To feel.
Soul or essence?
What truly remains after the body dissolves?
To feel.
The word reverberated in Tekio's consciousness, not as a philosophical concept, but as a visceral truth, the only anchor in a sea of disintegration. Because to feel meant existence. And if there was still someone capable of feeling, even at the epicenter of chaos, then there was still resistance. There was still hope — however fragile.
Thoughts spun in his mind like a storm of runaway electrons. Doubt was a constant weight; unease, a background hum; the absence of absolute certainties, an abyss under his feet. Yet, his feet kept moving. The four were not running—running was for fleeing, and they were not fleeing. But neither were they stopping. Each step was deliberate, economical, like the gait of predators in unfamiliar territory. The silence between them was heavy, cut only by the distant sound of ruined structures settling under their own weight, by the rustle of ash under their boots. Every pile of rubble, every shadow lengthened by the strange light of the deformed sky, was examined not with the eyes, but with the soul—seeking a threat, or perhaps a hidden answer.
— Do you think Mei killed him? — Stella's question appeared as a crack in the silence. Her voice still carried the ballast of recent pain, but a firmness was already returning to her core. The most serious wounds on her arms and legs had closed, leaving only pink, sensitive skin, and the golden glow surrounding her was now a subtle mantle, almost imperceptible—the sign of near-complete regeneration, but of a profound exhaustion.
Dan, walking a step behind her like a shadowy bodyguard, kept his eyes sweeping the horizon in constant arcs. His answer came dry, factual. — It is a possibility. Mei is gentle… but she does not hesitate when she has to. Not with so many lives at risk. Her math is cruel and perfect.
Tekio felt his fists clench involuntarily. The image of Mei in combat was not that of an impassive goddess. It was that of a woman. He had seen her fight Akira—not just the indestructible Empress, but the woman behind the flame. He remembered the expression in her golden eyes: a silent, deep pain that transformed every blow struck not into triumph, but into a private mourning. Each impact on that body that had once been her friend was a wound in her own soul.
He knew.
More than that, he felt it.
In the fabric of reality, in the current of energy flowing through the devastation, there was a dissonant note, a dark and familiar persistence.
— No… — the word left his lips in a murmur laden with a certainty that chilled the air around him. — He is still alive.
Amara stopped walking and turned to look at him, her face a serene mask of analysis. Stella and Dan exchanged a quick glance—not of skepticism, but of recognition. They knew Tekio. They knew the strange circuits of his intuition, the way he sometimes seemed to read the hidden script of the world. And they knew, above all, the nature of the enemy. Dante was not prey that fell easily. Until his soul was reduced to ashes before their own eyes, doubt—the fearful expectation of his return—would remain a ghost on their shoulders.
— Dante could be alive, yes… — Stella agreed, her voice low but clear, breaking the heavy silence that followed Tekio's declaration. She took a deep breath, the air hissing lightly between her teeth. — But how do we proceed? We do not know if we can, or even should, try to help Mei. And Hazau… — Her eyes instinctively dropped to the ground, scanning the cracks and shadows as if he could emerge from the very ground at any moment, a silver worm rising from the earth. — …he vanished. So far, my intuition screams that he could appear suddenly. Like a nightmare you thought you had overcome.
Dan nodded, his arms crossed over his broad chest. — If Hazau was near the dome… it is possible not even he survived whatever Mei unleashed. Maybe… just maybe… we have one less enemy. That portal, that concentration of energy… it would not let anyone escape easily without exacting a price. A steep price.
The word "maybe" hung over the group like a fragile veil. Nothing was certain. Nothing was safe. The war had taught them that the only constant was the betrayal of the next moment.
The silence stretched, filled only by the lament of the wind through concrete skeletons and the distant crackle of fires not yet extinguished. Every step raised clouds of ash so fine it seemed like smoke, a pale veil over what had once been a pulsating city, now reduced to a topographic map of horror.
