The silence of the temple grounds was a heavy, living thing, broken only by the distant, rhythmic shing-clash of Kenta's training with Kaguya. Sarah stood in the deep shadows of the main hall's doorway, a spectator to a dance of light and dark. She watched Kenta, his movements a blend of his own precise forms and the unsettling, fluid grace the dark blade imposed upon him. Kaguya was a phantom, her corrections sharp and instantaneous, forcing equilibrium upon his struggling spirit.
A heavy, cold weight settled in Sarah's chest. It wasn't jealousy. It was a profound, isolating sadness. The tragic stories of Hikari and Yami, the immense weight of the legacy Kenta carried—it was a world of pain she could witness but never fully share.
[System: You are experiencing melancholy.]
The text, stark and white against her night-adapted vision, made her jump. Its timing was, as always, unnervingly perceptive.
"Yes," she thought back, the mental words feeling heavy. "A little. It's... a lot to take in. Their past, this place... it's all so heavy."
[System: Observation noted. However, this emotional state is counter-productive to core objectives. Your Auto-Battle duration is not limitless. To increase survivability, you must actively work to improve your baseline parameters.]
The statement was a bucket of cold water, shocking her out of her reverie. The System was right. She had been treating it like a magical solution, a get-out-of-death-free card she could play whenever things got too hard. She'd leaned on it so heavily she'd neglected the very foundation it was built upon: her.
[ANALYSIS: To extend Auto-Battle operational window and enhance its efficacy, Host must achieve systemic growth. Two primary pathways identified: 1. Augment Core Physical and Spiritual Metrics (Strength, Speed, Endurance, Ki Reserves). 2. Achieve a fundamental Rank Ascension.]
Sarah pondered this. She'd been so focused on acquiring new skills, on adding more tools to her belt, that she'd treated her own body and spirit as a mere vessel, a platform to launch those tools from. She was a collector of shiny new techniques, while the shelf she placed them on was gathering dust.
[System: Current Host Rank: SSR.]
SSR. It was respectable. It was far beyond what she had ever dreamed of in her old life. But here, now, measured against the legends of LR Rankers like Jokedone and Kaguya, and the apocalyptic threats they whispered of, it felt… paltry. It wasn't enough to just stand beside Kenta. She needed to stand with him, as an equal pillar, not a supporting brace. She was tired of being a passenger in her own body, even when that passenger was the impeccably efficient System.
The weight of her own inertia felt suffocating. Needing air, needing space, she turned from the doorway and slipped away from the training grounds, following a narrow, overgrown path that led up the mountainside behind the temple. The moon, a sharp sliver of bone-white, cast long, distorted shadows. The air was cold and clean, scented with pine and the distant, metallic hint of snow.
She found a flat, moss-covered rock overlooking a deep ravine and sat, pulling her knees to her chest. The vast, indifferent majesty of the mountains made her feel simultaneously tiny and strangely peaceful.
[System: Your biometrics indicate a depressed state. Correlating with behavioral patterns from your previous life.]
The observation was like a surgeon's lance, precise and painful. Visions of her past life surfaced unbidden—the stifling loneliness, the powerlessness, the feeling of being a ghost in her own world, watching life happen to other people through a screen.
"Perhaps," she whispered aloud, her breath misting in the frigid air. The sound of her own voice was small against the immense silence. "That life... it carved grooves into me. It's hard to forget how to be helpless."
[System: The data from your previous life is obsolete. Your new life has a 98.7% higher probability of achieving self-actualization. You have agency. You have power. You have formed social bonds classified as 'friendship.'
A small, genuine smile touched her lips, fragile but real. "You're right. It is better. It's… everything I never had."
[System: Do you require a guidance protocol? A structured path to mitigate this emotional state?]
Sarah considered it. The easy way out. The predefined path. "Maybe I do," she admitted. "But not the kind you're thinking of."
[System: Clarification required.]
"I've been depending on you too much," she said, her voice growing firmer, the conviction solidifying with each word. "Auto-Battle is an emergency measure. A final resort. I've been using it as a first option. I can't… I won't build my strength on a foundation of borrowed power."
[System: Acknowledged. This is a logical conclusion. Analysis of your skill portfolio indicates a critical flaw: you possess 37 distinct combat skills, yet 92% are rated Mid-Grade or lower. You consistently seek new abilities instead of mastering existing ones. This is a highly inefficient growth model. True power lies not in accumulation, but in refinement.]
The truth of its words landed not as an insult, but as a revelation. She had been running. Running from her weaknesses by trying to cover them with a patchwork of new skills, instead of turning and facing them, of sanding and polishing the tools she already possessed until they became extensions of her own will.
"You're right," she said, pushing herself to her feet. The melancholy was gone, burned away by a new, clear-eyed resolve. "No more shortcuts. No more collecting. It's time to master what I own."
She looked down at her hands, then back towards the temple, a new purpose burning in her eyes. The path was clear. It was harder, and longer, but it was hers.
---
Meanwhile, by the still, black pond at the temple's eastern edge, Kenta's training had concluded. Kaguya had left him with a final, cryptic warning about the "echoes in the silence" before melting into the shadows. Exhausted, his body aching and his mind a tangled knot of conflicting energies, he knelt at the water's edge to splash his face.
The moon's sliver cast a weak, shimmering line across the dark water. As the ripples from his disturbed touch settled, his reflection slowly coalesced. It was his face, his hair, his clothes.
But the eyes were wrong.
They glowed with a faint, sanguine light. And the mouth, his mouth, was twisted into a familiar, cruel smirk.
Tired already? the reflection mouthed, the words echoing directly in Kenta's mind, a silken, venomous thought that was not his own.
Kenta recoiled, scrambling backward on the grass. He stared at the water. His reflection was normal again, just a tired young man looking back at him.
A hallucination. The strain. It had to be.
He crept forward again, heart hammering against his ribs. He looked down.
The crimson eyes were back, the smirk wider, more possessive.
You can't hide from me, the reflection whispered, its voice the sound of grinding stones and promises of ruin. I am not some external monster, Kenta. I am the part of you that understands. The part that knows the light is a lie we tell children to make the night less frightening.
"No," Kenta whispered aloud, his voice trembling. "You are the blade's corruption. You are not me."
Am I not? the reflection laughed, a sound that held no joy. Who felt that surge of pleasure when you drove back Kaguya? Who relished the fear in her eyes? It wasn't the sword. The sword is just a key. I am the door it unlocks. I am your honest self. The self that knows rage is more potent than peace, that destruction is more truthful than creation.
Kenta clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. "I reject you."
You can no more reject me than you can reject your own shadow, the reflection purred, leaning forward in the water, its face unnervingly close to the surface. You try to "balance" us? A naive fantasy. There is no balance between the candle and the sun. There is only the candle being consumed. Let me out, Kenta. Stop fighting, and we can finally be what we were always meant to be. Powerful. Unrestrained. Feared.
The image began to distort, the features melting into a shifting mask of shadow and malevolent light. She is not for you, you know, it hissed, changing tactics. The girl from another world. She seeks strength for her own vengeance. She will leave you behind. Or worse, she will become a weakness, a chain that will get you killed. Let me in, and you will need no one.
"Stay out of my head!" Kenta snarled, striking the water with his fist, shattering the image into a thousand glittering fragments.
But as the water settled once more, the ripples seemed to form one last, silent message in the moonlight before fading away: I am already in.
Kenta remained kneeling by the pond, his body shaking not from cold, but from a terror far deeper. The battle was no longer just against a blade. It was a civil war raging in the quiet of his own soul, and the enemy knew all his weaknesses. The enemy was his weaknesses.