BA-DUM...BA-DUM.
The heartbeat thundered inside Kento's skull, heavy, suffocating, and unrelenting.
It was too loud.
Too horrifyingly close.
Each beat seemed to strike against the inside of his chest with physical force, dragging another shallow, ragged breath from his lungs. Beneath it, voices collided in a chaos he couldn't understand—some sounding distant, some terrifyingly close, all of them carrying a raw desperation that made his stomach twist.
Someone was weeping.
Someone was screaming in sheer terror.
And someone was begging for mercy.
"DON'T TOUCH HER!!"
Kento flinched so violently that his shoulder struck the sharp edge of the kitchen cabinet, sending a sharp jolt of pain down his arm.
"DON'T TOUCH MY CHILD!!"
"STOP IT!" His voice tore out of him before he could hold it back.
"GET OUT!" Kento clamped both hands over his ears, pressing so hard that his elbows shook. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
His bare feet scraped desperately against the floorboards as he tried to push himself backward, attempting to flee from something no one else in the room could percieve.
"PLEASE! JUST—STOP!" The last word broke into a shuddering sob.
For one terrible moment, nobody in the kitchen moved.
Shido stood crouched beside Kento, his hands hanging uselessly in the air. He had seen Kento cry. He had seen him angry, stubborn and even frightened. But he had never seen him staring wildly into an empty corner of a familiar room as though something in the dark were reaching out to tear him apart.
"Kento?" Shido bent closer, careful not to grab him again. "Hey. Hey, look at me."
Kento didn't look at him.
His eyes darted frantically toward the doorway, then to the dark glass of the windows, and finally to the empty space above the kitchen table. His lips moved soundlessly, following words only he could hear.
"Kento, it's me." Shido pressed closer, his voice trembling. "Yo-You're at home. You're in the kitchen with us. C-can you...can you hear me?"
Kento recoiled violently at the sound of his voice, shifting back against the dark wood of the cabinets.
Shido stopped. That small, instinctual flinch frightened him far more than the screaming had.
Kento wasn't ignoring him. He was trying to get away from him.
Behind them, Hori drew a sharp, trembling breath. Heavy tears had gathered along her lower lashes, but she seemed unable to wipe them away. Her wide, terrified gaze kept returning to Kashima, who remained motionless on the floor, locked in a hollow stillness that resembled sleep far too closely.
"Kashima..." she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
There was no answer.
She took a hesitant step toward him, then turned back when Kento let out another strangled gasp.
There were two boys collapsing right in front of her. Both were suffering in ways she could not comprehend. And she stood between them, paralyzed by the realization that she had no idea how to reach either of them.
"D-Dad..." Shido's voice cracked.
Mr. Kamitani stood beside Kashima, staring down at the boy's unresponsive face.
"Dad!"
The second call was louder. Still, Mr. Kamitani did not react.
He hadn't moved since Kashima had first lifted his head towards the ceiling. His blue eyes remained fixed on the boy,his posture locked in an eerie blankness, as though some distant part of his mind had slipped away and followed Kashima somewhere far beyond the four walls of the room.
Shido felt his stomach drop. He crossed the short distance between them and seized his father's shoulder.
"DAD!"
Mr. Kamitani gasped.
His head jerked around, and for one fleeting terrifying instant, his eyes were completely unfocused. He looked at Shido without a flicker of recognition, his breathing caught halfway through an inhale.
Then his gaze sharpened.
"What happened?"
"Dad!" Shido blurted out, the panic spilling over. "Neither of them is acting normally! Kento keeps screaming at someone who isn't here, and Kashima—"
He looked back to look over his shoulder. Kashima hadn't moved.
"He's not even blinking!"
Mr. Kamitani's expression changed. Whatever had held him motionless vanished instantly beneath the familiar, decisive composure of a man accustomed to taking control when everything around him threatened to fall apart.
"Move aside."
He knelt beside Kashima, pressing two firm fingers against the side of the boy's neck. "Kashima? Can you hear me?"
NOTHING.
He called the boy's name again, louder this time, watching for any sign that he had registered the sound.
There was none.
Mr. Kamitani checked whether Kashima was breathing and immediately looked for a response when he called to him. His jaw tightened.
"Shido, bring me my phone."
"It's—it's with Hori—"
"Then get it from her. Now!"
Shido turned toward Hori, but she had already pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her hands were shaking so violently that her fingers slipped against the screen as she tried to place the call.
"Dad, please..." she whispered into the ringing line. "Please answer...."
Mr. Kamitani glanced at her. "Hori. Put it on speaker."
She fumbled to obey.
The call connected.
"Dad?" Hori choked out. "Something's wrong. Please, you need to—"
Mr. Kamitani took the phone from her trembling hand. "Hello, Kaneki. Listen to me very carefully."
His voice was completely controlled, stripped of all emotion, but his sharp eyes never left Kashima's pale face.
"I need you here immediately. Both boys have become unresponsive in entirely different ways, and I cannot determine what's happening. Bring emergency medical assistance with you."
