Kunaka did not ask again.
Moto sat against the stone wall, jaw clenched, muscles locked, while she worked. The acid hissed softly against ruined skin, smoke rising in thin threads. His fingers pressed into the rock beneath him, knuckles pale, breath moving through his teeth in careful measures.
He refused to sleep. If he slept, time was lost. If he slept, something could go wrong.
Kunaka watched him — the tension held in his shoulders, the trembling he refused to acknowledge, the pain he wouldn't name.
"This will take a long time," she said quietly. "You don't need to feel all of it."
"I'm fine," Moto said.
She brought the cup to her lips first and drank. Then she held it out to him, pinkie raised — almost teasing. Moto hesitated. Before he could lift it, Kunaka's pinkie brushed the rim.
He drank.
The cup slipped from his fingers moments later, clattering against the stone as his body sagged forward. Kunaka caught him before he hit the ground and lowered him carefully.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "This is for your own good."
She kept working.
When Moto woke, the first thing he felt was shame. He pushed himself upright too fast, heart already racing.
"I fell asleep," he muttered. "Pathetic."
"You didn't," Kunaka said. "We helped you."
Tanaka knelt nearby, watching him. "Don't punish yourself for something we chose."
Moto looked away.
All I did was disappoint her. Everything Lilly had cared about — the Glitch Blade, her birthright, the Undergrowth, Byron — all of it in a cell now. Because of him.
Tanaka broke the silence. "I have a plan."
Moto said immediately: "I'll be the diversion."
Makanaka returned shortly after with a piece of paper covered in precise sketches — keys, dozens of them, every shape catalogued. "I followed the guard rotation," she said. "Watched their hands. Their belts. Every key they carry."
Tanaka placed her hand on Moto's shoulder. Grace Inversion flowed. Smoke poured from him, thickened, hardened.
Later, around the table: "Everyone understands the plan?"
Maka nodded. Moto hadn't looked up. His gaze stayed on the table's surface, jaw set.
Tanaka watched him. "Moto. We're not moving until you tell me you've calmed down."
He exhaled slowly. "Maka." He turned just enough. "Give me Lilly's key. I'll free her myself."
Nobody moved. Kunaka reached into her pouch and placed the key in his palm.
Tanaka stiffened. "Stop ignoring me."
Moto met her eyes. "Tanaka."
"Yes."
"Thank you for being here. Genuinely." His voice dropped. "It's good to know I haven't failed all of my friends."
"Moto—"
"But I need you to stop worrying about me right now," he said. "I won't be holding back."
Tanaka held his gaze for a long moment. "Just don't be reckless. Amber will never forgive us."
Moto said nothing. Maka clapped once. "Alright. Let's move."
The Tunnels — Before the Prison
"Tanaka."
She turned. "Hm?" Her eyes met his — concern threaded with something new. Something closer to fear.
"Use your power on me," Moto said. "Please."
She hesitated, then stepped close and placed her hand against his back.
Smoke poured from him immediately, thicker than before, and it hardened as it formed — black and dense. The obsidian blade came first, but he didn't stop there. The smoke kept condensing. Knives. Kunai. Spikes. Small blades forming in clusters, an arsenal building around him — lightless, stripped of colour, eerily reminiscent of something Andzani might have carried but emptied of everything except intent.
Tanaka didn't know when he was finished until Moto leaned forward, breaking contact. He straightened. Walked deeper into the tunnels without a word.
The Glitch Blade
His thoughts kept circling Lilly. The guilt sat separate from the anger — its own specific weight in his chest.
He entered a dark, unused chamber at the tunnel's end and dug into the earth until his hands found the box. He opened it and looked at the blade for a long time.
The blade is said to choose its wielder. Many have tried. Most lost limbs.
He remembered her joy when she'd lifted it unharmed. The moment it had rejected her. The blood. The way she'd held on anyway, and then hadn't been able to.
He wrapped his hand around the handle.
Resistance. The blade vibrated. He lifted it, and pain tore up his arm as it opened him — blood running freely, the sting feeding into everything that was already burning in him.
Moto drew the blade close to his face.
He ignited his fist.
"Listen to me." His voice was quiet. "Lilly will wield you. That's what's going to happen." Heat flooded the chamber, light off the blade, off the walls, off his burning hand. "And if you cut her again — I'll melt you down myself."
He held it there until his skin began to blister. Tanaka's work already failing under the new damage.
Then he let the fire go.
"Come here," he said.
Tanaka stepped in from the doorway. She placed her hand on him without being asked. Smoke flowed, condensing around the blade — over the warped metal, over the silver sheen — hardening until it vanished beneath a coat of deep, lightless black.
The Glitch Blade looked different now.
So did Moto.