(Pain! An unspeakable, agonizing pain! It felt as if every inch of bone and every bundle of muscle in his body was being thoroughly torn apart and crushed. His brain felt like a leather ball forcibly filled with water, swollen to the point of bursting, with every faint pulse dragging out endless soreness, chaos, and dizziness.
Kuchiba Hiro lay spread-eagled in the soft soil of the flowerbed beneath the school building, the flowers and grass beneath him smashed into a mess. Warm blood, mixed with cerebrospinal fluid like the thickest of sauces, continuously seeped from the back of his shattered head, soaking his black hair and slowly, ominously staining the emerald green grass beneath him.
His throat twitched uncontrollably, and a large amount of pink blood foam surged from his mouth. Every difficult breath produced a bone-chilling "Hah... hah..." sound of leaking air, as a massive amount of internal bleeding blocked his windpipe. There was a shocking, massive indentation in his right chest; his ribs and sternum were clearly shattered, and might have even pierced the lungs and heart beneath.
Despite such fatal injuries, a sliver of faint consciousness actually remained within him, though it was merely the lingering trace before death.
Thud!
Hiratsuka Shizuka leaped down from the gap in the third-floor corridor. From a height of nearly twenty meters, she landed as lightly as a feather, her knees slightly bent to dissipate all the impact.
She walked slowly into the messy flowerbed and knelt on one knee before the dying Kuchiba Hiro. Her eyes were brimming with tears, filled with endless sorrow and pain, her clear pupils reflecting the horrific sight of Kuchiba Hiro's condition.
She tremblingly raised the hand that had just erupted with terrifying power—now stained with a bit of blood and dust—and pressed it firmly over her eyes. Her shoulders twitched slightly as she sobbed, her words incoherent:
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... Kuchiba... I didn't want it to be like this... I really didn't..."
She took a deep breath, tears sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the blood-stained grass, her voice filled with pain and a deeper sense of helplessness:
"You're my student... and she's my student too... What am I supposed to do? I've had enough of this shitty life... Being forced to learn these killing arts as a child... then being told to forget, to hide, to live like an ordinary person when I grew up... But now... now that I've used them... the one I killed... was my own student..."
She watched Kuchiba Hiro's pupils, which were gradually losing focus yet still staring fixedly at her. Knowing he could hear, she continued speaking, as if explaining, as if searching for a reason to convince herself, and even more like performing a cruel farewell:
"Kuchiba... I'm sorry about your father's death, but that was perhaps... a 'necessary' sacrifice... for the greater collective... to avoid causing panic... some truths must be covered up... individual pain... in the face of 'all humanity'... seems so... insignificant..."
She even gave a self-mocking laugh, one that looked worse than crying: "Heh... I never thought... that in the end, I would become the person saying such things to you, the person bullying you..."
On Kuchiba Hiro's face, which was currently unable to make any expression, the corner of his eye twitched. Using the last of his strength, his trembling, blood-stained fingers laboriously picked up a broken, thin twig nearby. Then, in an almost comical, powerless gesture, he lightly struck Hiratsuka Shizuka's kneeling knee.
This faint resistance was more like a silent accusation of extreme rage and hatred.
Hiratsuka Shizuka looked at the twig that had fallen powerlessly, all expression vanishing from her face, leaving only a heavy, almost numb resolve. The tears in her eyes stopped, and her voice became low and firm:
"It's over, Kuchiba... I'll help you end the pain..."
Hiratsuka Shizuka's fingers touched the skin of Kuchiba Hiro's neck. The sensation was warm and sticky, carrying the residual warmth of life and the slipperiness of blood. She closed her eyes, steeled her heart, and her five fingers suddenly exerted force—
However, the expected sensation of shattering bones did not come.
What came from her fingertips was an extremely eerie, rapidly changing sensation!
Initially, it was warm and soft, but in almost an instant, the structure beneath the skin became hard and cold at an incredible speed! It was as if she wasn't gripping a human neck, but a piece of Tempered Steel that was rapidly cooling and Hardening! Her finger strength was like a stone dropped into the ocean, unable to budge it in the slightest!
Hiratsuka Shizuka snapped her eyes open, looking at her hand in astonishment, then at Kuchiba Hiro.
At this moment, Kuchiba Hiro's consciousness was churning violently amidst endless pain and the darkness of near-death. The external physical agony seemed to recede like a tide, replaced by a scorching emotion originating from the deepest part of his soul—a hatred enough to incinerate reason, a complete denial of the so-called "necessary sacrifice," and a most resolute rebellion against the "collective will" imposed upon the individual!
In a capitalist country? Sacrificing the few for the many as a matter of course? This was never a question worth discussing, but a blatant, violent deprivation of the weak by the powerful! His answer was clear and decisive: No! He absolutely could not be sacrificed so lightly! Especially when the one being sacrificed and erased was his father!
The flames of revenge, far from being extinguished by his near-death state, burned even more fiercely and purely under this extreme oppression!
Even if the whole world thought he was wrong, even if all the rules, all the power, and everyone he might have once had a sliver of warm connection with stood against him, even if the end of this road was destined to be destruction, he would move forward!
He would use his actions, his anger, and his death to issue the sharpest accusation! He had to make those who easily decided the life and death of others, those who committed slaughter in the name of the "big picture," pay the most painful price!
Any person standing in the way of this path, no matter who they were—be it a former mentor or an "innocent"—was now automatically classified as an "enemy"!
This unwavering, almost obsessive resolve, like a most violent hurricane, stirred up monstrous waves in the depths of his soul—that mysterious realm connected to the Origin! The source of his ability, which might have been just a trickling stream, was forcibly widened, deepened, and sent roaring forth under the impact of this pure and powerful will!
Buzz—!
An invisible but substantial ripple of power suddenly expanded outward with him as the center!
Hiratsuka Shizuka clearly saw Kuchiba Hiro's exposed skin—cheeks, neck, arms—instantly lose all color and the texture of human flesh, taking on a cold, hard, ancient Black-gold luster that shimmered with a metallic glint!
Even beneath his tattered clothes, the rest of his body produced faint, teeth-gritting sounds of rapidly increasing density!
In an instant, his entire being seemed to transform into a cold, hard Black-gold sculpture!
But the change did not stop there. That Black-gold luster lasted for less than a second before crumbling into a shower of iron filings, then quickly receding and vanishing like a phantom, as if it had never appeared. Disappearing along with it were the horrific wound on his head, the fatal indentation on his chest, and all the bloodstains and filth on his body!
Except for his damaged clothes, which bore witness to the fierce battle just now, his body had actually recovered to its original state. His skin was smooth, and though his aura remained cold, it was steady and powerful, with no trace of having been seriously injured! Only in those eyes that suddenly snapped open burned a fire even colder, angrier, and more inhuman than before!
Hiratsuka Shizuka's hand was still frozen on his neck, but the sensation now was of warm, intact skin. However, this normal sensation brought her an unprecedented chill and horror!
She looked at this scene that defied common sense in disbelief, her pupils shrinking violently as she instinctively wanted to retreat.
But it was too late.
Kuchiba Hiro's cold eyes had already completely locked onto her.)