In the stillness of midnight. Nowa had finally fallen asleep. A memory emerged from the depths of his dream. At the age of twenty-seven, a crying red fox child, shrieking, curled in a pool of her own mother's blood. Nowa stood over her, fully bathed in the alien green liquid of the things he had slain.
A hollow man walked toward the sobbing child. She scrambled backward, terror in her wide, glassy eyes.
He didn't speak. He simply reached out a hand.
The child flinched, then stilled. Her sobs hitched as she looked from his blood-soaked face to his offered palm. A silent moment stretched, tight and fragile. Then, a small, trembling hand gripped his.
The scene swam, shifted.
The red fox child whom he adopted, perched on his shoulder, her tail swishing, a laugh of pure, unburdened joy ringing in the air. "Papa! Thank you for everything, I love you so much!"
And for the first time in a long time, Nowa's smile was not a masked for others, but a genuine, quiet reflection of the hope she gives.
The scene swam again, twisting into a nightmare.
The "I love you" was now a hollow, painful echo as the fox girl was no longer small and joyful. She was a mutated, monstrous thing, her form writhing uncontrollably. Her eyes, once full of light, were now bulging, filled with agony.
"End me… Pa.. pa.." she begged, her voice a distorted echo of the laugh and love he cherished.
Nowa kneeled before her, his eye's pouring tears, shrieking in a desperate cry, a stark contrast to his current detachment and he is covered not in green, but in her own blue blood as he held her close so she wouldn't be alone. The hope he had nurtured now twisted and suffering before him. A painful feeling, a final, definitive stab had pierced his heart.
He obeyed. "May you… find peace… Fenlia…" he cried out, his words were drowning with benediction.
And he used his Voidflame. It did not burn; it un-wrote. It consumed her completely, leaving not even ashes behind, only the perfect, silent memory of her love, laughter and her plea.
Meanwhile, in the Yakumo household, the air hummed with focused energy.
"Fascinating," Ran murmured, her gaze shifting between the black feather, several open tomes of cosmic biology, and a shimmering border she was using as an analytical reference. "It's not merely a manifestation. This feather is really biologically a part of him. It grew from his skin. But..."
"...Not a single record in the multiverse matches its signature," Yukari interjected, her voice low and thoughtful as she peered through a rift into the void of countless worlds. "It is utterly unique."
Ran nodded. "But also," she continued, holding up a vial containing a single drop of blood, "his blood is completely, unequivocally human. It's the single and most greatest anomaly we have ever encountered. It is as if a fundamental law is wearing human skin."
Yukari closed the viewing rift, her expression grim. "One crucial detail remains. No matter how deeply I scour the boundaries of species and lineage, his race appears to have no… origin point, no evolutionary branch. It doesn't exist." She met Ran's worried gaze, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Could it be... he is the last of an ancient extinct race that predates everything? Or perhaps... something that was never meant to be?"
Ran's tails bristled slightly at the implication. "An extinct race that predates all? But that doesn't explain the human blood and his current age. Unless... His form is a vessel. A container for something else, and human biology is merely the shape it is found to inhabit."
"Or a camouflage," Yukari mused, a new, dark thought occurring to her. She stared at the black feather. "What if his 'biology' is something the story of all universe was not meant to hold? This is the first time I have encountered something... I have no data on. Nothing."
She looked up, her eyes wide with a rare, genuine shock. "Every potential legend, every branch of a lineage that could lead to him... has been severed. Not just forgotten, but severed. It feels less like an extinction and more like a... a precise deletion. As if a war took place not just against his kind, but against the very concept of them, and he is the sole, surviving paradox it left behind."
Ran felt a cold dread seep into her. For her master, the manipulator of boundaries, to find nothing was not just unusual; it was logically impossible. Boundaries always existed between things. For there to be no boundary, no connection, meant he was outside the system entirely.