He listened briefly, his expression hardening. "No, I am not asking you to come later. You need to come now."
He ended the call and placed the phone on the floor within arm's reach. Then he turned back to Kashima, gently taking the boy's cold wrist into his hand.
"Kashima, if you can hear my voice, squeeze my hand."
He offered his hand and waited in silence. Nothing happened. He tried once more, pressing his palm into the boy's limp fingers. Still, there was no response.
Mr. Kamitani's fingers tightened around Kashima's limp hand.
"Come on, kid..." He murmured, the words escaping him more quietly than he had intended. "Come back."
Across the room, Kento suddenly sucked in a sharp, painful breath.
"...L-Luna..."
Hori turned around so fast that her knee slipped harshly against the floorboards.
Kento was staring blankly at the empty space beside the refrigerator. His hands had slowly fallen away from his ears, but his fingers remained rigidly curled, as though he were still trying to block out the sound.
"...n-no—no, this can't—" The voice was barely audible.
Kento's his eyes widened. "Wh—w-who is...that?" He turned toward the empty doorway. "Who's speaking?!"
"Kento?" Hori crawled toward him on her hands and knees. "I'm right here. K-Kento...there's nobody there!"
"Can you not hear them?!" His voice rose into a desperate, disbelieving cry that tore through the quiet house.
"CAN YOU NOT HEAR THEM?!"
"N—No!" Hori caught herself just before reaching out to touch his face, afraid her touch might send him into another panic. "Kento, I can't hear anyone! But I can hear you! I'm right here...beside you!"
He stared straight into her eyes.
For half a second, the absolute terror in his gaze flickered, and Hori thought he had finally recognised her.
Then another voice ripped violently through his mind.
"LUNA!"
Kento jerked backward as if he had been physically struck.
"LOOK AT ME!"
His back slammed against the cabinet a second time, a loud, sharp crack echoing through the kitchen.
"DON'T LOOK AT HIM!"
"No!" Kento threw his arms back over his head, covering his ears. "No, no, no—!"
His breathing broke into frantic, shallow gasps. He squeezed his eyes shut with all his strength, but the cries followed him into the darkness behind his eyelids.
Hori caught his arm before he could strike the hard wood again the second time. "Kento, listen to my voice!"
He struggled against her grip, his muscles locked tight.
She loosened her hold immediately, terrified of frightening him further. "All right...all right. I-I'm not holding you. I'm...I'm right here."
Her own voice trembled so badly she could hardly frame the words. She forced herself to take a deep visible breath, hoping he might follow her rhythm.
"In... and out. Kento, just...focus on my voice. You don't have to...you don't have to explain anything to us right now. Just stay with me—please."
But inside Kento's head, the heartbeat only grew deafeningly louder.
BA-DUM.
BA-DUM.
It was no longer merely a sound echoing in his ears. It felt like raw grief made audible—something enormous,massive and terribly wounded, beating desperately against the thin walls of his mind.
Then came another shout, echoing with unbearable agony.
"CHOOSE ME!"
Kento went completely rigid.
"TAKE MY SOUL INSTEAD!"
His mouth opened wide, but for an instant his lungs were so seized with panic that no sound emerged.
Then he screamed.
The sound was so sudden, raw and full of agonizing torment that Hori recoiled in shock before immediately moving closer again.
"Kento!"
He thrashed wildly against the floor, his fingers tangling tightly into his own hair, pulling at the roots as if he could physically tear the sound from his brain.
"MAKE IT STOP!" he sobbed, his voice breaking into pitiful fragments. "PLEASE! ...MA-MAKE IT STOP!"
Shido dropped heavily to his knees beside him. "Kento, it's me! It's Shido!I'm right here!"
His brother didn't respond.
Shido reached for his wrists to stop him from hurting himself, but hesitated, when he remembered how Kento had recoiled from him only moments ago. Changing his approach, Shido shifted his position, forcing himself directly into Kento's line of sight.
"Kento. Look at me. Please...just look at me."
Kento's tear strained eyes flew open.
For one dreadful, breathless heartbeat, they seemed to focus on Shido's face.
Then his gaze shifted past him, staring at the empty space right over Shido's shoulder.
Shido slowly turned his head to look behind himself. There was nothing there. Only the plain wall and the empty hallway.
When he looked back, Kento was shaking so badly that his teeth had begun to chatter against one another.
"What are you seeing...?" Shido asked, his voice breaking with unbearable helplessness. "Kento, please....Is-is someone hurting you?"
Kento shook his head violently, weeping so hard his chest was heaving.
"Then tell me what you need me to do!"
"I don't—" Kento choked on the words, unable to draw enough air. "I don't know!"
Shido went completely still.
Kento was sobbing too hard to form proper words. His fingers twisted desperately into the fabric of his shirt, and every time the unseen voices rose again, his entire body flinched as though the sound itself had struck him.
