He walked with a slow and rhythmic pace that felt heavier than the mountain itself. His eyes were not fixed on the raiders but on the space just behind them as if he were already looking at the world that would remain after they were gone. Every footfall was a declaration of intent. He did not look like a boy who was dying. He looked like an inevitability.

  The three raiders at the front of the pack stopped their laughing. The air around them began to grow cold and the smell of ozone filled the gaps between their heartbeats. Kota did not reach for his sword. He did not have to. The pressure radiating from his frame was enough to make the dirt beneath his boots crack and spiderweb outward. He was a predator who had forgotten how to be afraid.

  What are you looking at? The first raider spat. He stepped forward swinging a jagged piece of iron.

  Kota did not flinch. He simply kept walking. When the raider swung the iron Kota moved his head just an inch to the left. The metal whistled past his ear. Before the man could pull back Kota drove his palm into the center of the raiders chest. There was no sound of a strike. There was only the muffled pop of ribs snapping under a pressure they were never meant to contain. The man was launched backward as if hit by a battering ram his body skidding through the mud and into a stack of crates.

  The second and third raiders charged together. They were screaming a mixture of fear and adrenaline. One held a rusted spear and the other a heavy meat cleaver. Kota moved between them like smoke. He grabbed the shaft of the spear and twisted. The wood shattered into splinters. With the same motion he stepped into the personal space of the man with the cleaver. He caught the mans wrist and squeezed. The sound of bone grinding against bone was sharp in the silence of the outskirts.

  Kota did not stop there. He spun the man around and shoved him into the spearman. Both went down in a heap of tangled limbs and broken armor. Kota stood over them for a second his shadow stretching long and jagged across the road. He looked down at their broken forms with a clinical coldness. There was no mercy left in his eyes as he stepped forward to finish them. He went for the kill.

  A sudden sharp fire ignited in Kotas veins. It started in his chest and raced toward his throat like liquid lead. He buckled for a split second a violent cough racking his frame. A dark violet blood splattered into the palm of his hand. The feeling was a heavy weight trying to tear him apart from the inside. The world tilted and for a moment the faces of the raiders blurred into static. He felt a hum vibrating against his teeth and his vision began to swim with purple sparks.

  But Kota did not fall. He gripped his own arm his fingers digging into the muscle until he felt the pain clear the fog in his mind. He forced the sensation down. He forced the darkness back into the cage of his ribs. He was not done yet.

  A fourth raider stepped out from behind a stone wall. He was larger than the others with arms the size of tree trunks. He was not screaming. He was smiling a wide and jagged grin. In his hand he swung a massive iron ball attached to a thick heavy chain. The metal groaned as it cut through the air gathering momentum with every rotation. The weight of the weapon was immense and the sound of the chain clinking was the only thing that filled the sudden silence of the road.

  You think you are special? The big man asked. His voice was like grinding stones. You are just a broken toy.

  Kota walked toward him. He could feel a strange power in his blood trying to guide his movements but the fatigue was making him slow. He was fighting his own exhaustion as much as the man in front of him. The big man stepped forward and unleashed the weapon. The iron ball flew through the air like a meteor. Kota tried to pivot to let the momentum carry it past him but his sickness got the best of him. The ground felt like it was pulling him down and the air felt too thick to breathe.

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  The iron ball caught Kota flush on the side of the head.

  The sound of the impact was a dull heavy thud that echoed in the area they were in. Kota felt the bone of his skull vibrate against his brain. His vision went white then black then a deep bruised purple. He did not feel his body hit the ground. One moment he was a warrior standing against the tide and the next he was just a heap of meat and cloth in the dirt.

  Silence returned to the road. The big man stood over him laughing as he began to reel back his chain.

  Kota lay on the cold earth. He could feel the dirt against his cheek and the warmth of his own blood pooling beneath his ear. He could not move his arms. He could not feel his legs. But inside the dark theater of his mind a voice began to speak. It was not his own voice. It was the voice of a woman. It sounded soft yet it carried the weight of a thousand collapsing stars. This is a dream. He thought. I am dreaming of the end. I must be asleep or maybe I have finally died.

  It is a fascinating sight. The woman said. Her voice was like silk sliding over a blade. To see the one who carries the debt face down in the mud because of a man who does not even know the name of the stars he stands under. Does your pride not ache boy?

  I am not dead. Kota thought. This is just a nightmare. I am dreaming of a world that is too heavy to carry.

  A nightmare is simply a reality you are too weak to accept. The unknown woman replied. You are so very fragile. You keep trying to walk with the legs of a mortal as if that were some noble sacrifice. Do you truly think your small spark of light is enough to keep the dark at bay? They are coming for the potential you refuse to use. They have always been coming.

  Go away. Kota thought. He tried to swim toward the surface of the dream but the water was too deep. I just want to rest.

  Rest is a luxury you have not yet earned. She whispered. This sickness isnt foreign to you boy. You should have learned how to live with it by now instead of letting it break you. You treat your own power like an enemy because you are afraid of the view from the top. Every time you bleed you become more beautiful. Every time you fail you merely prove why you need it.

  The truth is that I am failing them. Kota thought. I am just a ghost in a dream.

  You could have made this whole settlement a wasteland in a heartbeat if you stopped pretending to be a weak human like that girl calling out your name right now. The woman said with a chilling sweetness. If you let me take the weight you would be standing on a mountain of their souls right now. But you are paralyzed by the fear of losing a self that is already disappearing. You are clinging to a ghost.

  Kota felt a heavy boot thud into his ribs. He felt his body roll over like a log. He looked up with one eye and saw the blurred shape of the big man standing over him raising the iron ball for a final blow. It felt so distant. It felt like watching a play from a very long way off. He felt no fear and no pain. He only felt a strange curiosity about when the dream would end.

  Is this where the dream ends? Kota asked himself.

  The woman laughed. It was a sound that had no beginning and no end. This is where you decide if you wish to remain a tragic story or become something the world cannot forget. The choice is yours but the iron is moving quite fast boy.

  He watched the ball reach the apex of its arc. He could feel the eyes of those who were closing in on him. They were not that close in the chase but they were gaining on them. He closed his eyes and tried to wake up.

  I am so tired. Kota thought.

  Then sleep boy. The woman whispered. Give me your burden and I will show you what a real predator looks like.

  The iron ball began its descent. Kota did not feel it. He felt himself drift into a void that was darker than any night. But on the road the silence was suddenly shattered. From the distance Leiya screamed her voice cracking with terror. She was not by his side but her eyes were fixed on his broken body as she watched the final strike fall.

  Kota! She yelled her voice echoing through the ruins. Get up!

  The boy on the ground did not struggle to find his feet. In the blink of an eye before any of the raiders could even register a movement Kota was no longer lying in the dirt. He snapped into a standing position with a speed so violent and unnatural that it seemed as if he had never fallen at all. No one saw him get up. One moment he was a corpse and the next he was the center of a storm.

  A massive explosion of violent Yen erupted from his chest like a sun going supernova. The force was absolute. The big man with the chain was sent flying through the air like a piece of paper. The remaining raiders were flung backward by the sheer pressure of the spillover. The earth cracked and the air began to scream.

  The person standing in the middle of the road looked like Kota but the eyes were wrong. They were hollow and filled with a cold and ancient hunger. The dream was over and the darkness had finally arrived.