Chapter 67 - Kinoko RusubanHollow NightFrom where I stood, perched on a floating sb of concrete wreathed in thick, thorny vines, the city below looked so… insignificant. Cracked streets, shattered buildings, and stray embers flickering in the dark—the aftermath of complete and utter destruction.

  Indeed, I had made a beautiful mess of this pce. But beauty or not, time wasn’t on my side.

  “You’re crumbling!” Arthur procimed from below. His voice was steady, but his stance betrayed his frustration. He had already cleaved through a dozen of my organic servants ripped from underground, but the vines kept coming, tangling and snapping at his feet, relentless.

  “I’m going to burn you to a crisp, deceiver! I’ll wrest back control from those bloody hands of yours, finger by finger!”

  How quaint.

  “Control?” I smirked. “Horribly overrated, my friend. Necessity, however… That is something no one can escape. Not you - not me.”

  Arthur’s eyes narrowed as he continued to cw away at my offense. “Quit the theatrics, Rusuban! I’m not here to listen to your excuses.”

  “Do you honestly believe I’m doing this out of whimsy?” I asked, my voice a low murmur carried by the wind. “I wish it were that simple, truly! I wish I could be the simple, one dimensional vilin you so desperately want me to be. The monster you could righteously sy to paint yourself as this story’s hero. But you have no idea what’s really going on here, do you?”

  Arthur didn’t respond immediately. His silence betrayed his unease, but it didn’t st long. With a growl, he spotted an opening and lunged at me like a bloodthirsty bullet, his cws cutting fiery arcs through the air.

  The ptform beneath me shifted at my command, vines propelling it backward as Arthur’s strike narrowly missed, slicing through the edge of the concrete like it was paper.

  “…Do you know what the Hollow Night really is?” I continued, weaving my words into the chaos of the fight. “Why we’re here? Why you’re here?”

  Of course, Arthur didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Another wave of vines erupted from the ground around him, twisting like living ropes, their thorns glinting in the moonlight. He spun sharply, decapitating them with precision, but for every one he destroyed, three more took its pce.

  I felt I’d become quite proficient with this new ability indeed.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t know,” I said, my voice taking on a bemused tone. “After all, why would anyone bother telling you? It’s easier to keep you in the dark, to let you py your part in this little tragedy without question.”

  “Then why do you know?” Arthur barked, his voice cutting through the chaos.

  I hesitated, just for a moment, before answering. “Because I’m not like the rest of you.”

  The battle raged on, frantic and chaotic. Arthur was relentless, his strikes carving through my constructs with sheer, brute force. My vines shed at him from every direction, snapping like whips, but he was quick—too quick. He returned every blow they nded in kind, slicing through my defences and forcing me to pull back.

  At this rate, it would prove difficult to find an opening.

  The ptform beneath me shifted and lurched, carried by a mass of writhing vines that pulsed with life. It hovered just out of Arthur’s reach, moving with every swing of his arms, every lunge of his body.

  “Do you even care what happens to her?” Arthur suddenly shouted, his voice raw.

  “Her?” I repeated, almost amused.

  “Kozuki! Your partner!”

  “Ah, Kozuki,” I said, the name tasting foreign in my mouth. “Or as she prefers, Red. A fitting name, don’t you think? A bright colour for someone who’s spent so much of her life in shadow.”

  Arthur’s expression darkened. “That’s not an answer…!”

  I chuckled, low and humorless.

  “Do you want the truth? Fine. No, I don’t care about her. She’s convenient, nothing more. It’s only fitting she be under my leash—we’re bound by our pact, after all. But care? That’s a luxury I can’t afford.”

  Arthur sshed through another wave of vines, his movements growing sharper, angrier.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “On the contrary,” I said, my tone calm despite his fury. “I’m desperate.”

  “Desperate for what?” he demanded, his voice rising.

