Sophia grabbed Yuuta. Even though she had lost her mind, even though her thoughts were scrambled and her memories shattered, something inside her remained—something primal, something fierce, something that refused to let go. It was the part of her that had survived the well, that had clawed her way through years of darkness and hunger and despair.
It was the part of her that had found a broken child and decided, against all reason, to love him.
She was eager to protect him, to feed him, to keep him close. She did not let him walk. She carried him everywhere, clutching him to her chest like a mother wolf carrying her cub, her arms wrapped around him so tightly that he could barely breathe. Her fingers were curled into the fabric of his rags, and her body was pressed against his, shielding him from the wind, from the snow, from the world.
She was obsessed. Consumed. Driven by a love that had outlasted her sanity.
Yuuta squirmed in her grip. He was not used to being carried. He was a big boy now. He had walked through the snow, had dragged her to the wolf, had survived the night with nothing but his own small strength. He did not want to be carried. He wanted to walk. He wanted to be brave.
He jumped.
He landed in the snow with a soft thump, his small body sinking into the white powder up to his knees. The cold bit at his skin, but he did not cry. He was Yuuta. He was brave.
Sophia froze. Her body went rigid, and her head tilted, and her green eyes—still hollow, still vacant, still lost—fixed on him. Her mouth opened, and a sound emerged—a sound of distress, of confusion, of fear.
"Neehhh..! Wahh..."
She did not understand why he had left her arms. She did not understand why he would not let her protect him. She reached for him, her hands grasping at the air, her fingers trembling.
Yuuta stumbled to his feet, brushing snow from his clothes. He reached out and grabbed her hand—one finger, really, since her hand was so much larger than his. His small fingers wrapped around hers, and he looked up at her with his red eyes.
"Yuuta will guide you, Sophia," he said, his voice innocent, certain, as if he had done this a thousand times before.
Sophia tilted her head. She growled softly, a sound that might have been a word, might have been nonsense.
"Wahh... hac... kar..."
Yuuta did not understand. He wanted to cry. The tears were building behind his eyes, hot and heavy, threatening to spill. But he remembered what Sophia had told him, back when she was still herself, back when her eyes were bright and warm and her voice was kind.
I named you Yuuta because you are brave.
He would not cry. He would be brave. He would guide his sister home.
He tugged on her finger and began to walk.
They walked toward the cave, Sophia stumbling behind him, her legs unsteady, her body swaying like a ship in a storm. She was barely able to walk—her limbs were weak, her muscles atrophied, her coordination destroyed by the sonic blast that had shattered her mind. But she followed him. She trusted him. She loved him.
The snow was deep, reaching past Yuuta's knees, and each step was a struggle. His legs burned, and his lungs ached, and his hands were numb with cold. But he did not stop. He could not stop. Sophia was behind him, and he had to get her home.
Then he saw the Coalan.
The massive herbivore lay in the snow where it had fallen, its body half-buried in white powder, its horn still gleaming in the dim light. It was dead. The wolf had killed it. Its blood had frozen in dark pools around its body, and its eyes were glassy and still.
Yuuta stopped.
His heart sank. His stomach twisted. His breath caught in his throat.
He remembered why he had left the cave. He remembered the shadow, the curiosity, the wolf. He remembered the fight, the roar, the blood. He remembered Sophia's face, pale and bleeding, her eyes empty, her mind gone.
If he had not left, none of this would have happened. Sophia would still be herself. Her eyes would still be warm. Her voice would still be kind. She would still smile at him and ruffle his hair and call him her little troublemaker.
Tears filled his eyes.
"It is Yuuta's fault," he said, his voice breaking, cracking like ice underfoot. "Sophia got hurt because Yuuta left the cave. Yuuta is evil."
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, but the tears kept coming, freezing on his cheeks, turning to ice.
"Yuuta is evil. Yuuta is bad. Yuuta should not have been born."
He sobbed, his small body shaking, his shoulders heaving.
Sophia saw his tears.
Something inside her snapped.
She screamed.
"AAAARRRGHHHHHH!"
The sound was primal, animalistic, filled with rage and grief and love. It echoed through the forest, shaking snow from the branches, sending birds flying from their nests, rattling the icicles that hung from the trees. It was the scream of a mother who had seen her child hurt, the scream of a wolf who had seen her cub threatened, the scream of a sister who could not bear to see her brother cry.
She ran toward the Coalan.
