Desmond's grip closed tighter around Chiaki's neck, lifting her effortlessly into the air as if she weighed nothing. Her boots scraped against the fractured stone below before losing contact altogether, legs dangling, her frame trembling as her muscles strained for stability that wouldn't come. Her fingernails clawed at his wrist, slipping against the warmth of his glowing skin. Her breath hitched, shallow and fractured, each inhale slicing through her throat like broken glass.
Light flickered in his palm, trailing up her jawline in pulses that threatened to blind.
"Remind me," Desmond said, his voice calm and deliberate, as though her pain meant nothing, "don't you have the ability to reconstruct someone else's power through emotional proximity? Last I recall, you had your captain's ability, didn't you?"
Chiaki's eyes squinted shut as her vision blurred at the edges. Her body convulsed slightly with the effort to breathe, and when she managed to pry one eye open to meet his gaze, it was glassy but still defiant.
"So," Desmond continued with detached interest, "why not use it now?"
Chiaki's mouth parted, but all that came out was a weak rasp. She coughed, violently, blood staining her lips, her voice breaking through clenched teeth like cracked porcelain.
"Be…cause…"
She tried to speak again, but the next word caught in her throat. Her hands trembled as she forced air through crushed windpipes, pushing out each syllable like lifting a weight with her lungs.
"…it's not… mine."
Desmond's brow lifted slightly, his expression neither cruel nor kind—just clinical, watching her crumble.
"I'm… not him…" she hissed, barely audible. "If I… fight using… his strength…"
Her face twisted in pain, another cough wrenching from deep inside her, blood flecking her chin as her voice collapsed into a whisper.
"…what's… left of me…?"
Desmond's smirk widened—just faintly. His light pulsed once along his arm, dancing up to her throat like a fuse ready to ignite.
"So it's pride then," he mused, tilting his head, "or maybe the fear of becoming someone else."
Chiaki's fingers, though shaking, curled tighter around his wrist, nails pressing in deeper despite the pain. Her throat clenched, her breath burned—but she forced the words through anyway, her voice scraping like rusted metal.
"N-no… it's not… fear…"
Her eyes, bloodshot and teary, locked onto his with a final surge of determination.
"…it's the only thing I own…"
Each word hung between them like a heartbeat, trembling but defiant.
"I've been… lied to… tested on… discarded…"
She coughed again, violent, her whole body twitching.
"But my… choices…"
Another breath fought its way out.
"…are still mine."
Desmond watched her—silent now, unreadable.
Then, without a word, his grip began to tighten.
And Chiaki moved.
Her knee snapped upward, not desperate but focused, her heel crashing against the inside of his arm with enough force to jar the joint. His fingers loosened for a fraction of a second—just enough.
She dropped.
And before her feet hit the ground, she was already moving again.
Chiaki's boots barely touched the ground before she twisted into motion, her body screaming in protest as she drove a sharp side kick toward Desmond's ribs. Her heel cut through the air with precision—quick, desperate, and perfectly aimed. It connected, forcing him to shift, but he absorbed it with a grunt, staggering only slightly from the impact.
Then his head snapped back toward her, breath ragged, eyes wide with fury.
"Goddammit!" he roared, voice raw and unhinged, echoing across the fractured streets. "You're a Resonator! That's your power!"
Before Chiaki could recover her stance, Desmond vanished in a violent burst of light.
He reappeared a breath later—already in front of her, fist drawn back. A golden flare surged through his arm as he drove it forward, a straight punch laced with condensed force.
It collided squarely with her stomach.
The sound was like stone cracking under pressure. Chiaki's eyes widened, her entire body convulsing from the shock. Saliva and blood burst from her mouth in a violent spray as the air was driven from her lungs, her arms slackening from the sheer blow.
Desmond didn't pause.
He pivoted instantly, his heel glowing white-hot with radiant pressure. With one clean, brutal motion, he unleashed a kick to her midsection—direct, merciless, and bursting with kinetic force. The impact rang out like a cannon.
Chiaki was hurled backwards, her form a blur of limbs and pain. She smashed through a half-destroyed wall behind her, stone and dust erupting outward in a crashing wave as her body vanished into the debris.
The broken silence afterward was deafening. Desmond stood alone amidst the rubble-littered street, chest rising and falling, arms tensed at his sides—eyes locked on the clouded ruin where she disappeared.