  “To complete my mission,” I said simply. “It’s far too te for myself, of course. My time is running out, and I’ve made peace with that. But there are… things I need to do before that time comes. And for that, I need power.”

  “And what exactly do you hope to achieve with this ‘power’ of yours – save for sending us all to the grave?!”

  I smiled, though admittedly, there was no joy in it.

  “Now that would only spoil the mystery, wouldn’t it?”

  Arthur’s frustration was palpable, but before he could press me further, a deafening roar tore through the night.

  Both of us froze, our gazes snapping to the source of the sound.

  In the distance, a massive, hulking figure loomed—a grotesque, nightmarish amalgamation of limbs and shadow, its form pulsating with unnatural energy. At its core, a faint silhouette could be seen, suspended like a puppet on strings.

  Liu.

  “What on earth…?” Arthur whispered, his voice barely audible.

  Even I couldn’t suppress a shiver. The sheer power radiating from the creature was staggering.

  For a moment, I felt a flicker of relief. With Liu and his… creation keeping Daisuke occupied, I had one less variable to worry about.

  But then my gaze shifted to another figure, standing at the edge of the battlefield.

  Reaper.

  My heart quickened, though I kept my composure.

  This was the moment I’d been waiting for.

  Arthur’s fists tightened as his eyes darted between the creature and me.

  “Whatever you’re pnning, it ends here, Rusuban!”

  I smirked.

  “Oh, please. Since when was I the focal point of all of this? Daisuke, Liu, Reaper... they’re all just pieces on the board. I just intend to control it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means,” I said, my tone dripping with confidence, “that while you’re busy trying to save your ‘friends’, I’ll be the one winning the game you forgot you were pying.”

  Before he could respond, the ptform beneath me surged higher, carried by the vines, as I prepared my next move. I felt another pair of eyes on me then, directing a gaze that was rather new an unfamiliar.

  I turned, just slightly, catching a glimpse of Nakamura in the distance, pursuing Reaper. He was watching me, his expression unreadable.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  Let the pieces fall where they may.

  But by the time I’d shifted my attention back to Arthur, I had no time to react to the fact that he’d shot through my defences and was much, much closer to me than I –

  The jagged heat of Arthur’s cws had almost seared through my flesh just before my vines could pull me away completely.

  “Come on…” I hissed to myself, sweat dripping from my forehead. As if waiting for the worst possible timing, another painful palpitation struck me in that moment, my heart throbbing and breath stolen away. My chest heaved as I willed the ptform beneath me to stabilize.

  “You’ve been… through worse…”

  But as Arthur leapt into the air, fire bzing across his cws, I knew that was a lie.

  He hit me harder than I expected, the force of his strike sshing across my torso. A scream ripped from my throat as blood sprayed into the air, my body twisting from the impact.

  For a fleeting moment, my mind had inexplicably drifted to that voice—the one that had whispered the truth of the Hollow Night into my ear. The one who had told me what was coming.

  “…Bring it all down, Kinoko Rusuban. You are the only one who can.”

  I clenched my teeth, forcing my vines to retaliate, but Arthur was too fast, too close. Another fiery cw raked across my side, and the pain hit me like a thundercp. He wasn’t giving me a moment to recover—his strikes came like an unrelenting storm, each one sharper, hotter, deadlier than the st.

  The next thing I knew, I was on my back, the ground cold and unforgiving beneath me. My ptform had colpsed, the vines snapping under the pressure of Arthur’s assault.

  And there he was, towering over me, fire licking at the edges of his cws. His eyes burned brighter than the fmes, filled with a rage so primal it was…almost beautiful.

  “This ends now,” he growled, his voice low and guttural.

  I stared up at him, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The pain was overwhelming, but I refused to look away. If he wanted to kill me, I would make him see me for what I truly was. Never broken.

  But hen, for just a moment, something unexpected happened.

  He hesitated.

