The Grand Cathedral rose before him. Its spires pierced the angry sky. Blood streamed down the marble staircase in thick rivulets, pooling at the entrance. The banners of the Holy Kingdom hung in tatters, sagging under soot and moisture, the white and gold colors bled to nothing.

  He waded through the dead. Leon walked at his side, his sandy-blond hair colored red, framing a face carved from stone. Only his gaze betrayed life, burning with steady resolve as he slid his blade home with ritual calm. “Are you ready?”

  The words dragged something bitter out of his chest. Memories came—Tomas laughing over campfire stew. Kira teaching him how to dance. His blistered hands breaking frozen ground for their graves. A flash of red hair in sunlight, blue eyes brimming with life. Her smiling face, even as blood clung to the whorls of his fingertips. “I am.”

  He raised his sword, pulse thundering in his ears.

  “Ren.”

  Hands seized his shoulders, shaking him violently.

  “Ren, wake up.”

  “Wake up!”

  Smoke seared his lungs, wrenching a cough from his chest as his eyes flew open. Reina loomed above him, her face streaked with sweat and terror, fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “Ren! There’s a fire! Lilly’s still in the house!” She tore from his grasp, lurching toward the house, one arm raised against the searing orange glow.

  “Reina, stop!”

  “There’s a path!” she yelled, voice cracking with desperate hope. Between the barn and the field, flames seemed to bend aside, leaving a narrow corridor of smoke.

  Ren clamped her wrist, his grip iron. She spun on him, wild-eyed, but froze at the sight of his expression. “Look again.”

  The path wasn’t empty, it writhed with movement. Human-shaped infernos staggered through, arms thrashing as fire devoured them.

  Hell had broken loose in the farmyard. Smoke rolled upward in waves, blotting out the stars. Red and orange bursts lit the night, and in those brief flashes, countless shapes moved. Some ablaze, others shadows, all drawn to the screams and the roaring fire.

  His gaze cut across the corridor of smoke, mind racing. Through that gauntlet? Death, swift and certain. Around the edge of the farm? Slim, but possible. He wrenched Reina toward him, gripping her shoulders until she stilled. “We can’t go through. They’ll rip you apart before you take ten steps.”

  Reina’s lips trembled. “But Lilly—”

  “We’ll go around.” If I let go of you now, I’m choosing your grave. Ren led her into the treeline. Each stride carried them further from the great oak and the collapsing barn, which vanished behind them in a tower of sparks and smoke.

  * * *

  Orange streaks slashed across the night sky. Yuka huddled with the others—Hayami, Haruto, Satsuki—their skin ghostly under the pulsing glow. Each inhale carried the nauseating tang of charred meat laced with fuel, a taste that clung to the back of her tongue.

  The barn roof glowed at its edges, timbers spitting embers. From inside came the frantic percussion of hooves and the keening of trapped animals. Across the fields, the infected ran wild with fire stitched to their flesh, their howls rising and falling like damned souls clawing out of the grave.

  Yuka’s gaze darted from face to face, silently ticking names against an invisible roster. Six? Seven? She tried to count again and lost it at four; faces kept smearing into smoke.

  Hayami’s nails dug into her forearm. “If we stay, the smoke kills us before they do.”

  More figures stumbled out of the haze. Midori, Kurobane, Haruka—their words colliding in panic.

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  “Is everyone all right? Did anyone get hurt?” Midori gasped.

  “I can’t even see—this fucking smoke—” Kurobane hacked into his sleeve, eyes streaming.

  “Who’s missing?” Haruka asked.

  “Ms. Makabe! The sisters! And—,” Haruto shouted.

  “We’re right here,” Amira choked as she emerged, dragging the boy in tow. His glassy eyes reflected the firelight, his breaths quick and shallow, lips trembling around whimpers.

  Shigure stepped out behind her, rifle clutched tight, sweat carving pale tracks through the soot on his face. “The woods are crawling with them! We have to go back to the city!”

  “The city? Through that?” Kurobane flung his arm toward the wall of flame, chewing through the fields.

  Shigure’s jaw worked, teeth bared, before he snapped his head back and screamed over the din: “You have another idea?”

  Faces around her hardened, others sagged. Fear spread like infection itself, crawling under her skin. Yuka pressed a hand to her gut, nausea rising.

  “Dad!” Sayaka burst from the treeline, half-dragging Kurama beside her. Blood streaked her cheeks, her gaze skittering frantically until it landed on the weapon in Shigure’s hands. “My dad’s gun…” The words splintered. “Why do you have that..? What happened to him?!”

