Silence never lasted long.
Not in a school. Not in a crowd. Not after something like that.
For a second—maybe two—the courtyard was frozen. Students stared, mouths open but soundless, like their brains refused to translate what their eyes were seeing.
Blood on the tiles.
Ryo standing upright, a hole through his torso.
Max with his arm dripping red to the elbow.
Then someone screamed.
It burst open the moment like a hammer through glass. A girl near the takoyaki stall stumbled backward, knocking over a folding table in her panic. The metal legs clattered against the pavement and people flinched as if gunfire had gone off.
Another scream followed—higher, ragged, terrified.
Then everything detonated.
Students slammed into each other trying to get away, backpacks catching on booths, banners tearing off strings, festival props tipping over in a wave of frantic motion. Someone tripped and vanished into the crowd, another vaulted over a display case, a teacher was shouting to stay calm while being shoved sideways.
Reina didn't make a sound.
She was still standing where she'd been, clipboard on the ground at her feet, hands over her mouth, eyes locked on the two boys in front of her like she'd just witnessed the world split.
"Reina!" someone shouted—a voice cutting through the chaos. A hand grabbed her wrist.
It was Mari from class 2-A, face drained of color. "Come on! Come on, we have to go!"
Reina didn't move.
"Mari—wait—" she managed to choke out, but her own voice sounded wrong, thin and far away.
Mari tugged harder, panic making her strong. "Reina, MOVE!"
Reina stumbled, nearly tripping over her own feet as Mari yanked her away from the blood, away from the shattered moment. The crowd swallowed them, bodies pushing, screaming, crying, stampeding past club tables and collapsing tents.
Reina twisted once—just once—to look back.
Through the mess of students and booths and airborne paper streamers, she saw them.
Max and Ryo.
Not fighting. Not running.
Just staring at each other.
Like everything else was irrelevant.
Mari dragged her into the thinning crowd, toward the far end of the courtyard where teachers were trying—and failing—to establish order. Before Reina disappeared behind a wall of bodies, her eyes fixed on Max's face.
She had never seen him look like that.
Never.
Ryo stood where Max had struck him, blazer ruined, shirt soaked and sticking to his skin. His hand hovered over the rent in his chest, fingers splayed around torn fabric and glimpses of exposed ribs.
He looked down at the wound—not like a victim, not like someone in pain—but like a man inspecting a stain on his sleeve.
The courtyard's screams blurred into static.
Ryo breathed in once, slow and controlled.
"Messy," he murmured.
Then he pressed two fingers against the torn flesh—not delicately, not reverently, just enough to make contact.
His voice was quiet, not shouted, not dramatic. More like an instruction:
"Regenerate."
The effect was immediate.
Flesh convulsed around his fingers, tendons tightening like pulled wire. Blood flowed backward—literally reversing across his torso—as muscle fibers crawled across bone like living stitches. Ripped veins snapped shut, hooking themselves together with wet, snapping noises. The blazer's fabric burned at the edges from internal heat, curling black as skin knotted fresh underneath.
There was no soft glowing magic. No glitter. No gentle hum.
Only wet sounds.
Organic sounds.
Biological obedience.
The healing ended with a final twitch, like a wound taking a breath and sealing itself.
Ryo exhaled softly and removed his hand. Where there had been a hole, there was now unbroken skin—pale, unmarred, steaming faintly.
Teachers who witnessed it froze mid-motion. One dropped the megaphone he'd been shouting into. A freshman collapsed to her knees and vomited onto the pavement.
Ryo flexed his shoulder once, testing the joint, and smiled—small, satisfied, curious.
"I always forget how good that feels," he said.
Max didn't answer.
He stood there, arm dripping red, breathing through his teeth. His entire body was locked, muscles strung tight beneath his uniform shirt, eyes bloodshot around the iris like he'd been crying without tears.
Ryo tilted his head, still studying him.
