"There was no farewell at all. There was—disappearance"
The relationship between Rei and Kaigaku is the tragedy of two orphans whose paths diverged, though they began in the same place, from the same pain, from the same night under the stars.
Their connection was deep, alive, genuine. But it couldn't withstand the weight of their personal choices. Neither could truly save the other.
For Kaigaku, Rei was the source of both unbearable pain and idealism. She was stronger. She was loved. She coped. And even when she stood next to him, he felt himself remaining in the shadows. Envy poisoned even the love he once felt for his sister.
But he didn't want to lose her. And when she followed him from the temple that night, he was happy. It was their escape, their plot against the entire world. Only he didn't understand that Rei wasn't running from the truth. She wanted to build something. And he only wanted to save himself. At any cost.
When she became a Hashira, he broke inside. It confirmed his worst fears—that he would always be second. A nobody. And to avoid feeling that, he simply stopped thinking about her. Cut her off. Threw her away. As if she had never existed.
After becoming a demon, he didn't want to meet her. Not because he was ashamed. But because he knew her gaze would kill him more than any Nichirin Blade.
And then, as his head fell, blood sprayed in the air, time slowed, and he saw her—standing nearby, alive, terribly familiar, cold.
He wasn't afraid. He didn't smirk. He didn't clench his fists. He simply watched. Watched everything human in him fade away. And in her eyes, he saw what he couldn't allow himself to see—farewell.
He didn't say a word. And he didn't even know what it felt like to be forgiven. But her gaze was the last thing he remembered.
Rei always perceived Kaigaku as a meaning. He was a younger brother, vulnerable, irritating, stubborn, but hers. She felt responsible for him from the very day he first cried from hunger. Her faith in herself grew not only from pain, but also from the need to be strong for him. For their future.
When he suggested running away, she knew it was wrong, but... she was afraid of losing him again. And so she went. And when their paths diverged—in the Corps, in training, in decisions—she began to feel a chasm slowly growing between them.
After he disappeared, she thought he was dead. Maybe not on a mission, but vanished somewhere in the darkness, lost, broken, and died. She experienced it as a loss—the death of a part of herself. But deep down, somewhere, there was a glimmer of hope: he was alive, he would just appear one day.
But he had become a demon. She didn't know that.
And in that last second, when his head passed before her in the Infinity Fortress, as if in a dream, and their eyes met, everything inside her collapsed. It was as if the electricity had been cut.
In that gaze, she saw... not a demon. Not an enemy. Not a killer. She saw the boy who once held her hand in the rain. And then he was gone. Forever.
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