The battlefield was drenched in blood and silence. Ash drifted from the sky like cursed snow, and the smell of scorched earth hung in the air. Yamino's lifeless body lay cold amidst shattered spears and splattered souls. Not far from him, the glowing remnants of his father's servant faded into nothingness.
Kairon stood above it all, untouched, amused. His white hair flickered like ghostfire in the wind, his grin splitting wide across his gaunt, skull-like face. Around him, the once-mighty 67 officers had been reduced to a fraction of their original force—crippled, bleeding, barely breathing. Yet none dared challenge the young master of the Angelous family.
His eyes, sharp and glowing faint violet, turned upward.
There she was.
Aiyana.
Still suspended mid-air, her body floated unnaturally, held aloft by invisible threads of cursed will. Her silver hair flowed gently, her eyes half-lidded. But what shook Kairon was not her position, nor her helplessness—it was the expression on her face.
She wasn't fighting anymore.
There was no fear. No resistance. Just… calm.
Serene.
As though she'd accepted it all.
Kairon's grin deepened.
With a lazy flick of his wrist, he called out, "Bring me the captain."
A few moments later, one of the surviving officers stumbled forward, bowing low with blood still dripping from a gash on his shoulder. "Young Master…"
Kairon didn't even glance at him. "Status."
The man swallowed. "All are dead except for the girl and her father. Her father is alive, but… crippled. Likely won't survive the day."
There was a beat of silence. Then—
Laughter.
Kairon's laughter pierced the air like broken glass. Wild. Unhinged. Triumphant. He tilted his head back and roared into the ruined sky, hands outstretched like a conductor basking in a tragic symphony.
"Finally…" he whispered. "She's mine. Everything is mine."
Without warning, he leapt into the air, his body soaring with unnatural grace.
In the next heartbeat, he was in front of her.
Aiyana blinked slowly. Her lips parted as if to speak, but no words came.
And then—
He grabbed her.
Fingers tangled harshly into her hair as his other arm clutched her waist. There was no hesitation, no pause.
He kissed her.
Furiously. Violently.
A disgusting mix of triumph and obsession.
The battlefield, silent just moments before, now echoed with his madness.
And Aiyana?
Her hands dangled at her sides. Her eyes stayed open, glazed, distant.
She didn't resist.
She didn't react.
She simply floated there, like a doll trapped in a nightmare.
Aiyana's breath caught for a moment beneath the furious kiss. Her fingers twitched — not in resistance, but something else. Slowly, like a curtain being pulled back, a faint smirk crept across her lips. She leaned in. And then—
She kissed him back.
It was subtle at first, like a whisper of response. Then it grew. Her arms, once limp, curled up around his neck, and she melted into the kiss with hunger — with a twisted passion that sent a ripple of silence through the remaining soldiers.
When they finally pulled apart, Kairon's eyes sparkled with feral joy.
"I knew it," he breathed. "I knew you'd come around."
Aiyana grinned — not the innocent smile from before, but something sharper, something colder. She looked down at the ground below, where the battlefield was littered with the corpses of her former protectors, including her own mother.
"Why wouldn't I?" she whispered, brushing a thumb across Kairon's cheek. "Everything went exactly as we planned."
Kairon gave a short, victorious laugh. "Ah… the beauty of betrayal."
The surviving soldiers looked at each other in confusion and disbelief. One dared to speak: "Planned? M-my lady…?"
Aiyana's smile widened cruelly.
"My parents wanted to marry me to some backwater villager… for honor, for a promise made before I was even born. Do you know how pathetic that is?" She looked toward Yamino's lifeless form with disdain. "Tying me to someone with no name, no standing, no power."
She spat on the ground.
"I am not a pawn. I don't want honor. I want power. And Kairon…" — she turned, placing a hand against his chest — "he can give me everything."
Kairon wrapped an arm around her waist, looking down on the battlefield like a king surveying his conquest. "And now, there's no one left to stop us. Not your parents. Not his father. Not even that cursed servant."
Aiyana's eyes gleamed with ambition.
"Let the world burn. I'll rise from the ashes wearing a crown.
