The night still struggled to dissipate when Okami opened her eyes.
She hadn't truly slept. Not really. A half-sleep, stolen and reclaimed with every shiver of the wood, every distant creak. Just like Shinji, she couldn't get herself to sleep to feel a hypocritical sense of security.
Something was gnawing at her as she felt dull, a doubt in her mind she couldn't put a name on.
She rose, slipped on her long coat, and left her room without a sound.
The refuge was still asleep. The corridors were empty, heavy with a silence broken only by faint sighs or the night wind.
She descended the main staircase slowly, each step greeting her as if expected, as she began by checking the dormitories. One by one, and Shinji was nowhere to be seen.
When she reached the room assigned to him, she stopped.
The door was only half open as she pushed it open slowly, her eyes immediately drawn to the absence. The unmade bed. The jacket was abandoned at the foot of the chair.
But above all, what has taken her attention was the open window in the middle of the main hallway.
She approached it. The cold morning air bit her skin. And there, frozen for a moment in the worn wooden frame, she saw it. Or rather, she saw what he had seen.
The courtyard.
From this exact spot… one could glimpse the lantern. The rusted hook. And the precise place where she had spoken with Daichi the night before.
A long silence followed her reflection. Then she murmured, to herself alone:
"…It was you."
Her gaze hardened. Not surprised. Not angry either. Just… sharper. As if an old suspicion had been confirmed.
She stood there for a moment, upright, her eyes in the shadow of the refuge before turning on her heels.
In the corridors still frozen by the night, she found Daichi. He was emerging from another wing, feigning exhaustion, hands in his pockets as usual.
"Still doing nightly rounds?" she asked, her tone neutral.
He shrugged.
"Sleep and I have never been great friends."
She fixed him with a stare. For a moment. Just long enough for her silence to feel strange.
Then she declared:
"Shinji left his room last night. I want you to go look for him. I think he's not far. Maybe he just… got lost."
Daichi didn't react immediately.
Then he nodded slowly.
"You think it was him… that you sensed at the window?"
Okami's eyes narrowed slightly.
"I'll know when I see him."
One last look.
"Bring him back to me if he's still in the city. And if he's gone… find him before they do."
Daichi gave an almost imperceptible smile.
"Before whom, exactly?"
"You know exactly who I'm talking about."
She turned away without waiting for a response. Daichi watched her go. A shadow passed over his face. And when she had turned the corner of the corridor, he finally allowed himself a broader smile.
Not of joy. Not of mockery. A smile… of relief.
He turned and set off.
The outside air greeted him.
He inhaled deeply. Like someone emerging from a long apnea.
"Finally free," he whispered.
And under the hood he pulled over his head, a glint shone in his eyes. A mix of haste, tension, and… pride.
He was going to tell them.
He was going to offer them Shinji.
And this time… this time, he would finally be recognized by his brothers.
In the heart of the Grey Lands, northeast of Stygia, where the wind carried more ash than oxygen, the Zephyr camp spread like a wound in the landscape.
Tents worn by the seasons. Banners blackened by soot. Men and women with closed faces, marked by war. And at its center… a pole.
A simple pole of dry wood, worn by rope and fear.
Tied to that pole was the butcher Mamoru, Kade's brother, as he was described by the followers of Envy. The man the Zephyr took with them after losing Shinji to them.
He no longer screamed. His mouth was little more than a deformed mass of bruised flesh. His breath was hoarse, whistling like a fire one tries to extinguish bare-handed.
And yet, he still lived.
"What a joke…" Ryouma muttered, his fist slamming violently against the wall of the main building.
The walls trembled. A few heads turned, but no one said a word.
Ryouma, his eyes burning with anger, turned to his brother.
"A week, Hayato. It's been a week he's been there, and he hasn't spilled anything. Not a name. Not a clue. And you, what are you doing?"
Hayato, calmer but with features as drawn as his brother's, simply crossed his arms.
"You don't force the dead to talk, Ryou. And he's already halfway to the other side."
Ryouma clenched his teeth, then turned his gaze to the pole.
"Do you realize what happened that day? He was there. The one we've been waiting for all this time… Him. We had him right in front of us… and they... took him from us without us being able to do anything."
Hayato closed his eyes for a moment. He saw the scene again. The shadow. That inhuman presence. That man who had made them flee without a word, without a blow.
"We weren't able to do anything more than what we did," he admitted. "They're monsters... we were lucky Kades wasn't there,"
As Hayato uttered the name of Kades, Mamoru started moving like an enraged animal, although the ropes stopped him from representing any sort of danger to the Zephyrs.
