The snow was no longer white.

  Rina ran with Kenji glued to her side, dodging bodies, rubble, people shoving without looking. The soldiers were trying to contain something that couldn't be contained. The creatures came from everywhere, and the houses Kenji had seen his entire life crumbled as if they'd always been fragile.

  At some point Rina pulled him toward her and wrapped her arms around his head. Kenji let her. The chaos continued outside that embrace, but inside there was only the smell of firewood from her coat and the sound of her breathing.

  His father's letter was still in his hand.

  He couldn't let go of it. He couldn't think. Somewhere in his head he was still waiting for a portal to open in the sky and his father to appear, and for all of this to end, and for his birthday to go back to being his birthday.

  A villager crashed into them as he ran past and tore them apart.

  Kenji tried to get back to her. Then he looked up.

  The creature had the villager pinned to the ground. It crushed him without looking at him, like an obstacle in its path. Its eyes were already on Kenji.

  Kenji froze. His legs didn't respond. The letter crumpling between his fingers was the only thing he could feel.

  The creature didn't move. It just watched him, as if it had all the time in the world.

  Rina stepped between them.

  "Leave him alone."

  She hit it. Once. Again. Her fists left no mark. The creature didn't even look at her.

  Kenji stepped back. He watched his mother hit something that wouldn't give and couldn't do anything about it and he knew it.

  But he couldn't stay still.

  He stood up trembling and took a step toward the creature.

  "Mom."

  Rina saw him. One second, just one. Something changed in her face—not fear, something older than that.

  An icicle peeled off the ground on its own and floated to her palm.

  She channeled the mana. Her fingers shook. The strikes that followed didn't sound the same—they had weight, they had edge. The creature stepped back for the first time.

  It screamed. One violent shake of its body and it threw Rina to the ground.

  "Kenji," she said from the floor.

  Just his name.

  Kenji stood one step from the beast. He raised his fist and hit its leg with everything he had, remembering what Juzo had taught him that morning.

  The creature looked down at him. Slowly. Like someone hearing a noise they're not sure was real.

  That was all.

  The beast let out a guttural sound—not words, something between a growl and a laugh—and closed its fist around Kenji with a gentleness that was worse than force.

  Rina got to her feet.

  The next icicle was already in her palm. Eyes locked on the creature, she gathered mana and released it all at once.

  The projectile severed the arm at the elbow.

  The creature howled and ran without looking back, disappearing into the smoke.

  Kenji ran to his mother and buried his face in her coat. Rina caught him with her arms, exhausted, but steady.

  He had never seen her like this.

  The other creatures were retreating too. They weren't fleeing in panic—they were leaving, orderly, as if something was calling them from outside. The few soldiers still standing didn't chase anyone. They just watched.

  The village of Brum was something else now. The same cobblestones, the same houses—but something had broken that was never going to be whole again.

  Kenji looked around without letting go of Rina.

  Then he saw him.

  Ren was on the ground, a few meters away. The same face as always, but still in a way Kenji had never seen in anyone. Eyes open toward a sky he could no longer see.

  He gripped his mother's coat tighter. Said nothing.

  "Call the damn government!" Juzo's voice cut through the silence from somewhere in the rubble.

  A few wounded soldiers went to the emergency phone. They'd tried before—the line had been cut throughout the entire invasion. It stayed cut.

  Rina stood and took Kenji's hand.

  She found a long wooden board among the rubble, wide enough. She dragged it without explaining. The exits were blocked—bodies piled up, fallen beams, snow mixed with everything else.

  "Help!" Rina shouted.

  A few soldiers came over and started moving bodies with her. There weren't many. The path was long.

  Too much time. And something out there still hadn't arrived.

  They cleared what they could. It wasn't enough, but it was what they had. The soldiers moved rubble and bodies in silence, with the mechanical focus of people who can't afford to think yet.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Rina dragged the board to the exit. Kenji followed close behind, eyes on the ground.

  "Time to go." Rina's voice came out low, spent.

  "Mom... let me help."

