It was quiet, the kind of quiet that made your thoughts sound too loud.
Kusho sat at the edge of the world, cross-legged on a flat stone surrounded by endless darkness. Not the kind of dark that scared people, this one was soft, breathable. It stretched in every direction, deep and empty, like an old room no one visited anymore.
He had his eyes closed. Breathing slowly. The seal was almost finished.
Twelve glowing shapes floated around him, symbols drawn from something older than language. They moved like clock hands, ticking toward something final.
He opened one eye.
"Almost," he murmured.
He didn't look like someone doing something irreversible. His posture was relaxed, his expression calm. There was even a little dust on his sleeve, like this was just another day. But it wasn't. Not for him.
This was the last time.
He wasn't surprised when they came. He felt it the sudden pressure in the air, the way the void twitched like it didn't like what was happening.
Two presences.
They arrived in light and noise. One came slicing through like logic made into wings. The other stumbled in, swearing under his breath and catching himself with a skid.
Seren, the angel. And Caelen, the immortal human.
Seren landed hard, breathing fast. Her voice cracked with emotion, which she almost always kept buried.
"You are gonna do it, aren't you, Kusho?"
Kusho stayed seated. "Yeah."
Caelen stepped forward, his jaw tight. "You didn't even tell us."
"That's the point," Kusho replied, not unkindly.
"Bullshit."
"I didn't want to be talked out of it."
Seren looked at the glyphs circling him, glowing brighter now. "You really think this'll work?"
"No. But it'll end," Kusho said. "And that's what I need."
Caelen threw up his hands. "End what? You're not dying. You're running."
Kusho stood, slowly. He looked older in that moment, not in body, but in weight. Like someone who'd carried too much for too long.
"Do you know what it's like?" he asked. "Waking up every day with something inside you that's… wrong? Like you're leaking into the world just by existing?"
Neither of them answered.
"I want to feel things normally," he said. "Be angry, laugh, cry, without the sky cracking open, without everyone watching me like I'm going to break something just by breathing. I don't want to suffer anymore. I don't want others to suffer."
Caelen's voice softened, just slightly. "Then we help you. That's what we're here for."
"No," Kusho said. "That's what you think you're here for."
He stepped closer to the seal. The glyphs responded, locking together tighter. The pressure around them thickened.
"You don't get it. I don't want to be managed. Or saved. I don't want to be that thing anymore."
Seren stepped forward, her voice quiet. "So what, you erase yourself? Start over as some random human?"
Kusho shrugged. "Not random. Just… i will be smaller."
Caelen scoffed. "This is so like you. Make the biggest choice in the universe and act like it's a nap."
Kusho smiled, just barely. "If I let it feel as big as it is, I won't do it."
There was silence. Then, Seren spoke again, her voice fragile in a way it rarely was.
"You're going to forget us."
Kusho nodded. "Probably. Probably not."
A long pause. Then:
"Will it hurt?" Caelen asked.
"Yeah," Kusho said. "But not in the way you think."
The last glyph clicked into place. The space around them began to shift, like reality itself was holding its breath.
Caelen clenched his fists. "Say something cool before you go, or I swear to whatever's up there-"
Kusho chuckled, one hand over his chest. The air around him started to glow, pulling at him like water around a drain.
He looked at them, really looked, and said softly:
"If I ever come back… remind me I was loved, even when I didn't know what to do with it."
Then he closed his eyes.
The seal ignited.
And the entire world shook.
Somewhere far away, through dimensions, through time, through memory and silence, a boy gasped awake.
He was lying on the ground, coughing up dust. The sky above him was fractured gray, choked with ash and wind. Trees loomed nearby. Something had exploded here, long ago.
He sat up.
He was smaller now. Ten, maybe. He looked at his hands like they were new. Like he wasn't sure he belonged in them, it was his body, but younger nonetheless.
But something was different.
There was no pressure in his chest. No voice in the back of his mind. No war behind his eyes.
Just quiet.
For the first time in… he didn't know how long… he didn't feel like a weapon.
He felt like a human.
"Hey." A gentle voice, coming from the wood.
A man walked through the forest. He looked middle-aged, coat dusted with ash, a med-kit at his side. He knelt beside the boy.
"You alright?" he asked.
Kusho blinked.
"I… think so."
"What's your name?"
The boy hesitated, then said it softly.
"Kusho."
The man didn't flinch. Just gave a small smile, tired and kind.
"I'm Dr. Étienne Moreau. You look like someone who's had a long trip."
He offered a hand.
Kusho took it.
Étienne helped him up, steadying the boy with a warmth Kusho didn't know he'd needed until that moment.
As they started walking, Étienne glanced down and said, almost to himself:
"You've got the eyes of someone who's been alone too long."
Kusho didn't answer.
But for the first time in his life — maybe any life —
He didn't feel alone.