The sky over the city was a brilliant, mocking blue.
To anyone else, it was a perfect Saturday in the shopping district. Families laughed, the smell of freshly baked crepes drifted through the air, and the neon signs hummed with the pulse of a world that was very much alive.
But for Konone, the vibrant colors felt like needles against her skin.
She stood at the edge of a bustling crosswalk, her breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches. Her clothes—a dark, tattered cloak thrown over a combat suit that had seen better days—were dusted with a fine, gray ash that no one else seemed to notice. To the crowds passing by, she was just another strange girl in a costume, perhaps a dedicated cosplayer heading to an event.
They didn’t see the way her hands trembled. They didn’t see the ghosts reflected in her eyes.
Focus, she told herself, clutching a small, rectangular object hidden in the folds of her cloak. You’re here. You made it. It’s... it’s still standing.
[Flashback: The End of Everything]
The sky wasn't blue then. It was the color of a bruised lung.
In the center of what used to be a grand plaza, the world was literally being rewritten. Massive, geometric towers of obsidian rose from the ground, reshaping the architecture into a cold, jagged landscape of "perfection."
"Konone! Move!"
A bolt of violet lightning tore through the air, shattering a stone pillar inches from her head. Konone turned, her face streaked with soot. "Mahiru! We have to fall back! The Void King... he’s already reached the Core!"
Her partner, a girl with a fierce determination in her eyes, didn't move. Mahiru’s lightning crackled, but it was dimming. Behind her, a massive shadow—the Void King—loomed, his hand outstretched. He wasn't attacking; he was simply existing, and where he stood, reality dissolved into gray static.
"I can't leave her," Mahiru whispered, looking toward the wreckage where her mother’s silhouette had disappeared. "If I give up now, what was it all for?"
"Mahiru, no! Don't listen to the silence!"
But it was too late. The despair, cold and heavy as lead, had found a crack in Mahiru’s heart. As the gray static climbed up her friend's legs, Konone reached out, her fingers brushing Mahiru’s before a sudden, violent surge of energy threw her into a rift.
Present Day
A loud car horn snapped Konone back to reality. She gasped, nearly falling forward into the street.
"Hey, watch out, kid!" a passerby called out, swerving around her.
Konone didn't answer. She retreated into the shadows of a nearby alleyway, sliding down the brick wall until she hit the pavement. She pulled the object from her cloak. It was a Heart Card.
Once, it had glowed with a warmth that felt like a summer hearth. Now, the "Fire" emblem in the center was cracked, pulsing with a faint, dying ember.
"Is this all that's left?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "One card? One world gone... and I'm just waiting for the next one to fall."
She looked out toward the mouth of the alley. A group of high school girls walked by, laughing about a movie they wanted to see. One of them, a girl with a bright, infectious smile and a bag of steaming buns in her hand, stopped for a second, looking toward the alley as if she felt a sudden chill.
Konone pulled her hood lower. She couldn't involve them. She couldn't let the "Image" find her yet. But even as she thought it, the shadows at the back of the alley began to stretch. They didn't move with the sun. They moved like ink dropping into water—cold, hungry, and silent.
The Void had followed her. And this world’s peace was about to shatter.108Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmN7bN6qXsr
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