Tekio took a deep breath, feeling the electricity in his body reacting to the nervousness, escaping in small blue crackles between his fingers. — It does not matter if it is Hazau, Dante, or any other demon this hell wants to throw at us. — His voice gained volume, an iron determination forging each syllable. — What matters is that this war is not over yet. And if Mei is there, fighting alone against God knows what… — He stopped, his eyes sparking with a complex mix of reverent fear and pure, absolute admiration. — …then we cannot stop either. We cannot afford the luxury.
The other three watched him. There was no motivational speech, no war cry. Just the simple, undeniable truth of his words. Amara, after a moment, allowed a faint smile—a small movement, but it lit up her blue eyes for a fraction of a second. She placed a hand on his shoulder, the pressure firm and comforting.
— You are right — she said, her voice as neutral as ever, but with a final inflection that sounded like a hammer driving a stake. — No matter what awaits us. We go to the end.
The weight of reality had not lessened. If anything, it had grown, now burdened with the responsibility of their own decision. But in that instant, a tiny flame—not the spectacular flame of Mei, but the stubborn flame of shared conviction—rekindled in the space between them. The sky was still tinged with nightmare colors, the earth still smelled of death and ozone, but they would go on. Because to stop was to accept the end. And they were not ready for the epilogue yet.
Some distance away, where the air was not gray, but a furnace.
The wind was a hot, rough breath, carrying not just particles of earth and ash, but fragments of power—splinters of spiritual energy that glowed for an instant before dissolving. These particles swirled in hypnotic whirlwinds around the two figures that were the gravitational center of the destruction.
Mei, enveloped in a flaming aura that danced like a living being independent of her, observed. Not with her eyes, but with the totality of her being. Every muscle, every neuron, every spark of her power was tuned to the opposite figure. The Princess. Her blue eyes—a celestial blue that seemed to contain the immensity of the sky—glowed not with emotion, but with an algorithmic coldness. The fissures spreading across her pale skin were not scars; they were conduits, releasing tendrils of a dense black smoke that carried the residual smell of the abyss. It was visible proof that this was beyond biological adaptation: there was deep study, predatory intelligence, and a brutality refined by observation.
The first movement was not announced by a sigh, a glance, an adjustment of posture. It simply happened.
The Princess launched a series of thrusts, but not with physical limbs. Blades of pure energy, white and so thin they distorted light, materialized in the air and shot in trajectories that defied Euclidean geometry—impossible curves, angles that refracted in the air as through a prism, fragmenting into secondary attacks coming from unexpected directions. It was an attack meant to confuse, to overwhelm the senses, to find a breach before defense could even be mounted.
Mei did not defend. She displaced. Her body moved with the fluid agility of a plasma feline, but behind the graceful motion was a brutal calculation: the manipulation of local gravity. Micro-singularities, black holes the size of a grain of sand, opened and closed at strategic points around her, altering attraction, bending the trajectories of the light blades. Simultaneously, she manipulated air pressure, creating walls of compressed air and pockets of vacuum that deflected, slowed, or shattered the attacks. Every movement was measured in nanoseconds, every step recalibrated the battlefield in her favor.
— Interesting… — the Princess's voice arose, not as a sound, but as a vibration directly in the air, dry and analytical. She tilted her body, a movement almost casual, and the fissures in her skin glowed. The residual fire hovering in the air, the sparks from Mei's aura, were sucked into those cracks, transformed into a milky white glow that coursed through her energy veins. — But you are still predictable. Your evasion patterns have an energy signature. A signature that is now mine.
Mei laughed. A sound of genuine amusement that echoed over the distant roar of the fire. — Oh, is that so? — The heat around her arms rippled, condensing into crimson light serpents that coiled from her shoulders to her fingertips. — Then let us change the signature.
With a gesture that was both a ballet and a weapons launch, Mei concentrated energy in her open palms. Not in a single weapon, but in dozens. Flaming blades, each the length of her arm, materialized in the air. They did not just hover; they began to spin around her, forming a crown of assassin stars. But these were not inert blades. Each one actively manipulated air and gravity along its axis, creating micro-whirlwinds, pressure distortions that forced the Princess to continuously recalibrate not just her defense, but her own perception of space. Mei advanced, and the crown of blades advanced with her, a mill of fire and force that cut through reality.
