Pain.
Not drowning. Not falling.
Pain.
It crushed my left arm from the inside, as if invisible weights had been chained to my veins and were slowly being pulled tighter. I tried to gasp, but there was no air—no body—only the sensation of pressure and the certainty that something was wrong.
My arm glowed faintly in the dark. Purple-red light crawled beneath my skin, tracing the exact spot where Salamander had pierced me. The pain wasn’t sharp. It was heavy. Expanding. Like every vein was swelling at once, threatening to burst.
I was awake.
I was thinking.
So why wasn’t I dead?
The darkness around me had no shape. No ground. No sky. Just black, stretching endlessly in every direction. I moved—or thought I did—and the void responded, folding around me like smoke.
Nothing answered when I called out.
I ran.
I didn’t know where I was going, only that standing still felt worse. My thoughts spiraled as I moved—Makino, Ace, Sarie. The last image burned into my mind was the princess collapsing into unnatural sleep, her body crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut.
What would he do to her?
The darkness shifted.
It .
The void twisted, reshaping itself into the horrors I imagined—fire, broken stone, bodies that wouldn’t move. I slowed, breath hitching, realizing with sick clarity that this place was feeding on my fear.
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Then I heard it.
A giggle.
Light. Joyful. Almost childish.
It echoed through the dark, completely wrong for a place like this.
I froze.
The giggle came again, closer this time.
I followed it. I didn’t know why. There was nothing else—no exits, no answers. If it was an enemy… then at least it was something I could face.
My fists clenched.
Where are my weapons?
The pipe—gone. Lost somewhere in the chaos. Fox Slayer—
A cold certainty settled in my chest.
He had it.
The giggling grew louder, warping slightly as I approached, as laughter heard through fire. Ahead, something burned in the darkness—a silhouette wreathed in black-and-red flames.
As I drew closer, the shape resolved.
Feminine.
She stood with her back to me, shoulders shaking as she laughed to herself. Her hair flowed like living fire, each strand curling and snapping in the air.
“Hey!” I called, my voice cracking. “You—what’s so funny?”
The laughter stopped.
Silence crashed down so suddenly that it made my ears ring.
She turned.
Slowly.
Her grin was wide—far too wide—but there was no joy in it. Only hatred. Old, deep, and intimate. Sharp teeth gleamed between stretched lips, and my legs gave out beneath me as fear finally caught up.
“What the hell are you?” I shouted, scrambling backward.
Something about her felt wrong.
And something about her felt .
She stepped closer. The heat of her presence washed over me, not burning, but suffocating. Her dark red eyes searched my face, narrowing as if she were trying to remember something important.
Then she smiled wider.
Her hand lifted—and closed around nothing.
A sword materialized in her grasp.
Fox Slayer.
She held it with reverence, then laughed again, the sound distorted and broken.
“We can’t have you die,” she said lightly. “Not yet.”
She raised the blade.
I barely had time to react before she slashed.
The strike didn’t cut flesh.
It passed through me like liquid—no resistance, no pain. She had struck exactly where my glowing arm was positioned. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
I almost laughed.
Then she giggled again.
The purple substance clinging to my spirit writhed—and was suddenly engulfed in flame. Red and black fire roared to life, devouring every trace of the residual magic like a starving beast.
It didn’t burn.
It didn’t numb.
It felt… .
As if something foreign was being scraped off my soul, not violently, but thoroughly.
Something went with it. I didn’t know what—only that a part of me felt quieter.
I sagged, exhaustion crashing over me all at once.
Sleep dragged at my thoughts.
The last thing I heard was her laughter—soft, satisfied—
And then—
I woke up.