  Rina looked at him. Kenji was moving, talking, responding—but he wasn't all there. As if his head was still processing something the rest of him hadn't accepted yet.

  "Easy. Get on, okay?"

  Kenji climbed onto the board without another word.

  Rina looked back. Juzo was among the rubble, tormented but standing. Their eyes met for a second. Nothing more was needed.

  She started moving.

  Then she felt it.

  It wasn't a sound. It was something before sound—a pressure in her chest, in her lungs, as if the air had suddenly doubled in weight. The aura arrived before he did.

  Kenji looked down at the ground. His legs wouldn't respond. It was as if something invisible had placed its hands on him and told him not to move.

  Rina stopped.

  The first clap came from somewhere among the ruins.

  The shockwave hit everyone at the same time—an instant of total paralysis, the world frozen, and then everything snapped back as if nothing had happened. The soldiers stumbled. Someone fell to their knees.

  The second clap.

  Another wave. Closer.

  And then he appeared.

  He walked without hurry, four lesser creatures trailing behind—not like allies, but like things being dragged with no other choice. His eyes swept across the destroyed village with the calm of someone arriving to inspect a job well done.

  "Such useless humans." Another slow clap. "Standing up to my little ones." A pause. "I'm impressed."

  Juzo didn't move. In years of service he'd seen every kind of creature—but never one that spoke. That watched. That assessed.

  "Don't leave just yet."

  It wasn't a command. It was something worse—an observation, as if the possibility of them leaving simply didn't exist.

  The shadows on the ground spread outward from his feet, slow, covering the cobblestones in every direction. Inside that perimeter the air changed—thicker, quieter, as if the space itself had changed owners.

  Rina felt the pull before she understood it. Her feet moved on their own, dragging her back. Kenji on the board went with her.

  The creature looked at them when they stood before him. He tilted his head slightly, like someone examining something that doesn't quite interest him.

  "Why would you want to escape?"

  He didn't wait for an answer. He took Rina's chin with a nail that looked like a dagger and made a small cut. The drop of blood that rose he brought to his mouth slowly, without taking his eyes off her.

  Then he released her chin and took a few steps back, turning away from them.

  "This should've been over already." A sigh, almost bored. "I suppose I'll have to step in."

  He turned around.

  "Shiro," he said, like someone giving a name he didn't expect anyone to live long enough to repeat.

  He took one of the lesser creatures by the neck. The chains of darkness appeared around its body without any visible gesture from Shiro—they were simply there. A second later the pressure did the rest.

  The remaining three dropped into reverence before the remains hit the ground.

  "Go get them."

  "Run, Kenji!"

  Kenji stood up, took Rina's hand. His father's letter was still in the other, crumpled from squeezing it.

  They ran. The board under Rina's arm, the two of them together.

  One of the creatures veered toward them.

  "Where are you going?"

  The creature stopped. Looked back. Shiro was smiling at it.

  "Come back."

  He pulled it toward him without moving from his spot. On contact, it exploded.

  Shiro walked slowly. No hurry. He watched Rina and Kenji run without doing anything to stop them—he let them run. That was part of something.

  The lesser creatures were still on the soldiers. Juzo ran to the emergency phone.

  "I need help! We have a creature with intelligence!"

  Silence.

  "Why isn't anyone answering?"

  He hit the device with his fist. Once. Again.

  The line is currently experiencing high volume. Please hold.

  Juzo smashed it against the wall before it finished.

  "Shit."

  He turned around.

  The soldiers fought hand-to-hand with the two remaining creatures. Juzo joined without a word. One of the soldiers channeled electricity into his palm—blue arcs spread across the trampled snow. Juzo answered with wind, compressed and directed, generating a small storm that disoriented the creatures and amplified the discharge.

  One fell.

  The last one, half-stunned, swung its claws in every direction before going down. It left wounds on three soldiers. Juzo caught a graze on his side—enough to bleed, not enough to stop him.

  The creature screamed. It knew it was alone.

  Juzo looked at it.

