The sixth day. One day before the dungeon.
They came at the usual time. But today was different from the first moment.
No talk about the plan. No explanation of what would happen. Shina and Iris entered the training facility and began immediately, no longer caring about anything around them.
Ozoki in the middle.
"No rules today," Shina said.
And she attacked.
It was not like the days before.
The days before had been testing. Had been learning. Had been an attempt to understand something.
Today was different.
Shina and Iris attacked with their full energy. Not with their true full power — but enough for the difference to be clear and painful.
Ozoki fell in the first minute.
He got up.
Fell again.
Got up.
The hours passed this way.
Shina attacking and retreating and attacking again. Iris from the other side. Alternating without real pause.
Ozoki falling and getting up. Falling and getting up.
He didn't seem to tire. He didn't seem to be in pain. But he was losing — clearly and completely — every time.
Except in those moments.
The moments that appeared suddenly. One second where his body moved in an entirely different way. A precise, old movement that didn't suit a broken body. Then it disappeared.
Shina saw this and wrote.
Iris saw this and said nothing.
In the middle of the day, they stopped for a short break.
Ozoki lying on the floor. His eyes on the ceiling.
Shina sat far away reviewing what she had written. Iris sat closer — not too close. But she hadn't gone as far as in the early days.
The silence in the space was heavy in a way different from any silence that had passed during this week.
"Tomorrow there will be real enemies," Iris said.
Ozoki didn't respond.
"We won't always be able to be beside you."
Silence.
"Do you understand this?"
Ozoki remained silent.
"Hah. Silent again. And what will you do if you're alone?"
A longer silence.
"Whatever happens."
Iris looked at him.
Whatever happens — not surrender. Not courage. Just acceptance from someone who had learned not to expect anything specific from any situation.
Shina heard this from her place. She didn't look up from her device. But her hand stopped writing for a moment.
Then continued.
The second part of the day was harder.
Shina and Iris didn't hold back this time. Constant pressure, no space to recover, no quiet moments.
Ozoki fell more than on any previous day.
But every time he got up. Slowly, with a body carrying more than it should, but he got up.
And those moments appeared more than on any previous day too. Not longer. Not more controlled. But more frequent. As though something in his body had begun to remember slowly.
Then he fell.
Then he got up.
Until he didn't get up.
At the end of the day, Ozoki was lying on the floor in the middle. Not moving.
Not entirely from inability. But because there was no reason to get up now. The session was over. Getting up could wait.
Shina and Iris stood above him. Their breathing slowly returning to normal.
The light in the space was faint. The silence complete.
Shina looked at Ozoki lying before her. Then looked at her device. Then closed it.
She didn't say "we've written enough." She didn't say "we've learned what we need." She just closed it.
"Rest," Iris said.
She said it in a tone carrying neither warmth nor coldness. Just a fact said to someone who needed to hear it.
They turned and walked toward the door.
At the door, Iris stopped.
She didn't turn around. Her back to Ozoki lying in the middle.
One second passed. Two.
Then she left.
The room became empty.
Ozoki lying on the floor. The ceiling above him. The silence around him. The faint light making the white walls look grey.
He didn't move.
He didn't think about the day. Didn't think about the week. Didn't think about the dungeon tomorrow.
Just lying there.
Then the sound came.
"I told you."
Shin appeared from no specific place. Standing directly in front of Ozoki's head. The golden eyes looking at him from very close.
"A full week. And here you are."
Ozoki looking at the ceiling.
"No progress. No discovery. Nothing that can be relied on." His smile was there but quieter than usual. "And tomorrow you'll enter a place you might not come out of with one body."
He walked slowly around Ozoki. A full circle.
"Shina wrote one sentence only in her file tonight. I know what it is." He stopped. "But I won't say it."
He sat on the floor beside his head.
"And Iris…" He looked at the ceiling like Ozoki. "She stood at the door for two seconds. Then left. Perhaps she was going to tell you to withdraw or something like that."
A long silence between them. Something unusual in Shin's silence.
Then:
"I'll be generous — or you know what, to hell with generosity."
He said it in the same light tone. But something was different in it — not genuine lightness. But lightness covering something else.
Ozoki didn't move.
Ozoki didn't respond.
The room was silent.
He didn't finish. Didn't deny. Didn't move. Didn't ask about anything.
Just looking at the ceiling.
Shin looked at him for a long time. Longer than usual. Then laughed a very faint laugh — the laugh of someone who finds something funny but doesn't really want to laugh.
"No question?"
He walked.
"By the way…" He stopped with his back to Ozoki. "Iris and Shina are thinking about you right now. At this exact moment."
Silence.
"Do you know what makes me laugh?"
He didn't wait.
"They're standing tonight for someone…" He paused for a second. "Who doesn't even dare to decide if he wants to live."
The words came out completely quietly. Without any rise in voice. Without anything making them seem like an attack.
Just fact.
He disappeared.
The room. The darkness. Complete silence.
Ozoki still lying on the floor.
He didn't move.
Shin's last sentence hanging in the air.
He didn't think about it.
But somewhere — in something deeper than thought, deeper than feeling — something very small. Barely there.
The room.
The darkness.
The dungeon tomorrow.
End of the chapter