Takumi didn't know what to think about Eito coming back from the dead.
Instead of thinking about it, he finds every excuse not to, until things get irrevocably, impossibly worse. Guilt and vengeance can be terrifying things.
If not for the witch...maybe, just maybe...
(Contains spoilers for SF, Comedy, Coming of Age, Second Scenario (implied)).
It’d been a week since Hiruko ll and Eito ll departed with half of Takumi’s team. Despite the promise they’d made, neither returned, and so those who remained in this world set out to find any remnants of the device they used to travel between worlds.
To say Takumi held any resentment would be an understatement.
He spent as much time as possible outside (both on and against Sirei’s judgment) searching for some way to make sense of the, frankly, bullshit move the two pulled. ‘The two’, he tells himself, unable to absolve Hiruko yet unable to blame her.
…
He shouldn’t have trusted him.
Takumi sliced down an invader, and squeezed his eyes shut as he wandered into the city. Looking for a familiar, decrepit lab…
“Hello, Takumi.”
Takumi jolted from his seat, fists clenched as he tried to intimidate the taller man despite the ketchup stains Takumi knew he bore on his cheeks. Served him right for munching on some fries before dinner.
When he realized Hiruko didn’t linger by, Takumi’s exasperation rose. “Who let you wander by yourself? I thought your world’s Shizuhara would be keeping an eye on you.”
“Are you saying you can’t manage me?” Eito pouted, in his usual over-acted, insincere manner. “What a shame. You really haven’t done much to earn your Team Leader title here, haven’t you?”
“Hey, don’t go comparing me to your version of me!”
“What is there to compare? I don’t know anything about you—other than you killing me, of course.” Eito slid down into a seat near Takumi’s food, stole a fry, and choked back a gag before propping up his elbows and resting his head on his hands. Takumi gave Eito a long look before he took his fries back, moved it to the other side of the table, and sat down.
Takumi sighed as he pressed a hand against his forehead. “…I did what I had to do. Shizuhara has to keep a bomb trigger on her to keep you in line. Keeping you alive—it’s—”
“You know,” Eito said, cutting Takumi off despite the previous speaker’s disgruntled noises, “The Takumi from my world wasn’t much better than you after all.”
“…Huh?” Nice going, Takumi chided himself.
Eito sat up properly and threw a hand to the side. “He may have spared my life, but he had no idea how to handle anyone who he either couldn’t control or predict. So—you know the machine Sirei used on that poor innocent inhabitant of this planet?”
A fry stopped midair, a drop of ketchup plopping against the table. Takumi raised a brow at Eito’s description of Eva, but before he could think to contemplate it, Eito babbled on.
“Do you know what ugly, disgusting, incomprehensible things my Takumi subjected me to? Something even worse than outright killing me—a death of self. He told Sirei to put me through that awful brainwashing machine to ‘fix’ me, to make me a part of his little fantasy life where everything went his way.” Eito dropped the faux cheer for a sneer. “Hah. Killing me would’ve been better. It didn’t work, of course—justice always rests on the side of the righteous.”
Eito stopped. He seemed to wait for something, but Takumi gave him nothing to respond to.
Nothing at all. For a long, long while.
Takumi put his food down and regarded Eito with a long, tired look.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I wanted to remind you of your ugliness across worlds, that’s all.”
“…Thanks.” Takumi pushed himself out of his seat. “Listen—we only let you out because Shizuhara insisted. So you better actually follow the deal.”
A sigh left Eito’s lips, and he leaned back.
The silence itched at Takumi, and he shifted in his seat as if something loomed behind him, struck him with such paralyzing unease he had to stay still and let it watch until it left him alone. “Just don’t cause any trouble,” Takumi continued. “I don’t…it’s…”
He jolted, itching everywhere. Not the usual kind, but a more insidious infestation of swirling feelings, implacable pinpricks of shame.
Guilt, maybe.
A guilt which Takumi wished he could shove out of his mind, leave it to rot anywhere but inside himself.
His tongue burned, and to douse the flames, he had to say it. He had to say the last thing he ever thought he’d get the chance to admit. Hurrying to the door, stopping and turning around, he grit his teeth and bowed his head.
“I’m sorry.”
And just as quickly, he left, leaving Eito behind with those words, lingering in the air, a cool breeze to the hot pressure cooker their conversation became.