The Princess did not retreat. Instead, her body multiplicated. They were not illusions or afterimages. For a fraction of a second, she existed in multiple points in space simultaneously, each "copy" moving with supernatural speed, attacking from a different angle. It was adaptation taken to the extreme: not just absorbing and redirecting energy, but creating multiple processing and attack pathways.
Mei noted the change in tactics. Her mind, a furnace of calculations, processed the new variable. "Spatial multiplication of short duration. High energy cost. Distributed focus." She did not try to hit all the copies. She attacked the space between them.
Every flaming blade in her crown detonated not on impact, but in controlled implosion. Small inward heat explosions collapsed the space around each of the Princess's projections. Reality, strained by the multiplicity, shuddered. The copies wavered, fading like holograms under interference. Only one remained solid—the original, now taking a step back, the fissures in her body pulsing faster.
— Hmph… — the sound from the Princess was one of forced acknowledgment. She gathered energy in her hands, pulling it from the air, the ground, even from the remnants of Mei's aura. She formed a sphere of white light so dense and intense the air around it seemed to freeze, sounds were muffled, light bent inward toward it. — You will need more than pressure tricks to stop me.
Mei retreated, not out of fear, but to assess. Her brain was a tactical supercomputer. "Conjuration speed: instantaneous. Absorption: 92% efficiency, with margin for overload. Potential weak point: transition between absorption and emission. Estimated window: 0.003 seconds." She could not just attack. She had to force an error in the rhythm. One misstep, and that sphere of white annihilation would reduce her to elementary particles.
Then, Mei smiled. A smile not of triumph, but of creative anticipation.
The fire around her, dancing freely, suddenly converged. Not into her body, but into two points in the air, a few meters to each side. Two giant pillars of crimson flame arose, spinning in opposite directions, twisting like DNA of fire. Then, with a mental command that made the ground tremble, they curved toward each other and fused.
At the point of fusion, a sphere was born. It was not a fireball. It was a core. A miniature sun, no larger in diameter than Mei's torso, but with a pressure and heat that distorted light into visible waves around it. Every rotation released pulses of heat and pressure that pushed the air away, lifting debris and rock fragments as if they were in orbit. It was the Supernova, not on a continental devastation scale, but in surgical precision—all its force concentrated in a single point, its nature adapting dynamically to any attempt at absorption.
Mei advanced, pushing the incandescent core before her.
The Princess tried to absorb. Her fissures glowed to their maximum, sucking in the radiant energy. But Mei had calculated: the core was not just raw energy; it was structured energy, with layers of kinetic, thermal, and spiritual force intertwined. Absorbing one layer destabilized the others, creating chaotic feedback within the Princess's system.
The impact was silent for a microsecond—the sound consumed by the very violence of the event—and then exploded in a spherical wave of light and fire that cleared the air for hundreds of meters. Fragments of earth were torn out and vaporized. Deep cracks opened in the already devastated ground, following the stress lines of the released energy. The Princess was thrown back, her feet furrowing the vitrified ground. To stabilize, she was forced to open new fissures in her own arms and legs, releasing jets of black smoke like retro-propulsion, trying to dissipate the excess energy her body could not process.
Mei gave no respite. She seized the moment of imbalance. Her body became a whirlwind of action. Physical blows—punches, kicks, elbows—mixed with fluid martial arts, each movement loaded not just with muscular strength, but with micro-explosions of concentrated heat detonating at the point of impact. She manipulated gravity in her fists, making each strike not just an impact, but a localized collapse of the space around the target, making blocking or absorption nearly impossible. It was a symphony of calculated violence: localized implosions that created vacuums, spinning blades of pure heat, thrusts of energy so thin they pierced the air with a plasma hiss.
"Impressive…" the Princess's thought, captured by Mei's spiritual sensitivity, reflected genuine tension for the first time. "She is not just attacking. She is rewriting the rules of the environment around me. Every fragment of air, every stone, is her tool."
