Chapter 57 - Ryota NakamuraHollow Night“Keep your stance low. Shift your weight. Don’t let me see you screw this up.”

  Kazuya’s voice wasn’t how it used to be.

  Where it used to be all calm and encouraging, now it was just this sharp bark, like he was about two seconds away from snapping. I sucked it up, keeping my mouth shut, trying not to roll my eyes as I squared up.

  Back in the day, training with him used to be kinda fun. Now? It was more like a chore—something I had to get through without pissing him off.

  Ever since she died, everything had gone to hell.

  I shifted my stance, putting my weight forward like he drilled into me, arms up in a half-assed guard. Kazuya, though? He wasn’t having it. I could see that scowl on his face a mile away. Didn’t even let me throw a punch before he was already on me—fist smacking mine away like it was nothing, then shoving me in the chest so hard I nearly face-pnted in the dirt.

  I stumbled back, barely catching myself, hands on my ribs. It didn’t hurt that much—he wasn’t even trying to mess me up—but it stung in all the other ways. Why was he being such a prick? My throat tightened as I looked at him, standing there like some kinda drill sergeant, all stiff and pissed off.

  What happened to the brother who’d actually, I dunno, cared?

  The one who used to give me pointers without making me feel like garbage?

  But that was before. Before everything fell apart.

  “Do it again,” he growled, taking another step toward me, his face hard like stone. “And quit screwing around.”

  I threw a jab—if you could even call it that—more out of habit than anything else. Just trying to get it over with. Didn’t even see it coming when he smacked my hand away and shoved me again, harder this time. My feet slid out from under me, and I went down, scraping my knee on the ground.

  I gasped for breath, more from shock than pain. What the hell is wrong with him? I wanted to yell at him. To ask why he was like this now—why he wasn’t the same guy I used to look up to. But my tongue was tied, words choking me before they could come out.

  Kaz towered over me, eyes bzing.

  “You think the world’s gonna take it easy on you, Ryota? You think the bad guys’ll stop just ’cause you’re scared to hit back?”

  I swallowed hard, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Nii-san... what’s going on with you? Why are you—”

  “Why am I what?” His voice cracked like a whip, and his eyes—man, they weren’t the same eyes I remembered. They were cold, angry, like he was looking at someone else.

  “Why am I teaching you how to survive? ‘Cause if you don’t learn, you’re gonna get chewed up and spit out by the world, just like she did.”

  I flinched, his words hitting like a gut punch. Just mentioning her was enough to make me feel like her memory hung in the air between us, like a ghost. Kazuya’s fist tightened, his knuckles white as he leaned in close, his breath hot on my face.

  “You wanna stay alive, Ryota? Then quit screwing around and learn how to fight.”

  I wanted to yell, to push him away, tell him he wasn’t my enemy. But nothing came out. My fists clenched, knuckles burning with frustration, but no words. Just silence. He turned his back and walking away like he couldn’t even stand to look at me.

  “Go ahead, stay soft if you want,” he muttered, voice barely above a growl. “But if you can’t handle this, you sure as hell won’t survive out there.”

  I stood there, fists shaking, teeth grinding, staring at the dirt. The weight of everything pressing down on me, heavier than ever. Kazuya’s shadow swallowed me up, and all I could think was...

  Why?

  Why the hell was he acting like this? What happened to the brother who was supposed to have my back?

  The memory faded like smoke, repced by real sounds. Distant, but clear as day. Metal cshing. Shouts, some frantic, others angry. The kind of stuff you only hear when everything’s going to crap. Blood. I could smell it in the air, mixed with something sharp—like burning rubber.

  I blinked my eyes open, the dream melting away as I sat up. The Hollow Night’s glow flickered all around me, real bizarre and unnatural, casting weird shadows over the broken walls. The echoes of a fight were getting louder. Junko’s voice cut through, fierce and desperate, followed by the unmistakable sm of Eiji’s weapon hitting something solid.

  My pulse kicked up. They were in trouble. And they weren’t alone.

  I could feel it now—the other presences, thick and dark, like fog pressing down on my chest. One of them was... wrong. Cold, deadly, like a predator sizing up its next meal. It made my stomach twist.

  Whoever or whatever it was, they weren’t screwing around.

  I pushed myself to my feet, muscles tight as I shook off the st of the unconsciousness. I heard a shuffle to my right, and found Mizuko there. She was crouched on one knee, completely still.

