"I've been reduced to this… I'm truly just scum."
Shinji was about to kill the girl standing before him.
Around him, eyes stabbed like knives. The eyes of the bystanders. Full of fear. Of disgust.
He could feel their judgment, their contempt.
And yet, he couldn't stop. Not now. Not when he was this close to the end.
He looked up one last time at his target…
And saw her laughing.
A laugh. Light. Crystalline. Almost familiar.
She held her arms out toward him. They were trembling. Tears shimmered in her eyes. But she smiled — as if she accepted what was coming.
"…Is it you, Aima? Are you the one she sent me to kill?"
"I was waiting for you, Shinji."
Her voice. Gentle. Resigned.
Fear struck him suddenly. Violent. Complete.
He could no longer keep his composure.
The blade slipped from his sweat-soaked fingers.
"What's happening to me?"
That laugh… it was proof of her humanity.
Something inside him refused to ignore it.
He knew he had no right to hesitate. That he couldn't fail now.
And yet, he faltered.
He tried to gather his thoughts.
But that brief moment of hesitation… sealed his fate.
A sharp crack tore through the air.
He barely heard it before he was on one knee.
His ribs shattered. Blood sprayed from his torn chest. The bullet had passed through too fast. He hadn't even felt its path.
A second impact.
His throat exploded. He collapsed.
The assassin hadn't taken the risk of showing himself.
No face. No words. Nothing.
Shinji could only laugh at the irony.
He was going to die under the bullets of someone who hadn't hesitated.
Who hadn't faltered.
Like he had in front of the girl.
His muscles gave out. Fiber by fiber.
His body gave up. Slowly. Silently.
A creeping paralysis wrapped itself around him.
He could no longer fight this fate — the fate he had earned.
His blood, frothy and burning, ate away at what remained of him.
The pain was so deep he wished for only one thing:
That it would end.
"Kill me… Finish it… Don't leave me in this miserable state…"
But he realized, as he opened his mouth, that his vocal cords had given out.
No sound. No final words.
Just silence. And pain.
Blood blurred his vision, but he could still make out a silhouette.
Her.
A shadow.
Laughing.
But her laughter had nothing innocent about it.
It was sly. Distorted. Terrifying.
"So this is what they feel, in their final moments?"
Shinji's body was draining of blood.
The stench filled the entire alley.
He was nothing more than a carcass on borrowed time.
"Huh… I don't hear the screams of the bystanders anymore…"
Even his hearing had begun to abandon him.
"Is that really so surprising?"
He knew it.
There was no more hope.
No turning back.
So he tried to think of nothing else but them.
His parents.
The only ones he had ever truly loved.
His instinct to survive faded.
He let himself drift.
He sought peace — even a false one — in this tragic end.
"Mom… Dad…"
He waited for just one thing:
For this nightmare to end.
For death to return to him what he had lost.
His consciousness, now fleeting, held on for one reason only:
Sadness.
His soul was full of it.
Saturated.
He raised his head one last time.
Just to feel a few raindrops on his skin.
And then she appeared. A blinding light tore through the sky.
It stole his sight.
And within that light… a gaze he knew too well.
A pure hatred reopened within him.
"Not you."
He had wished for fate to strike her down. Not him.
He cursed her, even on the threshold of death.
The light became a scream.
A woman's voice, torn with sadness and disgust.
"Why now…?"
After everything I've done… because of you… Why?
Then silence.
Then a laugh.
Hers.
"I don't want to suffer anymore… I trust you, one last time… Free me from my chains."
As the light faded, Shinji's mind drifted.
He could no longer distinguish reality from his subconscious.
A question, absurd yet gentle, rose within him:
What if… it was just a dream?
Maybe he was still in his bed.
In a simpler world. Warmer. More bearable.
But deep down, he knew.
He knew he was at death's door.
And despite that glimmer of hope, one thing still consumed his soul:
Hatred.
Nameless hatred.
An indescribable rage.
"I knew I couldn't trust you!"
The emotions within him were no longer human.
They had become something else.
Something darker.
"Why? After everything I did… why?"
He tried to scream. But as expected, no sound came out.
Even in this final effort, his body had betrayed him.
He wanted to scream his disgust. Throw it in the face of the entity he hated.
But there was only emptiness.
And he kept trying. Still. Again.
Even though it was impossible.
Even though it was too late.
Blind, half-dead, he thought he saw an alley.
Dark. Strangely familiar.
Maybe a hallucination.
Maybe a scrap of memory.
In that exact moment, Shinji… sank. Along with all the secrets of a life that had been shattered.