Akitsu Shouga’s breath came in ragged, uneven gasps as he dragged the back of his sleeve across his face, smearing blood and rain together. The steel of his katana felt slick and unsteady in his hands, heavy not only with gore but with exhaustion carved deep into his bones. Each breath burned. Each heartbeat thundered painfully in his ears.
The Firefly Swamp stretched endlessly around him.
Mist curled low across the waterlogged ground, creeping between twisted roots like grasping fingers. Bioluminescent insects drifted through the air in lazy arcs, their faint green glow painting the swamp in a sickly, dreamlike haze. The water reflected their light dimly, rippling as blood seeped into it.
Everywhere he looked, bodies lay scattered.
Villagers—once human, once alive—now lay cut, slashed, impaled, broken beyond recognition. Their masks were cracked or torn away, revealing lifeless eyes staring into nothing. Their screams had faded long ago, swallowed by the mist and rain. Only silence remained.
His body trembled as the adrenaline drained away. Muscles screamed. Bones felt brittle. Yet he still stood.
He alone had survived.
Seraphine Orion was gone.
Not among the bodies. Not hidden in the fog.
Gone.
The white fox spirit who had floated beside him through countless loops, who had warned him, guided him, teased him—had disintegrated when Aurora struck her down. Akitsu could still see it: her form shattering into fragments of pale light, dissolving into the mist like ash scattered by the wind.
Kael Ardent was dead.
His body lay twisted beneath a fallen tree, limbs bent at unnatural angles, crimson pooling slowly into the swamp water beneath him. Akitsu had forced himself to look once—and nearly vomited. The sight burned itself into his mind.
Ayaka was gone as well.
The blue-haired spirit with eyes like frozen lakes had vanished when Aurora’s shadow reached her. No body remained. Only the echo of a scream that still rang faintly in Akitsu’s ears, refusing to fade.
And still…
The Witch had not appeared.
Then the air shifted.
The mist trembled.
Auroras flared overhead—colors twisting violently, bleeding into one another in impossible patterns. The swamp seemed to bend around a single point as light warped and rippled.
She stepped through it.
Aurora walked slowly through the mist, bare feet gliding just above the water’s surface. Light danced across her hair and skin, colors shifting endlessly—violet to gold, green to crimson. Her eyes shimmered with impossible hues, hollow and infinite, reflecting the swamp’s faint glow without emotion.
“Impressive,” she said, her voice smooth, unyielding, carrying effortlessly across the still water. “No normal human could defeat an army of my puppets.”
Akitsu didn’t answer.
His body screamed in protest as he moved. Every wound burned. Every step felt like it might be his last.
He charged.
Forward. Relentless. Unflinching.
Aurora tilted her head slightly, watching him approach as one might observe an insect struggling against a tide. “You do not understand what you face,” she murmured.
The closer he came, the heavier his body became.
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His legs shook. His arms sagged. Sweat mixed with blood and dripped from his hair into the water below. His vision blurred at the edges.
Still, he moved.
Then—
Darkness.
When Akitsu opened his eyes, he was back.
The ethereal void.
The red island stretched beneath his feet, silent and unmoving. The cherry blossom tree stood at its center, petals suspended eternally in the moment before falling. The black water extended infinitely in all directions.
Forty-three red petals floated on its surface.
Forty-three deaths.
Red doors drifted lazily above the water, countless and indifferent.
His katana was still in his hand.
His body ached—not physically, but deeper. Exhaustion layered upon exhaustion. Pain remembered, not healed.
The humanoid demon hovered nearby, its grin wide and knowing. “You’ve survived more than anyone before,” it said softly. “Perhaps this time… you will choose wisely.”
Akitsu ignored it, eyes scanning the doors.
The demon pointed. “Go into that one.”
A blue door hovered near it.
Different.
Its surface shimmered faintly, as though made of liquid glass. Its edges were blurred, unstable, almost gentle.
Akitsu paused.
“…Blue,” he muttered.
Something about it felt wrong. Yet compelling. His instincts screamed both warning and promise, twisting in conflict within his chest.
He inhaled deeply.
And stepped through.
The world shifted violently.
Akitsu gasped as the Firefly Swamp returned—but twisted, corrupted.
The mist was thick, alive, coiling around him as if breathing. The air stank of rot, decay, and iron. Faint screams echoed from nowhere and everywhere, layered and endless.
Villagers moved through the fog.
Twisted.
Their faces were distorted, eyes hollow and black. Limbs bent at impossible angles. Their mouths stretched wide, screaming silently as they clawed toward him.
“…This isn’t real…” Akitsu whispered. “…It can’t be real.”
He swung.
A body collapsed into rotten fragments—but another replaced it instantly. Then another. Endless.
“Not… again…”
Then he saw them.
Kael lay broken on the swamp floor, skin pale and stretched tight over bone. His lips moved, but only a rasp escaped.
Seraphine and Ayaka hovered nearby, their forms flickering—white and blue light fading like dying stars.
“Akitsu… save… us…”
He reached for them.
His hands passed through empty air.
They disintegrated into motes of light and vanished.
“No!” Akitsu screamed, collapsing to his knees. “Stay with me! You can’t—!”
The swamp closed in.
And then—
Aurora appeared.
Larger now. Towering. Rainbow light flowed from her form in chaotic waves.
“You cannot save them,” she said softly. “They belong to me now.”
Akitsu roared and charged.
“I won’t accept it!”
The auroras coalesced.
A blade of light struck him.
Pain.
Collapse.
Despair.
The black water welcomed him again.
Forty-three petals drifted silently.
“…Then I keep going,” Akitsu whispered.
Another door waited.
And he stepped forward—alone.
