The third day nearly killed him.
The land changed as he moved east. Trees thinned. The ground hardened. The air felt tighter.
Shinji noticed the silence first.
No insects. No distant movement. Even the wind seemed to avoid the place.
He slowed.
Pressure hit—dense, suffocating.
This wasn't like the others.
He should have turned back.
He glanced once at the path behind him—faint, already vanishing between the last trees—then adjusted his grip on the broken blade and kept walking.
The curse announced itself without sound.
It unfolded ahead of him, tall and wrong, its body bending unnaturally. Its presence wasn't violent.
It was heavy. Final.
His instincts screamed at him to move.
He did.
Too late.
Something struck his side and slammed him into the dirt. Pain tore through his ribs. He rolled, coughing.
Get up.
His body didn't respond.
The curse loomed closer. Each step crushed the ground beneath it, slow and deliberate.
Shinji forced air into his lungs and tried again.
Still nothing.
This is it.
The certainty settled in before fear could.
Then something shifted.
The pain didn't vanish.
It receded.
Not dulled. Not ignored.
Set aside.
His limbs moved.
Not smoothly. Not cleanly.
But fully.
He rolled to his feet. Balance snapped into place. Breath steadied. Vision sharpened.
One strike.
Then another.
His shoulder tore. He didn't slow. Footwork adjusted automatically.
The curse recoiled.
Shinji pressed forward.
He shouldn't have been able to do this.
The curse lashed out again. Shinji slipped past it, close enough to feel the pressure scrape his skin. He drove the blade in, twisted, and followed with a strike that cracked something deep inside.
The curse collapsed.
Shinji staggered back.
Then another step.
His legs gave out.
He hit the ground. Pain crashed back all at once.
This time, he stayed down.
For several long moments, he could do nothing but breathe and stare at the sky.
Gray. Unmoving.
Something warm spread along his side—then stopped.
Not healed.
Just… held.
When he finally pushed himself upright, his hands were shaking violently.
"That…" he said, then stopped.
He didn't finish the thought.
He tested his arm. Pain flared. Real pain.
Good.
He stood slowly and took a step.
Normal.
Another step.
Still normal.
No unnatural ease. No sharp clarity.
Just fatigue and damage.
Shinji looked back at the remains of the curse.
He had no memory of deciding to fight that way.
His body had moved.
His mind had watched.
Later, when he found a place to sit and the shaking had eased, the panel appeared.
It showed more than before.
Not numbers. Not explanations.
Just a difference.
Shinji stared at it for a long time.
Then he closed it.
Whatever that was, it hadn't been a blessing.
It had taken control when he couldn't.
Shinji leaned back against the stone and exhaled slowly.
So that's it.
When this body is close to death,it lets go of its restraints.