#aib ann

The evening air was cool, salty from the sea breeze; the sky was fading from rose to deep indigo, stars beginning to blink awake. The boardwalk was quiet, lamps casting gold halos across the planks. Ryōhei Arisu walked beside you, shoulders relaxed, hands loosely swinging between you two, though he carried a small package hidden behind his back.

You had both agreed—no gifts. No gestures. Just time together. After everything, you said, you didn’t need anything more. Simple, honest. But when you’d picked this date night, just the two of you escaping the old chaos, he’d smiled like you were the only safety he’d ever known.

You stopped at a bench overlooking the water. The waves slapped and whispered, and Arisu let out a deep breath, turning to you with that spark behind his eyes. “I got something for you,” he said.

Your heart tightened. “Ryōhei, we said no gifts,” you said, voice flat—just a little edge to it.

He frowned, regret flickering. “I know. But I saw it, and I thought of you. I couldn’t help myself.”

You crossed your arms, tugging your lips into a pout. “Well… now I feel bad. I didn’t get you anything.”

The words came softer, laced with an almost childlike plaint, and you sat—patting the bench beside you. “And you know… I don’t want to break our rule,” you added, voice even softer, in a babyish lilt that made your heart ache with its vulnerability.

Arisu’s expression melted. He sat, handed you the carefully wrapped box. “I hope you like it,” he said, voice low.

Then pulled out his phone. “Wait…” He paused, pressing record. “If… if one day we ever broke up—even though I really hope we never do—we could watch this video. Like a post-credits scene. So we’d always remember tonight.”

You looked at him, flustered, heart doing that stuttering kind of thing where you want to snap at him, be mad, but instead you feel warm. “Imagine,” you said, surprising both of you, “we would play this at our wedding.”

He blinked. The phone paused half-recorded. Then his grin spread, bright and a little astonished. “Woah,” he said, voice thick with joy. “This is even better!”

Your cheeks warmed. “So now you’ll have me talking in baby voice forever, caught on camera.”

Arisu laughed, that low, gentle sound. He reached for your hand. “Absolutely. And the gift?” he asked. “Do you want to open it now?”

You nod almost too quickly. He hands it to you, fingers brushing your palm. You unwrap it: a locket, silver, with a tiny engraving—two clasped hands, one masculine, one feminine, though abstract, on the front; inside, a small photograph of you both, smiling, taken earlier that day, sitting on the beach eating ice cream when you laughed so hard saltwater stained your shirt.

You lift it, touched speechless. “Arisu…” The baby voice slips out again, soft and trembly. “It’s beautiful.”

He takes it gently, closes your fingers around it. “You deserve it,” he says. “All of this.”

You look out at the ocean, breathing in. “I wish…” you say. “That I’d thought of something for you too.”

He shakes his head. “You being here is enough.”

You pout louder. “That’s cruel,” you tease. “You always win.”

Arisu laughs, and then leans forward, pressing a light kiss to your forehead. “Maybe I’ll let you win sometimes,” he says. “But only if you want to.”

The video recording is still active; you catch the red dot in the corner of his screen. He turns it off, sliding the phone away.

The night continues: you walk under lamp glows, sharing stories, planning maybe to move somewhere quiet together, maybe travel—nothing extravagant, just together.

♡

The scene shifts in your mind. The lights dim but there’s soft music playing; you’re dressed in white, delicate lace, veil fluttering. Arisu stands across the aisle, his suit pristine, eyes shining like he’s seeing you for the first time. It’s your wedding day.

You pause at the edge of the aisle. All eyes on you, but you see only him.

The officiant speaks something, but time seems to slow. He holds out his hand; you take it. He smiles that shy but determined smile. Your heart fills so much it’s like it might burst.

Arisu’s voice is warm when he says, “I take you, in front of everyone, to be my partner, my best friend, my love. I promise, always to listen, to laugh, to cry with you, and to never stop making memories—post-credits scenes and all.”

You smile, tears in your eyes. You reply, voice clear, steady: “And I promise to always pout when I need to, to speak baby-voice when I want, to challenge you, to cherish you. To walk this world with you, forever.”

The crowd smiles. He slips the locket onto a chain and around your neck—Arisu’s gift, your symbol. It rests over your heart. It feels heavy and light at once.

When you exchange rings, your fingers brush. He squeezes yours, sharing laughter and tears. You lean into his arms when the kiss is given, the applause rises like waves around you.

Later, at the reception, lights dim, and someone cues the video projector. The screen flickers. Arisu’s voice appears—recorded in that very moment, on the boardwalk.

“If… if one day we ever broke up—even though I really hope we never do—we could watch this video. Like a post-credits scene. So we’d always remember tonight.”

You watch yourself pout, in baby voice, saying you feel bad for not getting him anything. You watch him smiling, confessing how much you mean to him.