  It was only once I’d inched closer that I realized how active her eyes were, darting up and down the fight unfolding in front of us like she was producing a py-by-py to an invisible audience in her head.

  “Did Hoshino get you too?” she asked way too cooly. She didn’t even send a gnce my way. But thanks to that, the memories of what went down before I was knocked out came rushing back like a flood.

  “Yeah,” I admitted after a few seconds. “I guess she did.”

  Looks like I’d been wrong – if Eiji were really out to kill Mizuko, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If you could call it that, anyhow. Junko must’ve arrived at some point after, cuz now they were both throwing down with some shadowy figure I was having trouble making out.

  Whatever, I couldn’t just stand here. Not when my friends needed me.

  “Think you can move?” I asked Mizuko, feeling my energy starting to return. Enough to knock around a few heads, you can be sure of that.

  She gave me one hell of a look then, the kind of exasperated side-eye my mom’d give me whenever she caught me sneaking some extra snacks into the grocery cart. The kind of look that let you know that, whatever the heck you just said, it was dumb, and now you look dumb too.

  “…sorry.” I offered, realizing just how stupid of a question it was. This was Junko’s older sister for crying out loud. It should’ve gone unsaid that even if she had to fucking hobble, she’d be over there fighting alongside her.

  First she almost stabs me in the throat, and now she thought I was a dumbass. As far as impressing Junko’s sister went, I was crashing and burning and she knew it. A hint of a smile pyed on her lips, like she could read my nervousness, before she set her attention back toward the sounds of cshing steel.

  I was thinking of following the action myself, looking for a good time to jump in, just as a stupidly loud crack erupted through the air, like the colpse of some scaffolding. Nah, more like the shot of a sniper –

  “LOOK OUT!”

  I couldn’t tell if it was the screaming, Mizuko’s wide-eyed shock, or just one too many action movies, but before I knew it I was diving forward, scooping Mizuko in my arms. Something whizzed right above me so sharply that it made my damn spine tingle, and then I met concrete.

  When I pushed myself back up, the bright gleam of something on the rooftops above snatched my attention. I’ll be damned – it actually was a sniper.

  “Y-You okay?!” I extended a hand but couldn’t afford to look away in her direction. There was no response for a few seconds, and my heart sank like a rock once I started thinking I’d been too te. A firm tug at my right gauntlet set me straight, and a wave of cautious relief swept me over.

  “Fine,” she replied in that eerily nonchant tone I might have to start getting used to. “How did you do…that?”

  I shrugged. In all honesty, I hadn’t quite figured out what that sensation was yet – that feeling of having all this energy piling up, like a bomb counting down to explosion.

  All I knew was that the more I moved, the more the energy built up, and then I could unleash it all at once, moving so fast I’m snapping from one position to the next, like some kind of fighting game character.

  And if this was some kind of video game, you could bet your ass I wasn’t stopping til’ I – we - won.

  Akio’d never forgive me otherwise.

  "Ryota!"

  A familiar voice called out to me. It wasn’t just familiar—no, this was the voice that stuck with me even when I wanted to shut everything out. The one that lingered in my head when the Hollow Night and all its craziness faded to the back. My heartbeat kicked up, like I’d just taken a punch to the gut.

  I whipped around toward the sound, and my senses went numb.

  Just like that, I couldn’t pry my eyes away from her—the girl who’d somehow gotten tangled up in every thought I had tely. Her hair swayed with each movement, like the world was slowing down just to make sure I didn’t miss a second of it.

  Then there were her eyes— these deep pools of ice-blue, locked on me, and yet somehow not quite seeing me. It was like she was looking right through me, and I couldn’t figure out if that made me wanna pull her closer or just shrink into nothing.

  Her lips, slightly parted as she called my name, had this natural pout that made my heart twist in all the wrong ways. The way her fingers tightened around her weapon—her whole stance radiating this strength that made me wanna be better, stronger, for her—everything about her felt so far out of reach, but damn if I didn’t keep stretching for it anyway.

  Junko Shirogetsu. The girl I didn’t deserve, but the one I just couldn’t stop chasing.

  For her, I’d take on the entirety of this Hollow Night if it meant just a second of that icy gaze warming up for me.

  Just as I opened my mouth to say something—anything—my moment with her was yanked away, like a needle pulling from a scratchy old record.

  “Ryota! Move your ass!”

  Junko’s shout ripped through the haze, and I was snapped back to reality with a jolt. The soft light I’d been drowning in flickered out, and all that was left was the chaos of the fight. Steel cshing. Footsteps pounding. That eerie silhouette behind the gleam in the distance still loomed like a bad dream.