  I saw it in his eyes, in the way his cws trembled ever so slightly. He was angry, but there was something else there—doubt. He was looking at me, really looking at me, and it was as if he somehow didn’t see a monster anymore.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  I couldn’t allow that.

  My lips parted, ready to say something, to twist that doubt into the resolved killing intent I deserved—but before I could speak, a voice cut through the tension.

  “Arthur, look out!”

  The shout came from somewhere in the distance, but its effect was immediate. Arthur’s head snapped toward the sound, his focus breaking for just a second.

  It was all the time they needed.

  The kick came out of nowhere, smming into Arthur’s stomach with a force that sent him hurtling backward. He crashed into a pile of rubble, the impact shaking the ground beneath me.

  I blinked, dazed and disoriented, my mind struggling to process what had just happened. My entire body ached, every nerve screaming in protest as I tried to sit up.

  That was when I saw it.

  A shadow fell over me, blocking out the dim light. For a moment, I thought it was Arthur, somehow recovered and ready to finish me off. But as the figure stepped closer, my breath caught in my throat.

  It was Reaper.

  Their hood concealed most of their face, but their eyes—those haunting, piercing eyes—glowed a dark green. My dark green.

  A slow, shaky smile spread across my bloodied face.

  “You’re tardy,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the sound of my own boured breathing.

  They didn’t respond. They simply extended a hand toward me, their movements eerily precise, like a puppet on invisible strings.

  For a moment, I hesitated, my gaze flicking between their outstretched hand and their glowing eyes. But then, with what little strength I had left, I reached up and grasped their hand.

  As their fingers closed around mine, a surge of energy pulsed through me. Was it… healing? It dulled the pain and slowly began to mend my wounds—but it was something else, something deeper. I could feel it in my vines, in the very core of my being.

  Arthur was getting back to his feet now, his cws igniting once more as he prepared to charge.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered, his voice thick with frustration.

  I turned to Reaper, still holding their hand, and for the first time in what felt like hours, I allowed myself to ugh.

  “Oh, Arthur,” I said, my voice a rasping mockery of its usual confidence. “You were so close. But really, you never stood a chance. Not against me – and certainly not against us.”

  Arthur’s snarl was enough to send shivers down my spine, but I didn’t care. I had Reaper now.

  With them under my thumb, there was nothing—nothing—that could stop me.

  My vines coiled around me and Reaper like a protective cocoon, shielding us from Arthur’s fiery rage.

  “This game is far from over,” I said, a sharp grin cutting across my face. “And you’re not the only one who can py with fire.”

  The battlefield fell silent for a moment, the tension thick in the air. Then, with a single, commanding gesture, I sent my vines surging forward, the fight reigniting in a chaotic amalgamation of fmes and thorns.

  Oh, how our world had become this cacophony of sheer chaos—a fitting stage indeed for what I hoped was the finale of this act. Arthur’s fiery cws were slicing through the air, Reaper’s movements were precise and haunting, and my vines danced with ferocity. The three of us weaved between each other’s blows and bound the shattered ndscape together.

  Arthur, though surely injured at this stage, was relentless, his wrath barely contained. Every move of his was sharper, hotter, and more desperate than the st, as though he believed sheer willpower could overwhelm both me and my newfound advantage.

  Junko and Nakamura’s sudden arrival at his side had somewhat tipped the scales, if only ever so slightly. I supposed Kozuki had faltered. Perhaps if it were a smarter or more heartless cohort I was dealing with, this would worry me - but I knew better.

  Even if Kozuki had fallen to Junko, she wouldn’t kill my partner. Not because she didn’t have it in her – especially considering what I’d just done – but because Junko wanted to end me on her own terms. I could see it in her eyes. Any outcome that didn’t involve her carving a hole in my chest herself wasn’t an option.

  It was almost cute.

  Still, numbers meant nothing if the pieces were pced wrong. And my pieces—ah, they were falling into pce beautifully.

