Erich lay bleeding behind me.
His thread dim—flickering. Barely alive.
Konrad lay further back, unmoving. Still unconscious. A statue of breath and silence.
Clara was still.
And I was the last one standing.
Sayo didn't wait.
She came like a force of nature—no hesitation, no rhythm. Just motion, violent and final. Her blade sang through the pale field, her shadow trailing like fire.
I met her.
My sword rose, thread pulsing in my grip. I blinked to the side, deflected the first arc. Her second came from above—I blocked, boots dragging back across the stone. She followed with a kick that nearly broke my balance.
I blinked again—over her shoulder, swinging.
She caught me mid-motion, turned, and our blades locked.
Up close, I saw her eyes.
Still black.
But deeper now. Emptier.
I pressed. She parried. We spun apart, and she came again, faster. I blinked back—too slow. Her blade grazed my ribs.
Pain lit the edge of my vision.
I swung wide. She ducked and struck low. I stepped over the blade—barely.
She twisted, shadow trailing behind her like a cape of smoke. It lashed toward me. I blocked with my thread, and it sizzled on contact—recoiling as if stung.
She split the ground with her foot. A pulse shattered the space between us, hurling me backward. I rolled, landed hard. The dust rose around me like ash.
I stood.
She charged.
Her blade swung down again. I blocked, threadlight flaring from my edge. We held, shaking beneath the force.
Then she blinked.
She appeared behind me mid-step. I twisted—too slow. Her strike clipped my back. I stumbled.
She didn't relent.
Chains of shadow spiraled from her hands. She hurled them across the space between us. THey snapped like lightning. I blinked, blinked again, cutting them mid-air.
But one wrapped my ankle.
She yanked.
I fell forward. She lunged.
Her blade neared my neck.
I blinked just beneath her and surged upward with a slash. The edge of my sword scraped her shoulder. She screamed.
But it wasn't pain.
It was fury.
She swept her arm sideways. The chain shattered. I collapsed onto the dust again.
Breathing hard.
We circled.
She waited. Not with patience. With certainty.
She threw daggers—half-formed from her shadow. I blinked past them, slicing one mid-air.
I lunged again. My blade caught her side. Her elbow struck my jay in return.
We staggered apart.
She blinked.
I blinked.
We met in the center.
Blade to blade.
Thread to thread.
She reached.
Her fingers touched my shoulder.
And her shadow surged.
It rushed down my neck, across my chest, into my thread.
It was suffocating.
I couldn't scream. Couldn't think.
Her thread was drowning mine.
Then—
It wasn't.
It hit something.
Something deeper.
Not me.
Something buried deep inside my thread, beneath the layers of memory, there was another. She touched it.
And everything changed.
Her shadow recoiled.
Then twisted.
Sayo's hand trembled. She tried to let go. Couldn't.
Too late.
Her shadow began to pull inward—not away.
Into me.
She gasped, eyes widening. Her body froze, locked in a silent struggle against an unseen current.
Then—her thread unraveled.
One line at a time.
One memory at a time.
Sucked into mine.
Her face flickered—confusion, fear, then something like recognition.
Her eyes flickered crimson.
Her mouth opened.
No sound.
Then she vanished.
Not in a blaze.
But in silence.
The pale field stilled.
No wind. No pulse.
Just absence.
Then—a tremor.
The horizon fractured.
Lines of deep violet and shadow silver split the sky. The plane peeled like old parchment, reality coming undone.
The stars blinked in, one by one. The air fractured like broken glass.
The field beneath my feet shifted—crumbled.
I staggered.
Everything tilted.
The sky warped inward like a lens being focused.
Konrad remained still.
Erich breathed—barely. His fingers twitching.
I turned in every direction. The field was being stripped away layer by layer, as if the world itself was rejecting what remained.
Above, the light grew thin—no longer casting shadows, only dimming.
I took a step toward Erich.
The ground beneath me split.
Another step.
It shattered. I stumbled. Dust lifted.
A wall collapsed to my left. A tower of crystal split open like a scream with no voice. The terrain beneath my feet folded in itself.
I fell to one knee.
Tried to rise.
Couldn't.
Everything was being undone.
Even the air.
Threadlight in the distance unraveled upward—spiraling into the sky, disintegrating.
I blinked one last time—hoping to be closer to them.
But the plane twisted mid-jump.
I reappeared—alone.
Nothing remained.
Only a vast white silence.
Then even that collapsed.
And the dark took me.