Shido had spent his entire life believing it was his duty to protect Kento from everything. He had taken hits, stood up to threats, and carried the weight whenever Kento was hurt. But he had never imagined a moment where the threat would be something he could not even see, strike or fight.
"Dad!" Shido called out over his shoulder, pure desperation bleeding through his tone. "Something is happening to Kento! He's terrified, and I can't get through to him!"
Mr. Kamitani looked up, his sharp eyes moving rapidly between the two boys.
Kashima remained completely unconscious beneath his hand, pale as stone.
Kento was trembling uncontrollably on the floor, trapped inside a nightmare that no one else could hear.
For the first time since the crisis began, Mr. Kamitani had no immediate answer.
His gaze flicked toward the phone resting on the floor, then toward the front door. Help was coming. Mr. Nagachika was on his way. But they were still alone in the kitchen and the help was not here yet.
"Kento," Mr. Kamitani called out, keeping his voice as low and steady as he could. "I am right here. I'm listening to you. You do not have to fight this alone."
Kento's head snapped toward his father's voice, his pale lips trembling violently.
For a moment, the voices in his mind seemed to recede, giving him a moment of air.
Then the cries surged back with terrifying force.
"LUNA!"
"CORVIN! BEHIND YOU!"
Kento let out a broken, hopeless cry and completely folded in on himself, curling his knees up toward his chest.
"Stop..."
Hori gathered herself beside him, her own tears slipping silently down her face as she rested a gentle, grounding hand on his back. "K-Kento..."
"P-please.... please." he whispered, the sound so tiny and fragile that Shido almost didn't hear it. "Please, I can't..."
He pressed his forehead against the floor, his entire body shaking.
"Make them stop."
Shido stared down at Kento, a suffocating sense of total helplessness closing around his chest.
He wanted more than anything to make a promise. He wanted to promise Kento that everything was going to be all right, that the terrifying voices would disappear, that Kashima would wake up any second now, and that their father would find an answer and everything would return to normal.
But he couldn't make himself say it.
Because Kashima still hadn't moved a single muscle. Because Kento was still hearing things no one else could hear.
And because, somewhere beneath the terror and confusion, a horrifying suspicion had begun to form in the back of Shido's mind—that these two impossible events were not separate at all.
He turned his head slowly to look back at Kashima.
The boy lay motionless on the floor, his skin unnaturally pale, his eyes closed, his body utterly still. Only minutes ago, Kashima had been standing right in front of them. Now he was gone, slipped away into some deep, unreachable darkness.
And right before he had collapsed—he had spoken those five strange words towards the ceiling.
"Vaelor en thaeris, o ruvaen."
Shido didn't understand what they meant. Neither did Hori. Neither did his father.
But the hollow, eerie sound of him echoed over and over in Shido's mind. Ancient. Unfamiliar. Uttered with an absolute, haunting certainty that had not belonged to the Kashima he knew.
He looked back at Kento, whose lips were moving soundlessly as another unseen voice called out the same frantic name into the void.
Luna.
Shido swallowed hard, his throat tight.
For the first time since this nightmare began, he wondered whether Kento wasn't hallucinating at all— whether he was hearing the echoes of something that had happened somewhere else.
Somewhen else.
And whether Kashima had just spoken from the exact same place.
"Corvin Vaelgrim…"
The voice came after the silence.
Kento went completely still.
He couldn't tell where the sound had come from. There was no one standing before him in the dim light of the kitchen. No shadow lurking behind the wooden cabinets. No one in the quiet corners of the kitchen who could have uttered those words.
And yet, he had heard them.
Clear and distinct, as though a mouth had leaned close to his ear.
"…died long before his heart stopped."
Kento stared blindly into the empty air before him, his breath seizing in his throat.
His lips parted, but no sound escaped his dry throat.
The words made no sense. He didn't know anyone named Corvin Vaelgrim. He had never heard that name in his entire life nor read them in any book.
Then why did the voice speak of him as though it were merely recalling something ordinary?
Something long since settled and buried?
"…His corpse simply had not realized it yet."
Kento stumbled backwards, his body reacting before his mind could process the terror.
His heel caught sharply against the floorboards. He reached out blindly for the cabinet behind him, fingers scraping frantically against the polished edge of the lower cabinet until he managed to catch himself before collapsing entirely.
Across the room, Hori rose slowly from the floor, her face pale.
"K-Kento…?"
He barely heard her.
The name echoed over and over inside his mind, entangling itself with the broken apology he had heard moments before, the roaring fire, the crumbling stone walls—
And beneath it all, that unyielding rhythm.
BA-DUM.
BA-DUM.
"Who are you?" Kento whispered into the kitchen, his throat tight with rising panic.
No answer came from the air.
He turned his head frantically toward the doorway leading to the hall, then towards the dark windows, searching for someone—anyone—who might explain what was happening.
Nothing moved.
Near him on the floor, Mr. Kamitani glanced once at Kashima, still unconscious in his arms. Then, carefully, he helped Shido take Kashima's weight.
