teeth's blood) across the weapon's edge.
GŌSHIN (mocking): "Futile. You fight against inevitability."
Its voice is a grotesque symphony—layered with stolen whispers, including Ryo's mother's tender lullabies twisted into funeral dirges.
---
[Scene 2: The Moment of Revelation]
Ryo's grip tightens on his sword as he pushes through the pain, his mind flashing back to fragmented memories—his mother's research notes, star charts with (the same symbols now glowing on his blade).
INTERNAL MONOLOGUE (Ryo):
"She knew... all along. This thing... this power inside me... it wasn't an accident."
Yua spits blood and charges forward with a roar, her movements precise despite her wounds. Her attack forces Gōshin back just long enough for her to lock eyes with Ryo—a silent understanding passing between them.
YUA (grinning through bloodied teeth): "Quit thinking so much! Fight!"
---
[Scene 3: Synchronized Annihilation]
With a wordless roar, Ryo (rises), his body wreathed in the same violet flames as his blade. The once-dormant power inside him surges forward—no longer fighting against him, but flowing through him. His birthmark pulses like a second heartbeat.
Yua takes her stance beside him, their movements mirroring one another as if they've fought together for lifetimes rather than days.
RYO & YUA (in unison):
"狩獣式・終ノ型——"
(Karyū-style... Final Form—)
The air itself shudders as their blades cross—a single decisive strike that carves through Gōshin's core in an eruption of (gold and violet light). The Kaimon screams—not in pain, but in (recognition), its stolen voices howling into oblivion as its form unravels like burnt parchment.
For a split second before it vanishes, Ryo sees something flicker within the dissolving darkness... the faintest outline of his mother's face at peace.
---
[Scene 4: The Weight of Victory—And What Comes After]
Silence. The city lies in ruins, but the unnatural distortion fades as Gōshin's presence dissipates. Ryo collapses to his knees, his blade clattering beside him—still glowing faintly with fading energy. Yua staggers over, her breath ragged, and drops unceremoniously next to him.
For a long moment, neither speaks. Then—
YUA (exhaling hard): "...Not bad for a high schooler."
Ryo stares at his hands—still trembling from adrenaline and something deeper. He thought he'd feel relief... but instead there's only an (unshakable certainty): this was just the beginning. His voice comes out quieter than expected:
RYO: "I heard her... my mom's voice." (Pause.) "That thing wasn't lying about one thing—she was part of all this too."
Yua doesn't offer empty comfort or dismiss it with a joke for once; she just nods solemnly before leaning back against rubble-strewn asphalt:
YUA: "Yeah. So now you know why they sent me to find you."
Her words hang in the air—heavy with unspoken history. Ryo's gaze flicks to her bloodied hands, the way her fingers tighten around nothing before relaxing again.
YUA: "You're not just some kid who got lucky. You're a (Kenzaki). That name carries weight where I come from." (Revelation: His family lineage is known—and feared?—in the Hunting Realm.)
Ryo exhales sharply through his nose, looking up at the sky now streaked with dawn's first light breaking through smoke clouds:
RYO: "...Guess I need to learn more about that."
---
[Final Scene: Acceptance]
The camera pulls back as Yua stands abruptly, offering him a hand up despite her own injuries—an offering beyond mere physical aid this time; it's acknowledgment between warriors who have stared into death together and lived long enough for it to mean something real between them now... no longer mentor/student but equals bound by shared battlefields ahead... (Visual framing should emphasize their silhouettes against the storm bleeding over ruins.)
She doesn't say anything sentimental because she doesn't need to.
Instead, Yua jerks her chin toward the distant horizon—where a faint, unnatural (crimson glow) pulses beyond the mountains.
There's no hesitation in Ryo's stance as he rises beside her. No questions about why (him), why (now). Only steely resolve—and the weight of a sword that finally feels like it belongs in his grip.
They stare at each in a emotional moment of (acceptance).
YUA (grinning): "Still think you should be picking college majors?"
RYO (matching her smirk): "Shut up."
They step forward together into the dawn.
---
Final Scene:
In a Dark concealed room somewhere between realms... a pair of eyes stare at a screen.
"So... they killed Gōshin." (A gloved hand crushes an effigy of Ryo's likeness.) "How... entertaining. Expected as much… Soon begins Phase 2."
🌀 End of Chapter Four