A couple days passed before Takumi saw Eito on his own again. This time, the meeting place was somehow both awkward and understandable, considering Takumi ran to the bathroom to piss in such a hurry he almost bulldozed Eito, who’d been about to enter himself.
“Do you ever pay attention to anything around you, or do you always do as you please without any regard?”
“It’s 10 AM, Aotsuki.”
“Never too early to self reflect, Takumi.”
Takumi elbowed past Eito into one of the stalls, Eito slipping into one of his own a moment after brushing Takumi’s grime off his jacket. The two emerged at the same time, washed their hands at the same time. Takumi groaned.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” he said.
Eito smiled. “Why would I want to see your irritating visage on purpose? This isn’t how every vile human expresses their guilt, right? It’s just you especially who doesn't know to properly follow up on an apology.”
“I didn’t—” Takumi stopped, and after a heavy sigh, he said, “…I only apologized to shut you up. I don’t…you’re…you.”
“I’m aware.”
“You won’t change. You still haven’t. It wasn’t worth the risk.”
“…You’re colder than I thought, Takumi.”
Takumi turned to Eito, face red. “Why do you keep acting so disappointed? Did you—what did you expect from me?”
“Only the most vile, heinous thoughts, of course.” Eito reached for the paper towel dispenser and wiped his hands off. He pulled his gloves on seconds after drying his hands, as if the air itself was contaminated. “After everything you’ve done, I can’t expect much else.”
“Well—man, just stop reminding me of it. You’re already…”
Takumi felt a pit open in his stomach, his vision swirling, distorting. He focused on himself in the mirror.
Blood pricked at Takumi’s fingertips as a fine layer of sweat coalesced on his forehead. Eito turned to leave, but catching onto Takumi’s visible anxiety, he lingered.
Smiling.
“Do you truly feel guilty after all?”
Takumi closed his eyes, and Eito’s withered husk watched him from the darkness. Sirei prettied up his corpse on the insistence of everyone else, but the dried, tense hands of his Eito Aotsuki remained wrapped around Takumi. The shriveled pathetic shell of Eito haunted him—not a lie.
Not a pithy attempt at patching up pain.
So many thoughts and unsaid, unpacked desires flitted about Takumi. Of course he felt guilty. Of course he did what he had to do. To protect what mattered.
Eito mattered, too. Just not this one. Just not the one Takumi met first, either. A different, irreplaceable ghost, just as haunting as Eito’s corpse.
“You think you would’ve been happier?” Takumi said. Eito furrowed his brows, confused, before Takumi continued to speak. “That machine…it could’ve cured you. Maybe you would’ve liked living like that better.”
Maybe then, Eito would be the way he should’ve been.
Eito grimaced, a look of pure displeasure mixed with something else Takumi had no interest in acknowledging. As soon as the words left Takumi’s mouth, though, he let out a shaky breath.
“…Sorry,” he said, head dipped. “I don’t…know what happened in your world. And I don’t know you. But—just keep in mind what I said. As long as you don’t cause trouble and stay with Shizuhara, we’ll let you be.”
Eyes peeled away from the mirror and to the floor, Takumi brushed past Eito, touching his jacket, and went out the door. That night, it took three washes for Eito to remove the other man’s scent from his clothes.
That same night, Takumi stared at the ceiling.
Thinking about Eito, of course. Despite this Eito only hanging around for a grand total of four days, he’d managed to win the top spot in Takumi’s list of concerns.
Not necessarily about Eito being dangerous. By all accounts, things should’ve been sorted between them. Takumi apologized, maybe said some other things he wasn’t proud of but didn’t feel like apologizing for (forgive him for not groveling at the feet of the guy who got his friends killed before, who let Nozomi die) and once Eito and Hiruko left, he wouldn’t need to say anything more.
Or so Takumi wished. If he only started thinking of Eito with the man’s alternate world arrival, it wouldn’t be so hard to put him out of his mind.
But Eito became so good at haunting him.
A withered hand grabbed Takumi’s shoulder, and he shot up.
“Seriously…I need some water,” Takumi grumbled as he slipped out of bed and wandered down to the cafeteria, half-asleep but throat so parched he needed something to kill the sensation before he lost it.
Man. Fuck his luck. Eito jumped at Takumi’s entrance—for once, walking around without his jacket, revealing his collarbone with his low cut t-shirt. The look of annoyance he slammed Takumi with almost got Takumi to turn around and leave, but he held his ground.