"Stay with him..." Mr. Kamitani instructed in a low, steady murmur. "Don't try to move him."
Shido nodded, adjusting his hold on his Kashima, his hands trembling slightly.
Mr. Kamitani turned towards Kento.
Kento had barely taken a single step across the kitchen when the voice returned, cutting through the silence.
"…Can you hear me?"
Kento stopped breathing for a moment.
The voice was not addressing the room. It was not speaking to the walls or the dark.
It was speaking directly to him.
He shook his head in a frantic, desperate motion, though he could not have said whether he was refusing the voice or trying to deny the reality of what was happening inside his head.
"No," he whispered, his voice trembling violently. "No, I can't—"
His voice faltered and died.
Because he could. He could hear her. Every cruel, measured cadence of her tone reached him with absolute clarity.
And somewhere beneath her words, the heartbeat continued.
BA-DUM.
BA-DUM.
Hori took a step towards him, but stopped when she saw him recoil.
"Kento, please. Look at me."
He tried. He wanted desperately to cling to the sight of her, to the reality of the kitchen, to the familiar faces surrounding him.
Yet his gaze was drawn back, helpless and trembling, to the open space before him.
Then—
"…Kento Kamitani."
The sound of his full name silenced every thought in his head.
His fingers tightened around the cabinet's edge so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
She knew his name.
Not merely Kento. Not a nickname. Not a name someone might have overheard.
Kento Kamitani.
His own name, spoken with the quiet, chilling certainty of someone who had known it for a very, very long time.
"How…" His voice came out as a thin, broken rasp. He swallowed hard, trying to force air back into his lungs. "How do you know my name?"
Mr. Kamitani reached his side at last, his tall frame cutting between Kento and the center of the kitchen.
"Kento." His father's voice was deep, low and steady. "I'm here."
Kento turned towards him, but his wide, unfocused eyes seemed unable to focus on his face. He looked past Mr. Kamitani, towards the empty hallway, and then back again, his breathing shallow and rapid.
"Someone's talking," Kento managed to say, his voice rising in desperation. "There's someone—"
He stopped.
How could he explain a voice that possessed no body?
How could he explain a woman whose presence felt suffocating, yet who remained entirely invisible to everyone else in the room?
Mr. Kamitani studied his son's pale, trembling face for a moment. The fear in Kento's eyes was unmistakable, but there was no physical threat to confront, nothing he could question, nothing he could make sense of.
Gently, Mr. Kamitani reached out toward Kento's arm. The moment his fingers brushed the boy's sleeve, Kento flinched violently, pulling away.
Mr. Kamitani withdrew his hand immediately, keeping his palms visible.
"All right..." he said softly. "I won't force you. Just stay here with me."
For a brief, fleeting second, Kento clung to those words.
A familiar voice. A face he had known his entire life. Something real in the middle of the storm.
Then the woman spoke again.
A long, heavy pause settled over his mind.
"…How strange."
Kento's gaze drifted away from his father, pulled back towards the empty space.
There was no anger in her voice. No surprise he could understand.
Only a faint, inexplicable interest.
As though she had stumbled upon something long buried that had unexpectedly stirred beneath her touch.
"…Even after three thousand years…"
Kento's expression went completely blank.
Three thousand—
His mind caught on the vastness of the number, unable to hold its weight. It was too large, too absurd, too completely detached from anything he had ever known or been taught. He searched frantically for some reason she might speak such a duration, some explanation that would turn those words into something comprehensible.
He found nothing.
His head began to shake slowly, a motion born of sheer denial.
"No… Wha...W-What are you talking about?!"
The woman did not answer him.
She allowed the silence to linger, thick and suffocating, wrapping around his mind like frost.
Kento could hear Hori quietly calling his name from across the floor. He could feel th reassuring presence of Mr. Kamitani standing mere inches away. He could see Shido holding the unconscious Kashima near the counter.
Yet all of it seemed suddenly distant, stripped of reality.
Because the voice had spoken to him as though three thousand years were nothing more than a brief interval she had patiently endured.
And then, at last, her quiet statement fell into the dark.
"…you still answer to the wrong name."
Silence settled over the kitchen, heavy and suffocating.
Kento could hear the wind moving across the snow.
It swept over the ruined battlefield, stirring the edges of his clothes and carrying with it the faint, metallic smell of fresh blood. Somewhere in the vast distance, something shifted beneath the frozen crust with a sharp, brittle crack.
He waited.
He wasn't sure what he was waiting for.
The screams had finally stopped. The fire was vanished. Even the chaotic voices that had crowded his mind moments earlier had fallen into complete stillness.
Only the unbearable cold remained.
And the woman standing directly before him.
"...Tell me."
Kento raised his head, his breathing shallow.
She was watching him.
Long silver hair fell past her shoulders, its pale strands moving gently in the frozen wind. Against the colourless, dead landscape, her golden-yellow eyes seemed almost unnaturally vivid. She wore a black gown adorned with intricate gold embroidery, the elaborate patterns extending across its bodice and cascading down its heavy skirts. Not a speck of snow appeared to cling to the dark fabric.
