She staggered along, dragging her mother’s unconscious body. Pain stabbed through her skull with each tired step, white flashes pulsing at the corners of her vision. The terminal had transformed into a hellscape, walls sagging like candle wax, metal beams contorted into impossible angles. The ground shuddered beneath her feet, an endless, nauseating tremor that refused to subside. The sky fractured as blinding light slashed through it without warning. Her body recoiled in the flash, but her legs kept moving. “Come on,” she whispered through bloody lips.

  “Haruka!” Haruto burst through the wall of smoke. In one fluid motion, he was beside them, muscles tensing as he took on half her mother’s weight. “Let me help,” he said, voice strained but determined.

  Hayami followed, dragging one leg, her arm supporting a boy, the eldest of Ren and Reina’s rescued children. His eyes ping-ponged between the terminal’s disintegrating walls and the light above them. The sight of them alive knocked the wind from Haruka’s lungs, a wave of relief so intense she could only nod.

  Haruto’s voice cracked. “What the hell is even happening anymore? What do we do now?”

  Every pair of eyes fixed on her. As if she held answers she’d never claimed to possess.

  "You!” Amira ran, yelling, eyes fevered and darting. She bypassed the others completely, her focus snapping onto Haruka with an urgency that bordered on madness. Her lips trembled. The word barely reached Haruka through the chaos. “You have to come with me! Now! Right now!” Haruka found her mother’s face. “He’s going to do it again!”

  She squeezed her mother’s limp hand before rising. “Keep her safe,” she commanded the others, her voice steadier than her legs. “Hide. We’ll be back.” With a curt nod to Amira, “Show me.”

  Only once did Haruka falter, her gaze catching on her mother’s limp body cradled in Haruto’s arms, on Hayami’s bewildered expression. Her feet were moving, pounding against broken concrete, lungs burning as she chased Amira’s retreating figure.

  Overhead, the sky fractured, white light erupted in violent pulses, each flash freezing the world in grotesque tableaux—billowing smoke, bodies caught mid-fall—before darkness swallowed everything again, leaving only the burning glow of twilight.

  The shattered hallway windows screamed with wind, each gust sweeping bodies from the tarmac like autumn leaves. Haruka watched as limbs cartwheeled skyward, and a corpse slammed against the glass, exploding, a grotesque missile of torn clothing and mangled flesh that sprayed crimson across the walls before tumbling past.

  A blade of light sliced through the aircraft lineup, cleaving steel and shearing wings as if they were paper. Some planes erupted in fireballs, while others simply separated, bisected with surgical precision. The explosions lit the runway. She saw a lone figure moving through the devastation. Unmistakable even at this distance. Each halting step drew him closer to the precipice where the tarmac gave way to nothingness. The ocean hurled itself against the cliff face, sending geysers of foam skyward with each assault. He teetered at the edge.

  “Kuro—”

  His silhouette froze against the light above.

  He fell.

  Haruka’s lungs seized, her voice abandoned her. The horizon lurched sideways as fingers dug into her biceps, anchoring her to the present. “Move it!” Amira snapped.

  The command shattered the vacuum, and suddenly there was noise again. She stumbled forward, legs moving on instinct alone as the sky continued to tear apart overhead. Amira halted so abruptly that Haruka nearly slammed into her back.

  On the floor ahead lay Mizuki’s crumpled form. Her flight jacket glistened black with blood. “Shit!” Haruka dropped to her knees beside her body, fingers brushing her throat while her gaze fixed on the dark, matted hair where something had struck with brutal force.

  Not twenty feet away, a compact jet waited with its hatch ajar, the name Aokawa Air painted across it in bold red. Someone spoke from within, words indistinct. Metal steps rang under deliberate footfalls.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Shigure appeared in the doorway. His designer suit hung in tatters, the fabric dark with grime and darker still with what could only be blood. He descended with the casual grace of a man stepping onto a yacht rather than into the apocalypse. When his gaze fell on Haruka, his lips curved upward, not in greeting, but in triumph. “There you are.”

  Shigure straightened his gore-spattered tie, fingers moving with the precision of a man adjusting cufflinks before a gala.

  “Our story deserves a proper ending, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “This can’t be happening… she was our only way out!” Haruka whispered, her words meant for no one and everyone.

  “Don’t worry.” His eyes darted toward Mizuki’s still form. “Poor thing believed she was special. As if she alone could fly.”

