The Aesther stone pulsed on Yuuta's forehead, drawing the red and black aura from his body in slow, rhythmic waves, and deep within the landscape of his own mind, Yuuta opened his eyes to find himself standing on water that should not have held him.
The ocean had no end. It stretched to every horizon, flat and still and wrong, the surface smooth as glass yet dark as the space between stars. There were no waves, no ripples, no movement at all, only the terrible stillness of something that had never known wind or tide or the touch of living things.
Beneath the surface, there was no light, no life, no bottom.
Just void.
An endless, crushing abyss that went down forever, and when Yuuta looked into it, he felt something looking back.
