The rain fell in slow, steady sheets, drumming against the rusted metal of the old factory.

A lone car pulled up to the entrance, its headlights slicing through the darkness before flickering off. The engine cut, leaving only the sound of distant thunder and the rhythmic tap of raindrops against the windshield.

Reiji Kirizawa sat in the driver's seat, fingers gripping the worn metal of an old number 8 coin. He flipped it into the air, watching it spin in the dim glow of the dashboard lights.

The coin landed in his palm.

Tails.

He exhaled. I need to be careful.

Reiji stepped out of the car, the cool rain soaking into his coat almost instantly. His sharp blue eyes lifted to the towering structure ahead—a decayed monument of industry long abandoned, swallowed by time. Rusted beams jutted out from broken walls like the bones of a rotting corpse.

This was it.

Three years.

Three years since the disaster that shattered his life.

Three years since Yui Takahashi's death.

And now, he was one step away from ending the nightmare.

He reached inside his coat, pulling out his gun. His fingers curled around the grip, steady. In his other hand, a flashlight clicked on, its pale glow cutting a path through the thick mist curling at his feet.

He took a slow breath and stepped forward. Each step felt heavier than the last.

Lightning flashed overhead, momentarily painting the factory's silhouette in stark relief. A monument to decay. A tomb.

Reiji paused at the entrance, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Yui…"

The name left his lips, carried away by the wind and rain.

His fingers tightened around the gun. His chest burned with something cold, suffocating, and unrelenting.

This time, I'll make it right.

I'll make him pay.

His jaw clenched. His breath came slow and measured, but his pulse hammered against his ribs.

It was supposed to be me, not you, that summer day…

He stepped inside.

The air shifted immediately—heavy, thick with the scent of rust, oil, and something sharper. The dim glow of his flashlight skimmed across damp concrete, illuminating scattered debris and broken machinery.

Silence pressed in around him, suffocating.

Every clue, every cryptic message, every taunting letter left behind had led here.

The last masterpiece.

And tonight, it would end.

Reiji moved carefully, his boots barely making a sound against the soaked floor. His thoughts swirled with calculations, planning every possible move, every possible outcome.

But in his focus on revenge, he failed to see the shadow lurking in the corner.

A flicker of motion.

A blur faster than the light.

Steel flashed.

Pain exploded across Reiji's side before his mind even registered the attack. A deep, precise cut across his ribs.

His breath hitched—he barely had time to react before another strike followed.

A voice cut through the silence.

-"Well, well, Detective…"

Smooth. Mocking. A tone dripping with satisfaction.

A low chuckle followed as Reiji staggered back, struggling to keep his grip on the gun.

-"You are far too easy for my performance."

Lightning flared through the broken windows, casting jagged shadows across the walls.

And then—the blade moved again.

Reiji barely twisted in time to avoid a fatal strike, but the knife sliced through fabric and flesh all the same. Another cut. Another sharp, searing burn.

One. Two. Three.

Eight times in total.

Precise. A deliberate rhythm.

Reiji's knees buckled. Blood dripped onto the floor, mingling with the rainwater seeping through the cracks.

A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the dim glow of the flickering light above.

Mr. Z.

The ghost that had haunted the city for ten years.

Tall, composed, his coat barely touched by the rain. A blade gleamed in his gloved hand, still slick with Reiji's blood.

His expression was one of pure amusement, eyes gleaming with something far beyond sanity.

-"Ah, but a true artist," Mr. Z continued, voice smooth as silk, "can perform under any condition."

Reiji gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay upright. His body screamed in protest, but his pride refused to let him fall.

-"And this one, my dear foolish friend…"

Mr. Z stepped closer, his knife tracing through the air as though conducting a symphony.

-"This is my final masterpiece. A showdown. The perfect picture."

A wide, theatrical gesture.

-"And you—of course, drums please—are the grand centerpiece."

His smile widened, a perfect mask of delight and madness.

-"A canvas painted in the richest of reds."

Reiji's vision blurred. His fingers twitched toward his pocket.

Mr. Z let out a slow, satisfied sigh.

- "You all are so, so incredibly dumb."

The blade twirled between his fingers before vanishing beneath his coat.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something else instead.

A rose.

Deep crimson, the same color as Reiji's blood now staining the floor.

He knelt down and placed it beside him, like a signature at the bottom of a painting.

-"But thankfully, my masterpiece is finished."

A slow exhale. A whisper of laughter.

-"Now, I can finally ascend… to Aurora."

Reiji's body tensed, his mind struggling through the haze of blood loss. Aurora?

Mr. Z rose, turning away with a fluid grace.

- "A divine place, truly," he mused as he stepped toward the exit. "Ah, but you wouldn't understand. After all…"

A smirk, unseen but felt.

-"Crimson fools like you always get eaten by their own arrogance."

He slowly walked away.

The last thing Reiji heard was the sound of laughter, melodic, delighted, and utterly detached from the carnage left behind.

The factory felt colder now.

Reiji's body sagged against the wall, his breath uneven, shallow. Blood pooled beneath him, mixing with the rainwater seeping through the cracks in the floor.

His vision keept flickering. 

The distant sound of footsteps started to fade.