“You don’t own the cafeteria,” Takumi spat as he beelined it for the kitchen.
Despite his frantic steps to get away from Takumi, Eito sneered and said: “I never told you to leave. But, if you saw a disgusting hairy rat scampering across your eating area, you’d do anything to get rid of it, wouldn’t you?”
Takumi rolled his eyes, going for the sink. “Sure. Whatever.”
Despite his annoyance, though, Takumi couldn’t help but glance at Eito again. He’d never seen the other man so exposed. Literally speaking, and all. His shirt tore around the collar, making Takumi wonder how old it was. Not to mention the thin fabric made it so when it hung close to his chest, Takumi caught a glimpse of some muscle…abs, too? He didn’t know Eito was so—
What the hell am I talking about.
Takumi shook his head, and filed away the last thirty seconds of monologue into a dark, untouched corner of his mind, where it would rot until the day he died.
“Ugh…” Eito’s noise of displeasure brought him back to reality, and in an effort to escape his train of thought, Takumi blurted out the first thing he could come up with.
“Why do you call people by their first names?”
Takumi’s hand rested over the faucet. Eito frowned.
“Because,” he said, “you might be too stupid to notice, but most people get uncomfortable with anything out of the norm. A little over-familiarity drives away most normal people before I even get to the questions.”
“Hey, it was a little weird, but when we first met, I figured you were just sheltered. I don’t think it’s as much of a dealbreaker as you think.” Even if Takumi would prefer the guy he hated stopped talking to him like he’s his best friend.
Eito sat down at one of the cafeteria tables. “That’s why I said most normal people.”
Hm.
Takumi contemplated dumping his cup of water over Eito’s head. Somehow he managed to hold back.
“…Whatever,” he said. “I don’t care.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Shut up.” Takumi took a sip. “You know what. I take back what I said before about your happiness. You obviously get a kick out of being a dick all the time—not like I’m gonna take that away from you.”
Despite the obvious sarcasm laced in his words, for some incomprehensible reason, Eito smiled.
Real, true.
Only for a moment.
“I’m so glad you understand me,” he said, “Takumi.”
Takumi downed the rest of his glass. He thought back to the first time he apologized to Eito, out of some impulsive drive to quell the burning guilt brought back to life by the dead’s reappearance. For a second, Eito held him close.
For some reason.
For some…
Takumi took a deep breath, and walked across the cafeteria. He dropped the glass on a table before stopping in front of a seated Eito. From this height, he leaned down, and cupped Eito’s face close, eyes locked to his.
Eito winced and tried to pull away, but Takumi kept him in place. He poured over every familiar part of the Eito he saw now, thinking back to the Eito he knew then (not here, all the way back, back, back) before he moved away, Eito scratching at the spot Takumi touched on his cheek.
“…Yeah. It’s not…” Takumi shook his head, and bereft of a normal follow-up to the gesture, his mind wandered to a question he wanted to ask for so long: “What do you think about…your world’s Shizuhara?”
Eito’s cheek turned red. Not from embarrassment, but from the clawing and scratching he’d done to the spot Takumi touched. Yet Takumi asked about Hiruko. And, as he thought, Eito betrayed a mix of emotions as he picked his words and put on a smile before reading from his half-assed script.
“She’s a complete nuisance who dragged me into this situation. Forcing me to be around someone who killed me, though I’m sure she’d complain if I did the opposite. Such a selfish person. Only thinking of herself.”
Speak for yourself. Takumi sighed and leaned against the door to the cafeteria. “So she pushed you into coming along with her? But why you?”
The implication hung between them: who would willingly choose to be around Eito Aotsuki? As if amused by this, Eito laughed.
“Because,” he said, “she had no other choice. I planned to kill her, you know, when she let her guard down.”
Takumi jolted as if Eito tried to stab him then and there.
“What!?” He looked back to the door, feet burning and itching to run and warn Hiruko, don’t ally with some psycho who’s trying to—
“Don’t give me that look,” Eito said, chiding. For some reason. “She already knows. She figured it out before we arrived here.”
…
Takumi didn’t do anything, but Eito seemed so displeased. Though Takumi felt the same, for an entirely different reason.