  Shiro hadn't watched the fight for more than a second. It wasn't worth his attention.

  He was at the village exit. Still. A few steps from Rina and Kenji.

  Rina had fallen. She was on the ground with one hand pressed into the snow, trying to catch her breath. Kenji crouched beside her, put a hand on her shoulder.

  Rina got to her feet.

  The three of them looked at each other.

  "Kenji, get behind me." Rina's voice sounded spent. She extended her arm in front of him.

  Shiro was already behind Kenji.

  "Hello."

  Kenji turned his head slowly. In that same instant Shiro sank a finger into his back—without force, almost delicately—and didn't pull it out.

  Kenji's scream cut the air.

  By the time Rina spun around, Shiro was already behind her.

  "Easy." He looked at her without moving. "You should worry about yourself."

  He didn't attack. Just watched as Rina pressed her hand over Kenji's wound. Beneath her fingers the skin was cold in a way that had nothing to do with winter.

  "Leave him alone!"

  Shiro stepped back.

  Rina channeled mana into her palm. A faint light appeared over Kenji's wound—weak, flickering, dying before it could hold. She tried again. Nothing.

  The shadows on the ground rose on their own and wrapped around Rina, suspending her without pulling her closer. Shiro watched from below.

  "If I'd known you used light," he said slowly, "this would've been over sooner."

  He advanced. Fingers rolling in a wave, like someone conducting something already in motion.

  "Mom."

  Kenji said it quietly. Not as a call—as if naming her could stop what was about to happen.

  With the last of what she had, Rina gathered the mana in her fingers and launched a blade of light.

  Shiro's arm fell to the ground.

  He looked down at the stump. Watched it for a second as the arm reconstituted from the shoulder down. Without changing his expression.

  "Don't move."

  The chains tightened. Rina stopped being able to breathe. Kenji crawled toward her and tried to tear them off—they burned his hands on contact, as if they were rejecting him.

  Shiro touched her.

  Rina's body went slack—it wasn't fainting, it was something different, deeper. Shiro stood motionless, eyes fixed on her, scanning everything.

  When he finished, he let go.

  The chains disappeared. Rina fell to the ground coughing, hands in the snow searching for air.

  Kenji hugged her before she finished falling, eyes locked on Shiro over her shoulder.

  "Kenji, get away."

  He didn't move. He held tighter.

  Shiro swatted him aside with a single motion. Kenji hit the ground and his father's letter flew from his hand.

  He reached toward Rina—not the letter.

  Shiro had Rina by the neck.

  "You were brave, defending the boy." The voice flat, almost bored. "But like I said. You should've focused on yourself."

  He squeezed.

  "What a beautiful memory that was. The day you had him. Those tears." A pause. "But the awakening he caused in you—that light—was the worst thing that could've happened to you."

  He touched Rina's abdomen with his palm, almost gently. Then sank a finger in.

  Rina screamed.

  Kenji got up and ran toward her. Something stopped him—invisible, barely there, the thinnest thread in the air. He hit it with his hands. Where his palms touched the barrier, darkness seeped outward, barely visible, like smoke.

  No sound came through.

  Kenji could see his mother but couldn't hear her. Only the movement of her mouth. Only the pain on her face.

  He crawled to the letter. Took it with both hands and didn't let go. He couldn't do anything else.

  "See him?"

  Shiro turned Rina's head toward Kenji.

  "Look at him."

  Rina looked. Kenji was on the other side of the barrier, curled up, the letter between his fingers, as if the paper could hold him together.

  "You were already broken." Shiro tilted his head. "I'm just finishing."

  Rina spat in his face.

  The silence lasted one second.

  Shiro sank three fingers in.

  Rina didn't scream. The sound that came out had no name.

  Her eyes went to Kenji. Only to him. The pain in her body was one thing—but seeing him there, on the other side, alone, with that letter between his fingers.

  That was what couldn't be endured.

  "Rina." Shiro's voice, soft, like someone calling a person they already know.

  Shiro drove his fist through her abdomen.