I stared her down, and for a single, terrible second everything went quiet.
Not calm—clear.
The kind of clarity that comes right before something breaks.
All the fear, the guilt, the panic about Matthew, about Rukia, about my kids and my wife and the mess I'd made of my life—it all evaporated and left behind something raw and incandescent. Rage. The kind I'd spent years pretending I didn't have. The kind that snapped out of me at my kids when I was exhausted, or at Kerstie when I felt cornered, or when pain hit too suddenly and my mouth moved faster than my brain.
I'd tried to fix it. Anger management. Breathing exercises. Counting to ten. All of it worked right up until it didn't.
Maybe there was some ancient berserker gene buried deep in my DNA. Maybe I was just an asshole with a temper problem. Right then, I didn't care. Because whatever it was, it answered.
My reiatsu spiked—no, it howled. Not refined, not elegant, just pure emotional pressure exploding outward like a scream I'd been holding in for years. There was something else tangled in it too, something sharp and electric and feral, like lightning finally given permission to strike.
The Hollow laughed.
She laughed, low and mocking, claws flexing as if Matthew hadn't just fallen three stories because of her, as if I wasn't standing there with blood on my hands and dust in my lungs and murder in my heart.
I inhaled.
Deep. Controlled.
The breathing technique snapped into place like muscle memory from a lifetime ago—something I'd learned at sixteen, half spiritual, half placebo, taught by a guy who smelled like incense and bad decisions. Back then it was about centering yourself. About flow.
Now it was about fuel.
I breathed in again and visualized the reishi around me the way I'd been taught—particles, currents, invisible matter saturating the air. Only instead of letting it pass through me, I dragged it in. All of it. Like gasoline poured straight onto a roaring fire.
The air cracked.
Lightning crawled along the walls, across the floor, over my skin. Ozone burned my nose. My vision narrowed until all that existed was her and the space between us.
Then I exploded forward.
Thunderstep—violent, uncontrolled, more like being fired from a cannon than moving. The world snapped and tore as I crossed the distance in a blink, daggers of condensed lightning forming in my hands mid-motion, screaming with unstable energy.
I didn't think.
I cut.
A flurry of reckless, brutal strikes—slashes aimed for joints, for tendons, for anything that might slow her down. No finesse. No plan. Just speed and fury and the desperate need to make her hurt. Each swing left afterimages of blue-white light, each impact sending shocks through my already battered body.
Pain screamed at me. I ignored it.
Fear tried to crawl back in. I drowned it.
All that mattered was this:
She was still standing.
Matthew was not.
And I was done holding back.
The clashes came fast and ugly.
Steel-on-bone should have been the sound, but this was lightning on mask, reishi shrieking as it tore against itself. Every time my blades met her claws the impact rattled up my arms and into my teeth, sparks bursting between us like miniature suns. She was faster now—no more playful dodges, no lazy contempt. Each movement was precise, predatory, lethal.
Good.
Her laughter stopped.
She slid back through the air, claws digging furrows into the floor to arrest her momentum, tentacles coiling low and tight like loaded springs. The red glow gathered again in the eyes of her mask, brighter this time, angrier.
"Oh?" she purred, voice dropping, dangerous. "There it is. That look. You finally decided to hunt."
I didn't answer.
I didn't crack a joke. Didn't bait her. Didn't think about Rukia's voice in my head, about balance, about purification, about souls and cycles and doing things the right way.
I didn't care.
I thunderstepped again, this time into her space instead of around it, letting instinct drive me. One dagger shattered against her mask—too much force, too reckless—but the other bit deep into her shoulder, lightning ripping through flesh that smoked and screamed as it burned.
She hissed, more animal than woman now, and the corridor detonated as she retaliated. A tentacle whipped around my leg, the impact cracking bone hard enough that white pain flared across my vision. Another caught my side and hurled me through what was left of a nurse's station, sending cabinets and glass exploding around me.
I hit the floor, rolled, came up on one knee.
Still breathing.
