[3rd Person POV - Beneath Elmer Academy]
Yorz knelt by the edge of the siphon dais. The glowing cage etched into the obsidian floor pulsed with a deep violet light as she finished dragging Helga's broken form across the stone, leaving a smear of blood.
Helga didn't stir.
Her face was pale, her arm twisted unnaturally and grotesquely, and her sword was gone, tossed to the far side of the chamber when Yorz shattered her resistance.
One last motion. A slow exhale.
And Yorz pressed her hand against the final rune.
The sigil flared, and with a sound like a chain being pulled through bone, the translucent barrier snapped shut, cutting Helga off from the world.
A soul prison.
A perfect stasis.
Neither alive nor dead.
Just trapped. Held.
Like she should have been all along.
Yorz stood slowly, wiping her hand across her cloak. Blood soaked the fabric. It clung to her fingers, sticky and warm. She stared at it without expression, then turned toward the machine.
The siphon thrummed louder now, sensing the nearing completion of its cycle. Lights rippled across the chamber, glancing off the dead, the dying, and the damned.
Behind her, Saelira hovered near the edge of the dais.
Staring.
"…You didn't have to do that," she said quietly.
Yorz didn't turn.
Saelira stepped forward, eyes still wide, a tremble in her limbs. "She wasn't going to stop you. She was, she was already finished. You didn't have to hurt her again."
Still, Yorz said nothing.
Saelira's voice rose. "Are you listening to me?"
Silence.
Yorz reached into her cloak and retrieved a small brass key, walking to the side panel of the soul machine's foundation. She inserted it, turned once, and another segment of the siphon groaned into motion, spirals of soullight arcing through the glyphwork like veins catching fire.
Saelira tried again. "What is your motive here, the guild? With Reina's death and Helga broken?. What is this now?"
Yorz finally looked at her.
Her expression was unreadable. Empty. Not cruel. Not angry.
Just quiet.
Calm.
And that was worse.
"I'm finishing what I promised," Yorz said simply.
Saelira stared at her. "Promised who?"
Yorz tilted her head slightly. "You already know."
The air grew heavy.
Saelira stepped back, heart hammering. "You've been working with him. Why did you not tell me of this? Why didn't he tell me?"
"You didn't need to know."
"But he's—"
"Coming back," Yorz interrupted, her voice barely louder than the hum of the machine. "He's always been coming back."
She turned her eyes to the soul prison, where Helga lay still, sealed behind layered light and soulsteel.
"There was never going to be a happy ending," Yorz murmured. "Not for her. Not for me. Not for any of us."
Saelira swallowed. "And Fn?"
Yorz turned, smiling faintly. "His part comes next."
The soul machine pulsed again.
Lights flickered violently along its frame, washing the room in flashes of purple and deep, sickly gold. The souls trapped within the siphon began to churn, as if sensing something approaching. Something near.
Saelira didn't speak at first.
She just stared at the machine.
Helga crumpled and was unconscious behind her cage.
Then at Reina's blood, still wet on the stone.
Her lips trembled.
"I…" she whispered, voice thin as thread, "I thought this would feel different."
Yorz said nothing. She was focused on the next sigil alignment, fingers moving swiftly over the arcane controls.
"I thought his return would be… clean. Triumphant. Like destiny."
Still no reply.
"I didn't think it would feel like this," Saelira said sharply, turning toward Yorz. "Like rot."
Yorz's hand paused mid-rune.
Saelira took a shaky step closer, eyes bright with emotion, confusion, and fear all swirling behind them.
"Did he lie to me?" she asked.
Yorz slowly turned her head.
Saelira pressed on, voice gaining speed and panic.
"Was I just a vessel? A tool? Was he ever coming back? Or was it just you, just your plan, your hatred dressed up in prophecy?"
slap!
The crack of palm against flesh.
Yorz's hand lashed out in a blur and struck Saelira clean across the face.
The younger woman reeled, stumbling back a step, her hair swinging loose and her cheek flaring red where the impact landed.
Silence.
Yorz's voice cut through it like a knife,
"You don't get to doubt now."
Saelira clutched her face, stunned.
Yorz stepped toward her, slow, deliberate.