Mr. Z was leaving.

That bastard was leaving.

Reiji clenched his teeth, forcing his fingers to move. His body wasn't listening, but he refused to let the darkness take him just yet.

Not like this.

He fumbled for his pocket, his bloodied fingers grasping at something small, metallic.

The number 8 coin.

A reflex. A habit.

The simple, familiar motion that had accompanied every decision he had ever made.

With the last ounce of strength in his body, he flicked it into the air.

The coin spun.

For a brief moment, everything felt normal.

The flicker of silver catching the dim light. The clean arc. The silent calculation in his mind.

Heads, I survive.

Tails, I don't.

The world slowed.

He reached to catch it—

And missed.

The coin slipped past his open fingers, tumbling downward in slow motion.

A sharp metallic clang echoed as it struck the concrete floor.

Reiji's body tensed, and his breath slowed.

For the second time in his life—he had dropped it.

The world should have been fading.

Reiji could feel it—the pull of unconsciousness, the weight of blood loss dragging him under. His breath had slowed. His limbs had gone cold. The pain in his gut dulled to a distant ache, like it no longer belonged to him.

But then… everything stopped.

Not just the pain. But absolutely everything around him.

The sound of the rain. The distant hum of the city. Even the slow spread of his own blood on the floor.

Stillness.

Reiji's dazed eyes flickered upward, past the broken factory ceiling, past the steel beams, into the sky beyond.

"Is really end...." he said looking into sky full of stars. 

His eyes suddenly were locked on three red stars that burned in the darkness.

They weren't normal stars. It felt like they weren't supposed to be there.

They pulsed like his heartbeat. So deep. So heavy. So slow. It felt like each beat of their unnatural glow sent a tremor through the air, through his chest, through the very foundation of the world.

Reiji's breath hitched. His chest seized with an emotion he couldn't place.

It was fear.

But not the kind of fear he was used to—not the adrenaline-fueled panic of a detective in a life-or-death situation that he faced daily.

This was something primal. Something that is so deep, that it felt mire ancient then anything. 

A trully terrifying pressure he couldn't explain pressed down on him, like something vast, something unseen, had turned its gaze upon him.

The coin still lay beside him on the concrete.

It trembled.

The faint vibration wasn't from the rain. It was something else.

The air around him started to shift, bending at the edges of his eyes, like heat waves rising from scorching pavement.

Then—

A sound.

Not a voice. Not a whisper. Something deeper.

A reverberation in his skull, a presence brushing against the edges of his thoughts. Like something had found him.

The red stars pulsed faster.

Reiji's fingers twitched. His mind screamed for him to move, to do something—but his body refused.

Then—

The first crack split through the air.

It wasn't the sound of breaking glass or concrete.

It was the sound of reality itself fracturing.

A thin, jagged line of light tore through the fabric of the world, stretching from the fallen coin across the ground and across the air itself.

The pressure in his chest grew unbearable. The universe was breaking.

And then—

And then—reality shattered.

Not like an explosion. Not like a sudden collapse.

It broke like glass.

Slow. Deliberate. Every crack spreading in intricate, delicate patterns, fracturing the world piece by piece.

Reiji's breath hitched as he watched the space around him dissolve. Not just the building. Not just the rain.

Everything.

The air itself splintered, fragments of existence floating weightlessly, catching the dim light like shards of a mirror reflecting different moments, different memories.

He saw pieces of the world fall—not to the ground, but into nothingness.

Like reality was being pulled apart, thread by thread.

And within the cascading fragments, he heard it.

"Reiji… do you even know how to relax?"

Her voice... 

- "Reiji, you're such a pain in the ass sometimes."

His eyes widened. His pulse froze.

Yui... 

A glass shard spun past him, catching the glow of the burning red stars above.

It wasn't a reflection of this moment.

It was a memory.

A café. A warm summer afternoon. Sunlight streaming through the window.

Yui sat across from him, stirring a half-melted ice coffee with a lazy flick of her wrist.

She leaned forward, grinning, her eyes full of something light, something alive—something he hadn't seen in years.

-"Come on, take one day off. Just one. I'll even let you pick the place."

He remembered this. Three years ago.

The last time she ever asked him to take a break.

And just like before, he answered the same way.

"There's too much work."

- "Ugh, typical. Do you even have hobbies, Ice Block?"

Another shard of glass drifted past.

Another memory.

Her voice, sharper this time.

- "Reiji, for once in your life—just let someone in."

His chest tightened.

More fragments floated around him, shifting, rearranging.

This wasn't just a rewind.

It was forcing him to remember.

The things he buried. The things he ignored. The things he never had the chance to fix.

The final shard of glass spun downward, spiraling toward the abyss beneath him.

A whisper, soft but clear.

- "Promise me, okay?"

Reiji's throat clenched.

His lips parted, trying to say something, to finally give her an answer.

"Yui, I—"

The last piece of broken time vanished into the void.

The world collapsed.

Darkness surged forward, swallowing the last remnants of light.

And as Reiji felt himself being pulled into the abyss, he finally whispered the words he never had the courage to say.

"I should have said it before…"

"That I always lov—"

Darkness. 

---

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