Your legs feel strange; your knees bend against your command, and you find it difficult just to step forward. Your head is pounding. You hear whispers in your blood and you know – you know – that this is the beginning of the end. The pain will spread from your legs and travel up through your blood like a toxin. It will reach your heart, your brain, until you'll be consumed by it and you'll be unable to form a solid thought, just like how you're unable to form a solid step. And then? You don't know. Maybe you'll just shrivel up and die here.

No.

Yuta needs you.

You have to protect him.

With this, you somehow conjure enough strength to move. Out of your room. Goodbye Gojo, goodbye Megumi, goodbye Tsumiki, thank you for loving me. Down the stairs. Goodbye, Ieiri, and thank you for everything. Out the infirmary. Goodbye Panda, goodbye Maki, goodbye Toge, thank you for your friendship. Through the ruined paths of your home, into the thick miasma of dust and ash. Goodbye Yuta, I love you.

You keep on walking. The world seems to move in slow motion, like the frame-by-frame feature on DVDs. You see, you step, you move in fragmented moments of time.

You swallow back your fear. You've never been in the thick of combat before; you've always hung back, always protected by your friends, always tucked away somewhere safe because the school can't afford to lose a healer. Is this what they have to deal with every time they go out into the field? The coppery smell of blood hangs in the air. Sticky smoke clings to you. You don't understand what's happening at all, why it's so quiet, until the dust settles, and you can clearly see the carnage.

A limp mound of black and white fur. A body twisted at an unnatural angle. A cold, white hand, flung out across the ground, with fingernails painted a dark shade of blue.

Breathing becomes almost impossible as you fall to your knees in a crumpled heap. Blood soaks your shirt, stains your skin. Your first thought is that you're too late, Getou's killed them all, but you realize now that they're still alive. Still stubbornly clinging to life. They're dying, yes, and you can feel the faintest stirrings of their Cursed Energy brushing against your skin. But it's enough. Warmth shoots down your spine, and in response, you watch as Inumaki's breathing evens out, how Maki's mangled limbs are healed and untwisted, one muscle fiber and cell at a time.

The relief that hits you is instant, after days of lingering in the boundary between life and death. Your breath comes back; the pain recedes like a tide going out. It's the clearest that your mind has been in days, unfettered by the hazy numbness of medicines and drugs.

Coughing, you feel a malevolent presence behind you.

"Impressive. Not even Shoko is capable of healing at such speed."

How is it possible that your worst nightmare has arrived, and you are unable to move from this spot?

Slowly, you get to your feet, avoiding sudden movements as though he were a venomous snake. Getou takes a quick step closer, and you flinch.

He only laughs. "You weren't who I was expecting."

Your suspicions are all but confirmed. He's here for Yuta. A pang of longing moves through you, sharp and unexpected. What you wouldn't give to have him by your side right now. You can still remember the broadness of his back, the warmth of his body pressed against yours as he'd shielded you from Getou's view with a single-minded determination.

"He isn't coming." Your breath catches in your throat. That lone pang of longing for Yuta to be here has doubled, tripled, transformed into something ugly. Your ears buzz with the electricity of it. "I told him to run."

Getou smiles then, and it is a terrible, ugly thing. "Then we'll just have to convince him to come back."

You don't see Getou move; all you feel is the impact of his blow as your spine smacks against a concrete wall. All you can see is red and flashes of white. Blood drips out of your mouth and nose. You can taste it. You can smell it.

Shaking your head to clear it, you try to focus. You can't help but think that you're hopelessly outclassed, and this will only end in your death – but then you remember your friends, recall the evidence of their hard-fought battle all around you. And you know that you would never be able to forgive yourself if you gave up without even trying.

You struggle back to your feet, leaving a smear of red on the ground.

"So this is the best a Special Grade can do?" Amazingly, you find yourself laughing. Let him believe that you've gone mad. It surely won't be the biggest mistake he'll make today. "Where are all those Curses you're so proud of?"