Within the collapsed remains of the wall, Chiaki lay crumpled, her body half-buried under broken stone and splintered beams. Dust clung to her skin like ash, coating the cuts that traced across her arms and legs. Her back had slammed hard against the inner support of the structure, leaving her now slouched, seated with one shoulder propped limply against a slab of fractured concrete.
Her head drooped forward, strands of her dark hair falling over her face, wet with sweat and blood. She coughed weakly—once, then again—her breath hitching as crimson dripped from the corner of her lips onto her lap. One hand twitched beside her, fingers curling into the dust, as if her body was still fighting to rise even when her strength was nearly gone.
Her legs were sprawled out unevenly before her, one knee bent awkwardly, the other stretched toward the debris-strewn alley, scraped and trembling. Her chest rose and fell in jagged bursts, every inhale scraping through her throat like broken glass. Even in the haze of pain and disorientation, her eyes flickered open—narrow slits that still burned with defiance, unfocused yet unwilling to close.
She was barely conscious.
But she was still there.
Still alive.
"A... resonator…?" The word barely escaped her lips, a weak rasp carried on a breath that shook with pain. Her head tilted upward from where she sat slumped against the rubble, eyes half-lidded and hazed with exhaustion, yet still burning with something that refused to die. "I'm not... what you think…"
Blood ran down her chin as she coughed again, her shoulders curling inward slightly from the effort. Her voice cracked when she tried to speak again—each syllable like glass scraping the back of her throat.
"I'm... just a Link… a human who can… connect. That's all I ever was…"
She winced as she shifted her weight, one trembling arm planting against the broken ground beneath her. Her fingers twitched, struggling to hold steady, knuckles scraped and bleeding.
"A... resonator's the one who's meant to fight. Someone built for it… Not me…"
Her breath hitched again. She swallowed hard, but it barely cleared her throat.
"I don't… want power that isn't mine," she said, voice raw and unsteady. "Even if it… could save me... it wouldn't be me winning. It'd just be... a shadow... of someone else's will."
Her head dipped, hair falling over one bloodstained eye, but her words grew firmer—though still broken with fatigue.
"I'd rather... lose like this… than win by turning into something I never asked to be…"
She coughed again, a wet sound this time, blood flecking the back of her hand. Yet even then, she forced herself to speak.
"I'm not… a resonator."
Her eyes rose to Desmond's, sharp and defiant despite the weakness in her frame.
"The hell are you saying?!" Desmond's voice cracked through the dust-choked air, sharp and venom-laced. His footsteps stormed forward, every impact a pulse of seething frustration, his coat flaring behind him with each stride. His usual control—measured, refined—crumbled under the weight of raw disdain.
"A resonator is a field named for a Link like yourself!" he snapped, eyes burning with cold light, his brow furrowed deep with disgust. "You think you're something else? Some exception to the rule? That title exists because of people like you—because your kind couldn't keep their hands clean, couldn't stay out of the war they were never supposed to be part of!"
He gestured to her with a sudden flare of his hand, light sparking off his fingertips in jagged cracks of energy.
"You think this world separates the fighter from the bystander? It doesn't. You were born into this! You breathed the same air as the rest of them! You carry the same damn spark!"
His voice rose into something near a snarl now, pacing just a few steps before spinning back toward her, jaw clenched so tightly it trembled.
"You want to keep pretending you're different? Fine. But don't sit there and bleed in front of me, acting like that weakness is a choice. You were meant to fight. You were made to change the tide."
He pointed directly at her, arm rigid, knuckles pale.
"And now you're sitting in the dirt trying to convince yourself that throwing that away is noble? It's pathetic." He spat the last word with venom, light flickering violently around him.
"You're not special because you 'refused' your strength. You're just another failure of a weapon."
Desmond stood still, far across the fractured square, a statue amidst ruin, arms loosely folded behind his back. He didn't move toward her—he didn't need to. From where he stood, his voice traveled clear and cold, piercing through the distance like a knife honed for silence.
"You sit there, Chiaki," he began, voice low, but edged with disdain, "choking on your own blood, clinging to that fragile resolve like it means something. But tell me—what have you actually done?"
Chiaki remained slumped near the rubble, every breath a tremor, her limbs trembling as she tried to keep her head up. The dust hadn't even settled around her, but Desmond's presence weighed more than any debris.
"As a resonator," he said, the word like venom on his tongue, "or a 'Link'—whatever title makes it easier for you to pretend you have purpose—what have you offered this world?"
He took a single step forward, not to close the distance, but to let the echo of his heel mock the silence between them.
"You've saved no cities. You've brought no peace. You've done nothing except survive—barely—and even that was mostly thanks to others dragging you along. Do you really think surviving by accident counts as contribution?"
