Chapter 43: The Grave of the Hero

Kōya reached for him across the table. "Father..."

Seiya’s soul finally began to rise.

Kōya saw it. The sudden shift in ambient light snapped his focus back. His dark eyes widened in sheer panic.

"No..."

The pale, golden, fading shape of Seiya’s soul slowly separated from his ruined physical body.

Kōya reached frantically toward it. His long fingers passed completely through the light.

"Father!"

The soul continued its slow, peaceful ascent.

Kōya swiped his hand through the air again. Nothing. He could see it. He could feel the warmth of its presence. He understood exactly what was happening.

But there was absolutely nothing his vast power could do to stop it.

"Wait!" His voice broke, ringing off the walls. "Please..."

The soul lingered for a fraction of a second, looking almost as though it were smiling at him.

Then, it faded entirely. Gone.

Kōya froze. His hand remained extended over the table.

For several agonizing seconds, he couldn’t move a single muscle. He slowly lowered his eyes to Seiya’s body sitting in the chair.

"Father?"

Nothing.

"Dad?"

Nothing. The chest was perfectly still.

Kōya slowly lowered his hand to the wood. He stared at the face of the man who had raised him.

His mind violently refused to process the data.

"No." He shook his head. "No, you were just tired."

He reached across the table, his hand grasping Seiya’s broad shoulder. "Wake up."

Nothing.

"Father."

Still nothing.

Kōya’s breathing became erratic, panic setting in. He didn’t understand this feeling.

He knew perfectly well what death was. He had executed thousands. He had experienced death himself in a past life.

But this wasn’t like that. This was entirely different.

This was his father. The man who had carried him on his shoulders as a child. The man who had taught him how to hold a wooden sword. The man he had spent three years wanting to challenge.

Kōya remembered being very young. He remembered looking up at the towering figure of the Hero. He had once dreamed of fighting Seiya.

As a child, he wanted to defeat the legendary man simply to prove his own strength to the world.

But as he grew older, that childish, arrogant desire had matured. He didn’t want to kill his father. He wanted to defeat him. Fairly. In a duel with both of them standing at the end. He wanted to cross real swords with Seiya.

He wanted to push himself to his absolute limits until he could finally stand at his father’s level. He wanted to hear Seiya proudly say that his son had finally surpassed him.

That specific future had always existed safely somewhere inside Kōya’s mind.

Now, it was completely gone. Someone had stolen it from him.

Kōya clenched his fist.

His arm trembled with an overwhelming, uncontrollable rage.

He punched the wooden wall beside the table.

BANG!

The heavy oak cracked violently.

He swung again.

BANG!

His fist struck harder, shattering the wood.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to hit someone until his knuckles broke.

He wanted to find the exact person responsible for this and make them feel every single ounce of the agony currently tearing his chest apart.

But there was nobody there to hit.

Only Seiya.

Only the silent body of his father.

Kōya sank heavily to his knees on the floorboards. His hands trembled in his lap. He stared up at the body in the chair.

Then, he whispered into the silence:

"I won’t leave you like this."

His dark eyes moved slowly toward the empty chair across the table. His mother’s chair.

"Mom would be sad."

Kōya stood up. He wiped the tears violently from his eyes.

Then, he walked over and placed both of his hands gently against Seiya’s lifeless body.

Dark energy began gathering rapidly around his palms. Viscous, violet-black flames spread across the floorboards of the dining room.

Kōya concentrated with absolute, terrifying intensity. This time, he forced his brilliant mind to completely focus.

He couldn’t bring his father back from the dead. Not now. But he could preserve him perfectly.

The demonic energy wrapped tightly around Seiya. Layer after meticulous layer formed over the body. The dark flames compressed into a solid, incredibly dense shell.

A cocoon.

Kōya carefully enclosed his father’s entire form inside it. The dark shell hardened into an impenetrable casing.

There would be no decay. No corruption of the flesh. No outside interference from scavengers or time. Absolutely nothing would touch Seiya. Not while Kōya still drew breath.

He stared at the black cocoon resting in the chair.

"If there is a way..." His voice trembled with a terrifying resolve. "I will find it."

Kōya remembered his own impossible return from the void. Death had already failed to keep him permanently chained once. He refused to believe it was an absolute law.

"I will bring you back too."

