The Void of Souls

Chapter Three: Our Scattered Souls

The city was sinking into quiet chaos. The extinguished lights in the distant neighborhoods looked like lifeless eyes staring blankly at the cloud-filled sky. It was as if something had gone rotten in the air. Silence seeped into the shattered streets as Yuki's footsteps echoed against the rain-slicked rooftops.

As she moved, her eyes never left Kazuya, who still stood motionless in the alley, his hands gripping the gun tightly. He was struggling to make sense of what had just happened. Saika's words had struck him more deeply than he had expected. He couldn't process everything at once, but one thing had become clear: he was no longer himself.

"You can't escape yourself, Kazuya." Yuki's voice drew closer, heavy with the weight of her words. There was something reproachful in her tone, as if she were preparing to pass judgment.

Kazuya looked at her, his eyes clouded with confusion. "Why are you here?" he asked, trying to steady himself, as though everything around him had become fog. He recalled something about the Justice Group, about all the ideologies Yuki held to—justice, righteousness, idealism. But now, he saw her through different eyes, as if her beliefs were shrouded in a dark haze.

"You know why I'm here, Kazuya," Yuki replied as she walked toward him with an odd confidence. "You're part of something bigger, and we're here to stop it before it spirals completely out of control."

"Do you think killing them will stop it?" Kazuya asked, his voice heavy and bitter. "Do you think killing will change anything in this world?" It was clear that Kazuya was trying to escape himself, to escape the feeling that everything had lost its meaning.

"The only force that can pull us out of this darkness is justice, Kazuya," Yuki said firmly, before adding in a softer voice, "But I think justice has abandoned you."

Kazuya understood what she meant. He, too, had been searching for justice, but he sought it elsewhere—in killing, in taking, in destroying. But he had no idea why or for what purpose. The justice he had been chasing was nothing more than an illusion, and he was starting to realize it.

"You seem lost too," Kazuya finally said, raising his head to meet her gaze. "No one knows what it really means to have a soul. And no one understands what it means to lose one."

Yuki was about to respond when Saika interrupted.

"Don't waste your time with her, Yuki," Saika said calmly, as if he were watching a drama unfold on stage. "You think you have the answers to everything, but every answer sways in the void, just like everything else."

Kazuya turned to Saika, who now stood before them, his expression calm and unbothered. His words carried a weight far beyond the simple tension between them, as if he were describing something grander than their fight or shared understanding.

"Each of you holds a piece of the truth," Saika continued, his gaze cold yet filled with a deep sadness. "But neither of you can see the full picture."

Kazuya felt the weight of Saika's words. It was as if Saika held the essence of existence in his hands, watching them as mere players on the stage of life. And yet, at the same time, Kazuya felt something else—something creeping in slowly. He realized he was a part of the game Saika was talking about.

"You still don't understand, Kazuya," Saika said, breaking the silence. "The battle between us isn't an external one. It's an internal struggle. We take souls because we're searching for something. But what we fail to realize is that we're only reflecting the pain we don't know how to let go of. We exchange our broken souls, hoping to heal."

"Healing?" Kazuya whispered, his throat dry. "But the more I kill, the deeper I feel myself sinking."

"That's because you can't kill pain," Saika replied, his voice calm and indifferent. "Pain is what keeps us alive. When we try to rid ourselves of it, we end up killing ourselves instead. In the end, we've all traveled too far into the void. Do you think this is the solution?"

Suddenly, Kazuya felt something strange. It was as if everything around him began to dissolve, and reality became murky. He felt like his soul was on the verge of vanishing, the air around him thick and suffocating. Saika's words echoed in his mind, a haunting reverberation of a truth Kazuya had been running from all his life.

"I'm not part of the game... I am the game," Kazuya whispered, looking down at his hands as if they no longer belonged to him.

But before he could process those thoughts, the ground began to tremble. Yuki felt it too, her eyes darting toward Saika, who stood still at the center of the sudden quake.

"The void is coming," Saika finally said, his voice unsteady.

And then, the sky erupted in dark, violent colors, as if tearing itself apart at last.

"The void can't be defeated," Saika said. "But we can choose how we face it."

And with that, he vanished.