  Haruka heard the click, she pivoted and saw a pistol leveled at her chest.

  “You’re all idiots,” Amira rasped. “He’s right about that much. If I stay with you, I’ll die. Someone plays the hero. Someone else snaps. We were a ticking fucking time-bomb from the very beginning.” The muscles in her neck went taut. Moisture caught the crimson light in her eyes. “I’ve crawled through hell to keep breathing, Haruka. I won’t die here.”

  Haruka’s mouth twisted in disgust. “You really are family. So why drag me here? Why not fly away with your brother and leave us all to die?”

  “Because I instructed her to bring you,” Shigure interjected. Each footfall on the aircraft steps rang beneath his shoes. “And she made the wise choice to obey.” Stepping over Mizuki’s body as if it were nothing more than discarded trash, he closed the distance until Haruka could smell his cologne beneath the metallic scent of blood. “Don’t worry about her killing you, though,” he said, nodding toward Amira. “That privilege belongs to me. Though not at this moment. You’re coming with us. I want to take my time with you.”

  Her hand moved before his mind could catch up. Shigure’s face transformed from smug confidence to naked alarm. “Fuck!”

  Too late—her fingers had already found what they sought inside her jacket. The small revolver slid into her grip with the familiarity of an old friend, its weathered metal sending a chill through her fingers. Her father’s words echoed in her memory as muscle memory took over. Thumb on hammer. Hips squared.

  Locked on target.

  Shigure’s voice shattered the air. “SHOOT HER!” His face contorted, features crumpling.

  Her sight compressed to a pinpoint. Nothing existed beyond her ragged breath and the deafening drum of blood in her temples. Neither pulled the trigger.

  Shigure went rigid, eyes fixed on the black hole of the revolver barrel. Harsh white brilliance washed over the runway, obliterating every shadow, carving each silhouette into stark relief. Haruka caught it, that infinitesimal tell. A hairline fracture raced across Shigure’s composure.

  His arms shot outward.

  His chin jerked skyward.

  His face contorted.

  “Fine! Do it! Shoot me! Pull the trigger! Come on! Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me! FUCKING SHOOT ME!” His words devolved into a feral howl. “Do it if you can!”

  Haruka’s jaw clenched until pain shot through her temples. This monster. This cancer. How many had he broken—fathers, mothers, children. How many futures had he snatched. Wrong after wrong. Wound after wound. Do it. The thought clipped through her consciousness, sharp and cold. He deserves to die.

  “You can’t! HA!” His grin stretched too wide, corners quivering. “This is why I’ll always be above you.” Each breath came in shallow gasps, words spilling faster than he could control them. “Ordinary people—followers—servants; you collapse under the weight of true freedom!” His lips spasmed at the edges. “I knew it! I’ve always known. I’m superior!”

  The gun dragged her arm downward, its barrel dipping toward the blood-spattered concrete.

  Why?

  Was he right?

  Her grip constricted around the revolver until her knuckles blanched white. She leveled the barrel at the center of his forehead, where a single dark dot would end everything. Her mind gave the command. Yet something invisible seized her trigger finger, paralyzing it against her will.

  Shigure’s manic laughter withered on his lips. His triumphant grin flattened. His glare hardened into glacial contempt. He barked an order. “Amira! Get inside the plane. I won’t be needing your help anymore.”

  Haruka caught the movement in her peripheral vision, Amira’s silhouette pivoting, her body careening toward him with the jerky rhythm. The merciless light above them faded, leaving only crimson twilight bleeding across the horizon.

  “Now for you—”

  A thunderclap stole all sound, leaving nothing but a high-pitched whine vibrating through Haruka’s skull. His mouth froze half-open. She watched his face transform in slow motion. A crimson flower blossomed between his eyes. His expression slackened, gaze unfocusing, as if trying to glimpse the hole lodged in his head. His body crumpled in stages—shoulders, spine, legs—before striking the concrete with terrible finality.

  Amira remained frozen in the firing position. Silent tears carved paths through the dust on her cheeks. The pistol fell. Her legs dissolved beneath her as an unrestrained, animal sound clawed free from somewhere deep inside her chest. Haruka closed the distance between them, collapsing to her knees and gathering Amira against her chest.

  The blood spreading from Shigure’s skull reflected nothing but empty sky.