  Reaper and I moved in tandem, an unspoken connection driving their strikes. The hood still concealed their face, but I could feel the weight of their EXS surging through the air, mingling with mine in perfect harmony. A pair of dark green eyes, glowing faintly under the hood, followed my every command.

  Arthur had soon been reduced to desperate lunges, his attacks growing wild as Junko and Nakamura did their best to back him up. The three of them tried to corner us, tried to force us into their traps. But they didn’t understand.

  Reaper handled them like pythings, catching their lousy attempts at strikes and tossing them away, as if she were a child throwing broken toys into the trash.

  Seeing them scramble so desperately was, for ck of a better term, deeply entertaining.

  Still, I didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice – I’d had my fun. It was time to get them out of the way already.

  “You seem distracted, mutt!” I called out, my voice lilting with mockery. “Is it Reaper? Perhaps you didn’t expect to see such a powerful force so… amenable to my cause?”

  Arthur’s cws scraped against my vines, fmes sputtering as he snarled. “Whatever you’ve done to them, Rusuban, I’m going to end it!”

  “Oh, Arthur,” I said, feigning disappointment as I brushed strands of blood-matted hair away from my face. “How can I force what they’ve so clearly chosen for themselves?”

  I turned back to my puppet, a smile slicing across my face.

  “Pytime’s over. Be a darling and kill them, would you?”

  Reaper moved before the final word had even left my lips. No hesitation, no pause, just a blur of lethal precision and killing intent. Their scythe sshed forward in a sweeping arc, carving through the air with a keening whistle. Nakamura barely threw himself out of the way, the bde missing him by the width of a hair.

  Arthur charged forward with a roar, cws igniting with fierce light as they collided with Reaper’s scythe. Sparks showered from the csh, but the outcome was clear in an instant—Arthur was no match for their sheer strength. The blow sent him rocketing backward like a comet, smming into the asphalt with a deafening crack!

  “Arthur!” Junko shouted, darting toward him, but Reaper was relentless. Their scythe came spinning back toward them, forcing Junko to dive away. Nakamura surged forward with a flurry of strikes, fists overcome with energy as he aimed at Reaper’s midsection.

  They twisted fluidly, their movements inhumanly precise, and delivered a devastating kick to his chest that sent him crumpling to the ground, gasping for breath.

  Junko’s fists then crackled with electricity too as she hurled a punch directly at Reaper’s face. The puppet didn’t even flinch, and in that moment I supposed Junko and Nakamura really did deserve each other, ha! The lightning struck Reaper head-on, but they stood tall, unshaken, and lunged toward Junko with a savage downward swing.

  “Stop hiding behind them, you spineless asshat!” Junko yelled at me, her voice trembling as she barely managed to avoid the blow with a hastily performed dive.

  “Hiding?” I echoed, letting out a delighted ugh. “Oh, no. This is what it looks like when someone stops pretending.”

  Reaper pivoted, Their scythe cutting through Junko’s weapon like paper. The force sent Junko sprawling to the ground, clutching at her shoulder as blood seeped through her suit. She scrambled backward, panic flickering in her eyes.

  Arthur staggered to his feet, his cws bzing once more, and threw himself back into the fray. “Reaper! Stop this! It’s me!” he shouted, sshing toward her with desperate ferocity.

  As, Reaper didn’t stop. They deflected his strikes with clinical precision, the scythe a blur of lethal grey. Arthur ducked, rolled, and leapt with everything he had, but Reaper was faster—faster and far stronger. A brutal backhand from the ft of their scythe sent him skidding across the battlefield, blood spraying from his mouth as he hit the ground hard.

  “Feel it yet?” I taunted, my voice slicing through the chaos. I spread my arms, vines erupting around me in a writhing, living barrier. “The threads pulling at the corners of this game? The lucky coincidences, the Noise being kept at bay that should’ve interrupted us by now? It’s all been me, idiots. I am this Hollow Night. Every step, every choice you thought was yours… I’ve been there, pruning and shaping.”

