Chapter 5: The First Confrontation
The night was too quiet. Even the rain that had painted the city in color earlier had gone still — like the world itself was holding its breath.
Aira stood beside Rimuru, clutching her ribbon-wrapped wrist. The streetlights flickered, their glow stretching unnaturally long shadows that twisted against the walls.
"Do you feel that?" Aira whispered.
Rimuru tilted her head, eyes half-lidded, a soft smirk curving her lips. "Feel it? It's practically humming my name."
The air rippled — once, then again — a distortion that wasn't sound but pressure, subtle at first, then sharp enough to make the pavement crack.
From the distance, figures began to emerge. They weren't human — or at least, not anymore. Their forms were faintly translucent, like shadows wearing broken reflections of faces. The Veil's echoes — fragments of forgotten emotions given shape.
Rimuru's smile faded, just slightly. "So, they finally noticed us."
Aira took a step back. "They… they're watching me."
Rimuru stepped forward, blocking Aira without a thought. Her blue eyes began to glow, threads of light swirling faintly like liquid glass — the color of calm, but not peace.
"Don't worry," she said softly, voice dipping into something colder. "They're not watching you. They're watching what's standing in front of you."
The shadows hissed, soundless and wrong, their forms shivering as they tried to cross the shimmering boundary that had begun to spread around Rimuru's feet — a soft blue ring, pulsing in rhythm with her breath.
Aira stared, eyes wide. "What is that…?"
Rimuru didn't answer immediately. Her gaze locked on the nearest echo as its form lunged forward. She raised one hand — lazily, as if swatting at smoke. The ring flared once, and the echo shattered into shards of light.
"Just a safety line," she murmured. "I don't like uninvited guests."
The others hesitated — not because they understood fear, but because some instinct buried deep in whatever passed for their memory remembered her.
And for the first time since the storm began, Rimuru stopped smiling.
The air trembled. The shadows circled them, twisting and stretching through the fog like whispers that had lost their words.
Rimuru took one step forward. The sound of her boot hitting the pavement was quiet — but the world responded like thunder.
Blue light rippled from her, soft at first, then expanding outward in rings that distorted the rain and bent the air. Aira felt it press against her skin, not painfully, but deeply — like the world was breathing through her.
"What are you doing…?" she asked, voice shaking.
Rimuru looked back at her over her shoulder, eyes blazing brighter now — brilliant blue, alive, dangerous, and heartbreakingly beautiful.
> "Testing something," she said. "If they came for you, I need to know how far they'll go."
Before Aira could reply, the echoes struck. A dozen of them surged forward — half-formed, clawing through the light like desperate memories trying to be real again.
Rimuru's hand moved once.
Reality flinched.
The blue ring shattered into a thousand strands of light that whipped through the air like ribbons, slicing clean through the echoes. The sound was like glass breaking underwater — silent, then suddenly everywhere.
For a moment, everything went still again.
Then, one of the echoes didn't vanish.
It screamed — a high, broken noise — and lunged past Rimuru straight toward Aira.
"Aira!"
Rimuru reached out — but before her light could react, something else did.
Aira's ribbon glowed.
The faint silver shimmer in her eyes deepened — not light but memory.
Time seemed to stop as the echo froze midair, its form warping and twisting before dissolving into pure color.
Rimuru froze. Her power was still active, but this… this wasn't hers.
Aira fell to her knees, gasping, the ribbon on her wrist faintly burning.
"I— I didn't mean to… it just—"
Rimuru knelt beside her, studying her closely. The blue light around her faded, calm once more.
> "No," she said quietly, almost to herself. "You didn't control it. It responded to you."
Aira blinked up at her. "What does that mean?"
Rimuru smiled again — but this time, the smile didn't reach her eyes.
> "It means you're not just caught up in this, Aira. You're connected to it."
The last echo dissolved into mist, and the quiet returned. But the stillness now felt different — not safety, but silence after something wakes up.
Rimuru looked up at the empty sky, her voice barely above a whisper.
> "Looks like we've got their attention now."