He lifted the heavy cocoon effortlessly into his arms. Then, he carried his father outside into the night.

The heavy rain poured over the small garden.

Kōya walked to the side of the house. This small patch of earth had once been a perfectly ordinary place. Flowers his mother had planted. Tall grass. A place where his family had lived and laughed.

Now, it would become his father’s resting place.

Kōya placed the heavy cocoon gently on the wet grass.

He raised one hand. Dark energy gathered instantly.

Then, he struck the earth.

BOOM!

Soil, mud, and stone flew violently outward. Kōya dug deep into the ground using his raw demonic strength, carving a perfect, deep grave in seconds.

He carefully lowered the cocoon down into the dark earth. Then, he pushed the soil back over it. Again. And again.

Until absolutely nothing remained visible except the freshly disturbed mud.

Kōya stood there over the grave.

The rain poured relentlessly over him, soaking him to the bone.

He stared down at the earth. His broad shoulders began shaking.

He fell heavily to his knees in the mud. His scarred hands dug deeply into the wet soil.

And finally, alone in the dark, he cried.

Not quietly. Not gracefully.

He sobbed, a loud, broken, animalistic sound of pure despair.

"He didn’t know what this overwhelming feeling was called."

He only knew that a massive, vital piece of his soul had just been violently ripped out of his chest.

His father was gone. The man he had wanted to spar with was gone. The bright future he had imagined for them all was completely gone.

Kōya pressed his forehead against the wet, muddy earth.

"I wanted to fight you..." His voice cracked, barely a whisper. "I wanted to beat you."

The rain ran down his face, washing away the dirt.

"I wasn’t supposed to lose you."

His fist tightened, pulling up clumps of grass.

"I wasn’t..." He couldn’t finish the thought.

For three long years, Kōya had operated under the assumption that he had time.

Time to finish his training.

Time to return home.

Time to challenge his father to a duel.

Time to hear his father’s booming laughter.

Time to sit at that wooden table again and complain about the portions.

Time to bring his mother home safely.

Now, there was absolutely no time left. Someone had stolen it from him.

Kōya slowly raised his head from the mud.

His tears mixed freely with the cold rain.

His profound grief began subtly, dangerously changing shape. The agonizing pain remained, an anchor in his chest. But beneath it, something incredibly dark, cold, and ancient was beginning to form.

He remembered Yuna’s smile. He remembered Seiya’s last breath. He remembered the coordinated demonic attack on the town. His mother’s sudden disappearance.

The architects responsible for the slaughter.

Kōya’s expression hardened into a mask of pure, absolute death.

"I will find you."

His voice was quiet. But it was as steady as forged iron.

"Whoever did this..." His fingers dug into the earth above his father’s grave. "I will find you."

He stood up smoothly from the mud.

"I will bring Mom back."

The rain continued falling, washing the blood from his hands.

"And everyone who was responsible for this..." His dark eyes became as cold and empty as the void itself. "I will make them pay in blood."

He looked toward the oppressive darkness beyond the silent village.

There was no longer any tactical uncertainty in his mind. He had one singular, bloody promise left to fulfill.

He would save Mizuki. And he would brutally uncover the person who had orchestrated the destruction of his family.

No matter how far into the dark he had to go. No matter how many demonic armies stood in his path. No matter what horrors waited for him beyond the edge of the world.

Kōya would find them.

He returned to the edge of the grave. Then, he sat down in the mud beside it.

The night had fully arrived. The pale moon briefly appeared between the heavy rain clouds, its silver light falling across the ruined garden.

Rain continued to pour over the earth beneath which the Hero rested.

Kōya sat completely silently. His clothes were soaked through. His face was pale and exhausted. His dark eyes were swollen from crying.

He slowly lifted his right hand. He placed one closed fist firmly against his heart.

Just as Seiya had done.

"I’ll bring her home, Father."

He closed his eyes.

"And I will make sure the entire world knows exactly what they did."

The rain continued its steady drum against the earth.

Kōya remained sitting beside the grave, guarding the silence.

For the very first time in his existence, he truly understood the agonizing weight of what it meant to lose a father.

And somewhere deep beneath the crushing grief, beneath the tears, beneath the terrible darkness aggressively gathering inside his soul...

A brand new path had begun.

One that would lead him directly toward his mother.

And directly toward the throats of the people who had taken his father away.