"You want to fall apart? Do it after the machine is fed. Do it after he returns. You don't get to question everything just because it's hard now."
"I-I wasn't..."
"Enough," Yorz snapped. "He gave you purpose. Gave you protection. You wanted to be chosen? This is the cost."
Saelira's breathing hitched.
"This was never about you feeling good," Yorz continued. "This was about finishing the work. And now we are one step away."
Her eyes narrowed.
"The boy is still out there. The last piece. And if you want to see our father again—your father, then you'll help me get him."
Saelira didn't respond.
She just stood there.
Silent.
Eyes lowered.
Shaking.
"Send someone to fetch him, and as it would happen, we have a willing participant for you to use," Yorz noted.
Saleira's eyes widened.
...
[Fin's POV - Helga's House]
Stephanie snores like a goddamn thunder spell wrapped in a choking cat.
I don't even know how someone that small produces that much noise. She's on her back on the couch, mouth open, arms splayed like she's been shot mid-fall, and every breath sounds like a wagon wheel trying to roll uphill through gravel.
I give her a look.
Not that it helps.
I shuffle into the kitchen barefoot, the wood cool under my toes, a cup of water in one hand and a mild headache in the other. The place is quiet except for her dying-walrus impersonation in the other room.
The silence is nice.
Heavy, but nice.
Ali floats beside me, flickering faintly in the dark.
Her new body is still weird.
I don't mean bad weird. Just… new.
She's all hard-light curves and soft pulses, a humanoid silhouette traced in soft-blue lines like moonlight in the shape of a woman. A shimmer where her eyes should be, always watching, always a little too expressive for something made of code.
"You're staring," she says, her voice amused and a little smug.
"Hard not to," I mutter, setting the glass under the pump. "You're glowing. It's like having a magical lava lamp follow me around."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"You shouldn't."
She hovers closer, arms crossed—mimicking a gesture she never used to be able to do. That makes it worse somehow.
"You're still adjusting," she says.
"Yeah, no kidding."
I take a sip from the cup. My throat's dry. Bone dry. I didn't realise how thirsty I was until the first gulp.
Ali tilts her head, voice lowering.
"You didn't sleep."
"I tried," I answer, leaning against the counter. "Kept feeling… off."
She says nothing to that.
But I know she noticed, too.
There's this pressure in my chest I can't shake. Not pain. Not fear. Just this thrum, like something's calling me from miles away. A string pulling at my ribs.
"Something's wrong," I mutter.
And then—
knock knock
I blink.
Ali goes still beside me.
We both stare toward the door.
Of course. Of course, something knocks the second I say that. I sigh, deep and tired, and take another sip of water.
"…Hate irony," I murmur.
Ali doesn't laugh.
She's not glowing anymore.
Just dim.
I move slowly, setting the cup down.
The bracer obeys before I even finish the thought. It twists, folds, and hardens, forming into a short dagger that slips perfectly into my grip. Not flashy. Just efficient.
I keep my back to the wall and ease toward the door. The wind outside has stopped.
Even Stephanie's snoring has quieted. I stay just far enough to avoid a blind strike.
"Who is it?" I call out.
Silence. For a second.
Then...
"Fin?"
A voice. Female.
"Fin. It's Reina."
Ali hovers silently beside me. She doesn't say a word, but I feel her attention press into the door like a second heartbeat.
I answer carefully.
"…Reina?"
"Y-Yeah," the voice says, softer now, like she's afraid I'll vanish if she speaks too loudly. "Something's happened. Helga… she said I should come here. Please, Fin, I need to talk to you."
Helga. Only a few people should know I'm here. Helga's one of them.
I take a step closer to the door, slowly, silently, crouching until I'm level with the peephole. I tilt my head until my eye is just behind the gap in the wood.
Just one person.
Woman.
No one else is nearby. I let out a slow breath and close my eyes for a second.
I used my haki, something flares behind my senses like a light catching edges I didn't know were there. Something's off.
The intention.
The best way to describe it is that it's too still.
And that's all I need.
"…No," I say flatly.
A pause.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not opening the door."
The voice falters, just slightly. "Fin, come on. I said Helga sent me. You don't trust your mother?"
Thunk.
The hand crashes through the wood exactly where my head had been a second ago.