But Mei did not stop. Creativity was her battlefield. She combined attacks in ways that seemed random, but each sequence was designed to clash with the Princess's natural absorption rhythm, creating synchronicity faults. An implosion followed by a heat blade forced the Princess to alternate between defense modes, creating a gap. And in the gap, a flaming punch that shattered the gravity around her, making her spin in the air uncontrollably, trying to react to a world whose physical laws changed every millisecond.
— Hahaha! — Mei's cry was not one of scorn, but of ecstasy. Her golden eyes burned with the pure joy of supreme challenge. — See? Creativity beats adaptation! Adaptation reacts to what exists. Creativity creates what did not!
The Princess, cornered, made her final move. She stopped trying to absorb, stopped trying to adapt. Instead, she gathered. All the power she had accumulated, all the stolen energy, all the latent abyssal potential in her body, converged to a single point between her hands.
A column of pure white light erupted from the ground around her, shooting straight into the distorted sky. It was not a directional attack. It was a field. A force field that distorted gravity (the ground around it sank), space (the air inside it seemed to fold), and time itself (Mei's movement seemed to slow for a fraction of a second). The column threatened to expand, swallowing everything in a domain of white annihilation.
But Mei had calculated. "Last resort attack. Consumes total reserves. Emission point: fixed. Activation time: 0.5 seconds."
She did not try to flee the expanding field. She attacked its source.
Gathering all the pressure, manipulated gravity, and residual heat into a single point before her, Mei forged a weapon. Not a blade, but a vortex. A blade of flaming energy that spun at a speed that made the air howl, a one-dimensional tornado of pure force. And she launched it, not at the Princess, but at the base of the light column, the exact point where energy manifested from matter.
The vortex pierced the white field like a hot needle through snow. There was no explosion of equals. There was a rupture. The light column cracked, split into segments that dissipated like smoke. The uncontrolled energy released lifted house-sized blocks of stone, creating a secondary crater within the existing one. The light was so blinding that for an instant, everything was white.
And when vision returned, Mei was there. At the center of the chaos, imposing. Not panting, not wounded. Incandescent. Her body emanated heat and light, the flaming aura burning with a tranquil, dominating intensity. She watched the Princess, who had been hurled against the rim of the new crater, her body still shimmering with overloaded fissures.
The battle had not ended. Mei knew. The Princess would rise again, adapt anew. But something had changed. The scale had escalated. It was no longer just force against force. It was supreme strategy against infinite adaptation. And Mei, with every muscle tuned, every mental calculation sharpened, every technique refined to the limit of the divine, was ready. Ready for the next move, which could decide not only who would survive in that desert of glass, but the fate of everything still trying to breathe in the ruins of the world.
The group advanced, and the silence was a living entity among them.
It was a charged silence, more oppressive than any battle cry. The tension did not dissipate with the distance from Mei's fight; it was like a heavy fog clinging to their shoulders, seeping into every breath. None of them could remember the last time they experienced something resembling peace. Calm, they had learned, was merely the prelude to a more violent storm. Every step was taken not to find rest, but to position themselves for the next blow.
The echoes of the distant battle—muffled thunder, the screech of clashing energies—reached them like the dying heartbeat of a titan. They knew larger pieces, archetypal forces, were at play. But what to do? Advance into the eye of the hurricane? Seek an alternative objective? Indecision was a slow poison.
It was Stella who, with quiet courage, pierced the barrier of silence. Her voice sounded soft, but with a clarity of tempered steel.
— Tekio… this sensitivity of yours. The way you perceive people's "souls"… how exactly does it work?
The question hung in the air. Tekio hesitated, as he always did when trying to put the ineffable into words. His ability was not a technique; it was an extension of his being, as natural as breathing and as hard to explain as a color to a blind person.
— I have always felt… — he began, the words slow, seeking form. — Since I was little. But before it was… confusing. A blur of emotions, pressures, colors that made no sense. Now… now it is clearer. It is like… — He closed his eyes, concentrating. — …as if I first need to understand who the person is. Their story, their struggle, their heart. And only then, after understanding, can I see their soul. As if the vision is a confirmation, not a discovery.