Her legs, broken and unsteady, carried her forward. Her arms, weak and trembling, raised above her head. Her hands, bare and bleeding, clenched into fists.
She struck the massive corpse with her fists, her palms, her claws—digging into the frozen flesh, tearing at the hide, ripping chunks of meat from the bone. She bit it. She clawed it. She screamed at it.
She blamed it for Yuuta's tears.
The Coalan was thirty feet long, a monster of muscle and bone, a beast that had been alive and breathing only hours ago. Its hide was thick, its flesh was tough, its bones were solid. But Sophia attacked it like a wild animal, like a creature possessed, like something that had forgotten it was ever anything other than fury.
Yuuta watched, horrified. His tears stopped. His sobs faded. His heart pounded in his chest.
"Sophia!" he cried, running toward her. "Sophia, stop! Stop it!"
She did not stop. She could not hear him. Her mind was lost in a fog of madness and rage, and all she knew was that something had made Yuuta cry, and that something had to pay.
"Sophia, please!" Yuuta grabbed the Coalan Fur, pulling with all his strength, his small fingers digging into skin. "Yuuta is scared! Sophia, Yuuta is scared!"
She stopped.
Her body went still. Her arms fell to her sides. Her head turned slowly, mechanically, toward the sound of his voice.
She looked at him. Her green eyes, wild and unfocused, slowly found his face. Her chest heaved, and her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Blood dripped from her hands, from her mouth, from her nails.
She saw his tears. She saw his fear.
She was afraid too.
She jumped down from the Coalan's body, landing in the snow with a soft thump. Her legs buckled, and she fell, but she did not stay down. She scrambled to her feet, her hands and knees sinking into the snow, and crawled toward him.
She grabbed him. She pulled him into her arms. She held him tight.
And she ran.
She ran from the Coalan, from the wolf, from the forest, from everything that had hurt them. She ran until her legs gave out, until she collapsed in the snow, until she could run no more. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, and her heart pounded in her chest, and her arms trembled around him.
She set Yuuta down and looked at him.
"Yu... Yuuta..." she said, her voice slurred, broken, desperate. "Hide. Yuuta... hide."
She pushed him gently, trying to guide him toward a snowdrift, a tree, a rock—anything that would shield him from danger.
"Hide," she said again. "Hide."
Yuuta looked at her. His sister, who had lost her mind, who could barely speak, who could barely walk, who had just attacked a dead monster with her bare hands—was trying to protect him.
She did not remember his name. She did not remember where they were. She did not remember how they had come to this frozen forest, or why they were alone, or what had happened to her mind.
But she remembered that she loved him. She remembered that he was hers to protect. She remembered that she would die before she let anything hurt him.
Yuuta did not hide. He could not. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
"Yuuta is not going to hide," he said. "Yuuta is going to stay with Sophia. Forever."
She did not understand his words. But she understood his warmth. She held him back, and they sat together in the snow, brother and sister, broken and lost, but together.
The wind howled around them, and the snow fell, and the world was cold and dark and cruel.
But they had each other.
And for now, that was enough.
Soon, Yuuta and Sophia reached the area near the cave. They were still a few feet away, the entrance visible through the trees, the faint glow of the fire still flickering inside like a dying heartbeat. The smoke curled up through the hole in the ceiling, gray against the dark sky, and the warmth seeped out into the cold air, a ghost of the comfort it had offered the night before.
But something was wrong.
The fire should have died hours ago. Sophia had built it before she went to meditate, before the wolf, before the roar, before everything. She had stacked the wood carefully, arranged the moss, struck the stones until a spark caught. She had fed it through the early hours of the night, but by the time she left to find Yuuta, it had been burning low, the flames small and weak.
It should have burned out. It should have left nothing but ash and ember, cold and dark.
But it was still burning—bright and strong, as if someone had been feeding it, tending it, keeping it alive.
Yuuta did not notice. He was a child, exhausted and heartbroken, his mind clouded by grief and exhaustion and the desperate hope that somehow, somehow, things would get better. He did not see the danger. He did not sense the trap. He only saw the cave, the fire, the warmth.
He only saw hope.
He thought that if he could get Sophia inside, if he could make her sit in the same position, if she could absorb the high mana and the esper in her body, she would heal. She would remember him. She would love him again.
It was illogical. A child's fantasy. The damage to her brain was severe, the scarring deep, the healing process slow. No amount of meditation would fix her in a single night.
