Late last night he received a message. The sender knew it was pointless, the ultimatum set would never be accepted. While they both believed in autonomy, only one believed in possibility.

He thinks life’s an anime. He should just try to enjoy it while it lasts. It’s not my fault the side he chose lost; it’s not like I went against him. Our society doesn’t need extra protections when most of it isn’t doing anything. It’s just not worth being consumed by it.

“I guess this time will be the last time I mention him to her.”

A decade later, few words had gone between them. From teenagers, to soon entering their thirties, both had moved forward towards their own goals.

For Jo, he was looking forward to an addition to the family between him and his betrothed. Over the years the pair was continuously interlinked. Their careers, family, and much more, all going in a favorable direction. They had recently moved into their barndominium that they had saved for since graduating university together.

The state of the world, whatever it was, was inconsequential to him, but that would forever change.

Walking from the elongated steps to the pavement, reaching into his truck to grab a parcel. Looking back at what life had given him, a fine reality to cherish, a stutter was felt in his heart. With a flash opaquing his sight, his access to that world had been revoked.

The life that he had loved, the path where he was a part of it, had ceased.

His body thrown into combobulation, the disorientating view of everything around him going in and out. He imagined his lover approaching him, but with everything being taken out from under him, including the air around him, he woke up.

Forcibly stunted onto his arms and knees, only able to focus on gathering air that no longer existed. The air, just like his world, had been ensnared by obscurity.

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The surroundings once his neighborhood, now just wades of grey waters coursing around him. Beneath him, grey matter expunging, clutched to his body.

"I'm sorry, Jo."

A figure descending from the once blue sky, now transparent. It’s inflamed eyes twitching at the ground, hands in the pockets of clothes morphed with stained sections of blood.

"I'm suspending our world… indefinitely."

Touching down onto the ground next to him, placing his hand onto Jo's back, then rising upward.

“If only I hadn’t consider you a liability back then. Maybe this could have gone differently.”

Sprawling out on the starchy muck, Jo finally had air bound back to him. Coughing, beginning to scrunch his eyes open, trying and failing to push himself up. A relative force kept him down, only able to stare up at the sky to see nothing but a grey speck in the empty sky.

"I'll give you the chance to set it back. So either take me down right here, or do it yourself when you're stronger."

Jo thinking to himself if he had just died, but then hearing the figure's voice the whole time would be impossible. Just listening to it echo around pissed him off more. Still edging himself upwards, "What is happening?!"

"Just as I expected, you have no hope in beating me now."

The figure extended his arm, in tangent pointing two fingers downward in the direction of Jo.

"Still, since I got strong in about three seconds, you could probably do it in five."

Contemplating, not even partially able to put all of the pressure onto one of his knees, forced his sight upwards, seethingly glaring towards the being, “I, will, kill you for this!”

As the figure's clothes began morphing further, the figure looked away from Jo.

"I'm not holding back. Take it all in."

Jo still fighting against the pressure, trying to get more words out, "Sugen! Don't, ignore m-!"

In less than a second, Jo was snuffed out of the environment, spat out into a new-found space. Surrounded by darkness on his backside, in front an all encompassing grey mass. All while being being flung around in a spiral.

With his dismissal, the grey void began imploding. Though only taking seconds to disappear, for him the implosion took an eternity.

Was it the air put into him by Sugen, or the resuscitation process in itself? Possibly, the empty vessel filled with something meant for someone else. Regardless, the entity moving slower and slower through time. Thinking of his past, and what must become his future.

With the end of the fifth second, he himself had become unbound to humanity, a true being.