You see yourselves; you see all that love, all those tender foolish moments. The room laughs and coos. Arisu turns to you, catches your eye in the audience. His face flushes. Yours too. You lean close and whisper, “Told you it’d be better at the wedding.”

He laughs, and kisses your hand. You feel that moment deep, knowing that yes, no matter what stories life writes, you’ll have this. The broken rules and gifts and video and wedding tape.

And when the screen fades to black, the guests cheer. You turn to Arisu. He bows theatrically, “May I?” he mutters. You nod, laughing, tears still on your cheeks.

You dance, arms around each other, swaying to music. Outside, stars wheel overhead. Inside, love hums, steady, certain.

In that moment, you know: this was always meant to be one more story together. One more post-credits scene in a life you get to write side by side.

Thank you for reading!

Ann

Ann's alarm went off before the sun rose. By the time most of the city was still yawning into life, she had already brewed coffee, packed school lunches, and checked over three case files spread neatly on the kitchen counter.

The uniform never wrinkled. Her notes were always color-coded. Her badge sat in the same spot on the hallway table, next to her keys and the small, battered lanyard her youngest, Yuki, had made her from craft beads: #1 Mama in rainbow letters.

She wore it under her blazer like a secret.

"Brush your hair, not your face," she called from the kitchen, half-joking, as she heard the thump of small feet and the sleepy whine of protest.

"Mamaaaa, it is brushed!"

Yuki stumbled into the kitchen, hair a wild mess anyway. Ann crouched beside her, gently smoothing it down with a practiced hand, fingers fast but gentle.

"Good effort. Let's aim for 70% less chaos next time."

Yuki giggled. "That's not how percentages work."

Ann smirked. "Says the seven-year-old who put juice in the rice cooker."

"That was one time!"

Riku was more complicated. At sixteen, he had started asking questions Ann couldn't always answer, or wouldn't. He wanted to know what her job really entailed. Why she came home some nights with bruises, or with silence wrapped around her like a second skin.

"You always say you're 'fine.' That's your answer for everything."

"Because I am fine," she replied calmly, spooning miso soup into a bowl.

"You can't lie to me. I'm not a kid anymore."

She paused, then finally looked up. "Exactly. You're not. So I need you to hold the line while I'm gone. Keep your sister calm. Keep the house steady."

Riku hated that. That she made it sound like he was her second-in-command instead of just her son. But deep down, he understood. Because she never lied about why she worked so hard.

"You don't have to save the world, you know," he said once, bitter.

Ann had answered softly, "But someone has to make sure it doesn't eat people like you alive."

Detective work wasn't a job you left at the station. It followed you home, in blood on your cuffs, in suspects' eyes that haunted your dreams, in the constant state of readiness. But Ann had rules. Hard ones.

No work calls after dinner.

No discussing active cases around the kids.

One family day every Sunday. No exceptions.

It wasn't always perfect. She missed a school play once and didn't forgive herself for days. But she made up for it with a late-night picnic on the rooftop, showing Yuki how to spot constellations through her old detective binoculars.

Riku got into a fight at school once. Ann didn't yell. She just sat across from him at the dining table and said, "If you're going to fight, at least make sure it's for the right reasons."

Then she handed him an ice pack like it was the most natural thing in the world.

At night, after the kids were asleep, Ann would sometimes sit at the window and look out at the city. Her expression unreadable. She never told anyone how thin the wire she walked felt, between being a protector at work and a nurturer at home.

She worried. About Riku growing up too fast. About Yuki being too soft for a hard world. About whether she was doing enough, or doing it right, or if one day a case would go wrong and she wouldn't come home.

But still, every morning, she made breakfast. Every night, she tucked Yuki in with a quiet "Good night, firecracker" and left Riku's door slightly ajar, just in case he ever wanted to talk.

They were her why. Her anchor.

And even when her body was exhausted and her mind cluttered with case notes and security reports, Ann never let that line blur. At work, she was Detective Rizuna. At home, she was just Mama.

It was a sunny Tuesday.

Riku was meeting his friends after school. Yuki forgot her bag and had to come back for it, which made them all late. Ann had been called in to brief a task force about an active case, and her hands were shaking, not from nerves, but from too little sleep.

She kissed them both goodbye as she dropped them off at school.

"Love you," Yuki mumbled sleepily.

Ann paused. She rarely said it back, not because she didn't feel it, but because she felt it so intensely it sometimes caught in her throat. But this time, she made herself say it.

"I love you too. Both of you."

Then she turned and walked towards Shibuya.

Neon signs flickered even in the daylight. People swarmed across the crosswalk like schools of fish. Ann moved through it all with her usual controlled grace, already running a mental list of her day: case updates, paperwork, one suspect interview she wasn't looking forward to.

