Chapter 7: Echoes Remember
When Aira opened her eyes, the sky was gray — the kind of gray that didn't belong to morning or night, but something in between.
Her first thought was that it was too quiet. No rain, no city sounds, just a slow hum that seemed to come from inside her.
She sat up slowly. Her clothes were damp, her ribbon still faintly glowing at her wrist. The rooftop was empty — Rimuru was gone.
For a moment, panic sparked in her chest. But then, the hum shifted — and she realized it wasn't silence at all. It was voices.
Whispers. Thousands of them.
They weren't loud. They didn't even have words. But she could feel them brushing against her mind like wind through leaves — gentle, searching, and terribly sad.
> "Aira…"
"Come back…"
"Remember us…"
Her breath caught. "Who's there?"
The hum grew stronger, vibrating through her chest like a heartbeat that wasn't hers. The world around her flickered — the rooftop fading into streaks of color, the city below dissolving into a sky of swirling light.
And there, suspended in that shimmering expanse, she saw them.
Figures made of color and emotion, not flesh — the same ones Rimuru had fought, but now they weren't hostile. They were pleading.
Aira's heart ached. The closer she looked, the more she felt their emotions: sorrow, regret, hope. They weren't monsters. They were memories — fragments of people who had once existed.
Then she heard it — a voice, clearer than the rest.
> "You are our other half."
Aira froze. The colors around her pulsed brighter, reacting to her heartbeat.
> "Find the Core. The Veil is breaking."
Her vision blurred. The light collapsed inward, and she gasped as the world snapped back into place — cold rooftop, gray sky, trembling hands.
And then she heard Rimuru's voice, calm but sharp, from behind her.
> "You saw them, didn't you?"
Aira turned. Rimuru was standing by the door, her blue eyes glowing faintly beneath her hood.
For once, she didn't look amused.
> "They're not supposed to reach you yet," Rimuru said softly. "Looks like the Veil's remembering faster than I thought."
Aira swallowed hard. "Rimuru… what am I?"
Rimuru looked at her for a long moment. The wind caught her white hair, the silence stretching between them like a drawn breath.
Then, she smiled — that same half-smile that always meant more than it seemed.
> "You're the reason they're coming," she said. "And maybe… the only one who can stop them."