Chapter Text
The darkness was suffocating, almost alive. So dense that Soshiro could barely feel the ground beneath his feet. It was as if the world was swaying under him, as though space and time were distorted. Wrong. He tried to orient himself, but all he saw was an impenetrable blackness, enveloping him like a thick fog.
No horizon, no stars, no sign of life. He was alone.
The air was heavy and stifling. His breathing grew shallow, quickening, and he could feel cold sweat trickling down his temples.
There was no beginning, no end. No up or down. Everything was just an endless veil of bottomless darkness and impenetrable silence. Nothing stirred, no wind, no sound. Only the relentless pounding of the feeling of being lost in his chest, threatening to pull him away from any sense of stability. And it terrified him.
“Where am I?” he whispered, but his words faded into nothingness.
The void was all-encompassing, oppressive, like a physical weight pressing down on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. He blinked, trying to find any sign of reality, something tangible, but nothing changed. No contours, no shadows – just blackness. Until, suddenly… a faint sound cut through the infinite darkness.
A drop.
A single, clear drop echoed like the first beat of a heart that had stood still for a long time. Then came a second drop and a third. The sound grew faster, more intense, as if rain was pouring down on something hidden deep below. And although Soshiro could neither feel nor see it, he felt like he was drowning in it.
Slowly, he took a step forwards and very cautiously another. The dripping became steadily louder and unease made him pick up the pace. Restless. The sound swelled into a deafening rumble and in a panic he ran, fleeing until the darkness around him began to shift.
Something was lurking there.
A shadow moved in the darkness and tensely he held his breath, while his hands instinctively clenched into fists. Slowly, the blackness before him began to change and he stopped, even though every instinct in him screamed that he should run … that he should flee as far as he could.
He couldn’t have escaped, even if he wanted to.
His body felt paralyzed, when suddenly, a light flickered. It was weak, no more than a fleeting glimmer that burned like a dull pain in his eyes. But it was enough for him to see that he was not alone. Before him… knelt a figure. At first, Soshiro could only make out the outline, a silhouette peeling out of the darkness, but then… he recognised him. His heart raced and his throat tightened.
Narumi Gen.
Gen was with him. Unmistakable. In his uniform, his weapon in his hand, just as he had held it countless times before. The captain of the First Division, the embodiment of strength and unyieldingness. But something was wrong.
Gen wasn’t moving and the longer Soshiro looked at him, the more obvious the unnaturalness of the scene became. His friend was kneeling on the ground, motionless, his shoulders slack and his head limply bowed. The light that struggingly fought its way pale through the shadows, fell on a pool of blood and made the blade in Gen's hand shimmer crimson.
The sword… Soshiro’s sword, was still lodged in Gen’s guts, which he clutched so desperately with both hands, as his blood dripped down. Slowly. Steadily. The pool growing ever larger.
Glowing ruby red.
The echo of every single drop was like an incessant hammering in Soshiro’s ears. He wanted to go to him, but his legs wouldn’t obey and sorrowfully, he stretched out his hand towards him. A cold shiver crawled up his spine and his throat went dry. Tears glistened in his eyes and guiltily Soshiro let his hand fall. Despair crept into every fibre of his body and a deep, painful trembling took hold of him.
There was no going back.
“What… what happened?” he whispered, but his voice was barely audible, as if it had been extinguished.
There was no answer. Only the steady drip, condemning him. Soshiro had long known what had happened. They all knew.
No… it’s wrong!
Soshiro couldn’t tear his gaze away and then, Gen moved. Slowly, he raised his head. Mechanically, as if pulled by invisible strings. When their eyes met, Soshiro’s blood froze in his veins. His eyes… Gen’s red eyes, the ones Soshiro knew so well, were empty. No anger, no fear… No light, no spark.
No life.
Just a bottomless, yawning void. An endless emptiness of death that threatened to drag Soshiro into its depths and steal every ounce of warmth from him. Tears gently rolled down his cheeks as he wrapped his arms around himself and retreated, shattered.
Then he heard it.
