The scream didn't fade.
It should have. Sound, no matter how desperate or raw, eventually dies in silence. But Itsuki's cry of terror and anguish did something impossible.
It pierced.
Through the white void's dimensional barriers.
Through the layers of reality that separated one world from another.
Through the very fabric of existence itself.
The sound carved a path across impossible distances, carrying with it something more than mere noise. It carried essence—the desperate, dying essence of a seventeen-year-old boy who refused to simply disappear.
In his obsidian throne room, surrounded by walls that drank light and hope in equal measure, Tsuyari felt it hit him like a physical blow.
What—
The Nullweaver's silver eyes widened.
His perpetual smirk faltered.
Cracked.
Almost... shattered.
The cry washed over him in waves—not through his ears, but through something deeper. Through the connection all beings shared to the fundamental essence that held reality together.
That voice.
That presence.
He knew it immediately.
The boy.
Itsuki Naoya.
The one they call—
But there was something else in that scream. Something that made the ancient Trueborn's blood run cold.
Genuine terror.
Mortal fear.
The sound of someone dying.
Tsuyari's hands clenched around the armrests of his throne, his knuckles going white.
That beast.
Vorthak.
What have you done?
The air around him began to vibrate—not with sound, but with barely contained power. The obsidian walls of his throne room started to crack under the pressure of his rising aura.
You were supposed to bring him to me.
Broken, perhaps.
Desperate, certainly.
But alive.
His silver eyes blazed with cold fury.
If you've killed him...
If you've destroyed my carefully laid plans...
I will erase you so thoroughly that even the concept of your existence will be forgotten.
Tsuyari rose from his throne like a storm given human form.
The oppressive aura of a Trueborn Emperor filled the chamber—reality itself seeming to bend away from his presence. Shadows deepened. Light grew pale and sickly. The very air became thick with the promise of annihilation.
Where are you, boy?
He extended his senses, probing the edges of existence for any trace of Itsuki's essence signature.
There.
Hidden.
Sealed away.
The location was... strange. Not quite another dimension, not quite a pocket of space. Something in between. Something that existed in the gaps where reality grew thin.
Clever.
Whoever designed this prison knew what they were doing.
Tsuyari raised his hands, his essence beginning to coil around his fingers like living smoke.
But not clever enough.
I am Tsuyari the Nullweaver.
I am the end of all stories.
And no barrier—no matter how well-crafted—can stand against absolute erasure.
He began to work.
His hands moved through the air in precise, deadly patterns. Each gesture unraveled another thread in the tapestry of reality. Black tendrils of condensed void seeped from his fingertips, reaching across impossible distances to claw at the white space's dimensional barriers.
Tear.
Rip.
Unmake.
Space itself groaned under the assault.
The walls of his throne room began to buckle and warp as the very concepts of "here" and "there" started to break down.
Almost...
Almost...
A hairline crack appeared in the air before him—a thin line of brilliant white light spilling into his dark domain.
There.
But the crack sealed itself almost immediately, the dimensional barriers reforming faster than he could destroy them.
Impossible.
Tsuyari's eyes narrowed to silver slits.
Someone is actively maintaining these defenses.
Someone with power comparable to my own.
He pressed harder, pouring more of his essence into the assault. The black tendrils grew thicker, more aggressive, tearing at reality with the hunger of the void itself.
Crack.
Crack.
CRACK.
This time, the fracture held.
A jagged line of white light, no wider than a blade, but stable.
Enough.
With deliberate slowness, Tsuyari stepped toward the fracture.
The sensation of approaching it was... alien.
Cold, yet blinding.
Vast, yet suffocating.
Like standing at the edge of an infinite ocean while being slowly buried alive.
What manner of place is this?
He pressed his hand against the crack in reality.
The white light felt solid under his palm—not warm or cool, but somehow neutral. As if temperature itself had no meaning here.
Fascinating.
With a surge of will, he forced the crack wider.
Wide enough to step through.
The transition was jarring.
One moment he stood in his obsidian throne room, surrounded by familiar darkness and the weight of his own power.
The next, he was...
Nowhere.
Everywhere.
In the space between spaces.
The white void stretched around him in all directions—perfectly flat ground beneath his feet, perfectly empty sky above his head. No shadows. No variation in light or texture.
Just endless, pristine nothingness.
This is where they've hidden you.
This is your prison.
Tsuyari took a step forward.
His footfall made no sound, left no print.
As if this place existed outside the normal laws of cause and effect.
How long have you been here, boy?
How long have you been suffering?
The thought brought a strange sensation to his chest—something that might have been sympathy, if he were still capable of such weakness.
No matter.
I will find you.
And then...
Then we will have words about your future.
As Tsuyari began to walk across the white expanse, something caught his attention.
Far ahead, at the very edge of his enhanced perception, there was... something.
Not a horizon, exactly.
This place didn't seem to have horizons.
But a presence.
A gathering of light that was somehow different from the uniform whiteness surrounding them.
What...
He focused his senses, trying to pierce the impossible distances of this realm.
The light pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Like a heartbeat.
Like a dying star.
Or a hatching egg.
And in that pulse, Tsuyari felt something that he hadn't experienced in countless millennia.
Recognition.
Fear.
Awe.
Deep within his essence—in the very core of what made him a Trueborn—ancient memories stirred.
Whispers from the dawn of creation.
Before the six domains.
Before Astralyn.
Before even the Trueborns themselves.
When the world was young and the boundaries between dream and reality were thin.
When things that should not be walked freely under alien stars.
When the first words were spoken.
And the first silence answered.
The light pulsed again, stronger this time.
And Tsuyari realized with growing unease that whatever was creating that glow...
It was aware of him.
Watching him.
Waiting.
His silver eyes narrowed as he began to move toward it.
What are you, I wonder?
And what do you want with the boy?
Each step took him deeper into the white void.
Each step brought him closer to answers he wasn't sure he wanted to find.
And each step carried him further from any possibility of retreat.
Behind him, the crack in reality sealed itself with a sound like breaking glass.
Trapping him here.
With whatever was waiting in that impossible light.
And with the boy whose scream had torn through the barriers between worlds.
The hunt was about to become something far more dangerous than Tsuyari had anticipated.
Something that might consume the hunter instead of the prey.