The light did not greet them.
It burned.
When Kaito burst through the breach, the world was narrowed to a white corridor stretching out in both directions, endless and wall-less, but contained so much that each breath echoed back to him.
The air tinged with cold that was not cold, heat that was not heat—something beyond human measure.
Mika lay on the ground before him, coughing. Kael went down on one knee, fist pressed to his side where blood spread across the light. Nyra rose, sword still clutched in her hand, silver eyes cautious over the space around them.
Kaito rose, his scythe a hundred times more massive than it ever had been, its drag across the unseen floor slowing each step.
His chest was on fire, the mark searing hot against his flesh, but the pulse of the Fork was no longer chasing his heart. Here, it rested, though not in quiet.
[YOU DID NOT SHUT US OUT]
The whisper of the Root burrowed into his brain, distant but not forgotten.
[YOU DRAGGED US WITH YOU]