She reached the base of the scramble crossing and waited, eyes scanning traffic, people, rhythm.

That's when it happened.

Three guys bolted past her, nearly crashing into her shoulder.

One of them shouted something back to the others and laughed. They disappeared into the station in a blur of limbs and adrenaline.

Ann exhaled, slightly amused. The crossing light flicked green. She stepped forward with the crowd.

Then—

A thunderclap.

No—not thunder. Something brighter. Louder.

The sky exploded in light, even though there was no festival, no warning.

Ann looked up.

Her lips parted slightly as the impossible firework bloomed across the sky.

Kuina

Kuina hadn't planned on being a mother.

She hadn't planned on waking up in a hospital bed with a bleeding temple, a splitting headache, and an inexplicable sense of déjà vu. She didn't remember what happened. No one really did. Just that a meteor had struck Tokyo.

When the news broke, the numbers were staggering. Countless dead, even more injured.

All Kuina knew was her friend, Aya, didn't make it. She found out after waking up, Aya had listed her as the emergency contact.

She had two kids. No partner. No extended family willing to step in. They were just names in a file now—Haruto (7) and Mina (16)—until Kuina showed up at the child services office with a half-torn photograph and said, "I'm not leaving them."

Kuina's place was barely big enough for one person, let alone three. A converted one-bedroom tucked above the boutique where she worked, with paper-thin walls and a stubborn heater. Still, it became a home faster than she expected.

The kids didn't cry much.

That scared her more than if they had.

Mina was sharp-edged and quiet, folding laundry like a soldier and keeping her little brother fed with automatic precision. Haruto clung to Kuina the first night like she was the last solid thing in the world.

She didn't know how to parent. She still felt like she was holding herself together with duct tape and muscle memory. But she knew how to fight, and that was enough, for now.

Her days began at 6:30.

Breakfast was an improvised affair, instant miso soup, rice from the night before, eggs if she hadn't forgotten to buy them. She burned toast constantly. Haruto liked jelly on everything. Mina didn't eat much.

Kuina walked them both to school, even when it meant being late to work. She'd adjusted her shifts at the boutique, talked her manager into flexibility, traded weekends with coworkers who still lived with their parents.

She wore lipstick again. Something Aya had always insisted made her look "too strong to ignore."

When Haruto asked if she'd always been a mom, Kuina just ruffled his hair and said, "Only recently."

He laughed. "You're kind of a cool one."

Homework. Dishes. Laundry. One fight about screen time. One apology note from Mina, written in sharp kanji on a sticky note. Haruto fell asleep early most nights, tucked under a blanket Kuina had half-knit during a quiet month last winter.

She sat on the floor some nights with a glass of cheap wine, her back against the wall, staring at the ceiling like it might offer her instructions.

But they were alive. That was enough.

She never said no when the kids needed something. Mina wanted to join the art club. Haruto asked for swimming lessons. Kuina made it happen, one shift at a time, one bent yen at a time.

When Mina finally cried, weeks in, quietly, in the dark, Kuina didn't try to fix it. She just sat beside her on the mattress and let the silence settle.

"You don't have to be strong," she whispered. "That's my job."

Kuina wasn't soft, but she was steady.

She gave them what she didn't have growing up, consistency, space to feel, the freedom to ask questions without judgment.

She taught Mina how to throw a punch. Taught Haruto how to tie a proper knot and how to stand up for himself without hitting first. On Sundays, they visited the park near the river. Kuina never missed a school event, even when she had to run to get there halfway through.

She was tired. God, she was always tired.

But for the first time, she didn't want to run. Didn't want to disappear or vanish into someone else's idea of who she should be.

They needed her.

And maybe, in some strange way, she needed them too.

One night, as she tucked Haruto in, he asked her, "Do you think my mom would be happy we're with you?"

Kuina hesitated.

She brushed a hand through his hair, just like Aya used to. "Yeah. I think she'd be really proud of you. And…I think she trusted me."

He nodded, eyes fluttering shut.

"Do you miss her?"

Kuina stared at the ceiling for a long moment, the air thick with grief that hadn't gone anywhere, it had just reshaped itself into something she could carry.

"Every day," she whispered. "But I've got you now."

And as she turned off the light and stepped out into the hallway, she realized something she hadn't quite admitted to herself:

She had found a reason to keep going.

Even if she never remembered what happened in that lost, broken space where time stopped, this was her second chance.

And she wasn't going to waste it.

Mira

To most of the Borderland, Mira was untouchable.

She was mythic, a ghost in lace gloves, watching people gamble their lives with a smile just a beat too long to be sincere. But behind the silk curtains of her villa, hidden from the death games and smoke, Mira lived with her two children.

Kai (17), tall, curious, and cerebral, with a sharp tongue and a voice always just on the edge of questioning authority. And Rina (8), small and eerily perceptive, who couldn't remember the old world anymore, only the Borderlands, but she never seemed afraid of it.