"That wasn't a human strike," he said. "A human punch would have dented bone. Yours displaced it." He wiggled his fingers. "You changed the interior topology. That's Envy for you."
Max's breath came out in a low, cracked rasp.
"Shut up."
The Vice inside him hissed approval—not spoken words, not language, just hunger sharpened into thought.
Ryo's eyes sparked.
He took a step forward.
Max took one too.
The air between them buckled—heat distortion spiralling off Max's shoulders, pressure warping off Ryo's like invisible gravity.
Around them, the festival was collapsing into chaos.
A booth had caught fire from an overturned kettle.
Someone was calling for an ambulance.
Teachers pushed students toward the exits.
Two members of the track team held Reina back from running back into the courtyard—she was screaming something, couldn't be heard over the noise, tears streaking down her face.
But none of that mattered to the two Vices standing in the clearing between stalls.
Ryo wiped red streaks from his palm onto his blazer without breaking eye contact.
"You should thank me, you know," he said. "Sera died clean. Quick. Most don't get that courtesy."
Max's vision tunnelled.
His teeth ground so hard his jaw popped.
Heat crawled up his spine like wildfire.
Ryo saw it—and smiled wider, delighted.
"There it is," he breathed. "Envy's flame. I've missed this."
Max's voice finally came out, low and shaking with hatred he didn't know how to hold:
"I'm going to kill you."
Ryo nodded, accepting it like a formal invitation.
"Yes," he said. "You'll try."
He spread his arms slightly—not taunting, not mocking—inviting.
"Come then, Envy."
Max didn't need to be asked twice.
He moved—faster than any student had ever seen him, faster than any human should. The tiles cracked under his first step, and by the second, the air distorted around him, heat blooming off his skin.
Ryo didn't brace.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't flinch.
He raised one arm, palm outward, as if laying down a command on the world itself—
And the courtyard shook.
Not from earthquake.
From pressure.
Dominion.
Students who hadn't managed to flee yet felt their legs buckle. A boy collapsed, limp as a doll. A girl dropped to her knees mid-run, sobbing without knowing why. A teacher trying to call for help found his throat locked tight, unable to drag in air.
Ryo whispered it—not to Max, but to the world:
"Kneel."
And the world obeyed.
Except Max.
Max didn't freeze.
He didn't kneel.
He didn't stop.
He came through the command, through the pressure, through Dominion's field with his fist already igniting at the joints—green fire bleeding through his veins like burning venom.
Ryo's eyes widened at that—finally surprised.
"You—"
Max's punch hit his jaw.
Bone cracked.
Ryo's head snapped sideways, spit and blood arcing across the tiles.
He stumbled—not much, not enough to look mortal, but enough to ruin his composure.
Max didn't let him recover.
He swung again—left hook to the ribs. Something broke. Ryo inhaled sharply, teeth bared in a grimace he couldn't hide.
Students who could still see through their terror watched with wet eyes, hands over mouths, some unable to look away even as everything in them begged to.
Reina was at the far edge now—being dragged by two friends who didn't understand why Max was attacking someone, why the boy she trusted was killing another student in the middle of a cultural event.
She twisted, fought, sobbing, voice cracking:
"HOLLOWAY STOP! PLEASE—!"
He didn't hear her.
Couldn't.
Ryo wiped his mouth, and when he spoke again, his voice was wrong—lower, vibrating with something inhuman.
"Regenerate."
His jaw snapped back into alignment, teeth resetting with an audible series of clicks. Bruising faded before it had time to settle. Blood crawled back under his skin.
He looked… annoyed.
"Envy," Ryo breathed. "You're stronger than last time."
Then he smiled—wide, delighted, vicious.
"So don't hold back."
Thunder rolled somewhere overhead, though the sky was clear.
Max didn't blink.
Ryo didn't breathe.
The courtyard between them vibrated, tiles cracking under the weight of two ancient things wearing teenage skins.
The festival was over.
The arc was over.
The world was breaking.
And the Vice of Envy didn't care who watched.