The system was watching us.
I could feel it in every shadow that stretched longer than it should, in the echoes that didn't match our voices, in the whispers rising from the ground like Eclipsia itself was developing a mind of its own. It wasn't hostile. Not yet.
But it was… uncomfortable.
Like a god watching helplessly as his characters begin to act on their own.
—
"What are we going to do?" Sera asked softly, as if afraid the forest might overhear.
There was no fear in her question.
Just weariness. And something else: a thread of poisoned hope.
"We keep walking," I answered. "Even if we have to invent the ground beneath our feet."
She nodded, but didn't smile.
Smiling had started to cost her.
And that hurt more than any curse.
—
The journal no longer obeyed.
It opened on its own. Sometimes entries appeared that I didn't remember writing. On a freshly ink-stained page, I read:
> "If two anomalies form an emotional link, the system activates Correction Protocol."
And beneath it:
> "Emotional status of Anomaly Veyl: dangerous. Too human."
—
We took shelter in a clearing where even the fireflies refused to land. There were stone crosses, but no names. And in the center, a lone flower bloomed where no life should be.
Sera knelt before it. She said nothing.
Just stared.
As if she understood exactly what it meant.
"Do you want to pray?" I offered, awkwardly.
She shook her head gently.
"There's no one listening anymore."
—
Silence stretched between us. But it wasn't uncomfortable.
It was intimate.
Like the entire world had paused just to give us a moment alone.
"Ryouhei..." she said, voice trembling, "If tomorrow I wasn't here… would you remember me as I was, or as I ended?"
"As you are now."
"And how's that?"
"Like the heartbeat keeping me from turning into a monster."
—
Sera lifted her eyes, slowly, like any sudden move might shatter the fragile moment.
Her eyes sparkled, but not from moonlight.
And then it happened.
No urgency. No dramatics.
A kiss born from two exhausted souls, not from desire.
A gesture more like a shared sigh than any act of conquest.
There was no tongue. No hunger.
Just lips trembling against lips.
A second…
and then another…
as if we were trying to memorize the other's existence in case the world decided to erase us.
—
When she pulled away, her eyes were still closed.
As if she didn't want to open them and realize it had all been a system glitch.
I said nothing.
I just held her. Tight.
Not like someone who owned her, but like someone who feared losing her.
—
That night, the sky changed.
And the journal wrote a single line:
> "Deviation confirmed. Love detected. Point of no return reached."