She looked entirely out of place on a ruined battlefield. And entirely at ease.
"...Why are your feet cold?"
Kento stared up at her. "What?"
She didn't repeat the question.
For a moment, he wondered whether he had misunderstood her. It was such an ordinary, terrifyingly calm thing to ask in a place like this, where the snow stretched farther than his eyes could see.
His feet were cold.
Of course they were.
He looked down.
Snow had gathered around his shoes. The fabric covering his legs was damp, the icy chill seeping straight through to his skin.
Then he noticed his hands.
He stopped moving entirely.
They rested in his lap, his fingers curled around something he couldn't quite see. Thick red stained his palms and ran slowly between his fingers.
Blood.
Kento stared at his hands, his throat locking.
His mind offered him nothing. No memory. No explanation.
He turned his palms over, his hands trembling so violently that the motion was jagged and unnatural, as though looking from another angle might change the sight.
It didn't.
The blood was there. Heavy. Dark. Fresh.
And beneath his hands—a woman.
She lay across his lap. Her head rested against his arm, her long white hair spilling over his sleeve and trailing across the red stained snow. Fine strands had caught against the dark fabric of her dress, which was adorned with delicate details that seemed strangely out of place amid the blood and ruin.
One of her hands hung loosely beside his knee.
Kento stared down at her face.
She looked unnaturally still.
Her pale features were peaceful, almost as though she were sleeping. Beneath her closed lashes, he could just make out the faint colour of lavender.
He didn't know her.
He was certain—completely certain—that he had never seen her before in his life.
Yet his arms were wrapped tightly around her as though he had been holding her for hours, in the freezing wind.
He could feel the heavy weight of her body against his chest. The texture of the fabric beneath his trembling fingers. The biting cold pressing against his knees.
And a faint, fading warmth that seemed to be slipping away from her skin second by second.
His stomach lurched violently.
"N-No…"
He tried to move his hands away.
They wouldn't open.
He pulled frantically at his fingers with his other hand, forcing them apart one by one, but they curled closed again around the damp fabric of her dress.
"W-Wait… No, no, n-no…" His breathing grew shallow, ragged gasps tearing from his lungs.
He looked at the woman's face, searching searching desperately for some sign, some fragment of a msmory that would tell him what had happened.
Nothing came to mind.
He didn't know her.
He didn't know her.
Then why were his hands covered in her blood? Why was he holding her?
"W-Who are you?!"
His voice broke, terrified and sharp across the empty battlefield.
The silver haired woman standing before him merely watched. Her expression hadn't changed in the slightest.
Kento looked hurriedly between her and the motionless body in his lap. For one disorienting instant, he couldn't understand why there were two women—or whether there were two at all.
He blinked hard, his vision blurring.
The silver-haired woman remained where she was.
The body remained in his lap.
His hands remained stained deep red.
"W-Who is she?!" he demanded, his voice cracking as he looked up at the golden eyes above him. "W-What happened to her? What... what did I d-do?!"
His voice faltered into a terrified whisper on the last question.
He looked down at his blood soaked hands again, his entire body shuddering.
"What did I do...?"
No answer came.
He shook his head violently, desperately trying to pull forth a memory—anything that might explain how he had come to be kneeling in the snow.
There was nothing.
Not a face.
Not a voice.
Not even the recollection of taking a single step through the snow.
"P-Please," he whispered, his teeth chattering against one another. . "I-I don't understand… I don't know who she is…"
The woman tilted her head slightly, her pale hair shifting in the breeze. "...Do you know why humans fear darkness?"
Kento looked up at her in utter disbelief, his eyes wide and wild.
"W-Why are you… why are you asking me that?!"
She glanced towards the distant horizon, where the gray sky met the white snow. Her silver hair shifted across one shoulder, revealing the gold stitching at the high neckline of her gown.
"...Because darkness remembers."
Kento felt his throat tighten so hard he could barely draw air.
"N-No..."
He didn't even know what he was denying.
The words themselves? The blood on his hands? The terrible, suffocating certainty that this woman knew something about him that he did not know himself?
He didn't know.
"S-Stop… stop saying things like that!"
She looked back down at him.
Kento tried once more to release the body in his arms. His fingers strained against the fabric until his fingers ached, but his hands refused to obey his mind.
"I-I don't know her!" he cried. "I swear… I swear I don't know who she is!"
His voice travelled across the barren snow, thin and frail.
Nothing answered.
"T-Take me back..."
The words came out small, broken and desperate than he intended.
For the first time, he looked away from the woman and searched the horizon. There had to be something beyond this
endless graveyard. A road. A house. A doorway. Anything that could lead him somewhere familiar, somewhere safe..
There was only snow.
He turned back, his chest heaving. The woman was still watching him. "...Do you?"
Kento fell completely silent. He had asked her to take him back.
Back where?
The kitchen?
His home?
The life he remembered?
