[Chapter Header]
ARC: Back Attack Land
Akos walked through the silent corridor of the higher floors, separated from Jin.
Every step echoed against the cold marble.
His eyes darted everywhere, searching for any sign of Yuzana, but the silence was heavy, suffocating.
Suddenly, a blade hissed through the air.
Akos's instincts flared; he twisted his body to the side, the sharp edge of a katana grazing his jacket.
He leaned back in a fluid motion, dodging a second horizontal slash that aimed for his throat.
But as he recovered his stance, the world around him began to bleed.
The white walls turned a deep, visceral red.
Akos looked down and froze. At his feet, a severed head—still alive—was twitching, making gurgling, inhuman sounds.
He looked around and his blood ran cold.
The walls were covered with people fused into the concrete, their bodies mangled and bloodied, reaching out and moaning in a terrifying chorus.
"No... no, no... not again! Not you again!" Akos gasped, his lungs tightening.
"Do you really think you can ever escape me?"
The voice of DEVILS END boomed inside his skull, cold and mocking.
"You told Jin Tori to strike your heart to wake you from the nightmare... but what if the nightmare is all there is? Know your place, fool."
Akos clutched his head, falling to his knees. "Leave me alone! Why are you inside me? Get out!" he screamed, his voice cracking.
Suddenly, through the red mist, he heard a familiar voice.
"Akos? Where have you been? I haven't seen you in so long."
It was Jin.
He was standing there, looking concerned, reaching out a hand to help Akos up.
But Akos stared at the hand as if it were a poisonous snake. He scrambled backward, dodging the touch.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?" the 'Jin' figure asked, stepping closer.
He reached out to place a hand on Akos's shoulder.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Akos shrieked, slamming into the wall.
As he hit the surface, the mangled people embedded in the stone began to grab him.
Dozens of pale, bloody hands latched onto his arms, his clothes, and his hair, pulling him back into the wall.
"Stop it! I can't take it anymore! I have no strength left... there's nothing I can do! JUST LET ME GO!"
The 'Jin' figure moved to grab him one last time, but suddenly, the entire reality shattered like glass.
The floor beneath Akos vanished. He fell into a dark, endless void.
The shock was too much—his mind snapped, and he spiraled into unconsciousness.
The scene shifted. The red mist evaporated.
Standing over the edge of a massive hole in the floor was the Criminal with the katana.
In Akos's nightmare, this man had taken the form of Jin, using the hallucination to drive him to the brink of madness.
The Criminal looked down at the lobby floor far below, where Akos lay crumpled and motionless after the fall.
"There is no hope of escaping the fake world," the man said coldly, sheathing his blade.
"Sleep now, Tasaku. You're already dead in your own mind."
The Criminal with the katana descended swiftly to the lobby floor, his footsteps echoing ominously.
Akos lay motionless on the shattered marble, his body limp, his mind lost in the terrifying depths of the Devil's End.
The Criminal stood over Akos, a cruel smirk twisting his lips.
He slowly raised his katana, the blade glinting under the dim emergency lights.
He aimed for Akos's head, ready to deliver the killing blow.
But just as the blade was about to fall, high above in the shattered remains of a distant building, a single photograph fluttered through the air, caught by a sudden gust of wind.
It depicted the very Criminal with the katana, his face clear, before it plummeted down into the chaos below.
At that exact, impossible moment, as the katana hovered inches from Akos's skull...
BOOM!
A silent, internal explosion ripped through the Criminal.
There was no visible attack, no external force. He simply... detonated.
Blood, bone, and flesh erupted in a grotesque shower, painting Akos and the marble floor a vivid crimson.
Not a single organ, not a single piece of his body remained – only the splattered, unidentifiable remains of what was once a man.
The katana clattered to the floor, landing with a dull thud next to Akos's unconscious head, a silent testament to an unseen force.
Akos suddenly snapped his eyes open.
Everything around him was a blur, drowned in a deep crimson hue.