The sun hung high and golden, casting long, broken shadows over the battlefield that was once Yamino's home. Trees that had stood tall for decades were split and burned. Blood stained the riverside like ink spilled over an ancient scroll. The breeze was slow, as if mourning.
The house—Yamino's house—stood strangely untouched by the destruction around it. Not a scratch on its wooden walls. Not a single stone out of place in the garden path. It was almost surreal. Too perfect.
Then came the sound.
At first, it was soft. A rhythmic thudding. Like a heartbeat hidden within the wood.
Thud… Thud… Thud.
Inside, the air was humid and heavy, like it hadn't been touched in centuries. Curtains drawn. Lanterns dim. And in that darkness, only the faintest rustle of cloth and creak of furniture told of life within.
Thud… creak… shuffle.
Outside, the few who remained of the Angelous family's officers stood far from the doorway. They dared not approach. The captain had given the order himself. "No one enters. Not until the master says so." None of them questioned it. Not after what they'd seen. Not after they'd watched a boy pinned to the ground by spears like an insect. Not after witnessing a supposed noble daughter float like a doll into her captor's arms.
The sounds from within the house shifted—more frantic, more primal.
Bang. Creak. Bang. Creak.
A voice—soft, breathy—barely escaped through the cracks in the wood. Murmurs too low to decipher. Another laugh. Then the squeal of an old bed frame under pressure. Then stillness. Then again.
Bang. Creak. Bang. Creak.
Over and over. And over.
Time dragged. The sun moved. Clouds passed. And still the house thudded like a war drum with no end. The remaining guards began to whisper to each other, their eyes avoiding the windows. Some swore they heard voices weeping. Others claimed they saw flickering shadows in the glass, like twisted silhouettes moving with unnatural grace.
Inside that home, the darkness had swallowed what little innocence remained.
No one spoke of Yamino's body, still lying broken outside—pinned to the earth. No one dared. Even the scavenger birds gave his corpse a wide berth, as if they too sensed something unnatural had rooted there. His blood had long dried into the soil, a grim stain below the spears still embedded in him like cursed monuments.
And the sound continued.
Bang. Moan. Laugh. Bang. Creak.
Kairon's voice rose once in a bark of laughter—wild, victorious, monstrous. Aiyana's followed, high and breathless, warped by power and submission. What she was now—what she'd become—was no longer the girl her parents had raised. That girl had died the moment her mother's blood hit the ground and her father's spine shattered under celestial steel.
The officers grew cold. The day moved toward dusk. Still the sound didn't stop.
Inside, dust shook from the rafters. Shadows crawled along the walls, alive and pulsing in rhythm with every unnatural echo from behind that door. Even the house itself seemed to groan in protest, the old wood twisting and popping as if trying to hold something in.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The sounds no longer felt human. They felt ancient, guttural, like some long-forgotten rite. Whispers began to rise in the surrounding forest. The trees seemed to lean in, listening. The ground trembled—not from war, but from the unnatural hunger that now rooted itself within those walls.
The day passed.
The sun set.
Stars rose and blinked above, shy behind clouds.
Still the sound did not stop.
Now it was more than creaking. Now it was snarling. A mix of cries—some of pleasure, some of madness. The kind of noise that didn't belong to mortals.
Bang. Snarl. Scream. Creak.
And yet no one approached. Not one of the crippled officers dared knock. Not even the desperate survivors of the massacre dared disturb the new king and queen of this twisted game.
At the gate, one wounded man whispered to another, "It's been a whole day. They haven't stopped."
The other simply nodded, eyes empty. "They won't. Not until something else dies."
Inside, candlelight flickered briefly through a window. Then darkness again. And again, the sound of the bedframe twisting under pressure. Of muffled voices—sometimes laughing, sometimes howling. Of something else entirely—something too broken, too changed.
Aiyana's laugh was louder now—growing wilder. Like the laugh of someone who'd won everything, even if it cost her her soul.
Kairon's voice responded with words only she could hear. Words layered with obsession, with dominance, with the victory of a man who had crushed everything in his path.
Outside, the air turned colder. A storm brewed somewhere on the horizon.
And still, the sounds from within continued:
Bang. Moan. Creak. Laughter. Scream.
That was all that remained of Yamino's world. That sound. That house. And the echoes of a twisted future being born behind closed doors.