He knew those places existed. He knew the people waiting for him there.
Didn't he?
His lips parted, but the answer refused to come. A sudden, sickening doubt crept into his mind, cold as the air around him.
A gust of wind passed over the battlefield.
Then, without warning, it stopped entirely.
The hem of the woman's gown settled against the snow. Her hair fell still around her face.
Kento glanced down.
The snow beneath his knees had begun to disappear.
He froze.
It receded without melting, the white ground fading into nothing beneath his legs. The distant horizon vanished next, followed by the broken shapes of weapons half-buried in the snow.
He tightened his arms around the body in his lap.
"W-Wait—!"
The last patch of white ground disappeared beneath his hands.
There was no darkness. There was simply no battlefield anymore.
And then came the sound of metal striking metal.
CLANG.
Kento jerked his head up, his pulse spiking. Another clash rang out, sharp and violent, followed by a scream.
Then another.
The noise came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
He looked around hurriedly, but there was nothing to see. No soldiers. No weapons. No fires.
Only the woman with silver hair, standing where she had been all along, untouched by the noise.
A child's terrified cry rose above the din. Someone shouted a name in agony. Another voice called for help, choking on blood.
The sounds overlapped in a terrifying chaos, each one swallowed by the next. Footsteps pounded desperately against stone. Someone was praying in a language he had never heard. Someone was begging another person not to leave them behind.
A crash shook the invisible air around him.
Kento flinched violently, covering his head.
He couldn't tell where one sound ended and another began. They belonged to different moments, different places—he knew that somehow, deep within his chest, although he couldn't have explained how.
They were happening all at once.
A thousand desperate, agonising moments, pressed into the exact same unbearable instant.
He clapped his hands over his ears, pressing his palms against his skull.
"ST-STOP!"
The voices continued, tearing through his mind. He pressed his palms harder against his head, his elbows shaking.
"PLEASE—STOP!"
A voice cried out in agony. Another laughed—a sharp, cruel sound that made his skin crawl.
Someone whispered, very close. "....I'm sorry...."
Kento's eyes blew wide open.
He knew that voice. Or he thought he did.
He lowered his hands slightly, straining through the noise to hear it again.
"W-Who… who said that?!" he shouted into the void. "W-Who was that?!"
The sound was lost instantly beneath another wave of agonised screams. He covered his ears again squeezing his eyes shut until his head throbbed.
It didn't help.
The noise wasn't coming from outside him. It seemed to rise from somewhere deep within his own head, from the very core of his being, where no amount of physical pressure could shut it out.
He squeezed his eyes closed, tears spilling over his lashes.
"P-Please…" His voice was barely audible now. "P-Please… make it stop…"
The voices surged.
He could hear children weeping. He could hear people calling for their families in the dark. He could hear the desperate, broken pleas of people who believed someone might still come to save them.
He didn't know any of them.
He didn't know where they were.
But he could hear every single one of them. And he couldn't make them stop.
"PLEASE!"
The silence was sudden, absolute, and ringingly cold.
Kento's hands remained pressed tight against his ears.
He waited, trembling in the dark, for the next scream to break through.
It never came.
Slowly, painfully he lowered his hands to his sides.
The woman stood before him once more, her golden-yellow eyes fixed steadily on his face.
The body was gone.
The blood was gone.
His hands were clean.
Kento stared at his palms in disbelief , then at the snow beneath his knees.
He couldn't remember when the body had disappeared.
He couldn't remember letting go.
He couldn't remember anything at all.
His eyes lifted slowly towards the silver haired woman.
She regarded him for a long, quiet moment before her lips moved.
"...When you open your eyes..."
Kento swallowed hard, his throat dry and painful.
"W-What… what does that mean?"
She didn't answer.
He tried to stand, to back away from her, but his legs wouldn't respond to his commands. He couldn't tell whether he was still kneeling or whether the ground beneath him had ceased to exist altogether.
"P-Please," he whimpered, his voice small and trembling. "J-Just tell me… tell me what is happening to me…"
Her expression remained utterly unreadable.
Then the faintest, coldest smile touched the corner of her lips.
"...Don't believe the first face you see."
Kento's heart lurched violently against his ribs.
"W-What—?"
As Kento's mind was swallowed whole by darkness, the suffocating silence shattered elsewhere—bound to the exact same thread of frozen time.
Across the ocean of three thousand years, amid the roaring heat of an imperial court reduced to ash—
Then the Young Emperor nodded his head—not the formal bow of a ruler acknowledging a subject, but the simple gesture of one person recognising another.
"Go on, then."
Kashima's brow furrowed. "Go where?"
A trace of gentle amusement touched the Young Emperor's tired face. "Vaelor en thaeris, o ruvaen."
CLINK.
The silver chains rang. The emperor turned away.
The world exploded back into motion.
The flames roared violently back to life.
Ash surged across the courtyard. The torn banner snapped wildly in the wind. The advancing army thundered towards the palace, and the sound of steel swallowed the silence as though it had never existed.
