Silence.
Not the temporary kind - not the pause between sounds, where the ear waits for the next thing to arrive. This was the silence that comes after something so loud it breaks the air's memory of noise. The kind that sits in the space where sound used to be and refuses to leave.
Raizen stood at the center of it.
The platform around him was still. The golden arcs from the explosion had faded away, and the black threads had completely dissolved. The rainy mist that had been hanging between the trunks was gone - vaporized, pushed outward by the shockwave, leaving the air clear and thin and strangely warm. Leaves drifted down from the upper canopy, shaken loose by the force, spinning slowly in the still air.
Raizen blinked.
His vision was blurred. Not from damage - from exhaustion. His legs were heavy. Every breath required a conscious decision, as if his body had used up its reserves of automatic function and was now running on manual.
