The dusty air of the forgotten storehouse was thick with the scent of old wood and the fresh, cold terror they had dragged up from the Labyrinth.
Hayabusa was curled on the floor, his sword clattering uselessly beside him, his breath coming in ragged, silent sobs.
The silence was broken only by the grit grinding under Zanshin's boots as he slowly, agonizingly, forced himself to stand.
Below them, a deep, scraping sound resonated from the stone staircase—the Rusted Reavers were climbing.
"They're coming," Zanshin said, his voice flat, devoid of the panic that had ruled him moments before.
Hayabusa didn't look up. "Let them. It doesn't matter. We're dead anyway."
Zanshin walked stiffly to the narrow opening of the stairs.
He peered into the gloom and saw the first pair of glowing red eyes staring back.
The Reavers were packed tight on the spiral steps, their rusted armor grinding against the stone.
Ryo's desperate sacrifice had only bought them enough time to retreat to the surface, not to escape the vicinity of the dungeon entrance.
They were sealed in.
"We can't go out the front," Zanshin stated, moving back.
"They'll flood the storehouse. We're surrounded by walls."
Hayabusa looked up, his face smeared with dust and tears.
"So what? We fight. We die fighting for Ryo. And you can stand there and watch me die too, Tsurugi. Just like you watched him."
The accusation was a deliberate, agonizing blow, and Zanshin didn't flinch.
He deserved it.
Hayabusa's words were the echo of Zanshin's own self-judgment.
"He died because of my arrogance," Zanshin repeated, the words tasting like ash.
"I was protecting myself, not you. I was too arrogant to fight with a weapon I knew I was good with because I was afraid of the consequence of my own weakness. I chose the Glaive because I knew I would fail the Skill Cue, and that failure was my self-imposed prison. Ryo broke me out."
Zanshin finally looked at the massive Glaive strapped to his back.
It wasn't a defensive shield; it was a monument to his self-pity, a physical symbol of his commitment to failure.
With a grunt of strained effort, he unlatched the heavy polearm and let it drop to the dusty floor with a resounding CLANG.
"The Glaive is useless to me," Zanshin said.
"It was a lie."
Hayabusa watched Zanshin with stunned, grieving eyes, not understanding the sudden, cold shift in his friend.
Zanshin knelt down and reached for Hayabusa's hip, where the simple, initial starter sword hung—the very sword Hayabusa had suggested Zanshin use earlier.
"Give me the starter sword," Zanshin demanded.
Hayabusa recoiled, pulling the scabbard away slightly.
"What? Why? It's a one-handed sword. You're a polearm user, Zanshin, it'll be worse."
"No," Zanshin insisted, his gold eyes locking onto Hayabusa's.
"I chose the Glaive because it felt safe and distant. That is the only way I can give us a chance against five levels of mobs."
He pulled the starter sword from the scabbard. It was a simple, short blade, lightweight and designed for quick, successive strikes, demanding precision and commitment—the very things his trauma denied him.
The moment his fingers wrapped around the leather-bound hilt, the tremor returned, not as a paralyzing shake, but as a violent pulse in his wrist, threatening to tear the blade from his grip.
Commitment means destruction.
Commitment means Ryo died for nothing.
Zanshin ignored the physiological revolt.
He held the sword up, the tip wavering in the gloom.
"Ryo died because I let my fear of past mistakes paralyze me, allowing a new, real mistake to happen," Zanshin said, his voice steadying, now laced with a painful resolve.
"My guilt was just arrogance. It was me believing I was so important that my suffering was worth more than Ryo's life. That ends now."
Hayabusa, forced past his immediate, paralyzing grief by the sound of the Reavers scraping closer, slowly pushed himself to his feet.
Ryo's death had broken him, but the thought of letting Zanshin die next—the one person he had chased into Aincrad—was a fresh, unbearable terror in the face of the death game's reality.
He couldn't afford to collapse; not when Zanshin was finally showing a flicker of fight.
Hayabusa knelt, picked up Ryo's discarded axe, and slung his own starter sword back into its sheath.
The heavy axe felt foreign, but it was a tool forged in the consequence of Ryo's sacrifice.
"I am still low-level," Zanshin continued, articulating the truth that only Hayabusa truly understood.
"I am still prone to the tremor. If I fail a Skill Cue with this sword, the cooldown will be shorter than the Glaive's, but the range is closer. I could still kill us both. But if I don't try, we die here, and Ryo's sacrifice was pointless."
"What's the plan, Tsurugi?" Hayabusa asked, his voice thick with sorrow, but his stance was now firm.
He wouldn't let Zanshin face this alone.
Zanshin spun the starter sword in his hand, a flicker of muscle memory overriding the tremor for a fraction of a second.
He pointed toward the stairwell.
"We're not fighting twelve at once," Zanshin said.