Kashima stumbled, throwing an arm across his eyes as heat and noise violently overwhelmed his senses.
"WAIT!"
He reached toward the emperor. His fingers passed through the man's shoulder like smoke.
The emperor did not look back. The battlefield swallowed him whole.
And Kashima was left standing among the smoke and the falling embers, his fingers still outstretched.
For a long moment, he remained there.
Then, slowly, he lowered his hand.
He did not know whether the emperor had truly seen him, whether the frozen moment belonged to the sword, the dream, or something neither of them could understand.
He did not know whether they would ever meet again.
But he remembered the question.
If everything you have been given were taken away tomorrow, what would remain of you?
For the first time in his life, Kashima did not try to answer it.
The burning embers of the courtyard dissolved into a blinding burst of silver light.
Kashima's eyes flew open.
He dragged in a breath so abruptly that it caught in his throat, a harsh, terrible sound that echoed off the kitchen tiles. A fit of coughing followed immediately, folding his upper body forward as he gasped, struggling to draw air into his lungs. His palm struck the floorboards hard while his other hand reached out blindly into the space above him, grasping instinctively for something that was no longer there.
Silver chains.
Falling ashes.
The emperor's final, fading words.
They were gone.
But Kashima could still hear them ringing in his ears.
"Kashima!"
Shido caught him before he could fall sideways onto the floor, his hands supporting the boy's chest and shoulders with desperate strength.
"Dad! He's awake!"
Mr. Kamitani was beside them in a single motion, his tall frame blocking out the kitchen light..
"Kashima." Mr. Kamitani said, his voice low and commanding as he pressed two firm fingers against the side of the boy's throat. "Can you hear my voice?"
Kashima's wide, glossy eyes moved over his face, but there was no recognition in them. His chest heaved in short, uneven pulls. For a moment, his pale lips parted and moved soundlessly, as though he were trying to retrieve words from somewhere too distant to reach.
Then he spoke.
"...w-what would remain..."
Shido leaned closer, his dark blue-purple hair falling across his forehead, his own light blue eyes wide with panic.
"What? Kashima, what did you say?"
Kashima's unfocused gaze shifted slightly, finding Shido's face.
"...o-of... you..."
The words were scarcely a whisper, carrying a hollow weight.
Shido stared at him, his throat tightening. "What would remain of me? What are you talking about?!"
Kashima tried to answer. His mouth opened again, his fingers twitching against Shido's sleeve.
His expression changed.
Whatever fragile awareness had pulled him back from the void snapped in an instant. The faint light behind his eyes flickered and died. His head sagged heavily against Shido's arm, and his body went slack.
"Kashima?!" Shido's voice cracked into panic. He adjusted his hold, searching the boy's pale face for any sign of movement. "Kashima, hey! Can you hear me?!"
Mr. Kamitani checked that Kashima's breathing was clear, his face a hard, unreadable as as he helped Shido lower him gently onto the floorboards.
"Don't shake him," Mr. Kamitani instructed, though his own fingers pressed firmly into Kashima's wrist to track his fluttering pulse. "Keep him still."
"B-But he just woke up—"
"I know."
Mr. Kamitani's answer was quiet, but it stopped Shido from saying anything further.
Mr. Kamitani checked the boy again, his expression tightening as Kashima remained completely unresponsive, locked in a trance far deeper than ordinary sleep.
Before the silence in the room could settle, a scream tore through the far side of the kitchen.
"AAAAAAAH!"
Hori spun around, her knees slipping against the floorboards.
Kento was staring wide eyed at the wooden ceiling.
His back had lifted violently from the floor, his hands clawing furiously at the wood as though he was trying to flee from an unseen weight descending upon him from above. His scream broke off into a desperate, choking gasp for air.
"D-DON'T... DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
Hori scrambled across the floor toward him on her hands and knees.
"Kento!"
"T-TAKE ME... BACK!" he shrieked, his voice splitting into a raw, pitiful rasp as tears spilled down his cheeks. "P-PLEASE! M-MAKE IT... STOP!"
He twisted away from something no one else could see, scrambling backwards until his shoulder struck the lower cabinets.
Mr. Kamitani was already moving across the kitchen. "Kento, listen to my voice."
Kento did not appear to hear him. He clamped his hands over his ears, his knuckles white, his chest heaving.
"Look at me, son."
Mr. Kamitani crouched directly beside him, keeping his hands open and visible where Kento could see them. Hori knelt a short distance away, frightened by the way Kento recoiled from the familiar walls of his own home as though he was surrounded by enemies.
"Kento, it's us..." she pleaded, her voice trembling violently with unshed tears. "You're at home. You're safe with us."
Kento's wild, bloodshot eyes darted frantically between them.
For a fraction of a second, his trembling gaze locked onto Mr. Kamitani's face.
Recognition flickered across his expression.
Then the silver haired woman's chilling voice surged back, echoing with terrifying clarity in the silence of his skull.
"...Don't believe the first face you see."
