The forest roared with silence. Not a single crow cawed, not a single breeze stirred. Akaza's body flickered through the trees like a phantom, muscles twitching with rage. Each step he took cracked the earth beneath him.
His thoughts were a hurricane.
"He dared to insult me…"
"That brat. That Slayer…"
He slammed his fist into a tree, reducing it to splinters. Bark and blood flew. The remnants of the sun still crept low behind the mountains, and yet Akaza's fury glowed brighter.
"He was human," Akaza growled, the memory of Rengoku's unyielding flame clawing at his pride. "He should've fallen. Like all the rest."
But even in his wrath… something stirred.
A strange stillness overcame him. The trees around him dimmed, faded, melted into soft white. The demon's breathing slowed. His fingers trembled.
And then—
A voice.
Soft, sweet, and unmistakable.
"…is this what you've become… Hakuji?"
Akaza's eyes widened. His name. The one no one had spoken since he became a demon. The name that belonged to someone human.
There, beneath a pale tree that didn't belong to this world, stood a girl. Her hair was tied the way he remembered. A flower pin gently swayed in the breeze. Her smile—soft, sad—pierced deeper than any blade.
"Koyuki…"
His dead lover, her spirit untouched by time. She stepped closer, and with her presence, the world twisted further into memory.
"You once said you'd grow stronger… to protect. To heal, not harm. Do you still remember why?"
Akaza staggered backward.
"This… this is a trick…"
Her eyes didn't change. "Then why do you look so broken now, Hakuji?"
The forest around them dissolved into memories of his human life—his dojo, the laughter of students, the warmth of her hand in his. He saw again the graves. The poison. The moment everything fell into ruin.
And then he saw himself, now, standing in that same ruin, drenched in another's blood.
"You've become strong, yes… But do you know why you swing your fists anymore?" Koyuki asked.
Akaza's fist clenched. "I fight for strength! Strength is all that matters! The weak perish—like we did back then."
She gazed at him with such sorrow it made the wind weep. "No. We died because hatred found us. Not because we were weak."
The silence after her words was heavy. It was not pain that stilled him—it was the ghost of love.
Then, slowly, the vision faded. The white forest bled into the shadows of the real one. Koyuki's final whisper hung in the air:
"I hope, one day… you'll stop running from your pain."
Akaza stood alone again. But not unchanged.
He didn't speak. He didn't roar. He just looked at his hands.
And for the first time in centuries…
They trembled.