"The stairs are their choke point. I'll pin them at the base of the staircase, using the short range to force the system to register the attack, tremor or not. I will risk the Skill Failure. You hold the upper corner. The moment I create an opening, we go through and run until we hit the city gate. If I collapse, don't look back. Go."
He didn't wait for confirmation. Zanshin turned, forcing his shaking legs to move, not sprinting, but walking with brutal, determined speed toward the narrow stair opening.
He held the starter sword, his trembling hand a betrayal of his resolve, yet he did not loosen his grip.
He was committed now to the terrifying, unforgiving choreography of close-range combat he had spent a year running from.
The cost of his arrogance was paid in Ryo's blood, and the debt demanded immediate action, even if it meant risking the one thing he feared most: the catastrophic failure of his own hands.
The grating sound of rusted metal on stone signaled the immediate arrival of their executioners.
The first Rusted Reaver emerged from the staircase, its glowing red eyes finding Zanshin standing directly in the narrow doorway.
Zanshin didn't hesitate. He held the starter sword, lightweight and unforgiving.
He could hold the weapon now—a small victory—but the commitment to a true combat action remained agonizingly out of reach.
The first Reaver swung its massive, corroded blade in a wide arc.
Zanshin ducked, the motion fueled by muscle memory. The narrowness of the doorway limited the Reavers to single-file engagement.
"Now, Tsurugi!" Hayabusa yelled from the corner, gripping Ryo's axe—a tool of consequence.
Zanshin thrust the short sword forward. It was a messy, wavering strike, and the system registered a weak connection.
[-11 HP]
Minimal damage.
Zanshin was fighting with skill born of practice, but with focus crippled by his trauma.
He was landing glancing blows, constantly fighting his own instincts to commit to the focused force required for effective combat.
Hayabusa rushed the second Reaver, meeting its blow with the heavy head of the axe.
He managed to parry and follow up with a clumsy but powerful down-swing.
"More pressure, Zanshin! Don't let them stack up!" Hayabusa urged, already panting, the adrenaline of grief fueling his reckless defense.
Zanshin knew this was useless. They needed a Skill Cue.
Commit. Commit and fail. Commit and shatter.
He forced his mind past the crippling anxiety and saw his opening: a quick step back, a vertical rotation of the blade.
The motion for Vertical Square.
He shifted his weight, forcing his body into the precise stance, trying to ignore the violent, physiological recoil of his hands.
He swung, aiming for the Reaver's exposed neck.
But the tremor, unleashed by the mental demand for committed force, seized his hand mid-motion.
The short sword veered wildly off course, carving a useless, panicked path through the air.
[System Error: Skill Cue Failed. Cooldown: 5s.]
Zanshin froze, completely exposed. Five seconds of total vulnerability.
The Reaver, unstaggered, saw its chance and brought its sword down on Zanshin.
The third Reaver squeezed past his flank, aiming for Hayabusa.
Hayabusa, already low on HP, saw Zanshin freeze and the flash of the [Skill Cue Failed] error.
He saw the two mobs moving to finish his friend.
Hayabusa roared, throwing himself not at the Reaver facing him, but directly between Zanshin and the Reaver that had just emerged, shielding Zanshin's exposed back.
The Reaver's rusted blade crashed into Hayabusa's shoulder, a massive, critical hit. The second Reaver struck his exposed side. Hayabusa's HP bar exploded into a catastrophic torrent of red.
[Player Hayabusa has been defeated.]
Hayabusa stumbled backward, the life draining from his avatar.
He had less than a second before the emerald particles engulfed him.
He used that final, fleeting moment not to despair, but to lock eyes with the horrified, frozen Zanshin.
"Tsurugi! Don't you dare feel guilty again!" Hayabusa gasped, his voice raspy and urgent.
"This wasn't your mistake! You were fighting! You were trying to commit!"
Hayabusa reached out, his disintegrating hand grabbing the wrist of Zanshin's trembling sword arm.
"Your hands shake because you focus on the consequence! On the destruction! You are a blade, Tsurugi! Look only at the target! Not the carnage! Focus the swing, not the shake!"
His hand turned to green light, disappearing as the rest of his avatar erupted into thousands of crystalline fragments.
The only things left were the small, heavy form of Ryo's axe clattering onto the floor beside Zanshin's feet, and the starter sword, which Zanshin was still desperately clutching.
Zanshin stood alone, the tremor still seizing his short sword, his mind a wasteland of grief.
Two lives lost in minutes. Two friends sacrificed for his paralysis.
But Hayabusa's final command echoed in the sudden, terrible silence of the storehouse:
Focus the swing, not the shake!
He was still shaking, but now, the shake had a goal: to be ignored.
The Reavers, having claimed their kill, turned their red eyes back to the last remaining player.
Zanshin was utterly alone, holding a short sword with a trembling hand, facing twelve enemies.
He slowly bent down, retrieving Ryo's axe, and tossed it to the side.
He didn't need two weapons.
He only needed one focus.