Kazuki Arata died in the rain.

  The knife was small. The kind you'd see in a kitchen drawer, not the kind meant to take a life. But it pierced deep—through muscle, then bone, until the cold spread across his ribs like spilled ink.

  The boy he pushed out of the way was screaming, but Arata couldn't hear him. The blood pounding in his ears was louder than any voice.

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  So this is it, he thought. Not on a battlefield. Not in war. Just a back alley. Just a thief.

  How fitting.

  He collapsed onto the wet pavement, the world blurring as streetlights smeared into distant stars. His hands, once steady with game controllers and mock war maps, trembled.

  You studied a thousand wars, the voice in his head mocked. And still… you lost your own.

  He laughed. Or maybe choked.

  And then—

  Darkness.