Desperation Doesn’t Change Destiny
Kota's face hardened.
His fist slammed into Rei’s side, the sound surreal, like glass hammered by steel.
She spat blood mid-air, vision blurring.
Before she hit the ground, he gripped her by the hair, hauling her upright like a ragdoll.
“Just. Stay. Down. Already!”
Each word punctuated by a brutal punch, face, ribs, shoulders. They rang out like a cathedral bell.
Sharp, whiplash cracks.
His Abyssal Pressure and Maho shimmered with every blow like fractured and jagged cracks in the sky.
With a devastating punch to her chin, she crashed into the dirt.
She lay still, flickering between consciousness.
Kota’s breath came heavier—not from fatigue, but from being caught off guard by her resilience.
Then—
Her finger twitched.
And Kota's eyebrow twitched in response.
Slowly,
She rose.
No balance. No technique.
Raw will dragging her bones upright.
Face swollen. Knees shaking. Eyes barely open, but a small, steady smile on her cracked lips.
“Harder... than you thought?” she whispered. “To kill a rat.”
He didn’t speak. His Maho howled, a choir of shattered glass. He stepped forward, dirt cracking, spiderwebs etching the earth.
Each step a threat. A promise.
“Looks like I’m not hitting you hard enough,” Kota muttered. His voice was calm, too calm. “You better not die, or I’ll get punished.”
Rei’s vision swam. The edges of the world bled white.
She blinked.
Once. Twice.
Trying to remember the moments that led to this. Like her mind was starting to fracture.
Her lips moved, cracked and trembling.
“If you want me to shut up…” she rasped, her eyes staring him down despite her trembling limb, “…then answer me this.”
Kota blinked once.
Kota didn’t answer.
His jaw shifted, teeth grinding once before he caught it. A faint crease appeared between his brows, then smoothed away. His eyes stayed locked on her, but the fury in them stuttered.
His hand tightened. Then tighter. The air around his fists warped as Maho surged, coiling close to the skin instead of flaring outward.
With ease he stepped in and seized her by the collar, lifting her clear off the ground. Her boots scraped uselessly.
“Clench your teeth,” he said, voice low and even. “Don’t die from this.”
His arm drew back, muscles shaking—not with effort, but restraint—pressure building, waiting to be released.
Rei's body jerked. Mind blurred, the world lagging, memories failing.
Her body shook—pain, fear, something deeper—but her voice rose, shattering the air.
“IS APPROVAL TRULY WHAT YOU’RE SEEKING, KOTA?!”
The shout cut through him.
His grip stalled. Not loosened—just… held.
The pressure in the air wavered, rippling instead of crushing.
His eyes flicked wider. Not with anger. With something unguarded. His breath caught, shallow and out of sync, like he’d missed a step he’d taken a thousand times before.
She saw it.
Felt it.
And moved.
With everything she had left—every scrap of will her body hadn’t already spent—she swung.
Awkward. Desperate.
A punch thrown from the collar of his grip, aimed straight for his eye.
For a fraction of a second, she was inside his guard. Then Kota twisted and the opening vanished.
His counter came fast—too fast to track. A sharp impact snapped her head aside, the world spinning out from under her as her body left his hand.
Sharp. Wet. Final.
She hit the ground hard. Mud swallowing the sound.
Silence, except for her breath—shallow, broken.
Her fingers twitched once in the dirt, searching for something—someone—she couldn’t name.
The silence pressed in and her thoughts frayed.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
What… was I saying? Why does it feel like I’m forgetting something?
Her vision blurred. Kota?
Was nothing but a shape.
Colorless. Violent. Inevitable.
Like something scrapping away at her memory.
Like she had to get up, but didn't know why anymore.
Then it hit her all at once—
A rush of images, blurred but bright, like embers refusing to die.
Dozai laughing through the smoke of burnt soup.
Nobu flicking pebbles at her boots, smirking when he missed.
Roi’s voice, dry, teasing, always one word away from warmth.
Kenny’s grin, chipped tooth gleaming in the sun.
Rizaru, half-asleep on her shoulder, mumbling about breakfast.
Firelight. Laughter.
Home.
"Together... We were going to escape together." she muttered, barely a breath.
Her eyes fluttered open. The world returned in fragments.
The battlefield. Blood-caked dirt.
And—there.
She saw Rizaru.
At the treeline, trembling, fists clenched and bleeding from how hard shes restraining herself to step in. Teeth dug into her lip, a thin red line of blood falling down her chin.
Her silence was a scream.
A plea to stop fighting.
But instead, Rei’s fingers dug into the dirt.
She tried—god, she tried—to pull her body up.
Inch by inch.
Breath hitched. Body shook.
Blood. Sweat. Pain.
But, Kota’s shadow fell over her.
Then his boot came down.
Hard.
CRUNCH.
A raw scream tore out of her.
Her knee folded inward. Pain lit her nerves—white, erasing thought.
He stood, face an emotionless mask.
“I don’t know how you’re still conscious… but fighting like that—”
He pressed down.
Her leg twisted, bone grinding.
A wet, final sound.
SNAP.
“…doesn’t change anything.”
But even through the weight of his words, something slipped.