  Shigure pulled it close. “Your father—he… I’m so sorry…” The rest died in his throat. The forest answered for him. Blazing corpses erupted from the treeline, their shrieks climbing over the din as shadowed forms stampeded after them.

  “The shed!” Sayaka said.

  They surged as one, a human tide of terror. Midori and Haruka broke ahead, the rest stumbling in their wake. Yuka was carried forward, each breath scraping, each blink grinding ash across her eyes. When they got inside, it was pandemonium. Hands snatching, metal clattering against concrete. The arsenal spilled across the floor: rifles, pistols, blades dulled with rust, boxes of brass-tipped ammunition.

  “Grab something—anything!” Kurobane roared, shoving a knife to Satsuki.

  The spell broke. Yuka’s hands closed around a blade, its weight alien and slick in her trembling grip. She watched Haruto fumble with a hunting knife, nearly dropping it. Midori pumped a shotgun with practiced rhythm. And the youngest boy, no older than seventeen, hefted a machete too heavy for him, arms shaking.

  An infected smashed through the door. The boy’s scream tore the air as he swung too wide, missing by inches. The creature crashed into him, jaws locking on his shoulder with a wet crunch. His squeals turned to gurgles, the machete clattering from his grip.

  Her vision tunneled. She saw him writhe under clawing hands, ribs cracking open like rotten wood. Blood sprayed across the shed, warm on her cheek, metallic on her lips.

  Gunfire thundered. Shigure fired blindly, teeth bared in a snarl, each recoil jerking his shoulders. The shed strobed with a muzzle flash, faces caught mid-scream, mouths locked in terror, blood slicking walls.

  Its skull burst apart, body collapsing into the mess. She stumbled past the bodies into the yard, lungs ablaze. The barn’s skeleton glowed orange-white, animals shrieking as timbers gave way. Broken lanterns birthed rivers of flame that snaked across dirt and wood. The infected wove through it all, spreading destruction with every step.

  The man she met earlier, Kurama, fired into the dark, then vanished beneath a dozen bodies. His last sound was not a word but a wet, breaking sob. The world shrank to flickering silhouettes and choking heat. She stumbled backward, hacking for air, vision watering until the night blurred. That was when she saw it. By the barn. Sparks skittering up the generator, crawling over the rusted oil drums.

  A dome of fire erupted, the shockwave hammering through the farm. She threw up her arms as the concussion slammed her to the ground, shrapnel and sparks pelting her skin.

  * * *

  Ren led her through the woods. Flaming silhouettes careened, turned to living torches, their burning flesh touching off anything into towering matchsticks.

  “The others—” Reina’s cough choked the rest, fingers clutching his sleeve with desperate strength. “We can’t just leave them!”

  His eyes swept the hellscape. Beyond the wall of flame, he glimpsed shapes waving in the glow. Voices reached him for a moment, torn to tatters by the roar, then vanished as the blaze devoured all traces. I can’t reach them. Even if I tried, I’d lose her in the dark. I can’t lose her too. If I stop, she dies.

  The blast came like a second dawn. A monstrous flower of fire splitting the night, flinging debris across the forest. He pulled Reina tight, shielding her as splinters rained down. The farmhouse folded in on itself, erased in a single convulsion of thunder. His chest ached as he dragged her onward. What am I supposed to do? If it’s for her… does anything else even matter? Maybe she’ll hate me. Maybe she should. I don’t want to lose it. That smile meant for me alone.

  Another shockwave rippled the ground. “Ren!” she cried out, stumbling. Her ankle twisted against a root, sending her pitching forward. Her skull cracked against a rock. She collapsed, blood threading through her hair in the glow.

  He dropped beside her, hand trembling as he brushed at the wound. Her earlier cry still seemed to hang in the air, echoing through the smoke, refusing to fade. And other things had heard it. Those same things shuddered through the glow, eyes glinting in the light. Their footfalls pounded closer, cries sharpened by frenzy, closing in on the sound of prey.

  His fingers curled into a fist, the familiar pull stirring deep inside him. The weight pressed against his skin, begging to be unleashed. Reina’s chest rose faintly. She didn’t stir. She wouldn’t know. The howls grew louder, the silhouettes clearer. Fire on one side, the dead on the other.

  And there, over Reina’s still body, his choice crystallized.

  He let go.