The last thing you see is a smirk distorting Getou's face – right before he gathers a mass of Curses in his hands. Centipedes, sleek and red and terrible, rush towards you. A body with too many segments, too many legs and sharp teeth. The shock of teeth sinking into your flesh is almost worse than the pain, but at least it lands on unbroken skin. The next bites do not. They layer over one another until you can swear that they're slicing through skin and flesh to kiss your very bones.

Pain. You clamp your lips together, stubbornly refusing to scream, stubbornly refusing to call out for Yuta as your every cell demands. Pain. Your knees buckle, and you fall to the floor in a bloodied heap. Pain. You're only half in your body. The other half floats somewhere above, feeling nothing, only watching as your body is shredded apart. Pain. Your mind grows fuzzy and dark spots dance in front of your eyes. How easy it would be to succumb, to make the pain stop! But the last, rational piece of your mind warns that you might not ever wake up. And then what would happen to Yuta? To your friends? You're the only one left. You have to protect them.

Your hair is plastered to your forehead with sweat, despite the cold. And in that brief moment between life and death, as your heart catches and falters in your chest, you activate your Reverse Cursed Technique. Warmth floods your veins as your skin knits itself back together, but the relief you feel is short-lived when you feel the teeth still embedded in your skin. You suck in a sharp, agonized breath, your fingers scrambling to find purchase in the smooth body with too many segments, when suddenly –

– Nothing.

Just a sudden, hollow silence as the Curses gnawing at your skin burst into a heap of ash, leaving you gasping and spluttering. What happened? Your mind is still fractured and hazy; try as you might, you're unable to figure out why those Curses had just dissolved into nothing.

"What an amazing power." Getou sounds almost awed. The words send a shock through you. You can't figure out why his praise is directed at you. You're not a master with Cursed Tools like Maki. You don't have Inumaki's kindness. You don't have Panda's intellect. You don't have Yuta's potential, or his infinite talent. "No wonder Satoru kept you hidden away."

You don't think you're imagining it, the hint of fondness to Getou's voice when he talks about Gojo. Had they been friends once? The realization twists your gut because as small as it is, it's still a connection that the two of you share, tying you together. It almost makes you like him. And you can't afford to like him.

With a shuddering breath, you struggle to your feet, wincing as you do. Your pajamas were white when you put them on, but now most of the fabric has been stained red and hangs from your frame in tatters. "That sounds creepy when you say it, so please stop."

The last thing you hear is his laugh, as though you've amused him in some way, before everything dissolves into a bloody red haze. More Curses. A frenzy of screaming and ripping. More bites, sinking into skin and muscle and bone. Another wound you hastily heal, only for the skin to be carved apart just as quickly.

Pain.

Lost count now. It will never end. You fall to the floor in a bloodied heap, clamping your lips together, still stubbornly refusing to scream.

Pain.

You focus on the tiles beneath your feet. This is your home. You remember toddling along the winding roads, Gojo's hand clasped tightly around yours to keep you up. You didn't have a family, so you'd built one together with him, with Megumi, with Tsumiki. If you concentrate hard enough, you can almost feel them now, urging you to be strong, urging you to keep going.

Pain.

"You would go so far for Yuta?" Getou's voice sounds very far away. When you open your eyes, it's as though someone has smeared ointment across them. "Oh, I see now. It's merely a childish crush. Does he know how you feel?"

"What are you saying?" You manage to lift your head, and your smile is an easy, beautiful thing. "This is true love."

You won't find yourself in a softer world or slipping into pleasant dreams; it's only a dark, looming canyon that surely awaits you. Never before has death has felt so certain, so close. It's always felt like a distant reality, held back by Ieiri and your own strength of will, but now it's unavoidable. It's here. And it's pulling you under.

"Let's see if we can get Yuta here a little faster, shall we?"

Too close. Getou's voice is too close to you. No matter where you go, he's always moving closer. The last thing you see is the menacing flash of steel, and his teeth bared in a mockery of a smile.

The darkness swallows you a moment before the words can reach your lips:

I don't want to die.