They had been part of the Borderland, citizens, like her. After being brought there long ago and surviving their round—thanks to their mother who did everything to ensure they lived—they chose to stay. Far from the cruelty of the real world, they remained in a place they could shape and mold to their will.

Not many knew Mira had children. Fewer believed it when they heard. She didn't parade them. Didn't treat them as extensions of herself. But she taught them, carefully and methodically.

The house was vast but never cluttered. Rina liked to play in the garden, among the roses Mira had dyed to an unnatural crimson. Kai spent his days in the library, reading philosophical texts and game theory books that Mira had collected.

Dinner was never skipped, and always elegant. No matter how many games were being played outside, Mira insisted on two meals together each day.

"Ritual keeps the mind intact," she would say, slicing into her food with surgical precision. "Especially in a place where rules bend."

The children asked questions. Constantly.

"Mama," Rina asked once, legs swinging from her chair, "why do people cry when they lose the games?"

Mira tilted her head, considering. "Because loss is inconvenient. But mostly… it makes them feel alive."

Kai would scoff. "You talk like emotions are toys."

Mira smiled, eyes sharp. "Aren't they?"

Mira didn't scold. She didn't threaten. But her silence was heavy and when she looked at you too long, it was like she peeled the skin off your thoughts.

Yet she was never cruel to her children. In fact, she was careful with them, in a way that bordered on reverence. She read them poetry. Taught them the constellations, even though the sky in the Borderland was slightly wrong. She showed Rina how to play chess by age five. By age eight, Rina was beating guests Mira brought to the estate, even Kuzuryu didn't stand a chance against the girl.

Kai hated games at first, said they were tools for the weak to feel clever. Until he realized they were also weapons. Then he became obsessed.

"You're raising us like little versions of yourself," he accused her once, arms crossed. "Forcing us to play."

Mira only chuckled. "I'm raising you to survive."

He never questioned that again.

Rina was rarely allowed to leave. Mira said the world was "loud" for children like her, not scary, not dangerous, just unrefined. But Kai was older. Stronger. She sent him to watch games sometimes. Not to participate, not yet, but to observe, take notes, watch people unravel.

"How do they react when they realize the rules were never fair?" Mira asked after he watched his first game through the monitors.

Kai had answered, "They look for someone to blame. Or someone to follow."

Mira had simply smiled. "That's when you know you've won."

Despite all her cold logic and twisted playfulness, Mira did love her children deeply. But it was love on her terms.

She didn't say "I love you." She said, "You are mine." She didn't comfort. She prepared. She didn't protect. She trained.

In her own way, she believed this was love at its highest form: shaping them into minds that could outlast anyone else's. Teaching them to dance through lies and half-truths. To recognize illusion for what it was. To master emotion rather than drown in it.

But sometimes, when Rina fell asleep curled against her shoulder, or when Kai asked questions that reminded her of things she'd tried to forget, Mira would pause.

She would brush a hand over Rina's hair.

She would whisper, "You don't have to win every game. Just the ones that matter."

The Borderland would not last forever. Mira knew that. Things shifted here—slowly, like tectonic plates. The system reformed itself, as if searching for new challengers, new meanings.

But whether this world collapsed or evolved again, Mira's children would endure.

They were not meant to escape. They were meant to rule. Or at the very least, remain untouched by its chaos.

She was raising more than heirs. She was raising witnesses. Mirrors of her own warped grace. Citizens who would one day decide whether this world should burn or be reborn.

Aguni

Aguni had always been a man of order.

The house wasn't spotless, far from it, but it ran on structure: shoes by the door, dishes done after meals, lights out by 10. Not because he enjoyed control for its own sake, but because it helped him breathe. Structure left less room for chaos. And chaos, he'd learned, was rarely merciful.

His sons—Riku, seventeen, brooding and sharp-eyed, and Souta, eight, endlessly curious—kept him grounded. Kept him honest. They were his reason for every early shift, every tight-lipped apology for missing a school play, every aching muscle and unopened bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cupboard.

He wasn't soft. He wasn't poetic. But he showed up. That had to count for something.

Riku reminded Aguni too much of himself, especially on the worst days.

Angry at the world, constantly questioning authority, testing every line just to feel like he had control over something. Aguni didn't meet fire with fire. He met it with stone.

"You want to act like a man?" Aguni said once, after Riku stormed in with bruised knuckles from a schoolyard fight. "Then carry the consequences like one. No hiding. No blaming."

"Yeah?" Riku shot back. "And what about you? You bury everything and call it strength."

Aguni didn't argue. He just handed his son a cold pack and said, "Use this. And next time, keep your hands up."

They didn't say "I love you" often. But they never needed to.