Stella frowned slightly, absorbing the explanation. Dan remained silent, his face a mask of pondering. It was obvious to all: they were not just getting stronger. They were evolving into something new. Their abilities transcended the physical, touched the spiritual, the metaphysical.
— "Soul…" — Stella murmured the word, testing its weight on her own tongue, as if it were a key to a complex lock.
The thought instantly took her to Jade. The former Guardian, whose echoes still lived within her. Jade did not have this ability. Jade saw differently. She saw lines, tracings, spiritual structures—the architecture of the soul, the flows of energy, the connections to the world. It was a more technical, more Cartesian vision. Tekio, on the other hand, was more… empathetic. First the connection, then the vision. They were complementary opposites, and both equally terrifying in their implications.
If I had that gift… Stella's thought was quick, almost covetous. I could find Dante. Hazau. Traces of Fenra. I could see through any illusion, any spiritual hiding place. Jade was unparalleled in spatial awareness and flow reading—almost impossible to deceive. But Stella carried only half of that legacy. The experience, the memories, yes. But Jade's soul, the core of her vision power, was sealed in the blade, out of her reach. It was a borrowed force, not owned. And that awareness weighed on her like a chain.
She was seeking an alternative. A different form of sensitivity. And at the moment, the most likely beacon was Tekio and his nascent ability. But alone, he was a crude radar, not a targeting system. Stella began to ponder. Using Jade's vision principle as a base… the structuring of spiritual perception… if I could create a channel, an amplifier… not for me, but for him…
Dan watched her. He knew her expression when she dived into a complex problem—the eyes slightly unfocused, the lips moving silently, the fingers tracing invisible patterns in the air.
— Any bright ideas emerging there? — he asked, his tone laden with a half-smile that was both a tease and support.
She raised her eyes, emerging from immersion.
— Perhaps… — she admitted, her voice distant. — But I need time. I am putting a puzzle together. I think there is a useful piece here.
Dan did not press. He knew forcing Stella to verbalize an incomplete concept was like trying to catch smoke. He trusted her process.
As they walked, Tekio kept his eyes fixed on the horizon of destruction, but his attention was divided. His mind was far away, trying to decipher the energetic echoes, the whispers of the torn world. Stella whispered hypotheses to herself, a silent symphony of logic and intuition. Dan maintained his laser focus on the environment, an unmoving sentinel in motion. And Amara… Amara followed firmly, her steps determined, her blue eyes sweeping the surroundings with a hunter's precision.
It was on her, however, that Tekio's eyes insisted on landing. Not by conscious will, but by a magnetic attraction he could not—and perhaps no longer wanted to—control. Every movement of hers, the way her silver hair swayed, the controlled rhythm of her breathing, all seemed to capture his attention in a way that completely disarmed him.
"Yara…" the thought arose in his mind, hesitant, almost a request for guidance. "You really love your sister, do not you?"
The response did not come as an invasion, nor as a distant echo. It came from within, but clear, light, wrapped in a serenity he rarely associated with the lightning warrior's presence.
— I do. I always have. — Yara's voice vibrated in his consciousness like a warm, deep chord. — Watching Amara walk, grow stronger, become who she is… it gives me a peace that battle never did. I admit, Tekio… — There was a pause, laden with complex emotion. — …perhaps part of me, what is still linked to you, makes you see her differently. With… more intensity. But do not be mistaken: I am not you. My feelings and yours are rivers that run parallel, but they are not the same river.
Tekio frowned, feeling his heart accelerate uncomfortably.
— What do you mean by that?
There was a brief silence, as if Yara were choosing her words with a care bordering on tenderness. Then, she laughed. A soft, almost musical laugh that seemed to come from a place both very distant and very close at the same time.
— I mean that perhaps… it is not just my love for her that makes her so special in your eyes. Perhaps there is something there… that is just yours.
