"Do you trust me, Aki?"
The air around them had grown dark and thick. Windows were shutting even faster than they had opened. Akihiro, having coughed air back into his lungs, looks at her with watering eyes.
"T-Trust you?" he repeats. She nods, like she hasn't asked him both the most absurd and the world. "Yes… I think so." She's never lied to him. She's never said the whole truth, but she's never lied and that's enough. She just wants to keep them safe, right?
Nat nods and the vanishing smile scares him for a moment. Then she takes his free hand. "Don't worry," she says. "No matter what happens, I'll protect you from him."
Her father laughs and the sound is bitter. "Your mother has softened you."
"You would have too," Rhythm says, and then, the air thrums. With the thrums came a rush from under his skin, beneath his heart, somewhere he's never reached for in his life. A soul.
He's a boy of science. Humans don't have souls, or at least they shouldn't. There's no proof. And as his own rushes from within him, Akihiro knows science is wrong. Nat can see his soul. Nat is feeding from his soul. Her body glows with it, a color he doesn't know from the colored pencil box wrapping around her and flooding them with light. The monster man laughs and moves towards them. A gold color covers his eyes, brighter and colder at the same time as it engulfs Akihiro himself in soft, gentle warmth.
When it fades, there is no Nat-chan. There is only a great, golden dragon covering him from projectiles with her hand-claws.
Akihiro screams. It's bigger than him, almost the size of six grizzly bears and its eight red eyes are fixed on him so intently.
"Aki?" it says, female voice a rumble of dismay.
He stops. Nat-chan. This is Nat-chan.
Her father laughs. "I told you, Rhythm, I told you what humans are. Let's spare you a little agony."
Vines erupt from the ground and the dragon, his best friend, curls around him and she's almost sharp. He shies away, but she's just far enough that he can still breathe.
"Don't worry, Aki," she says softly. "You'll be okay."
The road craters and light and earth rush each other.
Akihiro sees none of it after that moment. The second there's a big enough gap, he turns tail and runs away. When his mother sees the finger marks on his neck, she takes him to the hospital. Akihiro says nothing. He doesn't speak for a week.
Nat-chan never shows up again, and her small apartment is wiped clean.
He has never hated himself more.
(But he will.)