Souta was different. Bright-eyed and soft-voiced, he still believed people were good. That monsters only lived in storybooks. Aguni protected that belief like it was something sacred.

They played catch in the tiny park across the street. Built Gundam models on weekends. Aguni wasn't great at small talk, but Souta never cared. He just liked being close to his dad, even in silence.

"Do you ever get scared at work?" Souta asked one night, curled against his side on the couch.

Aguni ran a hand through his son's hair. "Yeah. But I do it anyway."

"That's what brave means, right?"

Aguni nodded, voice low. "That's exactly what it means."

There were nights when the house felt too heavy. Memories of the war. The loss of comrades. The pressure of fatherhood pressing down like armor he couldn't take off. On those nights, Takeru Danma would show up, no warning.

"Got ramen," Takeru would announce at the door, bags in hand. "And beer. The good kind. You look like hell."

Aguni would grunt something about work. Takeru would wave him off and go play a card game with Souta while Riku sulked in his room pretending not to listen.

"You're doing good," Takeru said one night after the boys went to bed. "Better than you think."

"I don't feel like it."

"You're not supposed to. That's how I know you're serious about it."

Takeru never stayed the night, but his timing was perfect. Always just when Aguni was about to break. Always when he needed someone to remind him that showing up, even wounded, was enough.

Once a year, Aguni took both boys to the cemetery. The boys' mother had died not long after Souta was born, an illness that came fast and took faster.

Riku barely remembered her. Souta not at all.

Aguni never spoke much at her grave. But he'd set flowers down, fold his arms, and close his eyes.

And every time, without fail, he'd whisper: "I'm doing my best."

And when they walked home, both boys were quieter. As if they understood what couldn't be said aloud.

Niragi

Niragi never imagined he'd be a father. He wasn't the type. Didn't want to be the type.

He was living in a cramped third-floor apartment that smelled like wet concrete and leftover smoke. He worked part-time at some warehouse, burning his hands on rusted metal, flipping off his manager in his head. The rest of the time, he went to college in his first year, studying game engineering. He had plans, maybe. Big ones, vague ones. Mostly, he was angry. At the world. At himself. At people who made his school years hell.

And then there was a knock.

He opened the door and there she was: Mika.

His ex.

They hadn't spoken since the screaming match in her kitchen over a year ago, the one where she told him he was broken, and he told her she didn't know what real damage looked like.

Now she stood there holding a baby in a gray blanket. Her hands were trembling.

"This is yours," she said, and handed the child over.

He didn't speak for a full ten seconds.

"You're not serious," he finally said.

Mika laughed, hollow, exhausted. "I can't do this, Niragi. I never wanted this. I thought I could fake it. But I can't."

"You think I can?"

"No," she said. "But I think you'll try. Which is more than I can promise."

And then she was gone.

Just like that.

Gone down the rusted stairwell, into the rain, leaving Niragi holding a human being he didn't even know how to look at.

The baby was a boy. Five months old. Quiet at first. Then not quiet.

Niragi had no idea what to do. No money. No formula. No crib. He panicked, cursed the world, punched the wall, then Googled everything he could in the corner store while buying cheap diapers and instant noodles.

The kid's name was Aoi.

He thought about giving him back. Dropping him off at a shelter. Leaving him with someone who actually had a chance at not screwing it up.

But then Aoi got sick one night, feverish, breathing weird. Niragi wrapped him in a hoodie, bolted into the street, flagged down a cab with wild eyes and no wallet. He sat in the ER with a bloody lip from stress-biting it too hard, holding a tiny, flushed face against his shoulder.

That night broke something open in him.

He didn't know if it was love, or fear, or guilt, or all three twisted together like barbed wire.

But he didn't leave after that.

Not once.

Niragi wasn't a soft dad.

He cursed under his breath while changing diapers. Forgot wipes and used tissues. Dropped spoons on the floor, then picked them up and shrugged. "You'll live."

He snapped at other parents in the park who stared at his piercings. Once, when a stranger asked, "Is that your nephew?" Niragi responded, "No, he's my parole officer."

He didn't read bedtime stories. But he told Aoi stories from his own life, rough ones, full of fights and kids who were assholes. He didn't sugarcoat things. But somehow, Aoi still clung to every word like they were fairy tales.

And the kid? He adored him.

He'd giggle when Niragi made dumb faces. Reach for his necklace. Fall asleep wrapped in one of Niragi's black hoodies.

Sometimes Niragi stared at him sleeping and whispered, "You don't get it, do you? You're the only person who doesn't look at me like I'm dirt."

By the time Aoi turned seven, Niragi had more routine in his life than he ever thought possible.

He managed to finish his study (he isn't even sure how he did it) and worked as a game engineer. It was a good job, enough to keep food on the table and heat in the apartment. He learned how to cook eggs exactly how Aoi liked them. Kept a list of school events taped to the fridge, though he pretended to hate them.