“Your Shizuhara’s weird,” Takumi said, more of a grumble than words. The Hiruko he knew would cut open Eito and leave him to die if he tried anything against her, much less an attempt on her life so blatant she’d notice. Maybe something bad happened in their world, and she was desperate?…Even still.
No. He couldn’t puzzle it out. She stayed an enigma, and it wasn’t like the Hiruko in this world understood the thought patterns of herself across the universe. Takumi wouldn’t want to interrogate her over this anyways.
“She has her reasons,” Eito said, voice so quiet Takumi thought he imagined it. “Not…good reasons, but I…”
Takumi wondered.
He couldn’t understand Eito, and honestly, couldn’t understand the Hiruko that’d come to visit either.
But he wanted to wonder.
As stupid as it felt. As contradictory as it seemed to the very foundational choice Takumi picked to get to this point, he wanted the chance to wonder. About Eito’s thoughts, about his choices.
Takumi closed his eyes, only for someone to shove him.
“You’re standing in the way, you know,” Eito said, before he tore the door open and left, Takumi rubbing his now bruised shoulder and devoid of the desire to learn anything about Eito anymore.
“You’re leaving tonight, right?”
Takumi caught Eito on the roof, tucked away in a corner with his eyes fixed on the sky above. The rate in which disgust replaced tranquility the moment he registered the other man’s presence left Takumi almost, almost impressed.
“I’ll finally be free from your disgusting, guilt-ridden, murderous existence, yes,” Eito said. Takumi scrunched his nose.
“Okay,” he said. “Asshole. Maybe I just…nevermind.”
Takumi turned to leave, eliciting a laugh from Eito. “Giving up so easily? Our Team Leader seems incapable of having a spine no matter the t—world.”
“Shut up!” Takumi yelled. “Fine, just—seriously, shut up and listen for once.”
Eito smiled, the picture of innocence. Innocent my ass.
“Listen,” he began, and stopped. The patches of gray clouds in the sky usually called for rain—or so he remembered from a book Nozomi showed him some of once. He felt bad…no matter how hard he tried, he never finished more than a few pages on his own. Maybe if it had more pictures, it would’ve kept his attention. “I…said I was sorry.”
“Multiple times,” Eito said and stuck a finger in the air. Then two—three. “If the guilt hurts you so much, you could always kneel and drive a knife into your stomach. I promise I’ll forgive your wretched, writhing corpse.”
“Not what I had in mind,” Takumi said, and continued to speak before Eito thought to get another word in, “I just wanted to tell you something.”
Takumi took a deep breath.
“I…never got to know you,” Takumi said.
The breeze blew between them, gentle, comforting, sharp, cold. “The real you,” Takumi said, “I mean. I think I did, but I don’t know. I don’t understand you—I wish I—I mean, I thought I did.”
Eito’s smile fell.
“You’re leaving.” Takumi kicked the ground, refusing to make eye contact. “So I’ll never understand you now. I’m sure the Takumi you know will have to get used to dealing with you again, but if you two ever come back…or if there’s anything you want before you go, I figured I owe you something.”
“I—” Eito said, only for Takumi to put his hands up, face red.
“A normal favor! Like, I dunno, lunch?” Takumi coughed. “I meant I’d make you two something to take back—or, if you don’t want that,”
Eito frowned. “I don’t.”
“Then something else.” What the fuck? Takumi didn’t know what got into him or why everything he wanted to say came out wrong, but it made him regret working up the nerve for this. Offering Eito anything seemed like a bad idea in general, why’d he bother?
Guilt, of course. Nothing else.
Nothing he had the time to unpack, anyways.
“Come visit again,” Takumi said. “I’ll do something for you. Something small. Whatever you want.”
“Anything I want?”
“Don’t make me take it back. I’m serious.”
“…Hm. All right, Takumi. If that’s what you think will absolve you, I’ll be sure to make good on that later.”
The ‘later’ never came.
After Takumi left, he wandered about the building, as if waiting for Eito to approach him at any moment to use up the offer before it slipped through his fingers. But day passed into night, and the last time Takumi saw Eito, it was with the Hiruko from Takumi’s own world—hushed whispers between them.
Takumi caught one fragment.
“I’ll make sure he never finds out in this timeline,” Hiruko whispered. “Takumi’s been through enough.”
When Eito and the other Hiruko departed that night, Takumi followed them once everyone else went back inside. Though it took him a while to catch up, he found the pair just as they slipped into a building.
