The sound of running feet echoed through the narrow tunnel.
Uneven. Desperate. Breaking rhythm with every stumble.
Behind them, something heavier answered.
Violent steps. Relentless.
Closing the distance.
The small figure didn't look back.
Couldn't afford to.
Her breath came out in broken fragments, scraping against her throat as she forced her trembling legs to move faster. The cracked mask over her face shifted with each ragged inhale, its fractured surface hiding everything except the fear burning behind her unseen eyes.
The tunnel twisted once—
Then ended.
She skidded to a halt at the edge of a vast hollow, loose stone crumbling beneath her feet and vanishing into darkness below. The drop swallowed sound. Swallowed light. Swallowed hope.
Footsteps thundered closer from behind.
No way forward.
No time to think.
Her fingers dug into her shaking thighs as she bent forward, whispering through clenched teeth:
"⟟... rha... vel... kha—"
The words were broken. Ancient. Wrong.
A faint aura flickered to life around her legs, thin as mist at first—
then tightening, condensing, glowing with fragile defiance.
She inhaled once. Sharp. Painful.
And jumped.
The world disappeared beneath her.
For a single heartbeat she floated in silence above the abyss—
then gravity remembered her name.
She landed hard on the opposite ledge, momentum tearing control from her body. Stone scraped skin. Her shoulder struck rock. She rolled until a boulder stopped her with a dull, breath-stealing impact.
Stillness.
Pain arrived a moment later, blooming through her limbs like fire beneath ice.
A faint groan slipped past the mask as she forced her eyes open.
Across the gap, shadows gathered at the ledge she had escaped.
Tall. Crooked. Watching.
They did not jump.
After a tense pause, the shapes withdrew into the tunnel, their violent presence fading back into the dark that birthed them.
Silence returned—thin, uncertain.
The girl pushed herself upright with trembling arms. Every movement threatened collapse, but she stood anyway, leaning against the cold cavern wall for support. Blood warmed the inside of the mask. Her legs barely listened.
Still... she moved.
Another tunnel waited nearby, narrow and sloping downward as if guiding her somewhere she did not choose. She staggered into it, one hand dragging along the stone to stay upright.
The passage opened suddenly—
And the world changed.
Soft grass spread across the cavern floor like a forgotten dream. Moss clung to stone in quiet green patches. Stalactites and stalagmites framed the chamber in silent symmetry while clusters of glowing crystals bathed everything in blue and magenta light.
At the center stood a tree.
Not wood.
Not life.
Crystal.
Its trunk rose in elegant spirals, translucent color flowing within like frozen starlight. And inside that luminous prison—
A humanoid figure slept.
She stopped moving.
For a moment, pain loosened its grip.
Fear softened.
Even breath felt quieter here.
Her fingers curled slowly into a fist.
No.
Not safe.
Nothing here was safe.
She forced herself forward, each step heavier than the last. As she approached the crystal trunk, her raised hand trembled violently, shaking as if winter had claimed her bones.
She clenched harder.
Warmth gathered around her fist—
not gentle warmth, but something fierce. Destructive.
Energy swelled, pulsing like a heartbeat ready to burst.
She drew her arm back.
And struck.
Her punch never reached the tree.
A hand stopped it.
Effortlessly.
Her eyes widened behind the mask.
The figure before her was neither beast nor man. Smooth stone formed its body, a dim core glowing within its head like buried fire. One arm ended in a claw of the same radiant crystal that filled the cavern, edges humming with quiet danger.
It had appeared without sound.
Without warning.
As if the cave itself had decided to stand.
She tore her arm free and stumbled back, tongue clicking in sharp frustration.
"Ɐ... khe... rith...! ⟟'ka vel...!"
The creature did not react.
Did not even acknowledge the sound.
To it—
she was nothing.
Her hands shook harder now. Strength leaked from her limbs with every passing second. Whatever battles she had survived before reaching this place had already taken too much.
She couldn't win.
The realization settled like cold iron in her chest.
