One thing that started everything

Chapter 7: Mizuki

The room swallowed me in an instant. The darkness was suffocating, pressing in from all sides, a dense shroud that choked the light out the facility. I should have anticipated it—should have known the second the doors slammed shut and the lights flickered like dying stars that we were being lured into a trap. Yet here I was, trapped in the swirling nightmare conjured by the Nocturnalis Imps. Anger burned in my veins, hotter than any flame.

I clenched my fists, the muscles in my jaw tightening as my teeth ground together. I wasn't scared, not of these shadows or the tricks they pulled from their twisted arsenal. No, fear was a weakness I refused to entertain. But the seething rage that coursed through me? That was different. It ignited something sharp and feral in my chest. My heart beat a cold, methodical rhythm—rage fueling a level of focus that bordered on terrifying.

The room shifted around me, dark tendrils creeping up from the ground, coiling around my ankles like serpents. Whispers slithered through the darkness, teasing, prodding at the edges of my mind. My midnight blue hair, tipped in ghostly white, fell in front of my eyes as I jerked my head to the side, eyes narrowing. One dark and cold as a stor-clouded sea; the other a piercing, unnatural violently that glowed like an ember.

"You think you can trap me?" I hissed, my voice cutting through the room like the blades I longed to wield.

The shadows responded, writhing, twisting, forming grotesque shapes that mocked human figures. Their jagged grins and glowing red eyes, one diamond-shaped and the other a mechanical ring of light, gleamed with cruel intent. I could feel their laughter, see the way the Lantern of Deception on their tails glowed, casting a hypnotic, sickly light that would send anyone else spiraling into confusion and terror.

But not me. Never me.

Anger flared in my eyes, my brow knitting into a sharp line. The whispers grew louder, the tendrils climbing higher, snaking around my waist, squeezing, suffocating. My body reacted, muscles tensing as a flicker of instinctive fear threatened to surface. But I crushed it beneath the weight of my fury. My eyes blazed, and the shadows seemed to recoil for just an instant.

"I know what you're doing," I said, low and venomous, each word like a stone dropped into a still pond. The whispers faltered. I took a step forward, ripping one leg free from the shadow's grasp, the movement deliberate, powerful.

The Imps froze. For a moment, it felt as if the air itself was holding its breath. My presence was a storm, contained and ready to unleash. The Imps, with their unnaturally sharp features and flickering tails, hesitated. They knew. They felt it—the shift in power, the realization that their nightmare, their trap, was nothing compared to the dark, suffocating aura that pulsed from me.

My hair swayed as I moved, the white-tinted ends catching the dim glow of their lanterns. I locked my gaze with the nearest shadowy figure, my eyes glistening with a deadly promise. Anger twisted my features into something fierce, my brow furrowed and lips parted, the snarl deepening.

"You picked the wrong target," I growled. My voice was cold, stripped of everything but the simmering fury beneath it. The shadow creatures shuddered as though struck. Their confidence waned, their eyes darting, assessing, reconsidering.

I straightened, casting off the last remnants of their spectral chains. The room itself seemed to crack under the pressure of my will, shadows stuttering and collapsing back into the corners they came from. The whispers stopped, suffocated by the aura radiating from my body. It wasn't a power that held them at bay—it was a pure, undiluted presence. The aura of someone who had stood against worse and walked away.

The last of the nightmare peeled away, revealing the cold, sterile room of the facility. The Imps retreated, slipping back into the dark with their lanterns dimmed and heads bowed, conceding defeat without so much as a whisper. The silence that followed was deafening.

I felt the residual anger in my veins, a burning ember that wouldn't go out. My eyes swept across the room, landing on Katsuaki, who stood amidst the flickering shadows, unmoved and unreadable as always. His dark green hair, braided neatly, framed his pale, emotionless face. He looked like he had been standing there for hours, unfazed by the chaos that had just unraveled around us.

Impressive.

My rage that twisted my features softened, the line of my brow easing as I regained control. My aura calmed, the storm within me receding like the tide. The tightness of my jaw loosened, and I took a slow, deliberate breath before allowing my expression to smooth into the mask I wore so well. Cold, detached, unreadable.

"You're one powerful guy," I said, the words slipping out in a voice as even as my expression. His head tilted ever so slightly, a flicker of acknowledgement before his gaze returned to the still shadows.

We weren't done, not by a long shot. But for now, the Imps knew where they stood. And they would think twice before trying to trap me again.