Pain was supposed to be duller the second time. Predictable. Endurable.
But as Leo tumbled through the fractured mist, limbs limping through the void like they weren't entirely his, he felt every nerve light up like fire swallowing a wire.
The kind of pain that didn't just sting—it sang.
Inside, he braced for real damage. Bones splintering. Skin torn raw. Breath driven out like a storm through shattered windows.
But then—
Nothing broke.
No blood.
Just the screaming pain.
Just the echo of impact humming in his ribs, trailing heat across his skin like memory, not consequence.
And in that suspended heartbeat, while the mist blurred past and the world tipped sideways—
Leo smiled.
Not out of confidence. Not out of arrogance.
Out of understanding.
So it's like my perk, huh? he thought.
Every blow they threw?
Real.
Every scream in muscle, every hitch in breath?
Real.
But scars? Gone.
And that meant only one thing.
"It's okay to go all out," Leo whispered to himself, grinning through the invisible burn.
Amanda moved.
She hadn't stepped—she had chosen, and the space around her obeyed. Her blades rippled in both hands, their edges vibrating like they were listening for a command not yet spoken. Her breath was even. Unhurried.
Until the world blinked—
And Leo vanished.
No sound. No warning.
Just absence.
And then—
He was there.
Right in front of her.
Face inches from hers.
Eyes burning not with power, but with recognition.
His hands snapped forward, locking around hers. Fingers closed over wrists like steel traps, gentle only because he chose restraint.
Amanda's expression didn't falter.
But her breath did.
"Your eyes," Leo said, voice low, almost reverent. "I've never seen them shine like this before."
Amanda blinked, caught between movement and stillness.
Leo leaned closer.
"Maybe," he murmured, "it's time you did what you actually wanted."
She tensed—just barely. A flicker in her shoulders, a breath drawn too sharply.
Then she tried to move.
And failed.
Her eyes widened.
It felt like the air had turned to stone. Not pressure. Not gravity. Something else. Like being held inside a memory that refused to let go. Her limbs weren't bound—they were encased.
Leo smiled faintly, but it wasn't mocking. It was... peaceful. Distant.
Then—he was gone.
Again.
Amanda fell forward.
Her body stepped without command, caught off-balance. She staggered one, two paces, blades dipping ever slightly.
She exhaled sharply, steadied herself, and turned—
Just in time to see Leo reappear.
Mid-air.
Mid-motion.
Already swinging.
A fist.
A blur.
A comet of momentum.
Straight toward Cris.
"Sh—!" Cris barely managed to raise a hand.
Mist gathered, fast and thick—a barrier conjured by pure reaction. A defensive shell of compressed essence, circular and dense.
But Leo's fist didn't slow.
It hit the mist like it wasn't even there.
Fwoom—
No crack.
No clash.
The shield disintegrated on contact, scattering into dust like the mist it was originally.
And the force—
WHAM.
Cris flew.
He launched backwards, body twisting, arms flailing, a snarl half-born on his lips before it was ripped away by velocity. His figure cut a streak through the mist, crashing through it like a wrecking ball through fog.
He didn't hit anything.
There was nothing to hit.
But he landed, somehow. Hard. Mist coiled upward around his body in a silent gasp, like the air itself recoiling from impact.
Leo landed shortly after, crouched, one palm pressed against the groundless floor like a beast relearning the shape of its own strength.
The silence that followed was thick.
Ranna didn't speak.
Amanda didn't move.
Cris groaned from somewhere in the haze.
And Leo—
Leo just stood there, blinking slowly, something strange flickering behind his eyes.
He looked at his own hands like they didn't quite belong to him. Like he'd borrowed them from someone else. Someone he once was—or someone he'd never been.
Cris groaned again from the mist, low and raw.
But Ranna didn't look at him.
Her eyes were locked on Leo.
Still.
Unblinking.
A bead of sweat slipped down her cheek—not fear, not exhaustion, but something stranger. Something closer to awe. She didn't wipe it away.
"That's not how a non-adventurer moves," she muttered under her breath.
The mist trembled around her in response, as if echoing the realization.
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides. The air near her wrists shimmered—not with heat, but presence, like space itself was reacting to her shift in intent. Her aura, already sharp, flared wider—deepening in color, darkening like storm-washed velvet streaked with veins of silver flame.
"Amanda." Her voice cracked the stillness like a spark in dry air.
Amanda looked up.
Ranna didn't blink.
"He's right," she said simply, eyes still locked on Leo.
"Maybe it really is the best time for you to try the thing we talked about before."
Amanda didn't answer with words.
She just closed her eyes.
Breathed out—slow, steady, as though releasing every name she had once gone by.
And when she opened them again—
The world shattered beneath her.
Not violently. Not loudly.
But precisely.
Circles bloomed.
Three of them. No chant. No signal.
Just light.
Soft at first, then pulsing with impossible depth.
Three beneath her. Three beneath Ranna. Three beneath Cris, who froze mid-rise, startled into stillness as the symbols spun beneath his boots like orbiting planets.
Etchings flowed across the circles in threads of white-blue and violet gold. Not just geometric—organic, like they had grown up from the depths of the Paradise.
Amanda's hair fluttered upward, caught in the gravitational power of whatever she'd just unlocked. Her irises shimmered—no longer just crimson, but streaked with that same impossible violet as the circles below.
Ranna grinned.
"You absolute little liar," she said, breathless with delight. Her coat snapped behind her as she began to run—no warning, no buildup.
She just took off.
"You didn't tell me you had Eidolon-class skills this whole time?"
Amanda burst forward beside her, steps soundless, but impact undeniable—each stride bent the mist away like it knew better than to resist.
"You're the one who said adventurers shouldn't share everything they know," Amanda replied, the corners of her mouth tilting up.
Ranna laughed, wild and sharp and joyful in a way that made the whole moment tilt sideways into something bigger than training—bigger than war.
"Damn right I said that."
The two of them met eyes, mid-sprint.
Just a nod.
That was all it took.
Then Ranna blurred—truly blurred. Her speed broke the rules of form, her outline warping like heat-haze around a star. Amanda followed an instant behind, blades drawn, her expression caught between focus and fire.
Leo didn't run.
He stood—calm, centered, waiting.
Waiting not for the attack.
But for the understanding that would come with it.
Because whatever they were about to bring—
He was ready to remember.