The enemy's blood had coated his face like a warm, thick mask.
With trembling hands, he wiped his eyes, trying to understand where he was.
He stood up slowly, frozen in terror. There was no enemy, no body.
Only a katana lying on the floor and a massive pool of blood.
Suddenly, a dry sound echoed: THUD!
A door to his right shattered into pieces.
Riko was sent flying out, crashing hard onto the floor right at Akos's feet.
Heavily injured and covered in dust, Riko lifted his head and saw Akos drenched in blood.
"What... what are you doing here?" Riko whispered with difficulty. "Get out of here, Akos! Fast!"
Before he could say anything else, Baka stormed into the room, screaming like a madman.
He was cursing at Riko with unbelievable hatred, but the moment he saw Akos and the carnage around him, he froze.
He stared at the blood that covered everything.
"What did you do here? Where is the other guy?" Baka asked, his voice trembling with surprise.
Akos didn't answer. His gaze was hollow, fixed on something else.
He turned to Riko and spoke in a voice that didn't sound like his own: "Hit me in my heart, Riko."
"Huh? What are you saying?" Riko looked at him, shocked.
"Hit me in my heart! Now! Fast!" Akos screamed.
"Are you okay, Akos? What's wrong with you?"
Without waiting, Akos began to frantically beat his own chest, right over his heart, with both fists.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Riko and Baka stood there, watching him as if they were turned to stone.
"What is this crazy guy doing?" Baka muttered, taking a step back.
Akos stopped abruptly. His breath was heavy, but his gaze had suddenly turned cold as ice.
Baka, seeing that the situation was spiraling out of control, pulled a bottle from his bag.
A chilling smile spread across his face.
"I'll bury you alive!" Baka laughed. He quickly put on a specialized mask and opened the bottle.
In a flash, Akos reached out.
He covered his own nose with one palm and Riko's nose with the other, pressing down hard.
Riko froze, not understanding the move.
Baka burst into laughter while looking at Riko.
"You might have wounded me so you can smell where I am, but now... now you'll die from your own ability!"
"It's carbon monoxide!" Akos shouted through his teeth. "It's invisible and odorless! Don't breathe, Riko!"
Baka laughed again, pulling a large black sphere from his bag.
"It's nice to know what you're dying from. Look at this... TSAR BOMBA!"
At the same time, in another part of the building, Ronika entered a hidden room.
She froze at what she saw.
On the walls were photographs... photos of herself, Akos, and Jin.
But next to them were other people, strangers she had never seen before in her life.
The mystery had just become much deeper.
Ronika stood frozen, her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes scanned the walls of the hidden room. Photographs. Hundreds of photographs.
She saw Akos, Jin, even Sora. But these weren't ordinary photos. They were snapshots of their lives that no one should have been able to take.
Beside them were faces of strangers—people she had never met, yet they seemed connected by an invisible, dark thread.
"What the hell is this?" Ronika growled, feeling a knot tighten in her stomach. "Who... who has been watching us? Damn it, what kind of game is being played here?"
Her gaze fell to the center of the room. On a stone pedestal sat two katanas. They looked ancient, with blades that seemed to absorb the dim light of the room.
Ronika felt something strange. They weren't just objects. She felt a pull, as if the swords were calling out to her, whispering her name through her very blood.
She began to walk slowly toward them. Every step felt heavy. Her hands were shaking, but the urge to touch them was stronger than her fear.
The moment her fingers brushed the hilt, the world around her vanished.
BANG!
She felt a violent shock in her head and heart simultaneously, as if hit by thousands of volts of electricity. Her vision turned black and white. Everything lost its color.
Inside her head, images began to flash. She saw Akos and Jin. But they weren't her friends. They stood there, looking down at her with pure contempt, as if she were nothing.
"Akos...?" she whispered, but he only began to laugh. A cold, mocking laughter that chilled her to the bone.
