"Who are you?"
Her voice was colder than the air, gentler than wind, but with a weight that pressed on the bones.
"Why did you come running to me?"
She stood still in the mist, Armor catching glints of dying sunlight. Her hair no longer shimmered with innocence. It hung like silk forged in ice.
"What could a human possibly want with me?"
Three questions, but not once did she turn.
Kentaro couldn't breathe.
Her voice it was Serica's, but hollow. Empty. Like someone else had borrowed her shape.
Her back to him, she began to walk again, soft steps, trailing frost across dead grass. The distance between them widened with every quiet footfall, and still… her eyes never once turned back.
Kentaro tried to shout her name. Nothing came out. His jaw wouldn't move.
His legs, frozen from the knees down, ice creeping up his ribs like the fingers of a grave.
"No. No, why can't I move?! MOVE, damn it!"
His body refused him.
He had charged toward her like a fool, hoping for the Serica he knew, the one who blushed over toast, who asked him about house rules, who smiled like he was her anchor.
Instead, she walked past him like a ghost. Not a flicker of recognition in her step.
And then.
Crack.
The sound of ice sealing shut. It wrapped him whole.
His world shrank to the prison of his own skin, cold seeping into his chest. His lungs locked. His vision tunnelled.
He couldn't move. Couldn't scream.
Just stare.
The last thing he saw before the frost glazed over his eyes... was her figure, fading into the mist. Calm. Silent. Beautiful.
And utterly unknown to him.
"Serica..."
He screamed the name in his mind, over and over, until even his thoughts felt frozen.
*
The blast Kira and Tengen suffered from, random or not, was the only reason they'd gotten away in the first place. But the reprieve hadn't lasted long. Tengen was near his limit, his breathing ragged as he carried Kira through the broken forest. Neither of them spoke, but even in silence, Kira could feel it. His grip was getting looser. His steps were getting heavier.
"Let me down," she said finally, glancing back toward the ruined hilltop. "I should be okay now."
Tengen looked over his shoulder, sweat running down his face. "You sure?"
"Yeah. No point in you gassing out, and then I end up carrying you."
He stopped, boots crunching against the damp, leaf-covered ground, and let her slide down. Kira steadied herself, legs wobbly but holding.
"Glad you're not dead and all," Tengen muttered, "but what now? Do we keep running? Just stall till Kentaro finishes up, if he's even still alive?"
Kira didn't answer. She stood still, eyes narrowed, heart racing.
What's best for Kentaro?
Keep running? No, she'd catch up eventually.
Fight? Out of the question.
Then what…?
Nothing came to her. No plan, no logic. Just a gnawing sense of helplessness.
But time had run out.
"NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU HUMANS RUN, I WILL FIND YOU!"
The voice echoed through the forest, massive and furious, as if the mountain itself was bellowing.
Tengen flinched. "Shit. Run, straight! There's more cover!"
They took off. Branches whipped at their faces. Leaves exploded beneath their feet. Their legs moved on instinct. But no matter how far they ran, or how fast, the voice always sounded too close, like she was already waiting ahead.
Kira had overtaken Tengen now. He was slowing. Fatigue was catching up.
Then she stopped.
"Tengen, look."
He stumbled to her side. Together they stood in silence, eyes wide.
"Ice…?" Kira muttered. "Why's the forest frozen?"
The path ahead was coated in frost, glittering under the fading light. Trees sparkled like glass sculptures, entire sections of the forest blanketed in a growing sheet of white.
And in the middle of it.
Kira saw her.
The girl who once laughed with them.
The girl she once tried to kill.
The girl who'd once smiled like the sun.
"…Serica."
Tengen froze beside her, mouth slightly open. "Wha-what the hell is…"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
Serica was walking slowly down the frozen path. Each step she took carved tiny craters in the ground. Her hand held a sword of glimmering ice, though she didn't even seem to need it; trees collapsed at the mere ripple of her presence.
Her dress glowed faintly. Her aura spiralled outward like a snowstorm made of silence.
And her eyes were cold. Hollow. Like her body was Serica's, but the soul inside was a stranger's.
She didn't even see them.
But Kira didn't flinch. Didn't move.
She took a step forward.
"…Where's Kentaro?"
"Shit… he must've missed her. Or worse," Tengen muttered, eyes locked on the ghost of Serica walking toward them.
Kira's teeth ground against each other in pure agony. Her heart thrashed in her chest, her breath shallow and frantic.
Where is he?
Is Kentaro okay?
Why isn't he with her?
What happened to him, what the hell happened?!