Lightning crawled over my skin again, my reiatsu no longer just flaring but bleeding out of me, saturating the space. The building groaned under the pressure. Somewhere below, concrete shifted and collapsed. I barely noticed.
She stalked toward me through the debris, eyes glowing behind the mask, voice dripping with cruel amusement again—but there was tension in it now.
"You burn so brightly," she crooned. "Do you know how many like you I've devoured? Puny soul reapers who thought rage made them gods? I'll give you that much, you're stronger than a normal human."
I pushed myself to my feet and discarded the broken dagger, reshaping the lightning into something heavier. Meaner. A short, brutal cleaver of condensed force that hummed like a live wire in my grip.
"You're still talking," I said quietly.
My voice didn't sound like mine.
Her smile faltered—just a fraction.
I lunged.
She vanished, reappearing above me, red energy screaming down like judgment. I raised my arm and took it, lightning surging outward to meet it. The blast threw me backward, skin burning, what remained of my shirt—smoking, but I stayed upright through sheer refusal.
I charged through the smoke.
We collided mid-stride—her claws raking my chest, my blade carving across her mask hard enough to crack it. A jagged line split the bone, reiatsu leaking out like blood. She screamed then, truly screamed, the sound echoing through the ruined hospital like a dying siren.
I found a sick satisfaction in that
She lashed out wildly, no longer composed, no longer amused.
Good.
I pressed the attack mercilessly—strike after strike, thundersteps chained together, no rhythm, no pattern. Every blow was meant to maim. To end. I wasn't fighting to survive anymore.
I was fighting to kill.
Somewhere, far away, a memory flickered—Rukia's calm voice, her hand on my arm, explaining what Hollows were, what they meant. That purification mattered. That erasure was a line you didn't cross lightly.
I crushed that thought flat.
This thing hurt Matthew, whatever it used to be was irrelevant right now.
She laughed.
I don't care what happens to her soul.
I drove her back step by step, forcing her into the collapsed remains of the corridor, lightning roaring so loudly it drowned out everything else. My body screamed at me—broken ribs, burned nerves, muscles tearing under strain—but rage drowned it all.
She staggered, mask cracked, movements finally slowing.
Her eyes locked onto mine, and for the first time there was no mockery there.
Only calculation.
Only fear.
"Yes," she hissed softly. "That's it. Forget your rules. Forget your little reaper. Show me how monsters are born."
Lightning surged.
I raised my blade.
And I meant it—
purify or erase, it doesn't matter—
as long as she dies.
I launched myself again, thunderstep snapping the distance shut in a heartbeat. My blade came around in a savage arc, all momentum and intent, and this time it held. The tentacle came away clean—severed mid-coil—reishi screaming as it hit the floor and dissolved into twitching fragments.
For a split second, satisfaction flared.
One less problem.
That was my mistake.
The ruined end of the tentacle ruptured, the last of that viscous green ooze bursting outward in an ugly spray. It splattered across the floor, the walls, my boots, my tattered shirt. I felt it hiss and bite at the fabric, but not enough—not yet—to lock me down like before.
Before I could move—
That damn crimson glow flared.
"Too close," I realized, too late.
I threw everything I had into a shield, lightning folding in on itself in a raw, an imperfect kite shield just as the blast erupted from her remaining tentacle. The beam struck the ooze instead of me—and the reaction was immediate and violent.
The floor detonated.
Not cracked. Not shattered.
Gone.
The explosion punched upward and outward, ripping concrete apart as if it were wet cardboard. My shield absorbed the worst of it, but the force still slammed into me like a freight train. The world lurched, my stomach dropping out from under me as the ground ceased to exist.
We fell.
Dust swallowed everything. Rebar screamed as it tore free. Tiles shattered against my shoulders and back. I hit something hard, rolled, then hit again, pain blooming in sharp white bursts as we crashed through what remained of the second floor ceiling.
