The crowd roared, rising to their feet. They thought they were watching a fairy-tale ending.
Jiro broke the kiss and turned to the chain that bound me. With exaggerated strokes for the audience, he hacked at the fake links. Plastic shattered, pieces flying, and the crowd cheered louder. Their heroine was free.
I lifted my eyes to Haru.
Sora had climbed onto the stage, knife raised. For the first time, Haru’s smile faltered. His eyes weren’t playing anymore. The bravado slipped, replaced by something raw—fear.
His gaze stayed fixed on the blade, the glint of steel catching the light, blood already dripping from it.
“What are you doing?” Haru said, voice trembling as he tried to laugh it off for the stands.
Sora grabbed him by the shirt and held him steady.
“Sora, remember the plan,” Jiro said, voice sharp, cutting through the roar of the arena.
But Sora didn’t hear. Or didn’t care. Locked on Haru, breathing hard, jaw set.
He was supposed to pull Haru close, make it look like a quiet death—the kind the crowd might mistake for stagecraft.
Instead, he raised the knife higher, so everyone could see.
A chill went through me. I grabbed Jiro’s arm, nails biting into him. Sora was off script. The crowd mistook it for showmanship. They roared, stamping their feet, demanding a finale.
“Flamebound! Flamebound! Flamebound!” they chanted.
“What are you doing, Sora? That’s not the plan,” Haru said, panic breaking through his grin.
“Too bad you don’t believe in prayer,” Sora said, his voice colder than I’d ever heard.
The knife came down in a single arc. In the next heartbeat Haru’s head was gone, his body collapsing forward into Sora’s grip.
For a moment Sora stood there, holding up a headless torso, blood streaming down his arms, the body twitching as if it hadn’t yet understood it was dead.
The arena froze as all eyes focused on center stage.
Then Sora bent, lifted Haru’s head by the hair, and held it high for all to see. Blood streamed from the neck in steady ribbons, pattering onto the stage.
The hush stretched on as reality settled in. This was no longer a performance. Faces shifted in the stands, mouths gaping. Fingers pointed toward the Chopmen lying on the ground, unmoving. And then a voice cut through the quiet: “They’re dead!”
Silence fell. Thousands of faces stared, some shocked, some confused—all struggling to understand what happened.
Unsure what to do or say, Jiro and I looked at Sora, searching his face for a sign he was still himself. He looked like a man possessed, a madman reveling in the act.
I glanced toward the Handles’ section. Naomi and Arata riffled through their notes, as if they could find a missing page explaining this ending. The other Handles leaned toward one another, whispering as their perfect script unraveled before their eyes.
Then a sound cut through the stillness: a single pair of hands clapping.
The spotlight swung to the viewing box. Ginji stood there, smiling, his applause sharp and mocking as it echoed through the arena.
“It’s time you saw the true Flamebound for what they are!” Ginji’s voice thundered over the speakers, smooth and commanding. “You came for a play of love and laughter. But what did they give you? Blood and betrayal.”
He spread his arms wide, grinning as if this were all part of the script.
“They showed you their true colors. The rot inside them. These two are no heroes. They are no lovers. They are monsters in costumes. And you”—he pointed into the stands, milking the silence—“you believed them.”
The murmur of the crowd rose, confusion unraveling into discussion, then sharp voices. For the first time I sensed anger turning toward Jiro and me.
“Your Handles,” Ginji said, pointing down at them with a sweep of his arm. His smile never wavered as the spotlight caught the glint in his eyes. “They believed Flamebound could work. They believed they were giving you true love.” He gave a theatrical shrug. “And how could I deny them? How could I stop them from chasing something they were so desperate to believe in… even if I knew it was a lie?”
