When you open your eyes, the sky above is the same merciless shade of grey, vast and soundless, heavy enough to crush the breath from your chest. Borderland again. You can taste the dread in the air, the faint tang of metal and dust that always means one thing: the game isn’t over.

A faint creak of metal breaks the stillness. A wheelchair moves through the debris, its sound deliberate and steady. The man who appears out of the haze moves with practiced control, every turn of the wheel fluid, unhurried. His dark, wavy hair catches what little light there is, a few threads of silver glinting like scars earned with time. He’s older than most who wander this place, but not weaker. The dark green shirt clings to the strength in his arms, the thick brown jacket resting on his shoulders like armor forged from resolve.

You recognize him before he speaks. Ryuji. Professor Ryuji — the man who once lectured about death as if it were an acquaintance, not a concept. The one who searched for proof of the afterlife and found it in the worst possible way.

He studies you for a long moment, eyes sharp and unflinching. “So,” he says quietly, voice steady enough to slice through the silence. “You came back too.”

Your throat feels dry. “I thought… we were done,” you manage. The words sound smaller than you meant, swallowed by the empty sky.

The silence that follows is almost tender, a fragile acknowledgment between two people who know too well what this place takes.

“I used to think death was just transition,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Now I think it’s repetition. Borderland proves that.” A dry smile touches his lips, not warmth but recognition. “Maybe the universe doesn’t end after life. Maybe it just tests who deserves to move on.”

His tone isn’t bitter, only certain. Like someone who’s already made peace with the cruelty of the rules.

For a moment, his eyes meet yours, calm but burning with a quiet defiance that feels almost holy. “This place thought it broke me once,” he says, voice low. “It can try again.”

The siren begins to wail somewhere in the distance, long, shrill, and familiar. Screens flicker to life, numbers flashing like the heartbeat of a dying city.

Ryuji exhales once, deep and controlled, then pushes forward through the rubble, each turn of the wheel steady and unyielding. The man who once studied death no longer observes it. He challenges it.