Desperate...

The air between them grew heavier, charged with the weight of a past neither had fully grasped just moments ago.

The Monarch of Darkness stood frozen, his obsidian eyes locked onto Rem, but it wasn't just recognition — it was hatred, a deep, all-consuming hatred that ran deeper than his very soul.

The name had slipped from his lips instinctively, a relic from a time long before his rebirth in this frail human shell.

Azrael.

A crackling surge of black energy erupted from his body, shadows twisting unnaturally as they pulsed outward like a living force.

His breathing grew ragged, his human frame trembling under the weight of the darkness that threatened to consume him.

But he didn't care. No, he welcomed it — welcomed the unrelenting fury that now coiled within him.

"You," he spat, voice thick with venom. "You should not exist!"