From Apocalypse To Entertainment Circle (BL)-Chapter 146: Extra I: Kira’s background

"See that miserable girl. I do not understand why she still has the temerity to attend school."

"Yes, yes—does not everyone know yet? She’s nothing but a whore. Anyone who wanted her has already slept with her. She’s more or less an open hall, for use by whoever happens to walk through the door."

"With that face and that body, it’s no surprise even our homeroom teacher was smitten with her."

"Tsk, tsk. That’s what happens when your mother married a rich man and then passed away, leaving you no education or morals."

"I really doubt that she would’ve been well-bred even if her mother was still alive. Who doesn’t know that her mother married a man twenty years older than her for money? Interesting that the old fellow outlived her."

Their laughter slid down the corridor like poison, a whispering dirge to injure, biting blades in disguise as gossip. Each sentence echoed, echoing off the sterile, cream-painted walls of the school hallway until it surrounded the figure walking purposefully ahead.

The girl.

Her hair fell in a black torrent, a silken hood over her face. Her face was pointed downward, as if observing the tiles beneath her feet. The soft click of her shoes on the reflective floor was the lone beat she allowed herself, a fragile metronome to carry herself forward with. Headphones rested in her ears, thin black circles, cords running into the pocket of the bag. She gripped the strap of that bag with a hold so tight her knuckles were white.

To strangers passing by, she might have seemed peaceful—lost in some realm of personal music, a teenager withdrawing from the world with playlists and sound. But the truth was chillier, sadder.

The headphones had never been plugged in.

Not yesterday.

Not last week.

Not on any particular day since she had first cinched them around her head.

They were her shield. Her lie. Her way of pretending that the poison dripping from her classmates’ mouths was mere background noise, a storm that she could drown out with the illusion of a song.

Kira had always done this. She welcomed each word, each slur, each drop of hate and venom. She absorbed it like rain seeping into the earth—refractory, still, and deceptively motionless.

Why?

Not because she was delicate.

Not because she felt she deserved it.

But because she was strong.

Strong enough to face everything head-on without running.

Strong enough to stand up to loneliness, betrayal, and the hardness of the world.

So strong that when the entire world ganged up against her and no one stood with her, she did not choose suicide, nor did she break into shards of glass.

She lived.

Contrary to the rumor that swept like wildfire, besmirching her good name with filth she had never acquainted herself with, Kira had never once accepted a man’s hand. She had never played up to her classmates’ fathers. She had never, never, betrayed herself as they said she had.

In truth, she was the opposite of what they imagined: shy, distant, behind closed-off walls that no one may breach. And in those walls lay not wantonness, but fear—a great, gnawing, all-consuming fear of men.

How could she have done what they said she had done, when she quivered at even the thought of a man’s hand upon her?

The answer lay easily.

She hadn’t.

Overriding the voices that gnawed at her from all sides, Kira pushed herself along the corridor and into her classroom. She refused to look at anyone, wouldn’t even spare the time to acknowledge the sneers and glares. She slid with ease into her desk, flopped into the chair, and leaned forward, her head resting against the surface as if the wood would absorb her exhaustion.

And almost at once, she slowed her breath. Sleep tugged at her, a heavy and remorseless thing.

Her eyes were dark-ringed, the bruise-colored shadows around them the kind that would not be erased by sleep. She hadn’t slept last night—hadn’t been able.

Because when Kira’s lids fell, memories surfaced. Memories heavy with fear, smeared with the odor of liquor and grime, words no human should ever hear.

Sometimes, whenever the nightmare replayed so vividly, her face twisted with a look too cruel for a girl so young. Not despair. Not sadness. But lethal rage. An eye that held promise of blood, enough to cut through. And at such moments, she was no longer quite so much of a high school student anymore, but rather a shadow-smithed killer.

Today dragged itself out by the same means as any day did—slowly, brutally, smothering.

Dreary.

Crude.

Draining.