"Do you think your composure will scare us, Ronika?" Jin's voice echoed in her mind, distorted and cruel. "Do you think you have control? You're just a pawn. Look at us. You will always be beneath us."
Ronika felt tears burning her eyes. She didn't know if she was crying from pain or from pure rage. She couldn't tell if this was a sick joke or the harsh reality of their souls.
They were mocking her to her face, breaking down every wall she had built around herself.
"Akos........" she whimpered, feeling her heart shatter.
Suddenly, the black-and-white hallucination dissolved as violently as it had begun. Ronika gasped, taking a deep, desperate breath as she returned to reality.
She looked down at her hands.
She had already gripped the two swords. She was holding them tightly without even feeling it, without having made the conscious choice. The katanas were now a part of her, and a new,super power began to surge through her veins.
Suddenly, a voice echoed from behind Ronika. "You shouldn't be here. Now I have to kill such a beautiful girl... What a waste."
Ronika turned around to find a man standing there. It was Nani. He began to threaten her, his presence oozing malice.
Ronika stared him down, her grip tightening around her twin blades. "You're finished," she said flatly.
Before Nani could even process her words, she lunged at him with her dual katanas. Nani scrambled back in terror. "No way..." he stammered. "Did she remember who she is?"
He froze. Before he could finish his sentence, Ronika was already upon him, finishing it with a cold smirk: "Know who I am?"
Nani ducked his head at the very last second, just a hair's breadth away from being decapitated by her strike.
This is what they warned us about, Nani thought, his heart racing. The Sorcerers who can regain their memories. She's too fast!
Inside, Ronika felt the fragments of her identity clicking into place. She remembered being a Sorcerer at the Private High for Education: Ninjitsu. Yet, her past remained a blur—only fragments of memories remained.
Fuming with rage, Nani glared at her. "Shut your mouth, you little brat! I'll send you straight to hell! I'm going to tear you apart!" he screamed, losing his mind.
He pressed his hands together, forming the shape of a maw. "Kuchi!"
Out of thin air, a colossal mouth with jagged teeth manifested above Ronika, snapping shut to devour her. She dodged just in time. The "Mouth" bit down on nothingness and vanished.
So this is the 'Devil's Mouth', Ronika realized. A practitioner of the Mouth Curse.
Nani rushed her with a flurry of punches, but Ronika dropped low, her body grazing the floor. With a swift arc of her blade, she sliced through his leg. Before he could even scream, she spun and drove her katana deep into his back. Nani froze, his face contorted in absolute shock.
Nani collapsed onto the floor, blood gushing from the wound in his back.
"Argh... you bastard... how... how is this possible?" he roared, struggling to turn his head.
Before he could move, Ronika pressed the cold edge of her katana directly against his throat.
"Where is Yuzana?" Ronika asked, her voice sounding like the personification of death.
Nani felt an unprecedented terror surging through him.
The two katanas in Ronika's hands began to vibrate violently.
The blades emitted a dark aura that "smelled" his fear, feeding on the negative emotions filling the room.
Nani's hatred, his pain, and his desperation made the steel glow more intensely, increasing the sharpness of the blades to a terrifying degree.
"I won't ask you again," Ronika said with a gaze as cold as ice.
Suddenly, a group of men armed with swords and guns arrived at the scene, shouting wildly.
Ronika's attention was diverted for a split second.
It was the opening Nani had been searching for.
With a lightning-fast movement, he delivered a powerful punch to her stomach, sending her staggering back several steps.
Before Ronika could regain her balance... BAM!
The demonic mouth appeared again and swallowed her whole!
The mouth remained in the middle of the corridor, shut tight and motionless.
Nani burst into hysterical laughter, cursing Ronika with the foulest words.
"Give me a katana, you scum!" Nani screamed at one of his men.
The man threw him a sword, and Nani caught it mid-air.
He raised the blade over the closed demonic mouth, ready to plunge it in and erase Ronika forever.