A tremor.
Barely there.
A fracture.
Rei heard it, even through the agonizing pain—the faintest stutter, a crack in the tone of a boy who wanted to believe himself.
Her cry tore through the silence as he let her leg drop.
The battlefield had gone still, only the wind dared to move.
Then Kota sank to one knee.
He reached for a jagged stick, snapped a length from his sleeve, and began to wrap her legs.
Slowly. Methodically.
Like he’d done this too many times before.
The fabric darkened with blood.
He shifted, binding her other leg, movements practiced. Almost gentle.
She watched through half-lidded eyes, breath rasping and crying out in pain.
Every inhale scraped. Every exhale threatened to stop.
She searched his face.
Calm. Detached.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Kota muttered, eyes fixed on the bandage instead of her face. “If you die, I get punished. This keeps you from bleeding out.”
Her lips parted, blood threading down her chin. Each word hurt to form, but she forced them out anyway.
“Who… are you?”
Kota froze. The fabric sliding free as if his fingers had forgotten why they were holding it. His Abyssal Pressure and Maho collapsed inward, wind rushed to fill the space it left.
His jaw tightened, then loosened. His mouth opened, but the words he wanted to say wouldn't come out, so he hardened himself again.
“…Heh.”
The sound wasn’t quite a laugh, too tired, too bitter.
He dragged a hand down his face, thumb lingering at his mouth like he might bite down on something that wasn’t there.
“Did it again,” he murmured, not looking at her. “Went too far.”
The words were quiet. Careless. As if spoken into an empty room.
He tied off the bandage with one last firm pull, then stood. He looked down at her one final time, seeing her finally fall unconscious.
Then his gaze flicked upward, to the treeline. At last, he acknowledged the presence that had pressed down on them the entire time.
His shoulders squared. His jaw set. The tension around him settled, like a storm quietly receding.
“Enjoyed the show?” His voice was low, even, carrying a familiar weight. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, the bravado he wore so easily creeping back in. “At least your memories are intact, isn’t that right?”
He tilted his head, eyes glinting in the fading light. “Rizaru.”
For a long, trembling heartbeat, no one moved.
Rizaru stood rigid behind the splintered trunk of a dead tree, every muscle trembling as if she were holding herself together with sheer force of will. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts, carrying the metallic tang of blood.
Tiny distortions shimmered across her skin, like heat rippling through a desert. Mana bled outward from her in almost invisible waves, bending the light and tugging at the air around her. Even the dead tree seemed to lean slightly away, splinters quivering.
“If she dies…” she whispered through gritted teeth, her voice low but jagged, “…I’ll—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kota flicked dirt off his pants without looking at her, his grin sharp, teasing. “Come do something about it, scaredy-cat.”
Her foot shifted forward and the ground protested, dust and soil heaving into a shallow crater beneath her heel. A subtle vibration pulsed outward, barely noticeable but enough to make Kota’s hand twitch.
“You think I won’t—” Her red eyes burned, brighter than ever, a storm coiled behind them.
Kota stepped closer, unhurried. “I wanted to fight you anyway,” he said, voice thick with mock amusement. “We've got unfinished business after all.”
Rizaru’s other foot moved. Tiny fissures sprouted along the battlefield as if the world itself were reacting to her presence. Her aura bled into the air, subtle but violent, tugging at Kota’s senses.
He tilted his head slightly, a flicker of awareness passing through his grin. His own mana tingled at the edges, leaking in whispers along his arms and legs, like an alarm he couldn’t quite silence. Yet his tone remained playful, almost dismissive.
“Interesting,” Kota cut in, lifting a finger as if making a casual point. “You do have Maho, don’t you? Is that why you're pending?” His eyes swept over her, sharp and appraising. “I wonder what your Manaburst was...”
Rizaru’s body shuddered, control fraying. Power surged against her ribs, her spine, her limbs—each heartbeat a violent negotiation to keep it contained.
“Does it look like I care about your analysis right now?” she snapped. She dipped low, muscles coiling, ready to spring.
Kota barked a laugh and waved her off like an inconvenience. “Go ahead,” he said lightly. “Intervene.” His smile widened. “Master Hellick will mark this match as a forfeit. Then all you rats get punished.”
The words landed heavy and Rizaru froze.
Her stance locked mid-motion, every muscle screaming as she held herself in place. The mana around her churned harder, rippling outward in jagged distortions, cracking dust and tugging at the air.
Kota leaned closer, savoring it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, mock concern dripping from his voice. His grin sharpened. “I thought you were the wild card of the rats.”
He turned away from her, rolling his shoulders, cracking his neck once. He dropped into a low crouch, anticipation buzzing in his voice.
“I’ve got more of your friends to break,” he said. “Keep watching.”
A blur of motion.
A sudden gust of air.
Already moving towards The Heatbox, towards Roi.
Rizaru stood, empty, until her legs finally gave out.
She fell to her knees, mana fading like a dying pulse.
Tears she thought she could hold, streaked down her cheeks.
No matter how hard she bit her lip, how tight she clenched her fists...
She couldn’t stop them from falling.
She watched Rei's unconscious body...
The sound of her screams echoing in her skull.