Whispers. Voices, countless, thousands of them, rising from the depths of the darkness, fluttering and tangled. At first, like a soft breeze, but it grew into a roaring storm. It was chaos, a cacophony of words, fragments of sentences that he couldn’t quite grasp.
“You failed… You abandoned us all… Why are you still here if we had to die?”
Voices. Many, too many.
The shadows swirled, the blood dripped, and his guilt crushed him. Soshiro staggered and desperately shook his head, trying to banish the voices, to dispel them, but they wouldn’t leave him. They wouldn’t let him go. And the darkness slowly tightened around him.
“Weak… you have always been too weak.”
The truth.
He knew it and had never dared to say it aloud. Gen stood up and expressionlessly pulled Soshiro’s sword out of his body as the blood pulsed out in streams. The blade gleamed in the gentle light and Soshiro knew he deserved to die. He stood frozen, rigidly watching as Gen came closer. Step by step. While his panic surged and his already racing heartbeat quickened, his body broke out in cold sweat.
The pounding, the whispering, their pleas, their screams, their cries… Everything became a shrill screech as Gen yanked up the blade, ready to cut him down. Soshiro wanted to scream, wanted to cowardly escape his deserved punishment, but he was paralysed, eyes clenched shut in terror. There was no escape.
He could only watch as the blade came down with deadly precision, its bright flash tearing through the darkness and a bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence. It was his own.
Soshiro’s eyes snapped open. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he found himself gasping in his bed. Sweat dripped from his face, his hands trembled violently and his heart pounded so hard it hurt.
The darkness around him was calm, the whispering long gone. The silence was so heavy that it rang in his ears. Nothing but the familiar shapes of his quarters surrounded him and yet his quiet sobs echoed through the room as his body shook beneath the weight of his tears.
Exhausted, he let his head sink into his hands. He blinked, trying to shake off the nightmare, but the images and sounds were seared deep like scars. He took several deep breaths to steady his breathing and quickly wiped the tears away with his arm.
For a long time, he just sat there in his bed, staring into the distance.
The empty eyes, the blood… and the whispering still echoed. He had killed them all. It was his fault.
“You failed.”
He tried to tell himself that it was just a dream, that none of it was real. But the feeling of the sword in his hand and the coldness lingered.
The full moon cast a silvery glow through his window and the fine particles of dust in the air glittered softly in the night’s tender embrace. Soshiro simply listened to the tranquil silence that had settled over the base of the Japanese Defense Forces, wandering seemingly aimlessly like a ghost while his thoughts left him no peace.
His body was exhausted and every muscle still burned from the last mission, but every time he slept, nightmares plagued him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the distorted scenes before him, where he fought Kaijus only to fail and stained his hands with the blood of the innocents.
After several sleepless nights, he could feel his body starting to give out, to slowly fail, and his mind began to fray. He no longer knew when it had begun or how long he had been trapped in this murderous cycle between sleeplessness and pure terror.
How long the cold had dwelled in his heart.
Silently, he walked through the empty halls, making no effort to turn on the lights of the training room, which would burn his tired eyes. The stars shone dimly through thin banners of clouds and for a brief moment, Soshiro closed his eyes, while his fingers tightened around the hilts of his twin swords and he calmly inhaled the cool night air before drawing them swiftly.
A single, lonely hiss broke the silence, followed by a dull thud. Then again. And again.
The muscles in his arms and back tensed with each movement, shaped by endless hours of combat. It was a brutal dance. A dance with none of the elegance he so often taught his younger officers. This was something else.
Wild. Merciless. Unrelenting.
With every strike, every movement, Soshiro pushed his body’s limits. His practice strikes shredded apart the training dummies, which were specially built to withstand such exercises.
His gaze was sharp, almost blank with concentration, but nevertheless a fire burned in his eyes that seemed to flare with every motion. With a sudden, lightning-fast movement, he lunged forward, crossing both blades and in a fluid spin, he split the last training dummy in front of him into two perfect halves. Metal splinters scattered across the room and the heavy thud of the severed halves echoed off the walls.
