"I want to kill everyone."

The words echoed in Tetsuo Kuroyama’s mind, as cold and sharp as the blade he once called his soul. His hands gripped the hilt of his sword, knuckles white, veins throbbing with the raw hatred that had festered in him for years. The wind howled through the barren landscape, a wasteland of twisted trees and scorched earth, reflecting the desolation inside him. The world had long forgotten him, abandoned him to the silence that never stopped screaming.

His clan had been everything. His brothers and sisters, his honor, his purpose—all gone in a single night, swallowed by fire and betrayal. The blood of innocents had stained his hands, but it was not the blood of his enemies. His clan had trusted him, relied on him, and he had failed them. And now, there was nothing left. No family, no code, no gods. Only vengeance.

The faces of his fallen comrades haunted him, their eyes accusing, their voices whispering from the depths of his shattered soul. They didn’t beg for justice. They didn’t ask for mercy. They demanded one thing: retribution.

His lips curled into a bitter smile as he looked down at the blade in his hands. Once, it had been the symbol of his honor, the extension of his soul. Now, it was his curse, a weapon that pulsed with an insatiable hunger, a thirst for blood that mirrored his own. The sword—Shinryū—whispered in the dead of night, promising power, vengeance, and release from the torment that gnawed at him every waking moment.

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"I want to kill everyone," Tetsuo repeated, his voice low, a growl that rose from the pit of his chest. Everyone who had wronged him, everyone who had betrayed him, everyone who had lived while his clan had perished. He no longer cared for justice, no longer sought redemption. There was no redemption for a man as broken as he was. Only blood could cleanse the stain on his soul, and if that meant razing the world to the ground, so be it.

But as he stood on the precipice of madness, something deeper stirred within him—a question that gnawed at his heart, quieter than the rage but no less potent.

What happens when there’s no one left to kill? What happens when the world burns, and you are the only one standing amid the ashes?

His grip tightened on Shinryū, the whispers growing louder, feeding his anger, trying to drown the question that lingered like a wound he couldn’t close. He looked to the horizon, where the sun barely dared rise over the cursed land. His enemies were out there. The ones responsible for the massacre, the ones who had taken everything from him. And yet…

His heart ached—not just from hatred, but from a hollowness that killing couldn’t fill. The blood he had spilled hadn’t brought his clan back. The vengeance he had sworn himself to had not silenced the voices of the dead. It had only made them louder.

Tetsuo closed his eyes. He could feel the weight of his own emptiness pressing down on him, threatening to crush him, to turn him into the very thing he despised. But still, he whispered those same words—if only to remind himself of the only truth he still believed in.

"I want to kill everyone."

Yet deep inside, a whisper that wasn’t Shinryū’s murmured.

But then what?

And Tetsuo, for the first time in years, found that he had no answer.