She was no longer alone.
For one second, that was enough.
Hina breathed with difficulty, the axe still in her hand, the taste of blood stuck to her mouth. Her shoulder hurt. Her cheek burned. Her arm felt heavier than usual.
But Mei was there.
Ishida was there.
Yūta was there.
That did not turn the trap into an exit.
But it did make it feel a little less closed.
The white figures moved at the same time.
They did not run.
They did not shout.
They simply began closing the circle again, as if the others' arrival had changed nothing. Or as if it had changed exactly what the man in red wanted.
"Don't kill them," Ishida said.
Mei opened her fans a little wider.
"That limits my style quite a bit."
"They're people."
"I know," Mei said. "That's why I'm in an even worse mood."
Yūta looked at the ones in white.
His mana was barely visible around his fingers, a faint vibration appearing and vanishing, as if it were still deciding what shape to take.
"They don't fight like hunters."
"Or like remnants," Hina said.
"No," Yūta murmured. "They fight worse."
A white figure lunged at him.
Yūta stepped sideways.
Not too far.
Just enough.
The open hand passed in front of his face, reaching for his neck or his jaw. Yūta dodged it, turned, and pushed the figure's shoulder with his forearm.
He did not hit hard.
Even so, the figure lost balance and fell into the dirt.
Yūta frowned.
"Much worse."
The figure began to rise immediately.
Ishida launched a chain.
It shot from his left hand in a short, quick arc and closed around the white figure's wrist before it could fully stand. Another chain flew from his right and caught its ankle.
Ishida pulled.
Not hard enough to break.
Just enough to make it fall again.
The figure hit the ground on its knees.
It tried to stand again.
The chain tightened.
The body began to tremble.
Not like someone straining.
Like something broken inside.
Ishida loosened the tension immediately.
"Their mana isn't responding normally."
Mei deflected another figure with a cut of wind that opened the robe along one side without touching the skin. The fabric tore, the body spun from the force of the air, and it fell onto its back.
"Translate."
"If I hold them too long, my chains will wear them down."
"That's what your chains do."
"Against remnants," Ishida said. "Not people."
The captured figure pulled.
The chain gave slightly.
Ishida clenched his teeth.
"And especially not people whose mana seems badly assembled."
Yūta stepped back until he was near him.
"So we can't immobilize them for long."
"No."
"And we can't hit them hard."
"No."
Mei blocked a white hand with her closed fan and pushed the attacker away with a short gust.
"Beautiful fight. Not hurting people who are trying to hurt us. My favorite."
A figure appeared behind her.
Hina took one step, raised the axe, and struck with the handle.
Not the blade.
The impact sent the figure crashing into a tree.
It fell sitting down.
Hina looked at Mei.
"Don't get distracted complaining."
"I'm not distracted. Complaining helps me focus."
The man in red watched from the center of the clearing.
He had not retreated.
He had not advanced.
His mask remained turned toward them, smooth, impossible to read. The few candles still lit trembled around the stained stone, and the darkness made his red robe look darker, almost brown, almost black.
"Four," he said.
No one answered.
"Four open eyes."
Yūta looked at him.
"Technically, eight."
Hina let air out through her nose.
It was not a laugh.
But it came close.
The man in red tilted his head.
"Humor always appears when a mind tries to protect its border."
"No," Yūta said. "Sometimes it just appears when someone says something very stupid with a lot of confidence."
Mei smiled faintly.
"That one was new."
"I'm improvising."
"Keep going."
Ishida launched two more chains.
One caught the arm of a white figure trying to circle around them from the left. The other struck the earth in front of another figure, forming a line that forced it to stop.
It was not a prison.
It was a boundary.
Ishida no longer tried to hold them for too long.
Catch.
Pull.
Release.
Catch.
Divert.
Release.
The chains moved in short, precise, almost dry motions.
A wrist.
An ankle.
A shoulder.
A turn.
A fall.
Before the sick mana inside those bodies began trembling too much.
Yūta noticed.
"You're letting them go before they break."
"I'm trying to."
"Trying?"
Ishida tightened a chain and diverted a white figure to the side just before it could crash into Mei.
