Three Hours Earlier – Riku's Apartment
A quiet ticking clock.
Tick....
Tick...
Tick...
Yuki sat on the couch, legs crossed, a cup of untouched tea in her hand.
The place was spotless. Books neatly stacked. Curtains swayed gently in the late evening breeze.
But Yuki wasn't paying attention to any of it.
She was staring at the front door.
Waiting.
Waiting.
She checked the time again. Then again. Her brow twitched.
"He said he was just going to school," she murmured. "So why isn't he back yet?"
Her finger tapped against the armrest—once. Twice. The sound was soft, methodical.
Then she stood.
Walked to the window. Looked out. The street was quiet.
Yuki's expression didn't change. But her eyes sharpened.
Something was wrong.
Something subtle. A pressure in the air. A tug at the edge of her thoughts.
She placed the teacup down with a clink, sharper than it needed to be.
Then, without a word, she flew towards Sazanami University.
The gates creaked as Yuki drifted past them, silent as moonlight.
The campus was too quiet.
No late-night cramming students. No professors leaving offices.Only the rustle of leaves and the echo of something... off.
She paused midair.
The wind shifted.
From the east wing—Screaming.
"LEFT! LEFT!"
Yuki's head turned sharply "That voice- Riku"
She rushes in through the halls, around the corner and then she saw it.
A mass of black. Not a creature. Not even a shadow. A distortion.
Like the world itself was glitching.
The walls around it bent.The lights flickered.And in its wake—black sludge hissing against the floor, burning away reality like acid.
Yuki hovered just outside its awareness.
Her fingers flexed.
The air shimmered around her.
The thing paused. Twitched.
She raised one hand.Palm glowing faintly, like starlight behind frost.
And with a flick—
Boom.
A ripple of force erupted, invisible but deafening.The creature reeled back like it had been punched in the face by nothing.
The orb shuddered.Twitched.
Then the creature hissed—a sound like a thousand voices gasping all at once—and fled.
Snapped backward like a tape in rewind.One moment it was there.The next—gone.Sucked into the cracks between walls, into whatever pit it had crawled from.
Just silence now.
Dust settled in the wake of its retreat.
Yuki lowered her hand.
No expression. No breath. Just stillness.
And then she turned—walking now, not floating.
Toward the sound of a slamming door.A classroom.
She opened it.
And found them.
Present Time - Sazanami University
Riku.Eyes wide in disbelief.
Tetsuya and Hana—already crumpled to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.
Yuki stepped in.
"Why are you still here?! You were supposed to be home hours ago!"
Her voice cracked the silence like thunder in a cathedral.