The Gamer’s POV

If I did not already have prior knowledge about Yami and his abilities, we all would have fallen blindly into his trap.

Despite his madness and his eccentric, greedy nature, Yami was an incredibly smart and cunning person.

I could tell that Yami was not summoning more of his hollow Dominants, not because he was afraid to lose any more of them, or because he was running low on mana like the rest of us. Rather, I could see that right now, there was nothing Yami wanted more than for one of us to kill him.

Yami's bonded ability allowed him to take over the body of his killer by forcefully kicking their soul out and replacing it with his own. This aspect of his bonded ability was triggered automatically as the cost to use this part of his power was for a person to kill him.

Once he took over the killer's body, no one would notice that the person was no longer themselves, but Yami. His plan was for one of us to kill him, and then, while we were recovering and unsuspecting, he would finish us off from the inside.

Since I already knew this, I couldn't let any of my party members kill him. If anyone was going to do it, it had to be me.

Of course, I wasn't going to let him take over my body either. That was why I devised the plan to have Aika kill him while I killed myself at the exact same moment.

If my body was completely crumbled and uninhabitable, then his bonded ability would fail as he wouldn't be able to inhabit a vessel that was already destroyed.

…And so, before Celeste could summon her whips of flames and before Dion could use his powers, the raven hovering above Yami burst into a flurry of feathers. In a heartbeat, the feathers reshaped themselves into Aika, who was already in motion, her katana raised high above her head as she descended like a shadow.

In that split second when everyone looked up to see her, Yami looked up too. But as expected, he did not try to move or defend himself. He simply stood his ground, welcoming the strike with that same hollow, unsettling grin, and so Aika's sword plunged deep into his chest. The force of her descent drove him down, pinning him firmly to the floor as she stayed on top of him.

As for me, my body kept plummeting through the air. I watched the ground rushing up toward me, the battlefield shrinking and expanding all at once as the wind whistled in my ears.

"Ahh… of all the ways to die…" I muttered somberly as I suddenly recalled a painful memory.

Come to think of it, back on Earth, my mom had died the exact same way. I remember getting the call from the police one evening; they told me that after finishing her shift, rather than leaving for home, she had gone up to the rooftop of her office building and jumped.

It was a strange irony that I had to experience the very same silence and loneliness she must have felt during those final seconds.

'What a tragedy…'

At this point, my eyes were so blurry with tears that I couldn't see the ground anymore; everything below me was just a distorted smear of grey and brown. The air grew colder as I gained speed, the distant memory of her face blurring into the dark landscape below, and before long, the world simply ceased to exist.

There was no sudden pain, only a massive, bone-deep shudder as my body finally hit the ground.

[You Died.]

***

Meanwhile…

Dion flinched as a dull, sickening thud echoed through the clearing. He froze, his spear lowering slightly as he turned his gaze away from Yami and Aika, toward the spot where the shadow had fallen.

"…Huh?" he muttered in a daze and an expression of shock crossed his face when he could see the face on the mangled corpse. His legs went weak and he dropped to his knees. "Cedric?"

Celeste turned too, and when she saw her brother's limp form lying motionless on the cold earth, she took a hesitant step, and her body suddenly caught on fire.

At that moment, Yami spluttered out blood from his mouth and then grinned. He was too focused on Aika, who was still pinned on top of him, that he didn't see that the vessel he was supposed to take over had just died.

When Aika saw his smug, arrogant, blood-stained face, her annoyance and irritation grew even worse.

She looked down at him with a cold, almost pitying expression, then leaned in closer until their faces were only inches apart. "What? Do you think it's going to go how you planned… Yami?"

The moment Yami heard his name, his expression suddenly faltered, the smug, victorious grin dissolving into a look of genuine confusion and fear.

"H-how… how do you know that name? Who are you?" he stammered, his body jerking slightly as the life began to drain from his limbs.

While still inches from his face, Aika slowly began to pull the blade from his chest. "How dare you…"

She raised the katana slightly, then plunged it into another non-vital spot in his shoulder, twisting the blade slowly to ensure he felt every bit of the pain.

Yami began to writhe in pain while also trying to free himself. The blood bubbling in his throat made his voice rasp as he stared up at her, and the light in his eyes flickered with a sudden, desperate uncertainty.

Aika then slowly took out the katana again, raised it slightly, and plunged it into another non-vital spot. "How dare you make him kill himself?"

At this point, the massive form of the Soul Eater had already begun to dissolve into dark, wispy smoke. Aika took out her katana again. This time, she leaned back away from him and cast him one last cold gaze before finally plunging the blade into his forehead, killing him instantly.