"I don't know how much is too much."
That was worse than any warning.
Because Ishida rarely said he did not know something.
Mei stepped forward, opened her fans, and released two diagonal cuts of wind.
They were not deep.
They were not clean like the ones she would use against a remnant.
They were wide, made of pressure, more push than blade. One cut the sleeve of a white figure and made it spin. The other struck the ground in front of two attackers and lifted dirt.
The bodies stopped for an instant.
Then continued.
"They have no defense," Yūta said.
"I already noticed that," Mei replied.
"No. I mean they don't know how to protect themselves. If we attack them like remnants, we'll kill them."
A white figure crawled along the ground and tried to grab Yūta's ankle.
Yūta jumped back.
"And I'd love not to kill anyone before breakfast."
"You didn't have breakfast," Ishida said.
"That's why I said before."
Hina did not take her eyes off the man in red.
The white figures were the danger nearby.
But he was the center.
The axis.
The breath of the clearing.
He gave no orders.
He did not say "attack," "stop," or "surround them."
He did not need to.
Those in white moved as if each one had already decided to obey something inside their own head.
That was worse than being controlled.
A puppet, at least, had strings.
This did not.
This looked like will.
Twisted.
But will.
"You're not moving them," Yūta said.
The man in red turned his mask toward him.
"No."
Yūta dodged a white hand, grabbed the wrist with both hands, and used the attacker's momentum to throw it sideways. The fall was ugly. Too ugly.
Yūta let go immediately.
"You're not giving them orders."
"No."
Ishida glanced at Yūta.
"Amane."
"One second."
"We don't have one second."
Mei cut a branch above a white figure. The branch fell between them and forced the figure to change direction.
"I'm with Ishida on this. Extremely rare situation. Hurry up."
Yūta breathed quickly.
He looked at the ones in white.
At the man in red.
At the way one figure moved before he spoke. At the way another blocked a path no one had tried to use yet. At the way all of them oriented themselves toward him, not with their eyes, but with something lower.
Something deeper.
"They don't obey your voice," Yūta said.
The man in red did not answer.
Yūta continued:
"They obey what they think you want."
Hina's fingers tightened around the axe.
Mei stopped smiling.
Ishida gripped a chain.
The man in red laughed softly.
"Newborns search for a voice."
"They're not newborns," Hina said.
"Not to you."
"Not to anyone."
"That is the difference between us."
The man in red raised one hand toward the white figures.
"You still believe a human body is a border."
A white figure murmured:
"We see."
Another answered:
"We see."
Another:
"We see."
The sound began to repeat around the clearing.
Not at the same time.
Not like a perfect chorus.
Like echoes born from different mouths.
"We see."
"We see."
"We see."
Mei raised her fans.
"I don't like this."
"No one likes it when a truth begins to breathe," said the man in red.
"I definitely don't like this."
The white figures stopped advancing.
Ishida frowned.
Three were held by chains.
One by the wrist.
Another by the ankle.
Another around the torso.
Until that moment, they had been pulling nonstop.
Now they were not.
They stayed still.
Too still.
"They're not pulling," Ishida said.
Yūta looked at the chains.
"Then why are you making that face?"
Ishida lowered his gaze.
The glow of the chains was fading from the points of contact with the bodies.
Not because the figures were breaking them.
Not because Ishida was releasing them.
Because something in the white figures' mana was going somewhere else.
The chains touched it.
Felt it.
And lost it.
"He's taking something from them," Ishida said.
Hina looked at the man in red.
"What are you doing?"
The man in red extended both arms.
The white figures bowed their heads.
All of them.
Even the fallen ones.
Even the injured ones.
Even the ones who could barely stand.
"One eye can be closed," he said.
His voice came out lower.
Thicker.
Not in volume.
In depth.
"Many eyes can open a door."
The air changed.
It was not wind.
It was as if the clearing had inhaled.
And had not breathed out again.
A pale light began to rise from the white bodies.
Not exactly light.
Not exactly mana.
Something thinner.
Weaker.
Dirtier.
Like threads seen beneath water.