Splinters explode past my shoulder as I duck sideways, rolling to the floor.
My eyes lock on it.
"Well," I breathe, rising to my feet with the dagger in hand.
"Guess we're doing this the fun way."
BOOM!
The door exploded off its hinges, wood shards screamed across the room as the shape burst through, blurring past in a streak.
She looked like Reina, but in all honesty, I hadn't really met Reina.
Just a name. A story. A few faded pictures, half-tucked behind old books, Helga didn't think I noticed. A smirk here, a silver dagger there. Someone who used to matter.
Same hair. Same face. Same gear.
But her body,
Gods.
Her body was all wrong.
Her skin hung loose and discoloured, blood soaked down her tunic like it had poured from the inside, not the outside. Her left leg twitched too far with every step, joints snapping like they were misaligned. Her eyes, those weren't eyes, of a living human, at least. They were glass. Reflective. Empty. No soul. No light.
Like a puppet pulled from a grave.
Inhuman speed.
Jerky limbs.
Pure momentum.
I barely had time to respond.
Cursed energy erupted, coating my arms in flickering blue energy as I braced my dagger and blocked.
CRACK!
The impact was brutal.
She slammed into me and we went flying, first through the kitchen table, then the wall, then the second one beyond that.
Every wooden beam snapped like kindling.
Ali shouted something behind me, but I couldn't make it out. My back hit a support pillar, then broke through it, and suddenly we were outside, hurtling into the moonlit clearing behind the house, just before the edge of the woods.
I landed hard.
She didn't.
She landed like a spider, arms first, spine bending too far back, head twitching sideways as her eyes locked on mine with mechanical hunger.
Her mouth opened.
Too wide.
Too sharp.
"Fiiiiiin…"
She said it like she was learning the sound for the first time.
She...it didn't move like a person.
The body crouched low, twitching in jerks and spasms like it was fighting the muscles it didn't own. Limbs trembled, cracked, then snapped into position. Its head lolled for a second too long before locking onto me again.
"Fiiiiin…" it hissed again.
My stomach twisted.
The name sounded wet in her mouth. Like she didn't belong in her own throat.
But still.
Because even through the blood and decay, through the empty glass eyes and shattered bone-twitches, she looked like Reina.
And that's the part that kept me still.
Because what if, somehow, this wasn't a puppet?
What if she'd survived something awful? What if Helga had sent her?
I blinked.
Gone.
My body screamed as cursed energy surged through my legs and launched me forward, Flash Step. My vision blurred as I moved past her in a blink, just outside her periphery.
She twisted to follow,
But I was already gone again.
One. Two. Three.
I stepped through the space around her, always just ahead of her claws, never quite in reach. Trying to disorient. Trying to figure it out. Trying to see if there was a soul behind those eyes.
But I felt nothing.
Just emptiness.
Every step drained me. My cursed energy wasn't reinforcing my legs properly, just pouring through them like leaking fuel. I hadn't trained them like this. My body screamed in pain, her sending me through the house took most of my strength outta me.
I stumbled on the fourth step, knees buckling under me just as I came out of the flash.
Damn it!
She didn't hesitate.
The moment I faltered, she spun, jerkily, neck cracking sideways, and lunged again.
Her fingers splayed wide, and I finally saw them for what they were.
Not fingers. Claws.
She lunged again, I twisted, barely dodging as her hand scraped past my ribs.
Then her voice changed.
Broken.
"Fin…?"
I froze.
"Brother…"
She tilted her head at a crooked angle. The voice didn't match the mouth. The words stumbled out like they'd been stitched together from memories.
"Please… just come with me…"
Reina's voice, stolen and looped like a lullaby turned inside out.
I used my haki again and looked through her.
Into her.
Right to her soul.
A writhing knot of soul energy, black-veined and pulsing with that same sick rhythm I'd felt once before, on the mountain with the Dire Wolf.
Soul magic. Just like back then. Just like the wolves.
A soul stuffed inside a corpse like it was clothing. Wearing Reina's skin like a disguise.
"…You're truly not her," I sighed.
The creature twitched again.
But I didn't move.
Didn't dodge.
Didn't blink.
I just stepped forward.
And for a second…
Just a second…
I thought I saw something inside.
