Chapter 193: A new World?
He didn’t realize he’d stepped forward until the edge of the platform caught the tip of his boot.
For one wild second, he considered it—just jumping down. Making sense of this himself.
But he stopped.
Instead, he stared. At the broken form below. At the blade that never swung. At the idiot who chose death over dominance.
Vincent dragged a breath through his nose and closed his eyes, holding it.
Then let it out slowly.
"I should’ve been the one to kill him."
Junjio’s knees pressed into the platform, his small frame trembling violently as he knelt among the Shard Users, the liminal realm’s pale light casting a long, warped shadow behind him. His fingers clenched at the fabric of his tattered uniform, twisting it tighter and tighter into a knot over his chest, like he could stop himself from falling apart if he just held on hard enough. The air around him buzzed with static and grief, but he couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel anything but the pressure caving in around his ribs. He couldn’t breathe.
The others sat in silence, the weight of the moment hanging over them like fog. But Junjio—he couldn’t sit still. His body rocked forward, forehead pressing into the cold, unreal surface of the platform, his breath sharp, shallow, erratic. The scene below never left his vision—Elias’s half-faded body crumpled in the dust, blood soaking the ground, Kikaru leaning over him, too stunned to cry. Too empty to speak.
And it was his fault.
He’d left Elias. He’d run. Betrayed him in the one moment that mattered. Not just turned away. Sold him out.