"Then he's—" Ran's voice was cut short as an alert on his emotional state flared across her emotional ley line monitor. Her focus instantly snapped to the new data. "A memory relapse! He's reliving a traumatic memory in his dream! This is bad, I sent Chen to keep watch over him tonight!"
Back in the shrine, Chen, the cat-like nekomata, was crouched a few feet from the sleeping man, her head tilted in curiosity.
"This man is super dangerous, they said," she whispered to herself. "But he just looks… eepy."
Then, with a sudden, violent spasm, Nowa's arm slammed down onto the floorboards beside him with a heavy THUD that caused a tiny quake on the land. He jerked awake, his breath catching in his throat, eyes wide but still seeing the ghosts of his dream.
Chen let out a startled "nya!" yelp, her instincts overriding her form. In a puff of surprise and fear, she transformed into a small, black house cat, her fur standing on end as she stared at him from a defensive crouch.
In her room, Reimu stirred at the rattling ground noise and sat up, drowsily waiting for a follow-up sound. Hearing nothing, she shrugged and drifted back to sleep.
Nowa panted, the phantom sensation of blue blood still warm on his hands. His drowning, distant gaze landed on the small, black cat staring at him.
"...S-sorry," he muttered raspily, wiping off his tears.
He then leaned over and scooped her up. Chen froze solid, her mind screaming. 'AHHHHH! I'M DEAD! HELP ME, RAN-SAMA! I'M SCARED!'
Nowa placed the terrified cat on his lap and began gently patting her. "You're lost too huh, kitty? I didn't sense you before. How did you get in?" He chuckled, expecting no answer, and continued his soothing strokes.
Against her will, a purr rumbled in Chen's throat. 'NOOO! DON'T PURR, TRAITOR BODY! I'M GONNA BE DINNE— Yess, yess that feels good~ stroke me right there—WAIT, WHAT?! NO! STOP IT! HELP ME!'
Meanwhile, in the Yakumo household, Ran's panic halted. She blinked twice at the occurring sight and the data stream, a hand moving to her chest in sheer, unexpected delight.
"Oh," she said, her voice softening. "Oh my. How... cute."
Yukari, drawn by the shift in tone. "What is it, Ran? Has the anomaly stabilized?"
"More than stabilized, Milady," Ran replied, a gentle smile touching her lips. "Look."
She gestured to the viewing rift, which now showed a clear image: Nowa, his face still etched with the ghosts of his dream, absently stroking a very tense but increasingly relaxed black cat on his lap.
Yukari observed the scene for a long, silent moment. The master strategist, the manipulator of boundaries, saw the same thing Ran did. Not a weapon, not a paradox, but a lonely man and a frightened cat offering each other a silent, unknowing comfort.
A slow, genuine smile, one devoid of any manipulation or cunning, had spread across Yukari's face. "It seems our walking apocalypse has a soft spot for strays," she murmured. "And it appears our stray has, against her better judgment, found him to be an acceptable source of pets. This is... unorthodox. And invaluable."
Ran nodded, her analytical mind already processing the new data. "And his bio-readings are calming significantly. Heart rate and cortisol levels are dropping to baseline. The physical contact seems to be a more potent stabilizer than any rest."
"Then we shall not interrupt," Yukari declared. "Let the system error and the nekomata have their peace. For tonight, this is a better outcome than any manufactured scenario we could erect."
Back in the shrine, Nowa, soothed by the rhythmic purring, finally felt the last echoes of the dream release their grip. His eyes grew heavy, his breathing deepened, and he slowly laid back into sleep, one hand still resting on the warm, furry back of his unlikely guardian.
And Chen, despite her master's orders and her own terror, found she couldn't bring herself to move. The hand was warm. The pets were good. And so, the shikigami tasked with watching the cosmic weapon decided that the best way to guard him was to take a nap right there on his lap, her purr a quiet lullaby in the dark shrine.
CHARACTER IMAGE:
Chen - https://pin.it/2Xd60Yym4