The door didn't open the way a normal door would—it swallowed them whole.
For a brief moment, they saw the corridor ahead, stretching endlessly in blinding white, its surface flickering and warping like shattered glass.
Then the frame itself surged forward, as if it were alive, dragging them inside with the unstoppable pull of an ocean tide. They had no time to resist, no breath to steady themselves, not even a second to plant their feet.
Kaito's body came apart and pulled itself back together, as if every piece of him was being forced through tiny cracks of memory.
His breath was stolen before he could even take it. For a heartbeat he was burning, his whole self turned to fire, and in the next instant there was nothing—only the faint echo of the Root's laughter pounding at the edge of hearing, cruel and distant.
Then, suddenly, his boots struck solid ground.
