The blades of grass were too green, too bright, pulsing with a light that came from nowhere and everywhere. They swayed in a wind he couldn't feel, bending toward him like they were watching.
Kira collapsed beside him.
Her knees hit the ground hard, her hands pressing flat against the impossible turf.
Her chest heaved.
Her breathing came in ragged gasps that sounded more like sobs. The skin at the base of her neck was still open, that raw, fleshy valve still drinking in the light, but the gas had stopped. She was just... breathing.
"Kira."
She didn't respond. Her blue eyes were fixed on some ominous thing in the distance, something Hoshimi couldn't see. Her lips moved, forming words that didn't make sound.
"Hoshimi…I-I."
The sky was wrong.
Too blue. Too deep. The clouds moved in patterns that almost made sense, almost formed words, almost resolved into faces before dissolving back into cotton indifference. The sun hung at an angle that shouldn't have been possible, casting shadows that stretched in three directions at once.
Kira's hands pressed flat against the grass, her fingers sinking into soil that seemed to pulse with warmth, with life, with something that made Hoshimi's skin crawl. Her breathing was too fast, too shallow, her chest heaving with the desperate rhythm of someone trying to outrun a panic attack.
"Hoshimi—Hoshimi, I can't—I can't breathe—"
"Breathe." He was beside her in an instant, his hand pressing against the back of her neck, grounding her, anchoring her to something that wasn't this impossible place. "Count with me. Four in. Hold four. Out four."
Neila's voice came from behind him. He turned.
She stood a few feet away, her white coat pristine despite everything, her blonde hair escaping its ponytail in wild strands. Her blue eyes were wide, scanning the impossible landscape with an expression he'd never seen on her face before.
Uncertainty.
"What the hell is this place?" she asked.
"It's a Zenith, you think I'd know as well?"
"Maybe you saw something I didn't."
"I'm just as clueless as you are."
His eyes narrowed.
"You sound calm."
"I am calm." She turned to face him, and her expression was exactly what he expected: controlled, composed, utterly unreadable. "Panicking won't get us out of here. And frankly, this is more interesting than that burger place."
His eyes looked over towards Kira.
The hills rolled endlessly in every direction. Bioluminescent grass rippled in waves that had no source. Trees stood in scattered groves, their bark pulsing with veins of light that seemed to breathe. The sky was wrong, too blue, too close, like the ceiling of a painted dome rather than the infinite expanse of the heavens.
A river cut through the valley below.
Its water was clear, impossibly clear, reflecting the too-blue sky in ways that made depth impossible to gauge. Fish swam in it, their shadows moving beneath the surface, but something about their movements was wrong. Jerky. Mechanical. Like they were being pulled on invisible strings.
He walked towards Kira.
Neila's hand found his arm.
"I can't feel my mana," she said quietly. "It's like something's... pressing on it. Suppressing it. Can you feel yours?"
Hoshimi tried to gather his own. The mana responded sluggishly, reluctantly, like trying to move through water. His sword was still in his hand, but its light had dimmed, the runes on its surface flickering erratically.
"No."
"We're trapped."
"It's similar to a wall, we could probably break through it with a quick burst of mana, but I doubt that wall will allow a flow, we can't use mana to enhance ourselves."
Jiyeon moved.
Not fast, she couldn't move fast here, her body wasn't able to move as quick. The air itself seemed thicker, heavier, resistant to speed. She rose from where she'd fallen, her gray eyes sweeping the impossible landscape with the same unsettling calm she'd shown in the alley.
But something was different.
Her hands were shaking.
Not much. Barely perceptible. He noticed the way her pupils had dilated, the way her breathing had gone shallow, the way she kept looking at the river and then away, at the trees and then away, at the sky and then away.
"What do you want?"
She looked at him. Her gray eyes met his violet ones, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
"I offer a truce."
Neila interjected. "No."
"I surrender."
She raised her hands up.
"I accept."
Jiyeon's words came out flat. Empty.
Hoshimi's grip tightened on his sword. "Why?"
"Look around you." She gestured vaguely at the landscape. "We've been caught in someone's Zenith. And you're not even my enemy anyways. You're just a job." She paused. "My life is more important than this."
Neila laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound that echoed off the impossible hills. "How pathetic, this is funny."
"Neila."
She stopped. Looked at him.
"We can use her."
"Of course we can."
"We need all the help we can." He nodded toward the valley below, toward the river and the trees and the wrongness that pressed against them from every direction. "We need to gather information."
Neila considered this. Her blue eyes swept over Jiyeon's trembling form, over the blood still drying on her clothes, over the way her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
"Who sent you?"