They came from the covered faces, from the hands, from the chests breathing too fast. Some of the people in white began to cry. Others smiled beneath their cloths. One fell to their knees and still kept their head bowed toward the man in red.
"It's not absorption," Yūta said.
Hina looked at him.
"What?"
"He's not stealing their mana exactly."
Ishida clenched his teeth.
"Then what?"
Yūta watched the pale threads.
They moved from the white figures toward the man in red, but not like energy being torn away by force. They seemed to search for him. Or remember the path back to him.
"He's using them as conduits."
The man in red turned his mask toward Yūta.
For the first time, he seemed truly interested in him.
"You see differently."
Yūta swallowed.
"I get that a lot."
"What a waste."
"I get that too."
Mei stepped in front of Yūta without looking at him.
"Flirt with the cultist later."
"I wasn't flirting."
"You sounded a little flirty," Ishida said.
"You too?"
Hina stepped toward the man in red.
"Cut it off."
The man did not move.
"I cannot cut what they offer."
"They're not offering it."
"They have been since they awakened."
"Lie."
"No. What you call obedience is only a young form of faith."
The pale threads touched the red robe.
They entered it.
They did not light it.
They darkened it.
The man in red's body tensed.
First it was one shoulder.
It rose slightly.
Then the neck.
His head tilted to one side with a movement too slow, too controlled, as if something inside were rearranging bones without asking permission.
The mask cracked.
Mei stopped breathing for a second.
"That is not normal."
"Thank you for the report," Yūta said. "Very useful."
"Amane."
"Yes. Sorry."
Ishida released the chains still connected to the ones in white.
"If they're connected to him, my chains could make it worse."
The chains dissolved into particles of mana.
The white figures did not fall.
They did not advance.
They simply remained bowed.
"We see," several voices whispered.
The man in red lowered his arms.
His fingers looked longer.
Not much.
Enough to make looking at them uncomfortable.
The fabric of the robe stretched in places where it should not have stretched. One side of his torso seemed wider than the other. His breathing became audible, rough, like air entering a body that had forgotten how to receive it.
Hina felt the mana in the clearing twist.
It was not the clean mana of a hunter.
Nor was it the corrupt pressure of a remnant.
It was something in between.
Something alive that had let too much death inside.
"He's not a remnant," Ishida said.
"No," Yūta said.
The red mask cracked again.
A thin line appeared from the forehead to one of the eye openings.
"But he's not just human either."
The man in red raised his head.
Behind the crack in the mask, something shone.
An eye.
Red.
Open.
Too open.
"The human body is a small house," said the man in red.
His voice no longer sounded the same.
It was still his.
But there was something behind it.
Many breaths beneath a single voice.
"But even a small house can have many windows."
Mei readied her fans.
"That was disgusting, and it also made no sense."
"It does make sense," Yūta said.
Mei looked at him.
"Do not contradict me right now."
"I'm not defending him. I'm saying I understand the logic."
Hina did not take her eyes off the man in red.
"Then explain it fast."
Yūta pointed at the ones in white.
"He 'opens' them. Leaves something of himself in them. Or makes them believe it belongs to them. Then, when he needs power, he uses that part as a path back."
"Like a net," Ishida said.
"Like eyes," corrected the man in red.
Hina advanced.
"Then I'll close them."
The axe grew in her hands.
Large.
Larger than before.
The metal reflected the little light left from the candles.
Mei moved at the same time, not toward the man in red, but toward the ones in white.
"I'll cover the ones nearby."
"Don't cut them," Ishida said.
"I'm not an idiot."
"I didn't say that."
"You thought it with your face."
Ishida did not answer.
The chains shot out again, but this time they did not close around bodies. They embedded themselves in trees, stones, and earth, forming tense lines between the white figures and the center of the clearing.
Barriers without being barriers.
Boundaries.
Obstacles.
Yūta understood immediately.
"He's not tying them down."
Mei launched a cut of wind at the ground in front of a figure beginning to move.
"He's making a cage without touching the birds."
Ishida looked at Mei.
"Don't say that."
"It sounded poetic."
"It wasn't."
Hina did not hear the exchange.
She was already in front of the man in red.
The axe came down.