She flinched, barely noticeable, but Desmond saw it. He didn't stop.
"Your friends—what did you do for them?" he pressed. "Did you carry them forward? Inspire them? Lead them in any meaningful way? Or did you just exist among them like dead weight, praying not to be left behind?"
Chiaki's eyes wavered. Her fingers dug weakly into the dirt beside her. Words sat at the edge of her mouth, but none made it past the blood drying on her tongue.
Desmond's gaze remained distant, but focused—calculated, cold, unwavering.
"You wear pain like it justifies your existence, like if you hurt enough, it'll make up for all the times you were useless. But pain doesn't absolve mediocrity."
He let that hang in the air, his words slow, deliberate.
"The truth is… the world wouldn't change if you disappeared. And deep down, I think you know that."
Then, after a pause, softer—but crueler:
"Because when it mattered—when it really mattered—you did nothing."
Desmond tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing with cruel amusement as he watched her from across the broken square. His posture remained elegant, almost eerily composed—hands behind his back, chin slightly lifted as though delivering a verdict from a higher court. The golden shimmer of his aura pulsed faintly in the air around him, a quiet reminder of the power he hadn't even begun to use.
"And what stings more, Chiaki…" he began, his voice smooth like silk drawn across a blade, "is that you were never alone, were you? There were always hands reaching for you. People who—despite everything—chose to stand by you."
He stepped to the side now, casual, almost leisurely, as if his words hurt more than his fists ever could.
"Temoshí. Others. Even that shark-tailed lunatic. They all wanted to keep you grounded. To remind you that you didn't have to do everything yourself. They begged you to stay, didn't they?"
Chiaki's fingers twitched faintly in the dust beside her, her eyes burning but blurred.
"And what did you do?" Desmond pressed, his voice rising—not in volume, but in sharpness. "You pushed them away. You told them to let you go. That you didn't need them. That you could do this alone."
His gaze darkened, lips curling into something colder than a smirk. There was no joy in it. Only finality.
"And now?" he whispered, venom dipped in honey. "Now they're not coming."
The air between them felt heavier.
"No one's chasing after you. No one's tearing through walls to pull you back from death. Because for once—you were the one who left. And without them… you've done exactly what everyone expected you to do."
He leaned forward slightly, as if confiding a secret across the battlefield.
"You've failed."
Then, he straightened again.
"No one's coming this time, Chiaki. You've run out of rescuers."
Chiaki's breath rasped in her throat, the taste of blood thick on her tongue. Her hands trembled against the rubble at her sides, fingernails dragging through the dust as she tried to push herself up—but her arms gave out again, and she collapsed with a faint grunt, shoulders shaking.
Her vision swam. Her ears rang. And still, Desmond's voice lingered in the air like poison.
She lowered her head, her forehead brushing her arm, and muttered—barely more than a whisper, but loud enough to echo inside her fractured thoughts.
"…He's right."
The words stung worse than the wounds.
"I left them," she murmured again, voice hoarse and trembling, "after everything they did to pull me back… I said I didn't need them."
Her lip quivered. Her eyes, wide and glassy, stared at the dirt in front of her as if it held every answer she had refused to face.
"And now they're not here."
She didn't sound angry. She didn't sound desperate.
She sounded empty.
"I thought I was finally choosing for myself… finally standing on my own feet. But all I did was throw them away… I didn't listen. I didn't believe they'd stay with me anyway. I just… ran."
A single tear broke past the grit on her cheek and slid down the curve of her face.
"I always got saved. Over and over. Even when I didn't deserve it."
Her breath caught. Her chest tightened painfully.
"…But no one's saving me now."
The silence after was unbearable.
And for a moment, Chiaki stayed right there—kneeling, broken, alone—because even she couldn't pretend the weight of those words didn't crush something deep inside her.
Chiaki's body barely held together. Her legs buckled beneath her, bones aching, muscles twitching with each breath like they might tear apart from within. Her fingers scraped along the uneven ground as she pushed herself upright, every movement slow, every twitch a scream her mouth couldn't voice. Blood smeared across her arm, mixing with dirt, with pieces of who she used to be.
Her chest rose, then stuttered.
She stood. Barely.
Not with strength—but with something else. Something that came from the part of her that still remembered why she hadn't given up already.
Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, not from pain—but from all the weight she hadn't let out.
"…Let me go," she whispered, voice breaking into itself.
