Mio
Silence.
The air had turned solid. Cold. Immovable.
Shiori bent over and threw up. The sound echoed off the vine-walls—wet, wrenching. No one moved to help her. Rin's shield arm hung limp at her side.
Mio was still on her hands and knees.
The pressure had eased enough to breathe, but not enough to stand. Her mana was churning—agitated, responding to something in the room she couldn't name.
"Three may leave." The Entity's voice curled through the chamber like smoke. "One must die. You have until I grow bored to decide."
Rin moved first.
Her hand reached for her shield. Metal scraped against stone.
"You're lying." Her voice was raw, strained under the weight. "This is an F-Grade. The Bureau—they would have flagged an Entity. Someone would have—"
The Entity didn't even look at her.
She raised one finger.
Rin came apart.
Not a spray of blood. Silent. Surgical.
Her limbs separated from her torso, suspended in the air by nothing visible. Her heart—still beating—exposed to the cold air. Her lungs trying to expand with nothing to expand into.
She was alive. Conscious.
Her eyes—wild, white-rimmed—fixed on her own floating arm.
The Entity snapped her fingers.
SLAM.
Rin collapsed in a heap of bruised flesh and twisted armor. Whole again. Sobbing—a broken, high-pitched keening that didn't sound human anymore.
"Anyone else?" The Entity crossed her arms. "Questions? Objections?"
No one spoke.
The cold seeped through Mio's palms, up her arms, into her chest.
She took Rin apart like a puzzle. Put her back together like it was nothing.
We can't fight this. We can't—
"Begin." The Entity smiled. "Entertain me."
The silence stretched. No one moved.
Aoi was the first to speak.
"Okay." She pushed herself up to her knees. "Okay. Think. There has to be a way out of this. A trick. A loophole."
"She said one must die." Shiori wiped vomit from her chin. "That's not—there's no loophole in that."
"But why give us a choice at all? If she wanted us dead, we'd be dead. Rin just—" Aoi swallowed. "We saw what she can do."
Mio forced herself to think past the fear.
Why?
It was a good question. The Entity was powerful beyond anything the System could classify. She could kill them all with a thought.
But she wasn't.
She was watching. Waiting. Patient as rot.
She's not going to help. She wants to see us tear each other apart.
Shiori's eyes had gone calculating. Fear, yes—but something colder bleeding through.
"Three may leave." Shiori stood. Slowly. Like she was testing how much the pressure would allow. "One must die. She didn't say which one."
"Shiori." Rin was still on the ground, still shaking, but her eyes had gone flat. "Don't."
"She's Grade F." Shiori's eyes didn't leave Mio's. "I'm Grade E. Rin, you're D. Aoi's E. If we're calculating survival value—"
"We're not calculating anything!" Aoi stepped between Shiori and Mio. "This is Mio. She's been my friend since—"
"Since before the Integration. I know." Shiori's expression didn't change. "But that was before. The world is different now."
Mio found her voice.
"You're doing math." She almost laughed. The sound came out wrong—high, brittle. "You're standing in front of a god and doing party composition math."
"Someone has to." Shiori met her eyes. "And you know I'm right. You said it yourself—you're dead weight. Everyone knows it. You're a healer who can't heal. You spend twice as much mana for half the effect. You panic under pressure. You waste resources."
All true.
"If one of us has to die," Shiori continued, "the logical choice is the one whose death costs the party the least. That's you, Mio. That's always been you."
"Shiori, stop." Aoi's hands were shaking now. "This is insane. There has to be another way."
"What way? You heard her. Three leave or all die. And she's going to get bored soon." Shiori pointed at the Entity without looking. "Look at her. She's enjoying this."
Mio looked.
The Entity was watching them like a play.
"I'm not dying for your math." Mio's voice was steadier than she expected. "I have a sister."
"We all have people." Shiori's eyes were empty now. "I have parents. Rin has a fiancé. Aoi has—"
"A life," Aoi snapped. "We all have lives. That's not—"
"Your sister is eleven." Rin's voice was quiet. Monotone. Like she was reading from a script. "If you die here, she goes into the foster system. Or worse."
Mio felt the words like a physical blow.
"But if we die," Rin continued, staring at a point somewhere past Mio's shoulder, "our families get the Bureau payout. Compensation. They're not—they're not children."
"Rin." Aoi's voice cracked. "You're not seriously—"
"I'm being practical." The words were mechanical. Her hands were still trembling against the stone. "Mio's the weakest. She's always been the weakest. If one of us has to—if she's the one who—"
"Say it." Mio was shaking. Anger, fear, she couldn't tell anymore. "If I'm the one who dies. That's what you mean. Say it."
Rin's gaze drifted. Found something on the far wall. Stayed there.
"We'll take care of Nana." Rin's voice was hollow. "I'll tell the Bureau you sacrificed yourself. You'll be a hero, Mio. She'll be taken care of."
Mio's sister's name in her mouth.
Like she had a right to it. Like she knew anything about Nana except that she was a convenient justification.
"Aoi." Mio turned to her. Last hope. Last friend. "Aoi, please. Look at me."
Aoi looked.