A flicker.
"I'm sorry," I said.
I changed the dagger back into a bracer and spoke through my teeth.
"Dismantle."
A line lashed through the air like a razor, slicing clean and silent.
Right across her neck, she didn't scream.
Her body just stilled, and then the head fell.
Like even gravity mourned the lie it had to let go.
The body dropped an instant later.
And I stood there.
"…I'm sorry," I whispered.
Ash peeled from the limbs, then mist from the skin. Black smoke curled upward as if something inside had been rotting the corpse from the inside out. The scent of decay and old soul energy sizzled against the cold night air.
And then…
Gone.
Just a stain in the grass where a lie used to stand.
I clenched my fists.
The cursed energy around my arms flickered, sharp and uneven, like it didn't know whether to stay or snap.
"If they sent that…"
I looked up, eyes fixed on the dark line of forest beyond the clearing.
"…then something's happened. Something bad."
I didn't know if Helga was hurt.
Or worse.
But I knew where it started.
Where it always came from.
The Academy.
My body ached, I exhaled and turned toward the house, limping slightly from where I'd hit the ground earlier. My lungs still hurt. The attack had done more damage than I'd realised.
The door barely clung to its hinges when I stepped back inside.
Ash followed me like a second shadow.
Everything hurt—shoulders tight, ribs burning, skin still pulsing from cursed backlash. I could barely lift my legs. My breathing was shallow, staggered.
I needed a second.
One second.
To think.
To focus.
I was already moving; cloak, bracer, sword, boots, every piece of gear shaking in my grip. My fingers were numb. My back was slick with sweat.
But I had to move.
Because if I stopped...
"Fin?"
I flinched at the sound.
Stephanie stood in the hallway, hair wild, shirt slipping off one shoulder, blinking at the blood on the floor. Her voice was half-asleep, half-panicked.
"What the hell happened?"
I didn't respond.
Didn't look at her.
Didn't have it in me.
"Fin, what happened?" she asked again, stepping forward.
"I'm leaving," I muttered, brushing past her toward the weapons rack.
"Why?!"
I grabbed a shortsword. My muscles screamed. I winced. My hand slipped once on the strap and I gritted my teeth.
"Fin, talk to me!"
"Stephanie," I said, breath tight. "Not now."
"Why not now?!" she snapped. "You were fighting something out there, the house is destroyed, and there's blood on the walls! What is going on?!"
"I don't have time to explain—"
"Well, make time! You can't just run out again like everything's normal! You can't keep me in the dark!"
I turned my back, yanked my cloak around my shoulders.
I needed to leave.
I needed to go.
But she followed, of course she followed.
"You owe me an explanation! I followed you all this way, I left everything behind, and now you're just gonna shut me out?! Why?!"
And I snapped.
I spun, and I screamed.
"Because you need to fuck off, Stephanie!"
She froze.
Like I'd slapped her across the face.
My voice kept going—ugly and sharp and completely untethered.
"Because I'm tired. Because I'm injured. Because I've spent the last year pretending this life wasn't going to swallow me whole, and I can't keep dragging dead weight along for the ride!"
Her lips parted.
Nothing came out.
"You keep following me around like some lost little duck, annoying me, whining, acting like this is some fun adventure. It's not. This isn't a sleepover. This isn't a game. And I'm done pretending."
Her eyes were wide now.
Red.
Watery.
But I wasn't finished.
"You think I let you stay because you were helpful? Because I liked your company? No. You reminded me of something I didn't get to have."
My fists trembled.
"You let me play pretend. Pretend I was normal. Pretend I was a kid again. Pretend this world was soft and stupid and easy."
I laughed, once. Bitter.
"But you were just a distraction. And I can't afford distractions anymore."
Stephanie said nothing.
Didn't move.
Didn't blink.
I turned back to the door.
"You wanna know the truth?" I muttered. "I've been acting like a kid in this second life for too long. Wasting time. Playing house. Fucking around like I deserved it."
I looked down at my hands.
"But I don't. I never did."
I opened what was left of the front door.
Wind howled through the ruined frame.
"Go home. Or don't. I don't care anymore."
I didn't look back. "Just don't follow me."
And I walked out into the cold.
Alone.
End of Chapter.