The rain hadn't stopped since the night before. The drops struck the dry leaves and the muddy ground with persistence, as if the world itself was trying to wash away the remnants of what had just been confessed. Sera and Ryouhei walked in silence, the murmur of the forest broken only by the crunch of their footsteps and the sound of their steady breathing.
They hadn't spoken since that confrontation. There was no need. Something new lingered in the air: a painful understanding, an intimacy wrapped in vulnerability.
Ryouhei kept his gaze fixed ahead, eyes locked on an impossible-to-define point. It wasn't the mist of the forest that blinded him, but the storm of thoughts he still couldn't sort out. The vision of the Shadowless Man's past haunted him like a seared scar—something he couldn't ignore… but refused to face.
"Do you feel it?" Sera asked suddenly, stopping.
Ryouhei looked up. It wasn't just the rain that had intensified. The air itself seemed to vibrate, as if reality was about to tear.
"Yes. He's close," he muttered.
They moved on, more alert now. Among the twisted roots of an ancient oak, the system emitted a faint hum. The interface flickered for a second, distorting.
> Anomaly detected. Convergent route: confrontation node.
The words felt more like a sentence than a warning.
"There's no turning back now, is there?" Sera said, without looking back.
"There never was."
The clearing they reached felt strangely untouched. There, among shadows that shouldn't exist, he was waiting.
The Shadowless Man didn't speak at first. He merely observed them from the rift that was his face, as if measuring them with eyes that were no longer there. A gust of wind carried with it a murmur, an ancient and unfinished voice, like a prayer cut short.
"So you finally decided to arrive."
The battle didn't start with an attack, but with silence. One so heavy that time itself seemed to stop.
Ryouhei stepped forward. His eyes, still burdened by the weight of unspoken truths, narrowed. It was no longer just about survival.
It was personal.
And this time, the future would show him no path.