Silence.
Not peace. Never peace.
But silence—the kind that comes after something sacred is broken beyond repair.
The void-being was gone. What remained of it had scattered into the wind like black snow, each flake a whisper of something that once thought itself eternal. The air hung thick with the stench of burned ozone and blood that never belonged to anything mortal.
I stood there—barely.
My legs shook. My breath came ragged.
The chains around my arm were retracting, slowly wrapping back into the seal with a hiss, like wounded serpents returning to their lair.
Asta dropped to his knees beside me, laughing like a lunatic, his greatsword stabbed into the ground to keep him from falling flat.
"I can't believe… we're still alive…" he wheezed, head tilting back to the heavens like he was daring them to disagree.
Yuno didn't speak. He never did when it counted.
He simply hovered down beside us, collapsing the second his boots hit the earth, his wind magic flickering and dying like the last embers of a once-mighty fire.
And then… him.
Yami Sukehiro stood a few feet away, back to us, katana still out, resting against his shoulder like he hadn't just cut through a being made of oblivion. The breeze tugged at his cloak, and the fading violet storm-light cast long shadows behind him.
He didn't speak.
Didn't turn around.
Just smoked.
A moment passed. Then another.
Finally, he said, "You done crying, brat?"
I blinked. "What?"
He turned just slightly, one eye glaring at me beneath his wild, raven-black hair. "You look like someone kicked your puppy, then your soul."
"I…" My voice cracked. "I thought we were dead."
Yami shrugged. "That's 'cause you ain't learned the most important rule yet."
"What rule?"
He stabbed the katana into the ground beside him, its hilt humming with leftover darkness. He cracked his neck, stretched his shoulders, and gave me a crooked grin.
"You don't die 'til I say so."
He said it like a joke.
But it didn't feel like one.
And for some strange reason…
…I believed him.
---
Yami's grin didn't last.
Not because he stopped smiling.
But because it didn't need to be there anymore.
That one look—like a wolf sizing up a pack of cubs—told us everything: he had seen worse.
He walked toward us slowly, like a man not rushing to save lives but stepping through a morning routine. He passed the black snow and stepped over the splinters of the sky itself as if gravity bent just to keep him grounded.
Each footstep whispered authority.
Not the kind written in books.
The kind that gods fear to challenge.
Asta was the first to break the silence.
"Who the hell are you…?" His voice cracked, not with fear, but awe.
Yami didn't even glance at him.
Instead, his eyes were on me.
I stood, barely, shaking but upright. My magic flickered like a dying star behind my eyes, and my soul still screamed from the aftermath.
He finally stopped an arm's length away.
We stood there, face to face, though I barely reached his shoulder.
Still, he didn't look down on me.
He looked into me.
"Your magic smells like a paradox," he muttered. "Like a curse that begged to be born."
"Is that… bad?" I asked, my voice hollow.
He took a long drag of his cigarette and exhaled smoke shaped like a spiral.
"Nah. Just means you're worth watching."
And then he did something I wasn't ready for.
He turned away.
Walked back toward the shattered hillside, the fading void, the place where everything had almost ended.
"Name's Yami," he said without looking. "Captain of the Black Bulls. But more importantly—"
He slashed the air once with his hand, and a portal of condensed shadow magic tore itself into existence. The smell of hot blood and black steel lingered in the air.
"—I'm the guy who cuts through bulls**t."
The shadow portal shimmered, revealing a swirling mass of darkness… and something else. A destination I couldn't see—only feel. It felt heavy. It felt sharp.
He looked back over his shoulder at me—just once.
"You coming, Kael?"
I hesitated. The wind blew gently behind me. I could still hear the church bells in the distance, faint and real. Yuno hadn't moved. Asta was already half-standing, staring at the portal like it was the first step toward everything he ever wanted.
But me?
I didn't know what I wanted anymore.
Not freedom.
Not power.
Just meaning.
I stepped forward.
And I followed the man who had cut oblivion in half.
