CELESTIA — CHAPITRE 35 : the bug that became a hunt
The forest that still remembers
Night did not fall on the world like an end, but like a memory that refuses to die. It stretched over New York with an almost conscious slowness, covering the skyscrapers, the roads, and human prayers with a silent veil where even sounds seemed to hesitate to exist. The city was still breathing, but with a tired breath, as if it knew that something above it was watching without blinking. The moon floated in the sky like a luminous wound, distant and yet omnipresent, a mute witness to everything humans did in the illusion of shadow.
And farther still, where artificial lights abandon the world, there was a forest. A forest unlike any other, not because it was beautiful, but because it seemed to remember. Each tree carried within it a different era. Each root sank not only into the earth, but into fragments of forgotten stories. Here, time was not a line, but a living mass that slowly breathed beneath the leaves. An ancient forest, so ancient it no longer distinguished humans from the mistakes they made.
Yojuro entered it like one enters something that recognizes you before you even understand why you are there. No sound preceded his steps, and yet the forest seemed to react. Leaves trembled without wind. Trunks went still as if listening. The air became denser, almost heavy, charged with an invisible presence sliding over the skin like an unasked question. Yojuro moved forward slowly, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed straight ahead, but something in him was elsewhere. Since Lucifer's awakening, he had the impression that his body was walking in one world while his mind drifted in another, as if a part of him had been displaced into a dimension he did not yet control.
He stopped.
Silence here was not empty.
It was full.
Full of things he could not name.
"…I didn't come here to fight." His voice was low, almost swallowed by the trees. "I already have enough chaos in my head without the forest joining in too."
The answer was immediate.
FWSSSHHHH.
The forest spoke in projectiles.
Arrows burst from all directions, not as an improvised attack, but as an ancient decision already written into earth and wood. They cut through the air with inhuman precision, as if each trajectory had been calculated long before Yojuro was born. Space seemed to contract around him.
But something within him responded.
A blessed aura exploded around his body without real sound, like a truth refusing to remain hidden. Silver. Fluid. Almost divine. The world slowed, not because it was kind, but because it was forced to adapt to him. Yojuro did not run. He slid. Between arrows, between possible deaths, between fractions of seconds where his life could have ended without him even realizing it.
An arrow grazed his cheek. Another tore through the air behind him.
He tilted his head slightly.
"Too slow." he murmured without emotion.
And then everything stopped.
Silence returned like a receding sea, leaving behind something older than fear.
A voice descended from a branch.
"Not bad. You survived my 'hello' version."
Yojuro looked up.
A boy was there. Thirteen years old. Maybe less. Bow in hand. Sharp gaze. And that strange smile, the kind worn by people who do not yet know whether they are dangerous or simply too alive.
"You're the UAP archer." Yojuro said.
The boy jumped.
Light. As if gravity was a suggestion.
"Yeah. Robin." He paused. "And yes… Robin Hood. Before you ask."
Yojuro stayed silent for a second.
"Seriously?"
Robin shrugged.
"My parents had questionable humor. But hey… I've survived worse than a name."
He put his bow away.
"Sorry about the arrows. Forest instinct. I thought you were a poacher."
Yojuro answered calmly:
"I've already been mistaken for worse things."
And something passed between them. Not friendship. Not trust. But a silent recognition between two boys living in a world that tests the living like weapons.
Robin gestured with his head.
"Come."
"Where?"
"My place."
---
The forest changed nature without changing shape.
It opened.
As if it accepted letting them pass toward something it had been keeping for a long time.
They walked for a long time without speaking.
Then the house appeared.
Small. Wooden. Lit. Impossible.
As if it had not been built, but left there by the world to be forgotten.
Robin opened the door.
"Grandpa! I brought someone!"
A voice answered immediately from inside.
"Another survivor of your arrows, or did you actually use your brain this time?"
Robin sighed.
"Both, maybe."
An old man appeared.
Nikola.
Hard gaze. Straight posture. Ancient scars like memories carved into skin.
"Come in, boy. Here, war does not cross the threshold."
---
The fire burned softly.
Soup steamed.
And for a few seconds, the world pretended to be simple.
Nikola spoke.
About the forest. About poachers. About things he had to stop.
Then his tone changed.
"And then one day… I saw something that wasn't human."
Silence.
"A Djinn."
The word weighed in the room.
Robin frowned.
"And?"
Nikola answered without hesitation.
"ERROR."
Yojuro's bowl stopped in his hand.
His gaze hardened instantly.
"…Are you sure about that name?"
Nikola nodded.
"You don't confuse that kind of thing."
The fire seemed to flicker.
And in that flicker, the name became a presence.
ERROR.
Yojuro murmured:
"…Damn."
Robin looked between them.
"What exactly is it?"
Yojuro answered after a silence.
"An ending that works."
---
Elsewhere.
Very far away.
A purple planet.
Two broken moons suspended in a sick sky.
A civilization still lived.
Children laughed.
Adults ignored.
Then the sky opened.
ERROR descended.
Ryuusei descended.
As if the world were a stage already written.
The ground trembled.
The air bent.
Ryuusei spoke calmly:
"The artifacts. You take them."
ERROR smiled.
"And you?"
Silence.
Then:
"I handle the rest."
He observed the living beings below like one observes something not yet decided to be named.
"Today… I handle the food."
And the planet realized too late that it had just been noticed.
---
In the house, Yojuro remained motionless.
The word turned in his mind.
ERROR.
Lucifer had changed something in him.
But ERROR…
was something else.
Something that existed even before rules.
He murmured:
"…So he's still there."
Robin asked:
"Who?"
Yojuro answered without looking at him.
"Someone who should not exist so naturally."
And outside, the forest kept breathing.
As if it already knew this was only the beginning.