The word "mother" struck her chest like a whip.Aisha pressed the handkerchief to her eyes before Rasen could notice the tears—but he was already there: a silhouette woven from the mist of her memories, reaching out with a hand that promised calm.
"What do you gain from this?" she whispered, her eyes locked on his like a challenge.The click of high heels cut through the tension.
"Murderer!" Estrella stormed forward, poison dripping from every syllable. "Where is the body?"
Aisha clenched her fists. She wouldn't cry. Not again.A warm hand closed around hers.
"Let's go," Rasen murmured, pulling her away.When he turned to Estrella, his gaze sent her retreating into the shadows.
"Disappear."
The girls ran. Aisha tried to pull her hand back, but Rasen held it for one beat too long.
Days later, in front of the school, he stopped her—measuring every word."I'm no saint, Aisha. But your battles... they're mine now."He hugged her without asking. And she collapsed into his chest, breathing for the first time in years an air that didn't smell like ashes.
That night, at the mall, ice cream melted between her fingers.Its artificial sweetness clashed with the cold pit in her stomach.
Between the glass displays, a blond man spun a Victorian pocket watch.The golden chain shimmered with a familiar violet glow."Stefan..." Aisha whispered, as the red moon from her nightmares devoured the world.A thunderous crash. Shattering glass.
Aisha fell backwards. The marble floor mixed with the iron scent of her blood.Amid the debris, the tick-tock of the watch matched the rhythm of her breath.
"Aisha!" Rasen roared, running to her.
The blond man was gone. Only the echo of his laughter remained—and the symbol S.S.V. carved into the air in trails of violet smoke.
Part III: Secret
The pale hospital light framed Aisha's silhouette in shadow, her breath in sync with the ticking monitor.Rasen watched each flicker of the machine like a countdown.The scent of antiseptic couldn't mask the bergamot and iron that clung to him—a reminder that his world no longer belonged to the living.
"Don't go," Aisha whispered, her nails digging into the sheet.It wasn't a plea—it was a challenge.
Rasen took her hand without asking.His calloused fingers brushed the IV line, and for a moment, the violet glow of the relic beneath his shirt lit up the room.Aisha squinted: in the worn photo inside the pendant, a girl with braids played under an old oak tree. Herself—years before the red night erased everything.
"I'll take you far from here," he said, following her gaze to the window."To a place even ghosts can't reach."
In the fogged glass, Rasen's reflection blended with Sanathiel's: two silhouettes, two beasts, one fate woven in violet scars.Aisha turned her face away, but he gently gripped her wrist—like someone used to taming snakes.
"Why?" she asked, feeling his pulse echoing through the relic. "I'm not your burden."
Rasen smiled—that half-contained smile that promised storms."You're the bullet that'll kill my demons."
A thunderclap rattled the windows.Aisha tried to pull back, but he slid his thumb across her bandaged scar, stopping where the skin flared violet.
"Tell me his name," he demanded, the relic burning against his chest."The one who carved this sin into your skin."
The monitor spiked. In the hallway, a nurse hummed Clair de Lune.Aisha squeezed her eyes shut: that same melody had echoed through her nursery the night Stefan appeared by her cradle.
"It's… an illusion," she lied.But Rasen tasted the truth in her sweat.
Even if she denied it, her skin still remembered the cold brush of Stefan's fingers… the way he whispered her name like it already belonged to him.
He leaned in, his lips brushing her scar as he made a vow."Illusions burn in fire."
Aisha gasped.In her mind, Sanathiel howled behind the bars of memory—Stefan's pocket watch gleaming with the same violet glow as Rasen's marks.
But this wasn't just memory.
A chill crawled down her spine as the air thickened, smothering.The IV bag trembled with a faint click.She felt it—an invisible pressure on her chest, as if cold fingers slid along her collarbone.It couldn't be him. Not now.
The shadow on the window stretched, warped—something neither beast nor man.
"He wants me dead!" she spat, venom and fear blending in her voice.
Rasen gripped the relic so tightly the chain bit into his neck, drawing blood.
"You'll die," he whispered against her skin,"when I breathe my last breath. And I still have air left to burn worlds."
Outside, the storm tore a wire from the building.
The spark it cast lit up three circles etched into the window frame—brief as nightmare laughter.