---
The creature hissed like a dying sun, part of its torso still flaking off into the void, that black gash carved deep through its very concept. It tried to rebuild itself, but the wound Yami left… it didn't heal.
Because it wasn't just damage.
It was a reminder.
An absolute statement: You can be hurt.
And worse—You can be killed.
The thing screeched, its tendrils curling in retreat, the air around it folding into impossible angles as it tried to recoil. Tried to vanish. Tried to survive.
But Yami didn't let up.
He cracked his neck to the side and rolled his shoulders with a grunt, like a man waking up from a nap, annoyed someone had dared to interrupt it.
"You're real loud for something made of nothing," he muttered, dragging the katana along the fractured ground, sparks hissing with each step. The blade didn't reflect light—it consumed it.
The void-being twitched again, mouth splitting vertically like a spiraling chasm. "You… do not belong here... You reek of death without origin…"
Yami chuckled low.
"I get that a lot."
Then he disappeared.
No flash. No burst. Just gone.
And then—
A second cut tore through the sky above us.
Not at the creature.
Behind it.
The bastard flinched before the strike landed.
That's how fast he was.
The void-being sensed the death before it arrived.
Yami reappeared a hundred feet in the air, arm already mid-swing. The katana glowed with that impossible darkness—magic so dense, it folded into itself.
"Dark Cloaked: Dimension Splitter."
The slash came down.
It didn't make a sound.
Not at first.
Only when the sky tore open in a straight, clean line did the aftershock catch up—like thunder chasing lightning.
The pressure slammed into me, Asta, and Yuno all at once. We were pushed back—literally thrown down—like the world wanted to submit to what just happened.
The void-being didn't scream this time.
It simply… stopped.
A hole opened in its chest. Not a gash. Not a wound.
A hole.
Perfect.
Precise.
And permanent.
Its mass convulsed inward, like it couldn't exist anymore. Like that one strike denied its right to be real.
For a moment, I almost pitied it.
Almost.
But then I remembered what it tried to take. What it was.
Yami landed silently, his blade still crackling.
He didn't look at the corpse of a god-beast unraveling behind him. Didn't check to see if the universe had stopped bleeding.
He just tilted his head toward me, brow raised.
"You gonna stand there lookin' stupid, or you wanna explain why some cosmic trash was crawling outta your aura like roaches outta a corpse?"
I coughed.
"Uh… long story."
Yami smirked. "Better be. 'Cause I just missed lunch."
Asta finally found his voice. "You're INSANE—who the hell are you?! That was a freaking DEMON from BEYOND EXISTENCE—"
Yami blew out smoke from the side of his mouth. "Demon, devil, interdimensional parasite. They all bleed when I swing hard enough."
He turned toward me again, this time fully.
There wasn't judgment in his eyes.
Just… interest.
Curiosity.
He saw something in me. I didn't know if that was good or not.
But I knew this:
He wasn't afraid of me.
And more than that—
He expected something from me.
Yami gave the void one last glance before wiping the blade clean on the air itself. "Whatever that thing was… it wasn't done growing."
My heart sank. "You mean it's coming back?"
"Nah. This one's dead."
He turned his full body toward the fading stars.
"But it wasn't the only one watching."
A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with wind.
Yuno looked up, narrowing his gaze at the heavens.
Asta clenched his sword tighter.
And me?
I looked at the cut in the sky.
Still burning. Still open.
A signature.
A warning.
A promise.
Yami cracked his neck once more and looked down at me.
"Come on. Let's go get some answers. And maybe a drink."
He extended a hand.
I hesitated… then grabbed it.
His grip was real. Solid. Like steel and calluses and war all rolled into a single handshake.
As he pulled me to my feet, I realized something strange:
For the first time since I had come into this world…
I didn't feel like a mistake.
I felt seen.
And for once—just once—I wasn't alone in the dark.
---
We walked in silence for a while—what was left of the battlefield smoldering behind us. Broken clouds still hung low like torn parchment, and the scar in the sky where Yami's blade had struck… it hadn't closed.