But there was no turning back.
He continued to stab, slash and swing his blades with merciless determination. He did not think. He only felt. The burdens, the memories that haunted him, the expectations that weighed on his shoulders.
"More," he hissed through gritted teeth, "More."
He couldn’t afford to show weakness, couldn’t afford to have weakness. Not in front of the others and especially not in front of himself.
Suddenly he heard a noise behind him, a door swinging open. But it was too late. His body was already in motion, the strike already made. The blade shot towards the source of the sound before his mind could even register what was happening.
A scream.
Soshiro froze at the last second, his swords just a breath away from the person who had entered the room. The gust of air from his swing blew strands of the woman’s hair and a shadow of fear flickered in her eyes.
It was Shinomiya Kikoru.
For a brief moment, time stood still.
The swords still vibrated in the air, as the cold steel reflected the faint moonlight. Kikoru stood motionless in front of him, her eyes wide open, fixed on the blade that hovered just centimetres from her face.
“Hoshina-san!” she cried, her voice trembling, but still firm.
Soshiro stood there panting, his shoulders shaking, and cautiously he lowered his arms, the swords heavy in his hands. His gaze drifted over the remains of the training dummies, his skin steaming in the cool air. Shards of metal and pieces were strewn everywhere.
“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly. “It’s dangerous to barge into a training room like that.”
Kikoru blinked, her still widened eyes searching his gaze, but she shook her head and stepped forward. She didn’t miss the slight tremble in his hands or the dark glint in his eyes that slowly but surely replaced his fading smile.
“Hoshina-san, I just came to check… You've been training in the middle of the night for months now, barely sleeping. There are rumours going around that a ghost haunts the base.”
She looked at him with concern.
“We’re all worried,” she added softly, though there was an unspoken understanding in her gaze that twisted Soshiro’s stomach.
He clenched his teeth and straightened up.
“I’m fine,” he replied coldly, almost cuttingly, “This is nothing more than training.”
Kikoru pressed her lips into a thin line, but she didn’t back down.
“You almost killed me!”
She stepped closer towards him, her eyes blazing with determination.
“’Something's wrong. You haven't been yourself much lately.”
Soshiro averted his gaze, the trembling in his hands worsening despite his efforts to keep them steady.
“It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
His fingers curled around the hilts of his swords as if he needed to hold onto them to keep from losing control.
“Don’t concern yourself with this. It’s my problem, not yours.”
But she only doubtfully looked at him as he turned his back on her.
“You’re lying to yourself. You’re training against invisible monsters. It’s like you’re…”, the words caught in her throat and she shook her head in frustration, “You’re trying to get rid of something on your own, but it’s only eating away at you-”
“Enough!” Soshiro shouted menacingly, causing Kikoru to flinch.
His eyes glinted menacingly and darkly he tilted his head.
“That’s enough” he growled more quiet, “I don’t need your concern or your analysis. You know nothing about me.”
“Then explain it to me!” she shouted back, her fists clenched, “Tell me what’s tormenting you so much that you won’t ask for our help. Tell me why you’re here, in the middle of the night, training yourself to death.”
For a moment, they just stood there, her words echoing through the room. Wearily, Soshiro looked down, exhaustion and pain gnawing at him. The weight of his guilt pressed heavily on his shoulders. Eventually, he turned his head just slightly enough for their eyes to meet.
He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone in the division. He was their vice-captain and as such, he had to be a leading example. They weren’t friends, they were superior and subordinate. It was his duty to maintain distance from all of them. Admitting it out loud would be nothing more than a testimony, an undeniable proof of his weakness.
To everyone, he was just Hoshina.
No personal preferences, no personal relationships, no first name.
“There’s nothing to say.”
Kikoru wanted to respond, but only silence followed. As Soshiro cleaned up the training room and gathered his things, Kikoru took a deep breath and joined him, helping him with the cleanup. Her vice-captain was struggling with something, not just the obvious sleep deprivation, but something within himself.
But he wouldn't let anyone get close to him.
Let no one in.