"I'm not clapping for some dumb song," he muttered once before Aoi's music performance. (He clapped the loudest in the front row.)

He still snapped. Still had bad days. Still struggled with the darkness in his own head. The rage, the trauma, the voices from school hallways.

But every time he looked at his son, something pulled him back.

Aoi had fallen asleep on the couch, hugging his favorite plushie, some half-ripped thing Niragi had won in a claw machine years ago.

Niragi sat beside him, a cigarette half-lit but untouched between his fingers.

He stared at the city lights through the window. His face was tired. His hands were rough.

He never wanted to be a father.

But he was a damn good one, in his own broken, lopsided way.

He leaned back, exhaled, and muttered, "You're gonna be better than me, kid. Smarter. Kinder. I'll make sure of it."

He didn't know it would be the last night before he disappeared.

Before the Borderland.

Before fire and blood and cruelty rose like a second sun.

But for that one final night, Niragi wasn't a villain. He wasn't a fighter. Or a freak. Or a ghost.

He was just a father. Trying. Failing. Loving. And somehow… keeping it together.

Last Boss

Last Boss never expected to raise a daughter.

But then again, he'd never expected anything from life. It gave him darkness, and he gave it back. Hina was the one thing he never asked for, and yet, the only thing that made him want to stay alive.

Her mother left before Hina could walk. He never talked about it. Never needed to. All that mattered was that she stayed, bright-eyed and brave, even when the world didn't deserve her.

The day the sky turned white and the fireworks ripped across Tokyo, he'd been holding her hand. One second they were at a train station. The next, the streets were empty. And death had rules now.

Games. Cards. Survival.

And a child in tow.

They played their first game together, a brutal round of tag with bullets. He carried her in his arms, running through deadly corridors, shielding her with his body. When it was over, he was bruised. But they were alive.

Last Boss didn't trust the world anymore. He never had.

So he found an abandoned apartment in the shadow of the city, third floor, narrow stairwell, busted door. He barricaded it with scrap metal, nailed in tight. Hina painted a crude cat face on the front with charcoal.

"Now it looks like home," she said. He almost smiled.

Every time he returned, he brought something: cans of food, water, old books, sometimes soft toys pulled from the wreckage of empty stores. He made her promise to stay quiet. Taught her how to listen through the walls. How to recognize footsteps that weren't his.

"Rule One," he told her, crouched beside her tiny bedroll. "Never open the door for anyone. Not even me. Not unless I knock three times."

She nodded. "Three knocks."

He touched her cheek, his calloused fingers barely brushing skin. "Good girl."

He didn't trust the Beach.

Too many smiles. Too much talk of freedom while knives were hidden behind backs.

So Last Boss volunteered for more games than necessary. Most players thought he was reckless. Suicidal. Creepy. A man with nothing to lose.

That was exactly what he wanted them to believe.

Because when he played alone, no one followed him back. When he played alone, he could bring her, extend her visa. No witnesses. No danger to her through other Beach members.

Sometimes, when his executive status allowed it, he'd slip away under the cover of dusk. Make the long walk through crumbling alleys, stepping over wires and ash, until he reached her door.

Three knocks.

And then a tiny voice: "Daddy?"

When she opened the door, he let the mask fall. His shoulders dropped. The blade at his hip stayed in its sheath. He stepped inside and ruffled her messy hair.

At first, she had been scared of his new appearance, but she quickly got used to it. Said he looked cool now.

"Still safe?" he asked.

"Still safe," she grinned.

With others, Last Boss was a blade. Cold, fast, precise.

But with Hina, he became something else. Quiet. Gentle. Focused. The scarred man who barely spoke would sit for hours helping her draw with burnt pencils. He'd listen to her hum made-up songs. He'd hold her when nightmares came.

She never saw him kill. He never spoke of blood.

But once, after he returned late and sat washing his hands at the sink, she asked, "Are you sad?"

He didn't answer.

She crawled into his lap anyway and whispered, "You don't have to be scary when you're here."

And he wasn't. Not with her.

It happened after a brutal Spades game. Last Boss was limping, blood drying on his sleeve, but still carrying Hina, when a voice called behind him.

"Need help walking?"

Aguni.

Last Boss stiffened. His hand twitched near his blade. But Hina tugged his hand, looking at him with her big eyes.

Aguni saw her. Said nothing for a long moment.

Then, quietly: "She yours?"

Last Boss gave a slow nod.

"I won't tell. But you shouldn't do this alone."

He waited for the rejection. The blade. Anything. Instead, Aguni reached into his bag and handed the girl a wrapped protein bar.

"Name's Aguni," he told her.

"Hina," she replied with a smile.

From that day forward, Last Boss wasn't the only one protecting her.