  “Take Mizuko and run!” she barked, her voice sharp and filled with urgency as she whipped her bde around in an arc to block something—a strike from another shadowy figure maybe, though I couldn’t be sure in all the madness.

  Eiji took the opportunity to fnk, but whoever they were fighting ducked super low, practically sinking into the floor before taking a few swipes at Hoshino now.

  I gnced back at Mizuko, who was already pushing herself to her feet, her calmness a sharp contrast to the storm brewing right in front of us. Her gaze was locked, reading the chaos like it was nothing more than background noise. But even she had to know things were spiralling out of control.

  “I... I—” I stammered, wanting to argue, wanting to tell Junko that I could fight too. That I could stay and have her back, like I always wanted to.

  But her eyes cut through me like a bde, sharp and full of determination.

  “Go, Ryota. Now.”

  And just like that, I knew there wasn’t time for whatever it was I wanted to say. No more hesitation. I clenched my fists and nodded, turning to Mizuko, kneeling down and stretching my arms out behind me with enough force to show I wasn’t gonna take no for an answer.

  “C’mon,” I muttered, my heart racing. Not from fear, but from the reality that hit me like a truck. This fight? It wasn’t mine. At least not yet. Junko... she needed to finish it without me. And even though that thought ate me alive, I knew better than to stay.

  The second I felt Mizuko’s weight shift onto my shoulders, I took off running, heart heavy, mind a mess, and Junko’s voice ringing in my ears.

  The streets blurred around me, my legs pounding against the pavement. Mizuko’s weight was nothing compared to the weight of what I was leaving behind. Junko, Hoshino... they'd keep fighting without me.

  But as I turned the corner, that gut-wrenching feeling wouldn’t go away. Something was wrong—worse than I could even begin to grasp. My instincts screamed for me to keep running, but another voice—the reckless, dumbass part of me—whispered to check it out.

  I didn’t have time to argue with myself, though, because just ahead I spotted a trio of familiar figures backing up—fast. They were practically tripping over themselves as they moved away from something around the corner.

  “Arthur!” Mizuko yelled out suddenly, gripping my right shoulder with force. I took it as a command to close the distance.

  Arthur, who I remembered was the English transfer in the year above, snapped his head towards me, eyes wide.

  “Shirogetsu and… you?! What are you doing?!”

  He looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but I wasn’t the only one. Another face, who I’d now recognized as our student council rep, was twisted in terror—something I didn’t think was even possible for someone like him. The spacey redhead I shared a few csses with, Kazuko or something like that, just kept her gaze locked on whatever was behind the corner, her trembling hand half-raised, as if she didn’t even know what to do.

  “Both of you need to run,” Arthur barked, voice tight and frantic. “GET AWAY! As far away as you can!”

  Run? Again? No. Something was off, way off. They didn’t look like they were running from a fight—they looked like they were running from a nightmare.

  “What the hell’s going on?!” I shouted, slowly dropping Mizuko back to her feet. She stayed quiet, but her eyes narrowed toward the same direction as theirs.

  “Just go!” Arthur’s voice cracked—like he was barely holding it together. I’d never heard anyone like this. Never seen a genuine look this… scared.

  But curiosity—stupid, self-destructive curiosity—got the better of me.

  I gnced at Mizuko, but she gave me nothing, as usual. It was like she knew this wasn’t her moment either. My pulse pounded in my ears as I steeled myself and took a few steps toward the corner.

  “No! Don't—” Arthur’s warning was cut off by a low, unnatural growl from around the bend. It vibrated through the concrete beneath my feet, crawling up my legs like the sound itself wanted to drag me under.

  Every instinct screamed at me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  I rounded the corner.

  My heart stopped. What stood before me was a grotesque, hulking silhouette twisted beyond recognition. Tendrils of dark energy spilled out from every pore of its body, warping it into something monstrous. Its skin, if you could even call it that , pulsed with malevolent EXS energy, veins bulging and burning like living shadows.

  I felt my knees go weak. This wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. I thought I was ready to fight. To do good on the task Akio left me.

  But then its eyes met mine.

  The pure malice that radiated from them hit me like a freight train. I wanted to scream, wanted to run, but I was paralyzed, stuck in pce like my body had forgotten how to move.

  Arthur staggered beside me, barely able to keep his voice steady.

  “Rusuban... what on earth have you done?”

  The question hung in the air like a death sentence.