Chapter 22: The Promise

Kenchiro p.o.v:

This can't be real. It shouldn't be real.

My voice shakes, barely more than a breath, as I stare at my mother's lifeless body. Her eyes—once so full of warmth, of fire, of life—now frozen, empty, staring through me like I was never even there. A scream claws its way up my throat, but it dies before it can escape. My chest tightens, my heart pounding so violently it hurts, like it's trying to shatter itself against my ribs.

She was supposed to be here. She was supposed to nag me about eating enough, about finding a good partner, about calling her more often. She was supposed to be at my wedding, holding my children, telling them stories about how stubborn I was as a kid. She was supposed to live.

But now she's gone.

They said it was suicide. My mother would never let this world break her. As if she wasn't the strongest woman I'd ever known, the woman who carried every burden with her back straight and her head high. No. I know my mother better than that. This isn't right. This isn't right.

And yet, she's gone.

A sob rips through me, my knees buckling as I collapse beside her. I reach out, but I can't bring myself to touch her. My fingers tremble inches from her skin, terrified that if I feel the cold, if I feel the truth—then it's real. And I can't take that. I can't.

A voice—cold, merciless—whispered through the hollow corridors of my mind, dragging itself from the depths like a beast long starved. It didn't shout. It didn't demand. It simply asked, quiet and calculated, as if it had already decided for me.

What weapon should I use to end it all?

My stomach twisted. My breath turned shallow. My hands shot up to my ears, pressing so hard I thought my skull might crack beneath the pressure. No. No. Not again. But it was already too late. The thoughts had slipped through, wrapping around me like barbed wire, tightening with every beat of my frenzied heart.

I curled into myself, rocking back and forth as the dam inside me broke. The tears came fast, hot, and relentless, carving silent paths down my face as silent sobs tore through my chest. The weight was unbearable, pressing me into the floor, drowning me in the very air I breathed. I can't. I can't. I can't.

The darkness didn't fight me. It never did. It only welcomed me back like an old friend, whispering the same question, over and over and over—

Just choose. Just end it. Just let go.

And for the first time in a long time, I was afraid I might listen.

My mother had always been my last line of defense, the one who saw the storm before it broke. She knew the look in my eyes before the words ever formed on my lips. I can still hear the way her breath would hitch, the way her voice would harden—not with anger, but with desperation.

The first time she caught me spiraling, she barricaded the door. She stood in front of me like a wall, unmovable, unshaken, her body pressed against the wood as if she could hold back the darkness itself. She blocked me from stepping into the kitchen, from slipping into the bathroom, from wrapping my fingers around my trusty old friend—the razor.

She fought for me, even when I didn't want to fight for myself.

But now…

Now, she's gone.

There is no barricade. No trembling hands gripping my shoulders. No firm voice telling me to stay. Just me. Alone. And the voice.

My sadness twisted, curdling into something dark, something sharp. Anger. A fire ignited in my chest, burning away the numbness, the hopelessness, the voice that whispered for me to let go.

This wasn't suicide.

This was murder.

Someone took my mother from me. Someone snuffed out the strongest woman I've ever known and had the audacity to call it her own doing. Lies. They think I'll accept it, that I'll crumble under my grief, that I'll follow her into the abyss.

But they're wrong.

Why would I kill myself when my mother's voice is still echoing in my head, not in whispers of sorrow, but in a demand for justice? She didn't raise me to be weak. She didn't fight for me, time and time again, just for me to break now.

No.

I wipe the tears from my face, my jaw tightening, fists clenching so hard my nails dig into my palms. The weight in my chest shifts—not disappearing, but changing. Purpose.

If the world took my mother, then the world is going to pay.

Whoever did this—I will find them. And when I do, I won't let them have a quick death.

I promise mother