I slammed down on what used to be a hallway, the impact knocking the air out of me in a brutal wheeze. My shield collapsed instantly, lightning sputtering and dying as my concentration broke.
I lay there for half a second—maybe a full one—staring at nothing but drifting dust and falling debris, my ears ringing so loudly it drowned out thought.
Move.
I forced myself to roll just as a chunk of ceiling smashed into the spot where my head had been. I scrambled to my knees, coughing, lungs burning, vision swimming.
Across the ruined space, she landed far more gracefully than I did, claws biting into the cracked floor to steady herself. Her mask was damaged now—split, jagged—but her eyes burned brighter through the fracture, furious and feral.
She was limping.
Good.
But so was I.
Lightning crawled weakly along my arms as I pushed myself upright, boots slipping on dust and ooze and shattered tile. My body screamed at me to stop. My ribs felt wrong. My leg barely responded when I put weight on it.
I didn't stop.
I raised my blade again, reshaping it on instinct, shorter now, heavier. Practical. My breathing was ragged, every inhale tasting like dirty metal and ozone.
She laughed—low, breathy, dangerous.
"You're breaking," she said softly, savoring it. "I can feel it."
I bared my teeth, something feral twisting in my chest as I squared up again amid the wreckage of the hospital.
"Yeah," I rasped. "But I'm still standing."
And somewhere, deep beneath the pain and the rage and the static screaming in my veins, one clear thought cut through everything else:
Matthew better be alive.
Because I wasn't done yet.
I could feel it happening—the tunnel vision closing in, the edges of the world going dark and narrow—but I didn't care. Or maybe I did, once, and chose not to anymore. Lightning kept pouring into me, crawling under my skin, knotting my muscles together and forcing my body to keep moving when it had no right to.
Pain was everywhere and nowhere. My legs were numb. My chest burned. I couldn't tell which of the sensations belonged to injuries and which were just my nerves screaming in protest as I staggered forward anyway.
I ran.
Not fast. Not clean. Just forward.
Each step felt like my body arguing with my will and losing by inches. The lightning was the only thing holding me upright, the only thing stitching me together long enough to act.
I roared—not words, not really—and hurled myself into another attack, a crude overhead strike fueled by desperation more than skill. For a heartbeat, I thought I might actually land it.
She swatted me aside.
It wasn't even graceful. It felt casual. Like batting away a thrown bottle.
The impact sent me flying, my body twisting helplessly as I slammed into the hallway wall and bounced, then skidded across cracked tile in a shower of dust and sparks. My vision flashed white, then red. Something in my shoulder screamed and went numb.
But I wasn't done.
As I tumbled, I let go.
I ripped the lightning sword from my hand and hurled it at her with everything I had left, not aiming so much as willing it to hit. The blade spun end over end, shrieking as it cut through the air—
—and this time, it struck true.
It sliced into her side, tearing through corrupted flesh and mask fragments in a violent spray of reishi. She shrieked, the sound sharp and furious, more pain than she wanted to admit.
I hit the floor hard again, rolling, breath knocked from my lungs as I skidded down the hallway in a broken sprawl. The world spun, ceiling lights blurring into streaks above me. My body finally started catching up with the damage, every nerve lighting up at once.
I lay there for a heartbeat, staring at nothing, lightning flickering weakly around my fingers.
Still alive.
Barely.
Somewhere ahead of me, she was snarling now—no mockery left in it, no amusement. Just anger.
Good.
I dragged myself onto one elbow, coughing, blood spattering the floor as I forced air back into my lungs.
"Yeah," I muttered hoarsely, not sure if she could hear me anymore. "That one hurt, didn't it?"
My hands shook as I pulled lightning back into shape, crude and imperfect, but real.
I pushed myself up again.
Because if I stopped—
If I hesitated—
That would be the end of it for me and Matthew.
And I refused to let that be the end of this story.
I needed to end this. End it now. Something decisive—something final.
The thought barely finished forming before she lunged.
I stumbled back and to the side, half a step, not clean enough to call skill. Instinct, maybe. Luck, definitely. And then—clear as a shouted command—I heard a voice in my head.