After the final bell, when she was sure she would slip away undetected, the attackers moved. A group of girls herded her into the bathroom, pinning her in. They laughed, their insults bouncing off the tile. This time they employed a bucket of filthy water. In a move without notice, they poured it on her, dripping her uniform, drenching her hair, leaving her smelling of sewers.

The shame burned deeper than the whipping of water on her flesh.

She was held for over an hour before she managed to squirm loose, as silent as always.

And then she went home.

Home.

Even though in fact, what kind of home was it anymore?

People blamed her past, that she was bad because she was an orphan. But the truth was more complicated, dirtier than rumor could hold.

She had never met her father. Her mother had brought her up alone for most of her life. And although she was faulty, although she was imperfect, her mother had attempted.

Her mother had passed away only three months previously. That was when Kira’s nightmare began in earnest.

Indeed, she had been called a gold digger, and perhaps the description was not so far off. At thirty, weary of poverty and holding onto the desire for security, she had married a prosperous businessman twenty years older than herself. His wealth glittered like rescue, and her mother, who had sung in squalid bars to support their household, had seen it.

But flaws did not rob her of her humanness. Even when she was poor, she had never given up Kira. She labored during the night, slept by day, lived a life of her own alternately, but never left money for food, never skipped paying school. She never thought Kira was a burden, although love became scarce.

Their own relationship wasn’t warm. It wasn’t a fairytale. But it was true. Respect for each other. Tenderness guarded.

And then life altered.

The wedding brought them to a mansion of cold luxury. Kira wore clothes she had only before dreamed of, ate meals served on a plate and silver, and slept in a bed that was more golden cage than rest.

Her instincts told her at once: this life was dangerous.

Withdrawn and introverted, Kira scarcely spoke to her new stepfather. But she hated the look he directed at her—eyes that lingered too long, weighted with something disgusting.

Then disaster struck.

Her mother boarded a flight for a vacation that promised rest and luxury. The flight never landed. Crash. No survivors.

The funeral had been suffocating. Black-clad strangers murmured sympathies she did not desire, eyes prying, condescending. Her flesh smarted under garments of mourning, eyes stinging from the tears that refused to cease.

That night, walking back to her bedroom in the manor, she could only think of wrapping herself up in bed and hiding behind the fragile illusion of slumber.

But the shadows on the stairs moved.

A hand was extended. Iron-clawed fingers clasped her wrist.

She cried out in pain, then tensed when she saw his face.

Her stepfather.

His eyes blazed—not with grief, but with determination. His wrinkled skin was rosy and tight, the stench of liquor clinging to him. He wasn’t drunk on more than enough to pass out. No, he was sober.

This was no accident.

This was the plan.

He grabbed her, his arm pressing into the skin, his breath in her ear warm. His voice oozed with poison, icy and nauseating:

"Now that your mother is dead, it’s your turn to serve me in her place."

Each word dropped like acid, searing her bones.

His arms encompassed her, suffocating, drowning. Dirt dripped from his lips, contaminating the air.

"I’ve always been grateful," he snarled, voice a knife twisting in deeper, "that I could buy one woman and got the other as a bonus. Lucky me, don’t you agree?"

The world spun. Her heart thudded in her head.

All those dreads she’d pushed away, every spark of fear, every sense that something was off—it had all been true.

And there was no solace in being right.

Only fear.

Only rage.

She battled with every ounce of might, her heart pounding in desperation. Since her mother passed away, she was left with no one in this world—no home, no refuge from the demons pursuing her life.

Kira stiffened, her body trembling uncontrollably, but her mind afire with one thought:

I am alone. There is no one to save me.

She struggled violently, her fingernails raking his arms, her gasps rough with fear. But his grip only tightened, the monster within him finally free.

And thus.

Kira’s nightmare has just begun.

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Erato-san has arrived.

I just want to take a brief time to mention that Kira’s additional short story will last around 4 to 5 Chapters. Therefore if you do not wish to waste time reading her history, you can simply skip those Chapters because they do not influence the plot.

Although it will be telling Kira’s tale, the apocalypse starts, and among the things that happen when Kira meets Sian and ends up one of his.

It’s a sad and happy tale all at once.

Prepare your tissues.

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