After a second of hesitation, Takumi snuck in, inching the door open and slipping inside without a sound. He kept his back pressed to the wall as he traveled, step after step until he caught wind of a conversation, peeked around to see the pair donning strange suits as they conversed.
Takumi held his breath.
“Are you sure?” Eito said. “Takumi never went to any relay base in this timeline. He may choose not to because of how much everything’s changed. Or maybe they’ll all be ambushed because they’re desperately searching for you, and that’s the doom you’ve been waiting for.”
…
“Or…urgh. We don’t know. So worry when we get back. Seeing your pouting all morning made me sick.”
“I wasn’t pouting,” Hiruko snapped.
“Almost crying, then?”
“Do you want to keep your knees intact? You have five seconds to answer.”
“…Yes.”
Takumi wanted to stop them. He wanted to know, he wanted to ask—timelines? What? What’s changed? Who’s doomed?
But by the time he worked up the nerve, a flash of light stunned him, and the harbingers of doom vanished before he so much as blinked. Takumi stared at the machine, air hot and heavy, before he turned around and trudged back to the academy.
Of course.
He never understood Eito—he never understood Hiruko. He trusted the latter, at first.
…Had Takumi made a mistake, trying to? For trusting a familiar face without anything to back it up? He held his head, dug his fingernails into the soft flesh of his skull, and ripped a chunk of hair out on the way back.
Another timeline. It made sense. A choice leading to a ripple effect—a version of himself out there making all sorts of choices. Choices that kill. Choices that change.
If so—what choices led Takumi to this timeline? To the fortune of avoiding doom?
What would it take to disrupt that?
Just one
little
choice.
He should’ve stopped them when they returned. He should’ve told Sirei to throw Hiruko and Eito out when they asked, begged for their timeline (world, something or other) to spare some fighters so they might make it through the final battle.
Speaking plainly, no one from this timeline owed them anything. The pair did nothing to help other than join a fight, do some chores and offer Sirei information about future enemies, something Takumi already provided enough of, thank you very much. When Hiruko and Eito left with their group in tow, Takumi couldn’t help himself.
He followed them again. Watched to see if either of them would turn around and cannibalize them all, or perform some other mysterious, distant, cruel deed.
So befitting.
But they left.
They only left, and Takumi let that fill him with hope, until a week passed and there seemed to be no sign of their return. While the others explored the outskirts to locate remnants of the world traveling device Hiruko and Eito mentioned, Takumi made his way to the lab the moment he had a chance.
He saw how Hiruko used the machine. It took a while, wandering through the city, but he found it on his own eventually. Blaming Eito, wondering about Hiruko—those thoughts infested him until he slipped into the building and found the machine.
The diagram on the control panel brought a headache on. He was lucky, though. Hiruko used it last, so she left it locked onto her ‘timeline’ (so he figured).
After a look around, he dug up the weird suit he saw them wearing before and put it on.
Takumi flipped the right switches. Pressed a button. The machine gave him some errors, but after an hour of repeating the process with increased desperation, it yielded for some reason, and absorbed him into a bright light.
He opened his eyes in the same room.
The same building.
The same world, so it seemed.
He threw the suit off and ran, desperate. Takumi sprinted through the ruins and to the academy, fire extinguisher stolen from the lab closet. Once he sprayed a hole through the somehow still intact Wall of Fire, he hurried through.
He registered the massive crater in the middle of the schoolyard first. Only once he trawled the quiet perimeter did he notice the mass of graves around the school entrance, still more bodies piled next to them.
Nozomi’s lifeless eyes met his.
Her decaying face, fly covered and peeling, burned into his brain. Her stiff fingers, reaching out, felt for his soul, her wide eyes, her panic, her fear, her—Nozomi, Nozomi…!
Some in Takumi broke. He didn’t know this Nozomi—but any dead Nozomi anywhere only reminded him of his failures, stoked the embers of a terrible desperation.
Takumi ran to her side, held her in his arms, noticing the bodies of his friends lying close by.
Dead. Of course. Of course.
The cause seemed similar among all of them. Large cut wounds, some from a bigger sword. Others from the claws and fists of the monstrous invaders.
So much blood—so much death. If Takumi knew it’d be this dangerous…
Did Hiruko and Eito know?