"The Korean government."
"Which one?"
"I think it's obvious."
"It isn't."
"South."
"Fine, we won't attack you." Her voice was sharp. "But I'm watching you."
Jiyeon's voice was tired. "Watching me? I think you're being annoyingly cautious. Can't you feel it anyways? This place is eating me alive."
Hoshimi felt it too.
A pressure behind his eyes. A weight in his chest. Something pressing against the edges of his consciousness like a hand against a window, trying to get in.
"Move," he said. "We need higher ground."
They walked.
The hills were steeper than they looked, the grass slick beneath their feet despite being dry. Kira stumbled after them, her hand finding Hoshimi's sleeve, her fingers curling into the fabric like she'd done in the alley.
He didn't pull away.
She seemed to want to say something.
But she was far too nervous, or perhaps even scared.
Like the slightest mention of it, could alert it.
Neila walked beside Jiyeon, her blue eyes fixed on the assassin's profile, her hands ready to snap at the first sign of betrayal. But Jiyeon didn't try anything. She just walked, her gray eyes fixed on the horizon, her breathing shallow and controlled.
The animals started appearing.
A rabbit. Small, brown, its nose twitching as it tested the air. It sat on its haunches and watched them with eyes that were too bright, too aware, too something.
Then it spoke.
"Beautiful day, isn't it?"
Kira screamed.
Not loud. Not long. A small, choked sound that she cut off with her own hand, pressing her fingers against her lips as if she could force the terror back inside.
"Kira-"
"It's-it's talking. Why is it- why does it know human?"
"Curious creatures, humans." The rabbit's head tilted, its ears flopping to one side in a gesture that was almost endearing. "Always so surprised when the world doesn't behave the way they expect."
Then a fox, its coat the color of a pale death, its eyes were weirdly bright. Then birds, dozens of them, settling in the trees and watching with heads cocked at unnatural angles. "We don't get many visitors."
"Strangers are rare," the crow agreed. Its voice came from everywhere and nowhere, bouncing off the hills, the trees, the sky itself. "Rare and precious. Rare and fragile."
"Fragile things break," the deer added. Its voice was soft, almost gentle, like a mother singing to a child. "Everything breaks eventually."
"Birds?" Neila started.
"Don't." Hoshimi's voice was sharp. "Don't look at them. Don't acknowledge them."
Too late.
The rabbit opened its mouth.
"Hello."
The word was clear. Human. Impossible. The rabbit's nose twitched, its whiskers quivered, and its eyes fixed on Hoshimi with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
"Hello," it said again. "You're not supposed to be here."
Kira made a sound. A small, wounded noise that she tried to swallow.
The animals began to laugh.
It wasn't a single sound, but a chorus, layered and overlapping, each voice slightly different, slightly wrong. The rabbit's high giggle. The fox's rough bark. The crow's cawing shriek. The deer's soft, almost musical hum.
They laughed, and the hills laughed with them, and the trees, and the sky itself.
Blood.
Hoshimi blinked.
The blood was gone.
"Keep walking," he said.
"You sure that we should be walking when you don't even know where the fuck we're going?"
"I have a rough idea."
"Sure you do."
"These animals are probably summons from the Zenith, like the one that appeared at our school dorms."
The rabbit hopped alongside them, keeping pace easily despite its small size. "Where are you going? There's nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. She'll find you. She always finds you."
"She?"
The rabbit's eyes gleamed. "The one who made this place. The one who's been waiting. The-"
The fox snarled. "Shut up. You'll ruin the surprise."
"Talking animals? I thought I was the only one hallucinating." Neila's voice was tight, her eyes stared down at them. "What surprise?"
The birds answered.
Dozens of them, speaking at once, their voices layering into a discordant chorus that made Hoshimi's head throb.
Neila waved her hand, trying to get the flying creatures off her face.
"Get off me, you vermin."
"THE TREE. THE LAKE. THE WAITING. SHE'S BEEN WAITING SO LONG. SO VERY LONG. YOU'LL MAKE HER HAPPY. YES. YES. YOU'LL MAKE HER SO HAPPY."
Their voices made his temples ache.
Like needles piercing through his skull from both sides of his head.
"Be quiet."
Hoshimi's voice cut through the noise like a blade.
The animals stopped.
For a moment, there was silence. The birds froze mid-perch. The rabbit stopped mid-hop. The fox's grin faltered.
Then they all turned to look at him at once.
"Irritation," the rabbit whispered.
"Apprehension," the fox added.
"Disconnected" the birds chorused. "So disconnected. Always in solitude. Even when you're with them. Even when you're touching them. Always alone."