  “You’re insane!” Junko spat, struggling to her feet despite the blood soaking her sleeve. “No one can control both pnt life and living beings—it's not possible!”

  “Oh, Junko, dear,” I purred, taking a step forward as the vines surged behind me, curling toward them like eager serpents. “I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to die.”

  “Kill them all,” I commanded, my voice cold and final.

  Reaper’s glowing eyes fred brighter. They became a remarkable storm of violence after that. Their scythe sshed toward Nakamura first, and though he managed to raise a gauntlet, it shattered under the first blow. The second strike carved into his side, sending him sprawling with a cry of pain.

  Junko cut another arc of lightning, but Reaper swatted it aside effortlessly, closing the distance in a single, horrifying leap. Their scythe swept toward Junko’s neck, and the girl’s eyes widened in terror. Arthur smmed into Reaper from the side, saving Junko by a hair’s breadth, but Reaper didn’t falter. She twisted midair, driving their knee into Arthur’s ribs with enough force to send him spilling away yet again.

  “R- cough - Reaper!” Arthur gasped, dragging himself upright as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. “This isn’t you!”

  Reaper strode forward, scythe spinning. They raised the weapon high, their glowing eyes locking onto Arthur’s prone form.

  “…Please!” Arthur shouted, his voice breaking as he scrambled backward. “It’s me! It’s Arthur!”

  They didn’t stop.

  “Don’t listen to him,” I hissed, my vines curling tighter around them, practically feeding them my will. “You’re mine. Finish it. Kill him.”

  Reaper’s scythe arced downward.

  “Your art!” Arthur’s voice erupted, raw and desperate. He threw his cws aside and reached out, unarmed, unprotected.

  Time seemed to freeze as the scythe halted, mere inches from Arthur’s throat.

  “No!” I screamed, fury exploding in my chest as I felt my control slipping. “You’re mine! You belong to me!”

  Reaper’s hand trembled. The scythe wavered, and their glowing eyes flickered.

  Arthur crawled forward, his voice shaking but unwavering. He looked directly into my puppet’s eyes.

  “...I’m grateful for you. For every piece of art you’ve created, for every word we’ve shared. Even if we don’t always say it, you’re someone who matters. To me.”

  Reaper’s hand twitched. Their grip on the scythe sckened.

  “I said no!” I bellowed, my vines surging forward to reinforce my control. “Kill him! Obey me!”

  Arthur didn’t flinch, his voice rising in desperation.

  “R-Reaper isn’t some puppet! They’re the one who taught me what it means to create something beautiful, something meaningful, even in a world full of darkness like this one!”

  The vines around Reaper snapped and writhed, faltering under the weight of their hesitation. Then, with a sharp, decisive motion, they tore free of my control, severing the vines with a single swing of their scythe.

  “Don't you dare walk away from me, you useless dog!!” I roared, fury consuming me as her once glowing eyes now dimmed.

  “Reaper is...Reaper is..."

  Arthur rose shakily to his feet, his cws still lowered, and reached out a trembling hand.

  "...my best friend!”

  For a long, breathless moment, Reaper stood still, the scythe falling from their grasp.

  Then, slowly, they raised both hands and lowered their hood.

  Beneath it was a strikingly beautiful girl, her face pale and framed framed by luscious long white hair, wide eyes and an ebony ribbon billowing with the breeze. My dark green light had long since faded to reveal deep violet irises filled with tears.

  She colpsed to her knees, her shoulders shaking as the fight drained from her.

  Arthur knelt beside her, his voice soft and broken. “…Thank you for coming back, Yami-san.”

  I staggered, rage boiling within me as my grip on the battlefield slipped. “No… no, this isn’t over. This isn’t—”

  But it was. I could feel it. My connection to her was gone.

  For the second bsted time tonight, I felt that aggravating sensation creep up on me.

  Failure.