Aguni brought supplies. Cleared out dangerous nearby buildings. He never treated her like a burden. Only as something precious.

Last Boss never said thank you. But Aguni understood.

At the Beach, Last Boss remained the knife in the dark. Cold-eyed, always watching. His sword glinted under the Beach's neon lights. He whispered threats when needed. Executed them when necessary.

People feared him.

Which is exactly what he wanted, because fear kept them away. Kept them from following when he left the Beach for a "supply run".

And anyone who saw him with Hina? Didn't see anything ever again.

And when he slipped away, through the shifting ruins of the Borderland, to a door with a cat face drawn in charcoal…

He became Takatora Samura again.

He knocked three times.

And waited to hear his daughter say, "Daddy?"

And for that brief moment, in a world of death and games and cruelty— he lived.

Chishiya

He hadn't wanted a child.

Not as a teenager. Not with a girl he had known for just under a year, whose laughter annoyed him as much as it intrigued him. She was vibrant. She wanted to feel everything.

When she told him she was pregnant, he didn't yell. Didn't even flinch. Just stood still, hands in the pockets of his coat.

"I'm keeping it," she said, braver than him in that moment.

He nodded.

That was all.

The delivery was early. Sudden. Violent.

He was there. Not because he wanted to be, but because she called his name just before being wheeled into surgery.

She didn't wake up.

And then there was Souta.

This tiny, wrinkled, squalling thing wrapped in pale green blankets. A hospital ID tag around his ankle. A pulse and lungs and his mother's eyes.

Chishiya stood over the incubator and stared. No emotion showed on his face.

Inside, something cracked quietly, but he ignored it.

He always did.

He was twenty now.

An intern with a white coat far too big for his narrow frame, eyes sharp as glass. His reputation at the hospital was already growing: brilliant, cold, unshakable.

At home, in their cramped Tokyo apartment, he was something else.

Still quiet. Still emotionally guarded.

But there was a routine.

He'd wake before the sun, set out a bento box with plain rice and pickled plums, Souta liked the sour taste. He'd leave him notes on post-its: "Eat this." "TV off after one episode." "Don't open the door."

Then he'd disappear into long hours of rounds and sleepless emergency shifts.

Sometimes, he came home and found Souta asleep on the couch, crayon marks on his cheek, cartoons paused mid-frame.

Sometimes, the boy waited up, kicking his legs at the table, eyes droopy.

"You look tired," he'd say.

Chishiya would glance at himself in the hallway mirror, then shrug. "So do you."

He wasn't warm.

He didn't ruffle hair or throw his child into the air or bake smiley-face pancakes.

But he was present. Always. Quietly. Reliably. The lights worked. The meals appeared. The medicine was precise and timely.

He taught Souta to read by taping difficult words to furniture. He taught him to fold clothes with geometric precision. He taught him chess at four, and never once let him win.

"You'll learn more this way," he said.

And he did.

Souta fell asleep in his hospital coat once, curled up in the waiting room chair.

Chishiya walked past, paused, and doubled back. Draped a blanket over him. Kept walking.

Another time, Souta got sick with a fever. For two days, Chishiya barely left the apartment. He sat by the bed, measuring temperature every hour, cooling him with damp cloths, counting heartbeats with two fingers on the wrist.

"Am I gonna die?" Souta mumbled once, delirious.

"No," Chishiya answered simply. "You're mine. I wouldn't allow it."

He didn't call himself "Dad" and Souta never pushed it.

Sometimes it was "Chishi." Sometimes just "Hey."

But the bond was there, in the silences, the rituals, the absolute certainty that if Souta cried in the night, someone would always come.

He didn't tell stories. Didn't sing lullabies.

But when Souta asked, "Why don't you smile?" Chishiya paused.

Then said: "I'm saving it."

"For what?"

He looked down at him, something flickering faintly behind those calculating eyes.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out."

The call came just after noon.

Chishiya had been elbow-deep in a case study, fluorescent lights humming overhead, his colleague talking too much about an appendectomy.

Then his phone buzzed once. Souta's school.

He answered with a clipped, "Chishiya."

A woman's voice, quick and tight: "—just wanted to inform you, there's been an accident—"

That's all he heard.

Accident.

The next second, the line crackled. Static swallowed the rest of her sentence, and he didn't wait for it to clear.

He was already moving. Phone shoved into his coat pocket.

"Someone cover for me," he told the room.

"Wait, what—"

But the door was already swinging shut behind him.

He didn't remember the train ride. Didn't remember dodging through the school gates. Didn't remember his own heartbeat until he was standing in the nurse's office, hands clenched at his sides.

And there was Souta, swinging his feet at the edge of the cot, holding an icepack to his head.

"…You didn't answer the rest of the call," the teacher said, quietly. "He just slipped running in the hall. Hit his head. He's completely fine. It's just a bump."