Kento went completely rigid.
He knew that face.
He had known it all his life. He knew the stern lines around his father's eyes, the familiar cut off his jaw, the deep voice that had called his name countless times since childhood.
He wanted to reach for him.
He wanted desperately for someone to tell him that the frozen graveyard wasn't real, that the silver haired woman did not exist, that his hands had never been covered in the blood of a dying stranger.
Yet the warning burned in his mind like ice.
"Don't believe the first face you see."
Mr. Kamitani's hand moved slowly toward him, reaching out to steady his shoulder.
Kento recoiled. "N-N-NO!"
Mr. Kamitani stopped his movement instantly, his hand suspended in the air.
"Kento?"
Kento stared at him, the color draining entirely from his skin until his lips turned ash-gray.
"Y-You're..." He swallowed, his throat making a dry, clicking sound as he struggled to force words past his chattering teeth. "Y-You're... n-not..."
He couldn't finish.
His wide, terrified eyes searched his father's features, desperately hunting for some small, unnatural flaw—some subtle, impossible difference that might reveal itself if he stared long enough.
There was nothing. It was his father's face.
And that absolute familiarity terrified him more than any horror he had ever known.
"Y-You're... not..." His voice dwindled into a broken, terrified whimpering.
"Kento, it's me."
Mr. Kamitani spoke with soft, deliberate calm, but Kento flinched violently at the sound of the words. He pressed his back flat against the cabinets, shaking his head in sheer denial.
"N-No... N-No, please... g-get away..."
He looked towards Hori. Then back towards his father.
He seemed to be searching the kitchen for someone—anyone— he could trust, but the harder he looked at their faces, the more uncertain they appeared to his fractured mind.
"Kento." Mr. Kamitani remained still, keeping his distance. "You don't have to move. Just focus on my voice if you can hear me."
For an instant, Kento obeyed. His green eyes met his father's brown grey ones.
Then his expression changed.
The frantic terror in his face dissolved into something far worse: a hollow, helpless, and utter despair.
He opened his mouth to cry out, but no words emerged.
His knees buckled beneath him.
Mr. Kamitani reached out to catch him before his head could strike the hard wood. Kento's dead weight fell heavily against his arm, his head rolling sideways as his eyes fluttered shut and his consciousness vanished into absolute dark.
"Kento!"
Hori caught his limp hand, pressing it between both of hers.
"Kento! Can you hear me?! Kento!"
He didn't respond.
Mr. Kamitani lowered his son carefully onto the floorboards and checked his throat for a pulse. His fingers remained pressed against Kento's skin for several long seconds, his chest rising and falling in a single, heavy breath before he turned his gaze toward Hori.
"Stay beside him." His voice was steady. His face was pale as death.
Across the kitchen, Shido sat motionless on the floor beside Kashima, one hand on his shoulder. His bright blue eyes moved from Kashima's motionless form to Kento's pale face, then up towards his father.
"D-Dad..."
Shido seemed unable to find the words to finish the question..
Mr. Kamitani had none of the answers he wanted. Mr. Kamitani possessed none of the answers they so desperately needed.
A few minutes ago, both boys had been standing in this very room. Now one lay unresponsive after speaking words no one understood, while the other had collapsed in sheer terror at the sight of his own father's face.
And whatever had reached across time to touch them, neither boy could explain it.
Mr. Kamitani reached for his phone from the floor.
"Kaneki is on his way..." he said, his tone grim and quiet. "Keep watching their breathing. If anything changes, tell me at once."
Hori nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks as she held Kento's cold hand.
Shido remained crouched over Kashima, his knuckles tight.
Neither boy moved a muscle.
Then—KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
The heavy, urgent pounding against the front door echoed through the empty hallway, rattling the glass.
A moment later, the metallic click of the lock turned, and the door swung open with a sharp gust of moist air.
"Kamitani?!"
Heavy footsteps rushed into the hallway. A man's voice called out, accompanied by the muffled, hurried rustle of multiple people carrying heavy medical equipment.
"Kitchen!" Mr. Kamitani called. "Both boys are unconscious. We need you in here immediately."
The footsteps quickened, rushing down the corridor towards them.
Hori looked down at Kento's face. His face had finally settled into an unnatural stillness, his breathing faint but present.
She brushed a strand of black hair away from his forehead, unable to comprehend how the boy who had been speaking to her only moments earlier was now lying so far beyond her reach.
Beside Kashima, Shido stared at the doorway as the medical team burst into the room, his chest tightening with a sufficating weight.
Help had finally arrived.
The kitchen filled with rapid movement, sharp inquiries, and the noise of emergency gear being unbuckled.
Yet the haunting questions remained hanging in the heavy air, unanswered and terrifying:
"What would remain of you."
"Don't believe the first face you see."
Two fragments brought back from two impossible nightmares.
Two boys who had returned carrying pieces of something no one else had witnessed.
And as the medics knelt beside them, no one in the room had any idea what either of them had truly brought back into the world.
-----