Her mind swirled with questions. No answers came.
But as bad as it already looked…
They were only at the beginning.
"I see," a cold voice echoed from behind. "You've brought me back to the screaming brat, eh?"
They didn't turn.
They couldn't.
It was like gravity itself had thickened. Their bodies weighed down like lead. Their lungs squeezed. And that's when they realized…
They were inside her Domain.
"KIRA!" Tengen choked out, voice cracking under the pressure. "WHAT DO WE DO?!"
But Kira couldn't respond.
Her mind wasn't working like it should. She was spiraling. The thought of Kentaro, possibly frozen, dead, or worse, at the hands of an Alberline she couldn't recognize anymore… it broke something inside her.
"Not again…"
Her voice cracked.
"No, no-no! WHY?!"
She screamed so loud it startled Tengen.
He'd never seen her like this.
To him, Kira was always the calm one. Collected. Controlled. The quiet, clever one who stuck to Kentaro's side or buried herself in her books.
But now.
She was a mess of emotion.
Tears streamed down her face, staining her cheeks red.
Her fists were clenched, trembling, and soaked from the storm.
Rage burned in her eyes. Rage not at herself, not even at Serica, but at all Alberlines. Every one of them.
The enemy stepped from the sky.
The same Alberline who had chased them down now floated gently to the forest floor, her boots cracking the earth beneath her. Her presence alone distorted the air.
She stood just inches away from Kira.
"…It seems you can't hide your intent to kill anymore," she said, her voice strangely calm.
Kira's expression faltered. "Anymore?"
The Alberline nodded slightly.
"Yes. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I sensed it. That hatred. You hid it well… but it's always been there. Quiet. Brewing. Ugly."
She leaned in close, her tone like poison.
"Now it's leaking out. I wonder… why now?"
Her lips curled slightly, knowing Kira couldn't touch her. Couldn't move. Couldn't do a damn thing.
Kira's body trembled, but not from fear.
The pressure. The pain. The shame.
The Alberline walked past her, slow and deliberate, letting the tip of her fingers drag lightly across Kira's arm, like a warning. Like a reminder of power.
She moved to stand ahead of them both.
Her eyes locked on Serica.
"You," she said, voice rising. "Your scream gave me a headache. Time to put you in your place."
Serica stopped walking. Her blade lowered, just slightly.
She met the other girl's gaze directly.
"…Who are you?"
Her voice sounded like Serica's.
But it wasn't.
Not really.
It was empty.
As if someone else was speaking through her.
The Alberline tilted her head, caught off guard.
"Me? You want to know who I am?"
She let out a scoff.
"What are you, stupid?"
Serica didn't respond.
The Alberline's brows furrowed, her voice sharp like glass.
"I asked you a question, ice doll."
Serica didn't blink.
Didn't twitch.
Her lips moved, soft and slow.
"I don't know you."
A pause.
Then.
"Should I care?"
The trees around them cracked under pressure.
Frost spread across bark and stone like a virus. The two Alberlines, Serica and her challenger, stood still beneath the rising mist. Neither moved.
Ice cracked beneath Serica's feet. Her grip on the blade in her hand pulsed with light, faint blue veins of energy crawling up her arm. The frost along the forest floor thickened.
Kira didn't move.
Tengen couldn't breathe.
And far above, aboard the Halcyon's hovering sub-command ship, the projector screen trembled from interference, but the frozen statue at its center remained clear.
Kentaro. Encased in ice. Head to toe.
His expression was locked in time, lips slightly parted, eyes desperate, frozen in the very moment Serica walked past him like a stranger.
"…I still can't believe it…" Haruka muttered. She leaned forward, hands planted on the console. "That's really him."
Shogo stayed quiet. His usual playfulness was gone.
"That's not frostbite. That's sublimated lock-freeze. The moment he got close to her… she shut him out. Without even realizing it."
Yumi narrowed her eyes. "You think she did it on instinct?"
"No," Tenka said softly. "She did it because she didn't recognize him."
The room fell quiet.
The battlefield on screen was heating up, energy flickering between the two Alberlines, but all anyone could do was stare at the one person not moving.
Kentaro. Frozen in time.
"…We need to get him out of there," Tenka muttered.
The camera zoomed in on the crystalline sheen over Kentaro's face, catching the last light of the sun as Serica and her rival squared off.
And then.
The ice cracked.
Just once.
Barely visible.
But enough to make Yumi's eyes widen.
"…Did you see that?!"
But no one responded, their eyes were fixated on the screen...