The words hit him with the force of a blow to the solar plexus. A revelation not about Amara, but about himself. Tekio opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His throat was dry, his mind a whirlwind. "Ah…" was the only coherent thought he could form.
And it was at that exact moment of inner vulnerability that fate, or perhaps just the cruel synchronicity of the universe, decided to play a trick. Amara, as if sensing the weight of that silent conversation agitating Tekio's soul, turned her head.
Her eyes—the color of the sky at dusk—met his. There was no accusation in them, no interrogative doubt. There was an absolute firmness and a depth so vast that Tekio felt as if he were looking into the night sky of an unknown world. It was a gaze that seemed to see through all his defenses, all his rationalizations, straight to the confused and turbulent core of his being.
Heat rushed to his cheeks in an immediate and uncontrollable wave. Unable to sustain that gaze which was both an abyss and a refuge, he quickly averted his eyes, turning his head forward as if suddenly fascinated by a particularly impressive pile of charred debris.
Inside him, Yara guffawed, now with a tone that was frankly playful, which he had never heard before.
— I did not imagine I would have the privilege of seeing this too. The great Tekio, disarmed by a simple look.
Tekio clenched his hands into fists, the knuckles whitening. As if physical tension could hide the shame burning his face. But deep down, he knew it was useless. The bond between him and Yara was no longer that of a host and an oppressive ghost. It had transformed into something more complex, more… collaborative. She respected him. And he, despite all she represented, felt for her a profound gratitude and a strange complicity.
Yara was not just a burden. She was part of who he had become. A part that now seemed to genuinely enjoy seeing him stumble over something as universal, and yet so intimately frightening, as a nascent feeling.
He took a deep breath, trying to force his brain to refocus on the mission, the danger, the devastation around him. But Yara's words still echoed, insistent.
"Perhaps it is just yours…"
Perhaps it was.
"To know… in order to see."
The thought came as a whisper from his own soul, echoing what he had said earlier. But he knew, with a certainty that both terrified and exhilarated him: it was not just about sensing others' souls. The real lesson, the situation he faced now, was about allowing himself to feel for real. About letting understanding give way to experience.
Tekio continued walking beside Amara, his eyes rigidly fixed on the path ahead. But her presence, just a few inches away, exerted a gravitational force that seemed to distort the space around him. Yara, inside him, perceived every micro-tension, every hesitation, with the exasperating clarity of someone watching a play from the best seat.
— You are surrendering too easily, Tekio — she teased, her tone still amused. — It is funny, you know? You face nightmare monsters, ancient curses, dimensional reapers, and kings of hell without blinking. But you cannot hold my sister's gaze for a few seconds. The hardest battle is the one you fight against yourself, is not it?
The young man pressed his lips together, trying to ignore the soft, muffled laughter echoing in the sanctuary of his mind. His heart, treacherous, beat a rapid rhythm against his ribs.
Amara, with her keen perception that went beyond the obvious, noticed the tense expression, the fleeting blush, the way he avoided her gaze. She frowned slightly, a line of concern (or was it curiosity?) appearing between her eyes.
— Tekio… — her voice was serious, but carried a hint of something softer. — Are you alright? Are you sensing any presence? Any strange energy approaching?
He almost choked on his own saliva.
— N-no… nothing unusual — his voice came out an octave higher than normal, and he forced it down. — Just… tired. The post-adrenaline. — He lied, averting his gaze to a point on the horizon that suddenly became fascinating.
Inside, Yara let out another laugh.
— That was a good one! "Tired." You never knew how to lie well, Tekio. Your honesty oozes from your pores.
Her laughter was crystalline, light. There was something profoundly liberating for Yara in that moment. For eons, her greatest torment had been powerlessness. Not being able to save her sister from the chains of the past, not being able to rewrite the blood-stained history. But to see Amara now—not just surviving, but flourishing, walking with her head held high, making room in her icy heart for something new and fragile—that was a gift. An unthinkable whim that life, in its paradoxical cruelty and generosity, offered her through the boy who carried her legacy.
