He stepped out of the fortress's final hall, leaving behind charred walls, shreds of mist, and the scent of blood now permanently etched into his new flesh.
His footsteps echoed in the void, hollow and endless. But she… she wasn't there.
"Hey?" he said, looking around. "You were supposed to… be here."
Silence.
The Fortress of Blood Angels had suddenly become too quiet—oppressive, suffocating.
Even the shadows weren't stirring.
"Where is she?.." he muttered.
And then—as if the world blinked.
The sounds vanished.
The corridor's surface shuddered, and reality shifted into something else.
---
He saw her again—but not where he expected.
The room looked as if a madman had just torn through it. On the floor—stains of dried blood; against the wall lay an empty medical package; in the corner—a shattered wooden crate.
Muted light from the window fell on her.
She sat on the windowsill, leaning slightly forward, holding a cigarette between two elegant, pale fingers.
White, almost silver hair cascaded down, contrasting with her black attire.
Red eyes glowed in the semi-darkness—lazily, predatorily, but… calmly.
She didn't even lift her head when he entered.
"Took you long enough," she said quietly.
Her voice was soft, but it pulled you in like a whirlpool.
He froze.
Partly because of how she looked now—as if nothing in the world could touch her.
Partly because the room looked as if someone had tried to kill her… and failed.
"Where did you disappear to?" he finally asked.
She took a drag, exhaled a thin stream of smoke—it slowly dispersed in the air, mingling with the scent of blood and antiquity.
"I needed… a little silence," she said. "Even I have moments when I want to look out the window and pretend the world isn't a dump."
He couldn't find a response.
For the first time, she raised her eyes.
Intently.
So intently he felt scanned right through.
"But you came anyway," she continued. "As if one shadow always finds another."
He sat down opposite her, not taking his eyes off her face.
"Why are you even helping me?" he asked. "You're stronger than anyone I've seen. You could have left long ago. Gone anywhere."
She smiled with the corner of her lips—tiredly, but sincerely.
"Me?.." she tapped the ash onto the windowsill. "I don't know how I ended up in this world.
I woke up here… alone.
And two thousand years passed.
Two thousand years in a fortress no one can pass.
Two thousand years among monsters who couldn't even relieve my boredom."
She looked at him again—deeper, more attentively now. Almost tenderly.
"And then you appeared.
Not human.
Not a monster.
Not a shadow.
Something… strange.
You interest me.
And in two thousand years, I'd forgotten what interest felt like."
She stubbed out the cigarette, dropping the butt into the blood on the floor.
"And also…" she leaned slightly forward. "I'm tired of being alone."
He said nothing—just listened.
"Alright," the girl straightened up, brushed an invisible speck of dust from her knee. "If you want to leave the fortress… I'll go with you."
She jumped off the windowsill and glided toward him effortlessly, like a shadow sliding through air.
"Not because you need help.
Not because I'm kind.
And certainly not because I believe in people."
She tilted her head, smiling a little wider—enough to send shivers down his spine.
"Just… I'm bored.
Very bored."
She opened the door leading out of the room.
"Well? Are you coming?
We still have one 'Devourer' that's been trying to disturb my sleep for ages.
Kill it, and we can leave this hole."
And so their journey onward began—from the Fortress of Blood into the unknown.
And so began their strange, dangerous… but inevitable partnership.
Two beings who shouldn't exist.
---
Ten days had passed since they left the Fortress of Blood.
Ten strange, quiet, draining days.
Ten days of travel through blighted forests, cold gorges, and forgotten roads of the old world, where mist hung like an eternal shroud and tree branches creaked as if whispering ancient curses.
They walked side by side, but remained silent for most of the journey.
Not out of awkwardness—it was just more familiar.
Shadows don't chatter.
Monsters don't talk.
And she… spoke only when she felt like it.
And yet, these ten days had broken the silence of two thousand years.
---
The morning was murky, gray.
Sai stopped by a broken bridge and, looking at the overgrown path ahead, let out a quiet sigh:
"Fuck… it's all such a mess here."
The girl stopped beside him.
A small, old bag hung from her shoulder, one she'd somehow dug out from the depths of the fortress. She stood calmly, as if time flowed differently around her.
"You're just bad at navigating," she said with a light mockery. "And these lands… have long forgotten what order is."
"Yeah, right…" he glanced around. "Even the system's map is fucking useless here."
"Don't trust systems," she replied quietly. "Especially in worlds that shouldn't exist."
He looked at her a moment longer than he intended.
She had been walking with him for ten days—and never once looked tired.
She didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't sleep.
But he no longer felt fatigue either—his body of shadows and flesh worked differently.
"You said you're from another world," he said. "What was it called?"
She fell silent for a second—a smoky shadow of memory flickered in her red eyes.
"Rannelia," she finally answered. "A world of eternal cities and night seas. A world where the moon was always red. A world where death walked close by, but… wasn't an enemy."
Her voice grew a little quieter.
"A world that disappeared."
He heard the weight in it.
Not foreign—familiar.
A loss that had simply become part of her spine.
"And how did you end up here?" he asked.
She shrugged, as if it were something long since digested:
"I woke up.
In the center of the fortress.
In these clothes.
With a cigarette.
And silence all around."
She touched the white collar with her fingers.
"You think I chose these rags?" she smirked. "There just weren't any others. I appeared like this, so I walked like this. And… today marks three hundred and seventy-nine years for me in this world."
He was surprised.
"You… look like this at 379?"
"I looked like this at a thousand too," she waved it off. "The appearance of immortals rarely changes. Don't hope I'll get older or wiser."
He snorted.
"Yeah, I figured."
She winked.
"Glad you're a quick learner."
---
The path grew denser with fog.
The forest around them seemed to tighten—as if trying to listen to their conversation.
At a crossroads of half-rotten signposts, she suddenly stopped.
"We'll reach the nearest city soon," she said. "But don't expect anything good there. The people here… love shooting strangers. And you…" she looked him up and down, "…look like a walking nightmare."
"And you look like a prop from a horror movie," he retorted.
She smiled with satisfaction.
"I know. Get used to it."
---
In the evening, as they lit a small campfire at the edge of a nameless road, she spoke up herself—for the first time that day:
"You know… in these ten days, I've realized one thing."
"What?"
She looked at the fire—then at him.
"You're the strangest of all who passed through that fortress. You don't reek of fear, greed, or pride. Even the shadows around you… seem different."
He said nothing.
"You're lucky I met you first," she added quietly. "If anyone else had come out of the fortress… I would have killed them."
He looked her straight in the eyes:
"Why not me?"
She paused.
Slowly, almost thoughtfully, she moved closer, sat down beside him, tucking her legs under herself.
"Because you…" she touched his shoulder—lightly, as if testing reality. "…finally made my two thousand years feel less empty."
The silence around them grew thick as silk.
Then she leaned back, snorted:
"Alright. Enough sentimentality. Tomorrow we'll reach the city, buy some proper clothes. At least for me. I look like a runaway maniac nun."
"Well…" Sai glanced at her. "You kinda do."
"Idiot," she exhaled, tiredly but softly.
The campfire crackled.
Night slowly descended upon the forgotten road.