The entrance hall door opened. Takumi’s breath hitched, and he ran to hide as two people walked out.
“…” Hiruko said nothing, going for Nozomi’s body. She seemed confused as she lifted it up and inspected it.
“Are the dead coming back to life?” Eito said, and she shook her head.
“It’s nothing.” She put Nozomi down like she didn’t matter. “I must’ve misremembered.”
“What a shame,” he said, “didn’t you mention the dead coming back to life, once?”
“I read about it somewhere, in another timeline.”
Another timeline. Again.
“But I don’t have the energy to go through that one again,” Hiruko said. “Just come and make yourself useful.”
Eito sighed and went for a shovel planted in the ground some distance away. As he scanned the area, looking for a decent place to start digging not already crowded with corpses and tombstones, he spoke.
“Do you feel guilty?” he said. “Their deaths are on your hands. And those extras you brought in—I noticed you put those ones all on the front line. Even if you only intentionally sacrificed Eva, I’m sure you expected at least some of them to die.”
“Of course I did,” she said, gaze fixed to the ground. Of course she did. “Of course…if Takumi were alive, I would’ve had him handle it. “
Hiruko looked to one of the tombstones. “That idiot. Instead, he left the cold, cruel assistant leader in charge.”
“Biggest mistake of his life,” Eito said.
“But what’s done is done.” Hiruko shook her head. “There’s no undoing the failure of two timelines due to my choices.
“…I don’t know if I feel guilty. Disappointed, maybe?”
Maybe.
Maybe.
Takumi didn’t know what he saw in Hiruko’s eyes. But if he had to put something to words…
Deep, cold apathy. Numbness. If she had always known the reaches of time, then she must’ve seen nothing in them from the very beginning.
“I wonder what I’d think if I knew as much as you did,” Eito said, and Hiruko stayed silent.
Takumi dug his fingernails into his arm. Enough to draw blood. Finally he reached into his pocket, hand resting on his infuser as the two dug pits and buried bodies. He wanted, for the second time in his life, to kill another human. To tear Hiruko apart, fixated on the distant face of a Nozomi he never knew and the husks of his friends Hiruko threw to the doom she created.
He thought back to the Hiruko in his timeline, what she said to Eito, and stayed still until the pair went back inside.
Forget the favor. Forget the promise.
Those two disgusting, empty things doomed his world for their benefit. If he had to become just as hollow inside to take his revenge, then he’d do whatever it took.
Takumi made his way back to the lab and looked the machine over. Those two still lived after the fight with V’exhness they mentioned before they left. That means one of them must’ve absorbed her cryptoglobin. Not to mention everyone else other than Nozomi becoming husks.
To challenge them, he’d need power. And luckily, with this machine, he had all the power one could wish for across time and space.
All he needed…
Was some patience.
Side to side, forwards, backwards.
He’d figure it out eventually. Raiding the lab one last time for a suit and the supplies he needed, he pulled the right switches, pressed a button, and disappeared.
“Takumi,” Eito whispered, in a dream, “I think I know what I want now.”
Takumi stared at him. “Took you long enough. If it’s something weird, I’m taking back the offer.”
“Have some faith! Why would I pick something I know you’d say no to?”
“…”
“Oh fine, fine. I’ll get it over with, for your sake.” In a quick motion, Eito pulled Takumi close.
Something soft and warm touched Takumi’s forehead—a little peck, before Eito pulled back and put a hand over his mouth, nauseated.
“There. Over before you know it, just for you.”
“What are you two doing?”
Eito and Takumi turned around, to where Hiruko watched. Her usual cold exterior diminished in exchange for a knowing, teasing smile.
“Pretend I’m not here,” she said. “Go on.”
Takumi jumped, putting as much distance between him and Eito as possible. “Hey, don’t go walking in and acting like we’re a—! I didn’t decide this!”
“So you offered him a favor without thinking of the ramifications?” Hiruko laughed, hand to her mouth in a poor attempt to cover it up. “Classic Sumino.”
Eito nodded. “Classic Takumi!”
The two laughed at Takumi’s misery, all while the flustered boy tried and failed to defend himself.
All while…
When Takumi opened his eyes, he pulled his blade out of the third Hiruko he’d murdered. Another one who needed to pay—but she didn’t need to be worried. He’d find the Eito from here, too, so she wouldn’t die lonely.
If she even deserved that much.