Left, you fool!
I listened.
Her claws tore through the space where my spine had been a heartbeat earlier, close enough that I felt the wind of them rake my back. The tips grazed me, fire blooming across my skin, but they didn't take me apart.
And that was it.
My opening.
I hurled myself forward, body and lightning collapsing into the same reckless motion, and drove a punch straight down into her. No charge. No finesse. Just raw intent and whatever power I had left.
It wasn't enough.
I clipped her instead of crushing her, my fist skidding across corrupted flesh and bone.
"Fuck!" I screamed, the sound ripped out of me. "Why can't this bitch just stay still and die already?!"
The collision of her momentum and my lightning detonated beneath us. The floor screamed—then gave way.
We fell again.
First floor this time.
Dust swallowed everything. Rebar screamed as it tore free. Tiles shattered like glass. I slammed down hard, wrong, my leg folding beneath me with a wet, sickening snap that stole the air from my lungs.
White pain.
Pure, blinding agony.
Something in my leg was definitely broken. The kind of pain that would've dropped me instantly if adrenaline and terror weren't holding my brain hostage. My vision tunneled. The edges went dark. I almost blacked out.
This is it.
That thought wasn't panic. It was clarity.
I gathered everything I had left—every stray spark, every borrowed breath of reishi, every ounce of rage and fear and refusal—and forced it inward. Past pain. Past sense. Past reason.
This was it.
The last construct.
The last time I'd shape lightning into anything but regret.
She struck before I could finish.
Massive claws slammed into me, pinning me to the wall with crushing force. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the impact. My breath left me in a strangled sound I didn't recognize as my own.
Her mask was shattered now, split wide.
Beneath it was something almost human—too human. A face twisted into a grin that wasn't just cruel, but pleased. Victorious.
Her claws dug in deeper, keeping me there, helpless.
I tasted blood.
Lightning crawled weakly over my arms, flickering like it was afraid to stay.
She leaned closer, that sadistic smile widening, and in that moment—pinned, broken, out of time—I knew exactly what she thought.
That I was finished.
My sword slipped from my hand.
Not vanished—slipped—and somehow that mattered.
The lightning still held its shape, humming weakly where it had fallen, like it refused to accept that I was done. As long as I stayed conscious, as long as that blade existed, there was still something. A thread. A lie I could tell myself called hope.
Adhaera had me pinned.
This was it. I knew it in my bones.
Fear and willpower tore at each other inside me, a screaming stalemate, but beneath that chaos was something colder and more stubborn—an absolute refusal. I couldn't let it end here. I wouldn't.
I have kids.
They deserved more than a father who died screaming in a ruined hospital. They deserved bedtime stories and bad jokes and someone to embarrass them in front of their friends. I rejected any reality where this thing won.
Then—
a crash.
A shout.
Reality lurched.
Through the haze, through the ringing in my ears and the black creeping in at the edges of my vision, I saw it—the tip of my lightning blade erupting through Adhaera's torso.
Inches from my face.
Her scream was raw and furious as the blade tore through her in a single brutal arc, splitting her cleanly in two. Her body began to dissolve mid-scream, unraveling into ash and light.
Behind her stood Matthew.
Bloodied. Burned. His hands were scorched black and red, skin blistered and smoking, fingers barely able to curl as the sword slipped from his grip. The lightning fizzled out, not violently—peacefully. Like it had been waiting. Like it finally had permission to rest.
I collapsed.
Adhaera's voice echoed as her form came apart.
"This can't be—! You—you were supposed to be dead!"
Matthew just grinned. Not wide. Not cocky.
That familiar, stubborn, infuriating grin.
"Who decided that?" he said, like it wasn't a question at all.
We both hit the floor not long after that—spent, broken, breathing like we'd just run a marathon around the entire planet.
The ceiling blurred above me. My body felt like static and lead and pain all at once.
But we were alive.
And for now… that was enough.