For one second—one heartbeat—Mio saw her friend. The girl who'd recorded her ringtone during a sleepover. Who'd dragged her out of her room when she'd forgotten how to leave. Who'd said I miss you on a train platform two hours ago.
Then Aoi's expression shuttered.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Mio, I'm so sorry."
"No." Mio was shaking her head. "No, no, no—"
"We'll take care of her." Tears were streaming down Aoi's face. "I promise. I'll make sure Nana—"
"Don't say her name." Mio's voice broke. "Don't you dare say her name."
Shiori didn't wait.
Frost gathered around her fingers—jagged, blue-white, sharpening into a lance.
"I'm sorry, Mio." Her voice was steady. "I really am."
"WAIT—"
The lance hit Mio's chest.
Not full force. She saw Shiori flinch at the last second, saw the spell shrink, the killing blow become something smaller.
Shiori didn't want it to be instant. She wanted someone else to finish it.
Ice in Mio's lungs. Ice in her heart. She hit the stone before she realized she'd fallen.
[HP: 78/106]
[Status: Frostbite]
Not enough to kill her. Enough to make sure she couldn't run.
No.
Something in Mio snapped.
Her hand came up before she knew what she was doing. Point. Channel. The motion she'd done a dozen times.
[Casting: Mend]
[HP: 78 → 100/106]
[MP: 77 → 45]
Warmth flooded through her chest. The ice cracked, melted, ran down her ribs in cold rivulets.
Shiori's eyes went wide. "She's healing herself—"
"Again." Rin's voice was flat. Distant. "Hit her again."
Aoi stepped forward. She wasn't looking at Mio's face anymore. Just her throat.
Her hand trembled so hard the blade wavered.
The first strike went wide—caught her collarbone instead of her neck. The second was harder. Deeper. The third never came. The dagger fell from Aoi's hand, clattering near Mio's ear. Red.
[HP: 67/106]
Blood ran down Mio's chest. She tried to cast again. Fingers splayed toward her own chest, shaking.
[Casting: Mend]
[HP: 67 → 89/106]
[MP: 45 → 13]
Not enough. The self-healing penalty ate half of it. She was still bleeding.
Rin's boot caught Mio's ribs.
[HP: 72/106]
She tried again. Point. Channel.
[Casting: Mend]
[FAILED: Insufficient MP]
Nothing. Empty.
Shiori's ice gathered again—smaller this time, a shard instead of a lance. It caught Mio in the side. Cold bloomed through her ribs.
[HP: 32/106]
Mio reached for them. Her fingers brushed Rin's boot.
Please. Don't leave me.
Rin kicked the hand away. Her boot came down on Mio's wrist, pinning it to the stone. She wasn't looking at Mio. Wasn't looking at anything.
"Stop fighting." The words fell out of her like stones. "It's over, Mio. It's already over."
[HP: 19/106]
[Status: Bleeding]
She lifted her boot. Stepped back.
The three of them walked toward the exit. The vines parted for them like a curtain.
Aoi looked back once. Her silver hair caught the light.
Then she turned away.
Mio tried to crawl after them. Her arms gave out. She collapsed onto the stone, blood pooling beneath her.
Don't leave me. Please. Don't—
Something cold wrapped around her throat.
Vines. Thin as fingers. Tightening just enough to hold her still.
"Watch, girl."
The Entity's voice came from everywhere.
She descended from somewhere above. Bare feet touching stone without a sound.
"I said one must die." Her head tilted. "I never said you had to kill her."
She snapped her fingers.
Aoi stopped mid-step. Her mouth opened to scream.
Vines tore through her throat from the inside. No sound came out.
Rin's shoulders caved inward. Her armor clattered to the floor as her body hollowed, roots drinking from within.
Shiori's hands—the hands that had made the ice lance—curled into claws, then dissolved into a cage of white flowers.
Their skin turned translucent, sickly green as the vines drank from them. Bodies jerked upward, then dropped.
Aoi's silver hair clip fell into the dirt as something white and flowering split her skull.
The smell hit Mio. Rotting meat and fresh blossoms.
Seconds. That's all it took.
Three shapes crumpled on the stone, wrapped in vines and flowers. Equipment scattered around them—swords, shields, bags, mana potions glinting blue in the dim light.
Aoi's hair clip. Lying in the dirt. The silver was still catching the light.
Gone. All of them. Gone.
"Now." The Entity stood over Mio. "The real trial begins."
She snapped her fingers.
The walls cracked.
Things pulled themselves from the fissures—skeletal frames wrapped in dead vines, bones stained green with moss, eye sockets filled with pale fungal growths that pulsed with dim light.
They moved like marionettes with half their strings cut. Jerky. Stuttering.
[Draugr — Grade C]
A dozen of them.
[HP: 19/106]
[MP: 13/77]
Grade C monsters. Nineteen HP. Thirteen mana—not even enough to cast once.
Unless...
Her eyes went to the bodies. To the blue vials scattered in the dirt.
"Survive one minute." The Entity's voice was soft. "And I'll consider marking you."
[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE]
[Time Remaining: 0:59]
Mio looked at the Draugr. At the Entity's smile. At the corpses of her friends and the potions that could keep her alive.
I don't want to die.
I promised Nana I'd come back.
I promised.
The first Draugr lunged.