"Looks like he isn't dead after all," said Ryouma jokingly before turning to his brother and adding with a more serious tone,
"We should've fought harder."
"We'd be dead," Hayato replied firmly.
Silence fell. A silence heavy with regrets.
But as they sank into their thoughts, a sound caught their attention.
Steps. Slow. Controlled. Familiar, and yet… foreign.
A silhouette approached as the Zephyr drew their swords.
"Who's that?" Ryouma said, straightening.
The silhouette crossed the veil of morning mist.
The entire camp stopped breathing for a second, ready to fight.
"Maybe they came to rescue him," screams Ryouma while pointing his sword at the butcher.
"No, it's Daichi," Hayato murmured.
Ryouma stepped back, his hand already on the hilt of his blade. All of the Zephyr put back their swords in their belts.
"Why are you here? Why now?"
Daichi didn't answer right away. He approached calmly despite the fear within him. These reunions… they were worth everything.
The time he had waited, unsure if he would earn them.
He stood before them, upright like a soldier.
"I've come… with news."
He paused.
"He's here. The one you're looking for. He's at the refuge."
A silence. A shockwave.
Hayato, brows furrowed, took a step toward him.
"You're coming to tell us this now?"
Daichi looked him straight in the eyes.
"It wasn't the right time before. I was waiting. I wanted to be sure not to raise suspicion."
He inhaled.
"And I wanted to be the one to bring it to you. Me. Not a report. Not a rumor. Me."
His gaze burned with a fire he hadn't shown in years.
"I want you to see what I've become."
But as the two brothers prepared to respond…
Something changed.
A shiver. Then two.
And suddenly, the air itself seemed to freeze.
The atmosphere compressed, heavy and brutal, as if an invisible hand had descended on the entire camp.
The soldiers dropped to one knee, one by one.
Even Ryouma, despite his pride, did so without protest.
And Daichi?
Daichi said nothing.
He collapsed.
Like a marionette with its strings cut, drained of all will.
A shadow had entered the camp.
An invisible, profound terror, like an abyss opening beneath their feet, fell upon the camp.
A supernatural silence engulfed them. The atmosphere hardened, the air grew heavier, saturated with something inexplicable. A… presence.
Then, he was there.
They hadn't seen him coming. No door, no steps, no shadow sliding against the walls. He was simply there, as if the world had swallowed him and spat him out at the heart of the camp.
A tall silhouette, concealed under a dark cloak, a hood revealing only a pale glint of a gaze, sharper than metal, heavier than stone.
Terror froze everybody.
Daichi collapsed to the ground, struck down by an invisible pressure, unable to utter a single word. The Zephyrs dropped to one knee, instinctively. All… except one.
Hayato remained standing. Not out of arrogance. But out of devotion.
He thought he was doing the right thing.
He raised his head, his gaze determined, ready to speak, to explain, to finally share what they knew about the person they looked for years and years.
But as soon as his lips parted, the figure turned slowly toward him.
And his voice, icy and calm, fell like a sentence:
"Who do you think you are?"
With a single gesture, he extended his arm. Hayato was lifted off the ground by the throat, without the figure moving a step.
He choked in the air, his legs weakly kicking. The silence grew even heavier. Even the insects had fallen silent.
Ryouma half-leapt forward, rage in his eyes.
"Hayato!"
But his brother raised a trembling hand, signaling him not to move.
"Calm down…" he gasped, his voice strangled. "It's no use."
The figure's gaze slowly shifted from Hayato to Ryouma. Then, as if it wasn't worth lingering, he released his hold.
Hayato crashed to the ground with a dull gasp, coughing blood onto the beaten earth.
The figure stepped away from him as if he were an inconsequential obstacle.
He stopped before the butcher, still bound, haggard, panting, his cheeks hollowed by fear and hunger.
The prisoner recognized him. His eyes widened. He tried to scream.
"N-Nebul—"
The figure tilted his head slightly, like a master observing an insect struggling in a glass.
"What is he doing here?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
His hand sliced through the air. The ropes that held the butcher didn't anymore, and after his eyes met the shadow's, he turned and ran away as fast as he could.
He then turned to the Zephyrs, still kneeling.
He spoke without raising his voice. And yet each word, each syllable, imprinted itself in the air like a divine command.
"In four days… you will finally take action."
No further explanation. No debate as he turned on his heels, his shadow stretched across the ground like a liquid specter. The farther it went, the more it took the shape of a cat, gliding between the tents.
Then it vanished, and with it, the pressure lifted. No one dared to move. No one spoke.
Even the wind at that moment was afraid to blow.