Not at his head.
At his extended arm.
If she forced him to defend, if she interrupted his posture, if she cut the connection even for a second…
The man in red raised his hand.
He did not dodge.
He did not block with technique.
He simply placed his palm in front of the axe.
The air between them opened.
Hina felt pressure in her forehead.
In her eyes.
In her throat.
It was not physical strength.
It was an order without words.
Look.
The blade stopped a few centimeters from his hand.
Hina screamed in rage and pushed more mana into the weapon.
The edge moved forward slightly.
Very slightly.
The red mask tilted.
"Your sister said 'no' many times."
Hina clenched her teeth.
"And you didn't listen once."
The axe cut through the air.
The man in red stepped back for the first time.
Only half a step.
But he stepped back.
Mei saw it.
"Good."
"Don't celebrate," Ishida said.
One of the white figures slipped beneath a chain, too low, almost crawling. Mei intercepted it with a gust of wind that pushed it into the ground without opening the skin.
Another tried to leap over a chain line.
Yūta ran toward it.
He did not hit it.
He got in the way.
The figure crashed into him.
Yūta used the impact to turn with it and throw it sideways into the dirt.
It fell badly.
He grimaced.
"Sorry."
The figure turned its head toward him.
Beneath the cloth, a voice whispered:
"We see."
"Yeah, yeah, everyone sees a lot," Yūta said, stepping back. "I'm happy for you, but stay there now."
The figure tried to rise.
A chain dropped in front of its hands.
It did not touch.
It only blocked the way.
Ishida looked at Yūta.
"Don't apologize to someone trying to stab you."
"They're still someone."
Ishida did not answer.
Because he agreed.
And because he had no time.
The man in red raised both arms again.
The pale threads tightened.
Hina noticed.
"Careful!"
The ones in white stopped trying to advance.
All of them raised their heads at once.
Even those on the ground.
Even those crying.
Even those who seemed unable to breathe properly.
"We see," they said.
The man in red opened his hand.
The clearing filled with eyes.
Not real eyes.
Not bodies.
Perceptions.
Gazes.
Points of pressure in the air.
Yūta felt something watching him from behind and turned, but there was no one there.
Mei cut a shadow that was not a shadow.
Ishida tightened a chain toward an empty point.
Hina felt a gaze stab into the space between her eyes.
The man in red spoke:
"Now."
The blow came from everywhere.
It was not a single impact.
It was a fall of pressure.
As if the entire forest had placed a hand over them.
Mei planted her fans in a cross and raised a gust around the group.
Ishida crossed chains in front of them.
Yūta raised his hands and pushed mana outward with no clear form, pure instinct, pure rejection.
Hina drove the axe into the ground.
The four powers collided against the pressure of the clearing.
The earth sank beneath their feet.
A candle exploded.
Then another.
One of Ishida's chains broke.
Mei let out a grunt.
Yūta dropped to one knee.
Hina felt the axe vibrate as if it were about to split.
The man in red advanced through the pressure.
The red robe moved as if there were wind only around him.
His body no longer walked properly.
One shoulder too high.
One arm too long.
His head tilted.
The cracked mask revealed that red eye, open, fixed.
He did not look like a remnant.
That made it worse.
A remnant was a dead thing that had not known how to leave.
This man was still alive.
And yet something inside him had opened the door from within.
"Look," he said.
The pressure increased.
Yūta clenched his teeth.
"I hate when villains choose simple words."
"Talk less," Mei said.
"I'm trying not to pass out."
"Then talk none."
Ishida reinforced the chains.
"I can't hold this for long."
"Neither can I," Mei said.
Hina looked up at the man in red.
The fear returned.
But it was no longer arranged.
It was no longer useful.
It was large.
Heavy.
Real.
The man in red smiled beneath the broken mask.
This time, Hina could feel it.
"Four open eyes," he said.
The red eye shone.
"Let us see how long they take to close."
The pressure burst.
This time, Hina did not raise the axe alone.
Mei opened her fans.
Ishida tightened the chains.
Yūta took one step forward, even with one knee trembling.
The man in red tilted his head.
And the forest opened its eyes.