Her knees wobbled. She staggered one step forward. Then another. Her body screamed at her to fall, to rest, to give up. But she walked anyway—slow, crooked steps over shattered earth.
"I'm not… I'm not asking for your mercy," she said, her voice hoarse, trembling. "I know I'm too weak. I know I can't stop you. I don't even think I'll make it far from here…"
She coughed again, a sharp jolt wrecking her ribs, and she hunched, nearly collapsing—but she caught herself, teeth clenched, blood dripping from her lip.
"I'm not trying to win. I just…" Her voice faltered. "I need to do something that's mine."
She raised her head, the wind brushing against her broken form. Her eyes found Desmond—not defiant, not hateful—but pleading.
"For so long… I let everyone decide everything for me. What I should be. Where I should go. Who I should save. What name I should answer to." Her words grew louder—not stronger, just more raw. "And every time I tried to take a step, someone was always behind me, pushing. Catching me. Telling me I wasn't ready. That I should wait."
Her voice cracked fully now.
"But this time—there's no one. No one coming to carry me out of this. Because I made them leave. Because I thought I had to. Because I was scared that maybe… maybe I really was just a mistake someone else was trying to fix."
Tears ran down her cheeks now, silent.
"So if I have to die doing one thing that I chose—then let me do it. Let it be my ending. Not yours. Not theirs. Mine."
She took one last step forward, arms limp, eyes never more open.
"Please," she said, through blood and breath, "just let me go."
Desmond tilted his head slightly, a half-smile creeping across his face, though it didn't reach his eyes. His voice came low, edged with mockery and cold amusement.
"Let you go?" he echoed, as if the words tasted strange in his mouth. "Why in the world would I do that?"
He took a slow step forward, not out of threat, but to let the silence linger.
"You think just because you finally chose something for yourself, that absolves everything else? That it earns you a free path forward?" His eyes narrowed, his tone sharpening like a blade drawn across stone. "You don't get to ask for freedom after turning your back on everyone who tried to give it to you. Not now. Not after all this."
Chiaki flinched as his words cut deeper than any strike he'd landed. The ache in her body paled beside the weight crashing down on her chest. Shame, guilt, and truth—cold, undeniable truth—tore through her like old wounds ripped open. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Her voice had been brave, but now it wavered.
She dropped her gaze for a moment, her breath trembling in her throat. Then she looked back up, eyes glassy but unbroken.
"I know," she whispered. "I know I don't deserve to be forgiven… or trusted… not after how I ran. Not after how I doubted everyone who stood by me."
She clutched her side, forcing her voice to hold steady through the pain. "But I'm not asking to walk away from what I've done. I'm asking… to make up for it. Even if it's just once. Even if it costs everything."
Her voice cracked, but she held on. "You say I chose something too late—but it's still my choice. And that means something to me. Even if it doesn't to you."
Desmond didn't reply at first. He simply stood there, his back straight, his golden aura dimming slightly as the tension eased.
Then, slowly, his head tilted, eyes turning halfway to the sky.
"...So desperate to write your own ending, even if it's soaked in failure," he muttered, more to the air than to her. "And still, you think it'll mean something."
He scoffed quietly, shaking his head with a smirk that almost seemed tired now.
Without another word, he turned his back to her.
His footsteps echoed as he walked away, but his gaze drifted to the side—just for a moment. A flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. Not guilt, not regret—but perhaps the sting of recognition.
Because in that moment, Desmond remembered something he never voiced aloud:
That most of his path had been carved by someone else's decisions too. Orders. Expectations. Doctrine. And maybe… maybe that's why Chiaki's words lingered.
But he didn't stop. And he didn't let her see it.
Understood. Here's the revised version with Chiaki sounding ruder to the others, not in edit mode:
---
As the last fragments of Desmond's light began to fade into the breeze, a sudden rush of footsteps echoed faintly through the shattered alleyway. The crunch of debris and hurried breaths broke the stillness—until three distinct figures emerged through the dust and smoke.
Yuka was the first to appear, her sharp eyes scanning the ruins with urgency before locking onto Chiaki's injured form. Razor followed a beat later, dragging her shark tail behind her and muttering curses under her breath, blood still drying across one cheek. Fioren came last, lighter on her feet but just as alarmed, her gaze darting across the battlefield.
"Chiaki!" Yuka called out, her voice strained with panic as she ran forward.
But Chiaki didn't move. She stood tall—barely—but tall nonetheless, body trembling, one hand clutching her ribs and the other limp at her side. Her hair clung to her skin, tangled and soaked with sweat and blood, and her legs swayed as if the ground might give way beneath her at any moment.