Chishiya didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the kid.

Souta looked up. "You look pale."

"You look stupid," Chishiya replied, dryly.

But his knees buckled just a little when he sat beside him.

Chishiya took the rest of the day off.

They got ice cream, even though it was barely 10°C. He let Souta pick the flavor. Even the toppings.

He followed him to the bookstore and bought him three full volumes of the weird detective manga he liked, even though Chishiya personally thought the plot holes were unforgivable.

They walked home slowly, the city glowing around them, his hand brushing the back of Souta's coat every few seconds, as if afraid he'd vanish.

That night he tucked him in quietly.

Souta rolled over, face half-buried in his pillow, a faded bandaid on the side of his head. "You were freaking out," he said, voice muffled.

"I don't freak out."

"You so freaked out."

Silence.

Then, Chishiya leaned down. One hand smoothed the boy's hair. The other brushed over the tiny bump.

And then, just for a second, he kissed it.

Soft. Careful. Like it might undo something only he could see.

As he pulled away, Souta blinked up at him. "You smiled."

Chishiya didn't deny it. He just sat on the edge of the bed a little longer, shadows under his eyes, his voice quieter than usual.

"…Don't run in the halls."

And Souta didn't say it out loud, but he understood.

That kiss wasn't for the bump.

It was for the terror Chishiya couldn't put into words.

The kind that stays in your chest long after the danger is gone. The kind you only feel when you realize: without them, the whole world could stop.

Usagi and Arisu

Time had passed. Quietly. Kindly, even.

It was hard to say when life began to feel normal again, when the horrors of the meteor strike stopped haunting every dream, when Tokyo's sky stopped looking like the last thing you'd ever see.

But one day, it did.

And now, Arisu and Usagi lived in a sunlit apartment near the edges of Inokashira Park, with laundry that dried on the balcony and tiny shoes that littered the genkan.

Their twin boys, Karube and Chota, were seven.

Arisu and Usagi were the kind of parents who read every label twice before packing lunch. Who walked their kids to school even if it made them late. Who made it to every school play, even the ones where their sons had two lines and forgot them both.

Arisu was softer. He worried more. The past never let him relax completely. Even now, a scraped knee made his breath catch. He hovered sometimes, gently and anxiously, until Usagi gave him a look, and he exhaled and backed off.

He was patient, though. The kind of father who'd sit for an hour explaining how bugs hibernate or why the moon changes shape, even if only one of the twins was still listening by the end.

Usagi, on the other hand, was steady. Calm. She could silence a tantrum with one raised eyebrow. But her discipline was always firm, never harsh. When she spoke, the boys listened, not out of fear, but respect.

She taught them to climb trees. To pack a backpack. To check knots twice.

Sometimes, when the city was too much, they'd take weekend trips to the mountains. And when the boys asked why she was so good at hiking, she'd just shrug.

"I used to do it with my dad."

That was all.

They never told the boys the full story of their names.

Not yet.

But sometimes, Arisu would catch himself staring at them—Karube with his wild confidence and scraped elbows, Chota with his thoughtful eyes and too-big heart—and his chest would ache.

The names weren't just in memory.

They were a promise. That those who were lost wouldn't be forgotten.

Mornings were chaotic. Someone always lost a shoe. Someone always put jam on the wrong side of the toast.

But laughter echoed often in their kitchen. The boys teased each other, Usagi dodged yogurt being flung at her shirt, and Arisu usually burned the eggs.

Evenings were quieter.

Homework. Stories. A small piano no one could play very well. The occasional argument over bedtime.

And every now and then, the boys would ask questions that made Arisu freeze.

"Did you ever have friends before you met Mama?"

"Were you ever scared as a kid?"

Usagi would always reach for his hand beneath the table when that happened. Anchor him. Let him breathe through it.

And Arisu would nod, smile, and answer honestly.

"Yeah," he'd say. "But I wasn't alone."

A school play.

Karube was the tree. Chota was the moon.

It was a hilariously uncoordinated production, paper stars falling off the ceiling, a rabbit who forgot every line.

But Arisu had tears in his eyes the whole time.

Because they were there.

Alive.

Whole.

His sons were onstage, laughing and proud, and his hand was in Usagi's, warm and steady.

He didn't need to look over to know she was smiling, too.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't without struggles.

But it was perfect.

Every scraped knee was worth bandaging. Every question worth answering. Every hug, no matter how rushed or sticky, was given without hesitation.

Because they knew what it meant to lose everything.

And so they gave their sons everything they could. Love. Stability. A childhood untouched by terror.

They didn't speak much of the past.

But sometimes, when the twins were asleep, Arisu would rest his head on Usagi's shoulder and whisper, "We did it, didn't we?"

And she'd answer, "Yeah. We did."