The guardian moved.
One instant distant—
the next directly before her.
The crystalline claw flashed.
Impact.
Her body flew across the chamber and crashed against the crystal tree, breath exploding from her lungs. She collapsed to the ground in a broken heap, coughing dark blood that spread beneath the cracked mask.
She tried to rise.
Failed.
A weak curse slipped out, fractured and fading:
"...kha... vel..."
The guardian floated above the ground, weightless as drifting dust. Its claw dragged slowly across the stone floor with a grinding whisper as it approached.
Closer.
Closer.
It stopped beside her fallen form and raised its arm to strike.
She forced her eyes open, vision blurring at the edges.
Not ready to die.
But nowhere left to run.
A final thought flickered through her mind—
shattered words shaped like prayer:
"⟟... sha... nora... vel..."
Silence answered.
Then—
A sound.
Deep. Resonant.
Echoing from within the crystal tree itself.
Pressure exploded outward, invisible yet absolute.
Both girl and guardian froze where they stood, bodies locked beneath an overwhelming force that crushed even breath.
Cracks spread across the crystal trunk.
Thin lines at first—
then widening, multiplying, racing like lightning through glass.
Light swelled inside.
The tree burst apart in a storm of radiant fragments, pure energy roaring through the chamber. The guardian was hurled violently into the cavern wall. The girl remained beneath the epicenter, untouched yet completely helpless beneath the suffocating pressure.
Her consciousness slipped.
Darkness surged upward—
And took her.
The cavern trembled like a waking world.
Glowing crystals along the walls fractured and fell, their light dying as they shattered against the ground.
The great crystal tree crumbled away piece by piece, raining silent shards until nothing remained standing.
At the center of the ruin—
A man fell to the earth.
Unmoving.
Unaware.
Around him, scattered fragments of the destroyed tree began to stir. Drawn by an unseen force, they slid across the ground and lifted into the air, gathering slowly within his arms.
Shard by shard, they fused together—
melting into a single sphere of shifting, liquid crystal that pulsed with quiet, impossible light.
The crushing pressure faded.
Darkness reclaimed the cavern, now empty of all glow.
Stillness settled once more.
And in that endless black—
Silence did not end.
It changed.
Darkness softened into something vast and weightless, like the universe had exhaled and forgotten to breathe again.
An endless ocean stretched in every direction, its surface smooth as untouched glass. The water shimmered with faint celestial light, colors drifting beneath it like distant memories that refused to disappear.
Two spirits floated upon that quiet sea.
Haruto held Hana close against his chest, his arms wrapped around her with a desperation that had not faded even after death. Her presence was warm, fragile, real. Just as it had been in the final instant before everything was swallowed by flame.
He did not loosen his grip.
Not even slightly.
Nearby, a smaller shapeless spirit drifted in slow circles around them, gentle and silent, as if standing guard over something sacred. It had no clear form, only a soft glow that pulsed like a distant heartbeat.
Haruto's mind began to move again.
Memories surfaced one by one, rising through the still water of his thoughts.
Laughter in a quiet home.
Ink-stained notebooks.
Late nights filled with impossible dreams.
His mother's voice.
Haruki's stubborn tears.
Hana's smile beside him as they built a future that felt certain.
Miss Lila.
Aiko and Miyu.
Kazuki.
Readers who believed in stories he had barely believed in himself.
All of it... gone.
The truth settled slowly, heavier than any pain.
He had failed them.
Every promise.
Every dream.
Every fragile tomorrow they had created together.
Destroyed in a single, merciless moment.
The ocean remained calm, uncaring, eternal.
Only one warmth still existed in his arms.
Her.
The girl who had shared his beginning.
The girl who had stood inside every dream he ever dared to write.
His fingers tightened faintly around her, trembling with a silent vow that needed no words.
He would not let go.
Not now.
Not ever.
Even if the world ended again.
Even if eternity itself tried to pull them apart.
Never.
EVER.
...
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