"I've lost my patience with you two," Sakoura says.
He makes the "finger pistol" gesture toward Rema.
"Humans always make the same mistakes; no matter how hard he tries, he makes the same mistake," he says, his voice low but strong.
At the same moment, he fires a condensed beam of energy at Rema.
In a sudden move, Akos dashes right in front of Rema and with his hands redirects the path of Sakoura's attack. He clenches his fists, energy spreading over his hands and down to his wrists.
He dashes again, right beside Sakoura, and drives his fist into his stomach, and Sakoura flies back several meters.
"Sometimes you make strange decisions that make me wonder if you're an asshole or... an asshole. Whatever you are, I can see you're an asshole. I wonder how weak your mind is, still stuck in some childish state," Sakoura says.
Akos answers him: "You keep saying you're the strong one with words—scream all you want, you'll stay weak forever. Because you just don't do it, you don't show it, and you don't act."
Sakoura says with pure irony, "Your words would disappoint me if only I weren't already talking to a small child. Look around you, kid... Your city, Sychroni, is half destroyed! Bwahahaha!"
Akos's voice stays cold as he answers: "If you think what you're doing counts as success, you're not even good enough for hell!"
Akos slams his foot into the ground, and it splits open. Stones fly toward Sakoura as the earth beneath him gives way.
Sakoura loses his balance, his eyes finding nothing but the shifting dust in front of him. Akos dashes, appearing right in front of him. He shapes his fingers into a gun, two small bullets — one black, one red — hovering mere centimeters from Sakoura's eyes. Sakoura goes still, understanding nothing.
Akos fires. Sakoura's eyes burst. His head snaps out of place, and blood pours down without end.
Akos gives Sakoura no room to recover. He makes the same gesture and fires two more bullets, white and yellow. They meet Sakoura's body, and he comes apart—organs scatter across the floor, only his legs left standing.
Silence settles over the area for a few seconds. The air turns sharply cold, frost creeping across the ground.
Akos's eyes narrow. His body doesn't even fall apart. This one's carrying way too much energy.
Sakoura's body starts knitting itself back together fast. Akos doesn't give him the chance to breathe—he fires again, ABSOLUTE Technique: Oblivion. The white bullet shoots straight for Sakoura's legs. But the legs are already moving, scrambling clear, and the white bullet detonates on empty air.
Akos's brow snaps down, jaw tight. How the hell did he survive Oblivion? That technique is a clean one-shot—it erases the body from the inside out, leaving nothing behind to regenerate from. I must've missed something in how his technique shifts temperature.
Akos raises a hand to his forehead, squinting at Sakoura's legs circling aimlessly in the distance. "What the hell is wrong with him? Why's he moving like a damn sea star?"
The legs stop dead. They swing toward Akos and come sprinting at him—and at the same time his torso blooms back into existence, then his arms.
Akos can't move. His feet are locked to the ground, ice climbing up from where the cold has bitten into the floor beneath him.
Sakoura reaches him—whole again now, fully reformed—and one fast punch sends Akos flying back, hard.
His voice carries across the whole area: "Tell me, Akos, what did you actually do? Nothing! Your techniques don't put a scratch on me. I just move my cells around—into the air, into fire, into the cold, everywhere. That's how I've lived for thousands of years, you idiot!"
On the other side, Rema stares up at the sky, tears sliding down her face. "What did I actually do? Why did I come here? That bastard sent me straight to my death."
Her eyes go red-rimmed, her breath catching. "I... left my sister in that filthy place... How stupid am I? How stupid... I'm so stupid!"
She presses her palms against her head, fingers digging in. "What did I just do? Why so—Why did you do this, Rema? Why do I always realize I've screwed up after the screwing up's already done?"
Her fingers dig into the ground as she tries to push herself up, and two nails tear away. She tries again, pouring everything into it, but her right arm buckles and she drops back down. Hair sticks across her eyes and mouth; blood seeps from her stomach, her lips split and dark.
Her eyes go flat, empty. She scrapes together whatever's left and pushes—but the metal rod through her doesn't let go.
She looks up at the sky, black and bare—no stars, no light, nothing merciful about it. Her voice comes out cracked, barely above a breath.
Her lips barely move. "Everyone in this world is locked in some fucking cycle. Me too: a cycle of failure, a cycle of grief, no joy, not one shred of hope..."
"I kept hoping we'd end up together one day, Giulia, with our parents, in some house, somewhere beautiful, far from the blood, far from the grief, far from all of it. I thought it'd all work out, I thought I was the one holding my sister together... But I'm just a copy of the father who left us. And I did the same thing—left you alone, just like he did. First our mother, then our father, and now it's me, leaving you alone in this world with no mercy... I'm going to miss you."
ITALY – HOSPITAL
In the room, Giulia sits on the bed. She watches the city, calm, light catching in her eyes. Her fingers trace the edge of the blanket. "Where are you, Rema? Why are you taking so long? You said you wouldn't be late... You said you'd buy me ice cream! The boat's still waiting for us, the one you told me about, the amazing place... It's going to leave without us!"
Outside, the lights cut out all at once. The shine drains from her eyes.
ON THE OTHER SIDE
Rema's voice breaks apart mid-breath, each word thinner than the last. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, that I couldn't come get you ice cream, that we never made it to that amazing place..."
Her eyelids fall shut and stay there. Her chest goes still.
ITALY – HOSPITAL
Farzo walks the corridor, his footsteps the only sound. He stops at the window, gaze fixed on the dark outside.
In this world, there's no mercy—only love, grief, joy, indifference, and death, all tangled together. No one can ever call this world toxic, or beloved, or full of joy, because it's all of them at once.
Right now I just... notice it. Life, everywhere around me. Everyone is carrying their own—love, grief, fear, the same as me. That's what this world is: a wheel turning through love, death, joy, grief, and every feeling there is.
Everyone sees me through the lens of what I did to them. Rema looks at me like I'm something rotten, a devil. Her sister looked at me like a savior. I wear as many faces as there are people to wear them for.
I could have let Rema die for nothing—pushed her technique onto Giulia, folded it into my own plans. Instead... His hand rests against the cold glass. I see myself as the devil. And in the same breath, as the one who saw the truth.
He steps into Giulia's room, and her body goes rigid against the pillows, eyes locked on him. He doesn't slow down. He crosses to her, presses the medicine into her hand, and her skin knits itself whole again in seconds. He lifts her from the bed.
Her hands find his sleeve, gripping. "Where are you taking me? My sister's coming soon—she's taking me somewhere amazing..."
Farzo's mouth curves. "We're going to build that somewhere amazing ourselves. You'll be a piece of the next world—one built just how you and I want it."
He carries her out through the door, and the corridor swallows them both.
Waves break against the shore, over and over, carrying with them every story this stretch of sand has ever held.
"Little one..." Farzo says, standing at the water's edge. "Out there, thousands of miles from here, everyone's living their own life chasing their own goals, carrying their own thoughts, same as us. Just different. Different from us, from each other. They don't know we exist. We don't know them either, not really, just numbers in a pile, seven point three, seven point five billion of them, and us somewhere in there too. We're going to build a world together, one where our feelings finally sit still. Okay?"
She doesn't answer. Her breathing has gone slow and even against his shoulder, already asleep. He looks down at her, and something in his face settles. The moon lays a long streak of light across the water.
Farzo turns back once more, toward the buildings, the distant glow of the city. "We're the opposite of everyone else..."