Amara merely nodded, slowly, accepting the evasive answer. But her blue eyes, for a moment longer than necessary, remained fixed on him, as if trying to read the subtext written in his soul. Then, they resumed walking. The silence returned, but it was not the same. It was an electric silence, charged with unspoken things, with possibilities trembling beneath the surface.
Further back, Dan maintained his relentless vigilance, his body always positioned to protect Stella. She walked a bit distractedly, immersed in the labyrinths of her own calculations and spiritual deductions, tracing imaginary runes in the air with her fingertips. Dan observed the group, his ears catching every anomalous noise, his eyes analyzing every shadow lengthened in the strange light. But even he, with his iron sentinel discipline, allowed his gaze to stray for a moment to the scene ahead. He saw Tekio and Amara walking side by side, that subtle but palpable tension growing in the space between them like an invisible vine. And he could not help it. A faint smile curved the corners of his mouth—a quick, almost imperceptible smile, but genuine.
A smile… mischievous. Like someone seeing a crucial puzzle piece finally clicking into place, not on the battlefield, but on the map of the heart.
Back with the front duo, Amara seemed to be fighting a silent battle with herself. Her fists tightened at her sides, the knuckles whitening slightly, as if she were gathering courage not to face an enemy, but to face an internal precipice. She took a deep breath, an audible sigh in the silence, and then turned her face to Tekio again. Her eyes, when they met his, did not hesitate. They were firm. Intense. As focused as when she was about to deliver a lethal blow—but now laden with something completely different. Something that disarmed Tekio more effectively than any combat technique.
— Tekio. — His name left her lips in a low but clear call.
He turned, and was struck full force by that gaze. He swallowed dryly, his throat suddenly very tight. The temptation to look away was overwhelming, and he yielded to it almost immediately, his eyes fleeing to the ground, the sky, anywhere but those blue eyes that seemed to see him whole.
— W-what is it? — the question came out in a thread of a voice, laden with a nervousness he hated to hear.
Amara seemed to hesitate. The words formed in her mind, rose up her throat… and stopped. Something held her back—perhaps the fear of breaking a fragile balance, perhaps the very strangeness of what she was trying to express. Finally, her own eyes averted, and she murmured, more to the wind than to him:
— It is nothing...
Silence fell between them again, but this time it was a dense, palpable silence. Tekio grew restless, his mind spinning around that truncated interaction, trying to decipher the code behind the gaze and the silence. Inside, Yara had already deciphered it. Her sister's emotions were like an open book written in a language only she could read.
— If she cannot show it with words… — Yara commented, her tone now soft, almost conspiratorial. — …she will act in another way. And you, Tekio, sooner or later… will find out. Be prepared.
Tekio sighed softly, a sound of resignation and anticipation mixed. He tried to calm his heart, which insisted on beating like a war drum. Amara walked beside him, as firm and relentless as ever, a force of nature contained in human form. But there was something new in the air between them—an invisible thread, fragile and strong at the same time, that seemed to stretch and strengthen with every shared step in that desert of ashes.
However devastating the world around them was, however dangerous the road ahead announced itself, something was growing. Something that refused to be annihilated by fire, darkness, or war.
And then… something descended.
Dan was the first to stop. His body froze mid-step, his head lifting like a deer sensing a predator.
— The temperature… — his voice came out in an alert whisper.
They all stopped. And felt.
Stella took a deep breath, and when she exhaled, her breath formed a white cloud, ephemeral in the air.
— Is it… falling?
Tekio, still trying to cling to normality, to rationality, tried to find an explanation.
— Maybe it is just our bodies relaxing. Tension dropping, metabolism slowing after the shock…
But Amara, with that almost supernatural sensitivity that seemed to touch the hidden truth of things, denied with a firm and unquestionable whisper. Her eyes narrowed, sweeping the invisible air.
— No. — The word was a snap in the silence. — The air… is freezing. For real.
The silence that followed that declaration was of a different kind. It was no longer the tense calm of those walking expecting the worst. It was the sudden, icy certainty that the worst was no longer approaching.
It was already there.
To be continued…