The day bled into itself, slow and unremarkable, time dripping instead of flowing. Akame sat by the window, chin propped against her hand, watching cherry blossom petals dance outside. They swirled without direction, caught in the breeze, as if searching for something.
Her mind was elsewhere, distant, sinking into the gentle rustling of leaves and the white noise of muffled classroom chatter. The sunlight filtered through the glass, warm and drowsy against her cheek. Her breath slowed. Her body relaxed into the stillness.
Then—the world blurred.
The colors outside melted together, watercolors bleeding into one another.
A flicker of movement.
At the courtyard's edge, where there should have been no one, stood Yuta—or something wearing his shape. Tall, lean, dark-eyed and sharp, filled with urgency. But atop his head, twitching in the wind, were a pair of white rabbit ears. A fluffy tail peeked from behind his coat, absurdly out of place against his usual practical attire. In his hand, a pocket watch, its cracked glass reflecting shifting images instead of numbers. He checked it once, twice, then looked up—
Straight at her.
"We're late."
Akame blinked.
And the world shifted.
The classroom was gone. The weight of her chair, the murmurs of her classmates—all vanished. The glass window that had once separated her from the outside was now behind her, the warmth of the sun replaced by open air. She was standing on the other side. As if she had slipped through the pane of glass without a sound.
A slow, creeping unease curled around her spine. A question formed on her tongue—
"Wait, Mister Rabbit!"
Yuta moved.
He turned on his heel and ran, his coat flaring behind him like the echo of a storm. His rabbit ears twitched, and without looking back, he reached out and caught her wrist.
"We have to go. Now."
The words barely registered before the world beneath them shifted, and Akame was running before she understood why.
The alleyways swallowed them whole, winding and endless. The deeper they went, the more the town changed. Familiar streets twisted into impossible paths, each turn leading to another, narrower than the last. The buildings—crooked, leaning, windows like vacant eyes. This was her uncle's town, but warped, reshaped, as if a nightmare had taken its bones and made something grotesque.
The air thickened.
Dark tendrils of smoke slithered across the walls, curling toward them like living shadows. They stretched, reached, hunted.
Akame's breath hitched. "What is that?!"
"Not something we let catch us." Yuta yanked her forward. His grip was firm, his expression eerily composed. "Keep running."
The alley narrowed—a dead end.
Akame turned, pulse hammering, the shadows like tendrils of inky smoky inched closer. Then, just as the darkness closed in, a door appeared.
Not in the way doors should.
A moment ago, there had been nothing—only brick, solid and unyielding—but now, as if it had always existed, an arched wooden door with golden hinges stood before them. It glowed faintly, the edges humming with something alive.
The handle turned.
The door cracked open.
A sliver of violet eyes and a too-wide grin peeked through.
YOU ARE READING
SUB ROSA | Wind Breaker
Fanfiction❝ She was like light slipping through the cracks-out of place, yet impossible to ignore.❞ Akame finds herself in a world that was never meant for her, a quiet contrast to Furin's chaos. But in a place that challenges her at every turn, she begins to...