But he was a child, and to a child, it was a brilliant plan.
He grabbed Sophia's finger and tugged.
"Sophia," he said, pointing at the cave. "Sophia, let us go to the cave. You can sit and meditate, and you will be healed. Please, Sophia. Please come with me."
Sophia did not move. Her body was rigid, tense, her muscles coiled like springs. Her head tilted, and her nostrils flared, and she sniffed the air.
"Ah... Kh..." she growled, a low, guttural sound that vibrated in her chest. "Nn... ahhh... waaabnn..."
Yuuta did not understand. He tugged again, insistent, desperate, his small fingers wrapped around hers.
"Please, Sophia. We have to go inside. It is warm inside. You can rest."
She refused.
She sniffed the air again, and something in her expression shifted. Her eyes, which had been hollow and vacant, narrowed. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, and a growl rumbled in her chest—low and deep, filled with warning, filled with fear.
She saw something Yuuta could not see. Shapes in the shadows. Movements in the firelight. The glint of metal and glass.
"Yu... Yuuta..." she said, her voice slurred, urgent, desperate. "Mh... kh..."
A tranquilizer dart flew through the air.
It passed inches from Yuuta's head, so close that he felt the wind of its passage, so close that a strand of his black hair was cut by its edge. It embedded itself in a tree behind him with a soft thunk, the shaft quivering, the liquid inside glowing faintly in the dim light.
Yuuta recognized it.
He had seen these darts before, in the lab, when the subjects became too violent, too out of control. They were filled with a sedative that could bring down even the largest creatures—a mixture of chemicals and magic designed to paralyze, to immobilize, to capture.
His blood ran cold.
He looked at the cave.
Six figures stood at the entrance, their silhouettes black against the firelight. They wore white coats and masks, and they carried weapons—rifles, tranquilizer guns, nets. Their faces were hidden, but their eyes were visible, cold and clinical, watching him like scientists observing a specimen.
They were Graduate Novens. Humans who had reached the rank of Graduate in the Nova world—a rank that required years of training and countless battles, that allowed them to leave their protected continent and venture into the wilderness.
But these humans looked weak. They looked pale and thin, their faces hidden behind masks, their bodies hidden behind coats. They did not look like champions. They looked like scientists.
They had tracked them. They had found them. They had come to take them back.
One of them, a man in a white coat with a mask covering his face, tapped his ear and spoke into a communicator. His voice was flat, emotionless, clinical.
"We have found the survivors," he said. "One child, one elf. Both alive. Preparing to capture."
Sophia grabbed Yuuta, pulling him behind her. Her body shook, and her growl grew louder, more desperate, more animalistic. Her arms wrapped around him, and her back curved, and her lips pulled back from her teeth.
"Waaa... m... waa... Ahhh..."
She was trying to protect him. Even with her mind shattered, even with her thoughts scrambled, even with her body broken and her ears burst and her eyes leaking blood—she was trying to protect him. She did not remember who she was. She did not remember where they were. She did not remember how they had come to this frozen forest.
But she remembered that she loved him. She remembered that he was hers to protect. She remembered that she would die before she let anything hurt him.
The six figures raised their weapons.
Erza watched, her heart pounding.
She recognized the Graduate Novens. They were humans who had reached a rank that allowed them to leave their protected continent, but these humans did not look like they had earned that rank. They did not have the scars, the calluses, the hardened eyes of warriors. They had the soft hands, the pale skin, the cold eyes of scientists.
They were not hunters. They were collectors. Or They Might Born Outside Eden.
Isvarn's voice was grim.
"They are from the laboratory," he said. "They have come to reclaim their subjects."
Erza's fists clenched. Her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. Her aura flickered around her, cold and deadly, but she could not intervene. She could not reach through time and save them. She could only watch.
She would remember their faces. She would remember their voices. She would remember every detail of this moment.
And she would make them pay.
Yuuta stared at the figures, his red eyes wide with fear.
He remembered the lab. He remembered the doctors, the needles, the knives. He remembered the pain, the screams, the endless, hopeless darkness. He remembered the tubes and the serums and the experiments that went on for days without end.
He did not want to go back.
"Sophia," he whispered, his voice small and trembling. "Sophia, please. We have to run."
Sophia growled. She did not run. She stood her ground, her body between Yuuta and the hunters.
The Graduate Novens raised their weapons.
And the world went white.
To be continued...