The three girls rushed to close the distance—but Desmond hadn't gone.
In a single surge of radiant force, his body reconstructed itself in midair, light folding inward like glass reversing its shatter. He touched down gently between Chiaki and the oncoming group, a glowing silhouette reforming to full solidity as his feet settled against cracked stone. His presence radiated heat and finality.
"You're late," he muttered coldly, raising a single arm out to the side in warning. His fingers spread, and from his palm bloomed a slow pulse of golden energy—like a barrier waiting to be unleashed.
Razor came to a hard stop, clenching her fists. "Move it, glow-boy, or I'm tearing that stupid haircut off your shiny skull."
But Desmond didn't even flinch. He kept his eyes trained on them with an unsettling stillness. "This isn't your fight."
Yuka narrowed her stance, one foot sliding slightly back. "We didn't come all this way to be told that. She's one of us. Hurt or not, we're taking her."
"Then you'll have to go through me," Desmond replied, voice level. "And I don't think any of you are prepared to make that choice."
Before anyone could step further, Chiaki's voice cut through the rising tension—sharp, hoarse, but commanding.
"Stop."
They all froze.
Chiaki took a shaky step forward, placing herself just a little further between the two sides. Her arms trembled, and every motion seemed carved from sheer willpower alone. Her lips were split, blood clinging to the corner of her mouth, and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.
But her glare was sharp and cutting.
"I didn't ask for any of you to come," she snapped, breath ragged. "I don't need you throwing yourselves into something I decided to face alone. So back off."
Fioren blinked, her voice soft. "But… we came for you—"
"I didn't ask you to!" Chiaki barked, forcing herself to stay upright. "Every damn time something happens, someone runs in to clean up after me. And I'm done with it. I'm tired of being treated like I can't do anything without backup."
She turned slightly, her back now facing Desmond. "This time, I walked into this mess myself. And if I can't finish it on my own, then maybe I never should've come."
Razor growled under her breath, visibly restraining herself. "You're a pain in the ass, Chiaki."
"Then don't follow me," Chiaki said coldly. "I'm not your problem to fix."
The others stood frozen, caught between anger and worry, unwilling to turn away yet unable to defy her will. And Desmond? He stood silently between them all, unmoving.
Yet as he watched Chiaki limp forward, bruised and wavering yet still defiant, something flickered behind his eyes—small, unreadable.
He said nothing. But deep inside, even he couldn't ignore the weight of her choice.
He too had spent far too long following paths drawn by someone else's hand.
"Chiaki!" Yuka's voice cracked as she reached out, desperation in every syllable. "You're hurt—you can't just walk away like this!"
"Come the hell back!" Razor shouted, stomping forward only to be met again by the slow hum of Desmond's radiance as he stepped sideways, blocking their path with nothing but presence. "Don't act like we don't matter after all we've done together!"
Fioren held a hand to her chest, watching Chiaki's silhouette grow smaller with every step into the deepening shadow of the fractured ruins ahead. Her lips parted, trembling. "You don't have to do this alone… We're still here."
But Chiaki didn't turn.
Her figure limped slowly into the mist of collapsed stone and broken buildings, her back to them, her steps uneven but unyielding. The light from the street no longer reached her path—the shadows swallowed her form piece by piece until only the echo of her steps remained, like a heartbeat fading into silence.
"CHI—" Razor tried again.
But Desmond snapped his hand out—light pulsing from his palm with a low, thunderous boom that vibrated through the air, enough to stagger them back a step without even striking them. His gaze swept over the three of them with an edge sharper than any blade.
"She told you to stop," Desmond said, voice low, but final. "So listen."
Yuka's teeth clenched. "Get out of our way!"
But Desmond didn't budge. For several long moments, he stood there between them and the path Chiaki had taken, the glow of his body pulsing like a silent sun—radiant and absolute. Time stretched, heavy with the weight of choices not made and paths not taken.
Then, without warning, he lowered his arm.
His shoulders relaxed.
The glow began to recede into him like a tide drawing back, and his body fragmented softly into particles of light once more. They rose slowly, catching in the breeze like golden dust as his figure started to dissolve upward, his form lifted by a stream of rising luminance.
Just before he vanished, his voice lingered like a final decree.
"She made her choice. Let her live it."
Then, like a flare being extinguished, Desmond vanished into the sky, a trail of faint gold streaking through the clouds, leaving the others alone beneath the silence of the ruins.
To be continued...