It pulsed, quietly. Not bleeding light, not spilling shadow—just there. A memory etched into the world.
Like a scar that didn't want to heal.
Yuno kept glancing at it. Asta did too. I didn't blame them. We had faced something wrong, something not meant for this realm. And even though it was gone… the world hadn't gone back to normal.
Yami didn't say much.
Didn't have to.
Every step he took made the air feel heavier. Not in a bad way. Just real. Like reality accepted his presence more than ours. Or maybe it feared him a little.
I stayed close, limping slightly. My arm throbbed—the runes along it pulsed slowly now, dimmer, as if spent. My magic felt drained, but not empty. Something had changed. Deep down.
'You're evolving.'
The thought came uninvited, quiet as ash falling on snow.
'No. Not evolving… unraveling. And becoming something new in the process.'
We crested the ridge overlooking Hage Village.
It felt… smaller now. Fragile. A warm candlelight under a sky that had been ripped open. Children played near the chapel steps. Sister Lily was trying to calm the younger ones, her face pale. Orsi paced near the garden, eyes fixed on the sky, lips moving in prayer.
Asta exhaled hard. "We made it back."
Yuno stayed quiet.
Me?
I stared at the village and felt like I didn't belong.
Still.
Even now.
Even after surviving that… thing.
Even after Yami pulled me to my feet like some chosen warrior.
But…
His hand still lingered in my memory. The grip. That steadiness.
Maybe I didn't belong in the village. Maybe I belonged somewhere darker, somewhere further.
But for now, I wasn't alone.
Yami finally broke the silence.
"You said you don't remember everything about yourself."
I nodded.
He didn't look at me. Just lit a new cigarette, watching the clouds.
"That thing had a signature. The way it moved. Fed. Thought."
He exhaled smoke like it was made of gravity.
"It wasn't trying to destroy you. It was trying to merge."
My blood froze.
"What?"
"You're a wound, Kael," Yami said bluntly. "A scar in the world's logic. You bleed things like that."
He glanced sideways.
"Thing is, wounds like you either get stitched shut by something stronger…"
He looked back to the sky, eyes narrowing.
"...or they get used."
A gust of wind rolled through, pulling cold across my spine.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. Because deep down, part of me already knew.
That thing hadn't been just another enemy. It was a reflection. An echo. A response.
And something else was listening now.
"Yuno. Asta," Yami called.
Both turned toward him.
He nodded once.
"Get ready. You're not just kids in a village anymore."
He turned back toward me, flicking ash from his smoke.
"And you?"
I looked up.
"Time you stopped waiting for the world to tell you who you are."
He smiled—not kind. Not cruel. Just real.
"Start carving your name into the dark."
And with that—
He walked ahead.
No further explanation. No offer of help. No answers wrapped in a bow.
Just a command.
Become something.
Or be consumed.
Asta clapped me on the back, trying to lighten the mood. "That guy's terrifying. But also... kind of awesome."
Yuno nodded, eyes thoughtful.
I watched Yami disappear into the trees.
And then I turned back to the village.
Where children laughed.
Where light still flickered.
Where something as fragile as hope had survived the night.
But for how long?
That rift in the sky… it hadn't healed.
And deep down, I knew it wouldn't.
Because it wasn't just a scar.
It was a door.
And someone else was already walking through it.
---
Elsewhere — Unknown POV
In the bleeding black between realms, where memory dies and time forgets itself… something moved.
Something woke up.
The void-being's death had echoed. Not loudly. Not violently.
But clearly.
Like a whisper down a corridor of locked doors.
And one of them opened.
A hand—thin, pale, jointed too many times—reached through the breach.
The voice that followed it didn't scream.
It smiled.
"Oh. So he's still alive…"
And the corridor lit up with the sound of footsteps.
---
Thank you for reading, I am going on a chapter spree, cause I have another fanfic I started to write.....
Fanfic: Bald storm: Naruto's Quiet God
And you know down the line, it's gonna get interesting.
SPOILER ALERT:
BEST MERGE OF ALL TIME IS GONNA TAKE PLACE