The knight struggled to remain upright before Sora, balancing on his single remaining foot. Blood poured from the ragged stump where his other foot had been severed, spreading across the stone floor in a widening dark pool that slowly crept between the cracks of the ancient stone. Each heartbeat forced more of the dark liquid from the wound, and the smell of iron thickened the cold night air. His breathing came in ragged bursts, his chest rising and falling violently as though the air itself had grown too thin to sustain him.
Yet the pain from the wound was no longer the thing that terrified him most.
It was the boy standing before him.
The knight slowly lifted his head, forcing his fading strength to obey him, and met Sora's gaze. The moment their eyes locked, something inside the knight's mind fractured. Within the pale surface of Sora's eyes, he saw his own reflection burning. Flames devoured the image of his body exactly as he had burned the creature earlier. In that reflection he watched helplessly as fire crawled across his armor and skin, swallowing him whole as though he were nothing more than dry wood thrown into a furnace.
His breath caught in his throat.
"How…?" he whispered.
The word escaped him weakly, almost lost in the silence of the courtyard. Slowly, he raised his trembling hand and held it before his face. His fingers shook uncontrollably as he turned his palm, staring at it with growing confusion.
"I can see my hand…" he murmured, his voice unsteady. "But why can't I feel the cold air touching it?"
A soft wind drifted through the courtyard, brushing against his skin and stirring the loose strands of hair. Yet the sensation never reached him. His nerves felt distant, as though his body were slowly slipping away from him piece by piece.
His breathing became heavier.
The air around them was cold, yet sweat gathered along his temples and ran down the sides of his face. His body seemed unable to decide whether it was freezing or burning alive.
"And the warmth inside me…" he continued, his voice weakening further with each word. "It's disappearing."
His eyes widened slowly as realization began creeping into his mind.
"The light inside my body… it's fading."
He looked up at Sora again, and this time the fear in his gaze had grown deeper, more desperate.
"Am I… dying?"
His lips trembled as he struggled to force out the final question.
"But why?"
Sora watched him quietly for a moment before nodding slightly.
"Bull knights," he said calmly, "are a particularly foolish kind of human."
The knight blinked in confusion.
"Wh–what?"
Sora tilted his head slightly as though considering how to explain something painfully simple to someone incapable of understanding it.
"Hm," he murmured thoughtfully. "How should I explain this to your rather limited mind?"
He seemed to consider the matter for a moment before speaking again.
"I merely shone a light upon your darkness. That is all."
Sora stepped forward slowly, his footsteps soft against the stone floor.
"I made you see doubts you had never allowed yourself to consider," he continued. "The creature you burned… the silence surrounding you… the air brushing against your skin… even your own existence."
Another slow step carried him closer to the dying knight.
"As always, humans care far too much about what others see in them—what others reflect, what others think of them, and how they judge them."
His voice remained calm, almost indifferent.
"Useless stupidity."
The knight's expression slowly began to change as Sora's words settled into his mind. Something was growing inside him now, something far worse than the pain of his wound.
Understanding.
Or perhaps despair.
His gaze drifted once more toward Sora's eyes. Within them he saw his reflection again, but now it appeared different from how he had always believed himself to be.
"You saw yourself reflected in my eyes," Sora said softly, "and you did not like what you saw."
Sora moved closer still.
"So you tried to become something else."
The knight's body swayed violently as the strength in his remaining leg finally failed him. He collapsed onto the stone floor with a heavy thud, sending a splash of blood outward across the ground. His breathing had become shallow now, each breath barely reaching his lungs as his body struggled to remain alive.
Still, he forced himself to lift his head.
Once again, his eyes found Sora.
Within the pale reflection of Sora's gaze, the knight saw the truth clearly. His own body lay helpless in a spreading lake of blood, the wound where his foot had once been still pouring dark liquid across the stone. Each slow heartbeat forced another weak stream outward from the torn stump.
"Tell me something," Sora said calmly, watching him.
The knight struggled to focus on the sound of his voice.
"Why didn't you contact the other guards and call for support?"
The knight slowly lifted his shaking hand toward his neck. Hanging there was a small stone engraved with strange symbols, suspended from a thin chain.
A rune.
The stone rested against his chest, faint lines glowing softly across its surface. Runes carried light through them, transferring that light to another rune bearing the same symbols somewhere far away. Each rune carried its own pattern of symbols capable of delivering a specific message.
The knight had already called for help.
His trembling fingers brushed against the rune as if confirming that the signal had truly been sent.
Sora stepped closer and gently took the knight's hand.
"It's alright," Sora said quietly.
The knight's fading eyes slowly turned toward him.
"I know you forgot to heal your wound," Sora continued softly. "Or at least burn it closed to stop the bleeding."
His gaze remained calm as he studied the dying man.
"Or did you simply never consider the possibility that you might die from bleeding after cutting off your own foot?"
For a moment the knight did not answer. His eyes stared upward toward the sky, struggling to remain open as his strength slowly drained away.
"But soon," Sora said gently, "all of it will end."
At that moment the iron wall nearby split apart with a sudden, unnatural precision. A perfectly clean cut appeared across the surface as though reality itself had been sliced open by an invisible blade. From the opening stepped a woman.
She was a knight, though her armor was incomplete. Buffalo hide covered her legs, arms, and abdomen, while the emblem of the Sun Bull was marked clearly across the leather protecting her stomach,. Black iron armor guarded her chest, shoulders, neck, and elbows.
Her face remained uncovered.
Her hair was black and smooth, shining like polished obsidian beneath the dim light surrounding them, and her eyes burned with a deep shade of orange.
The moment she saw the fallen knight surrounded by blood, she hurried toward him without hesitation.
Only then did she notice Sora sitting beside him.
Sora's head remained lowered, his eyes hidden beneath strands of cursed blue hair.
The woman knelt beside the wounded knight and examined the terrible wound. Her hands moved with the practiced certainty of someone who had witnessed death many times before, yet even she paused when she saw how much blood had already been lost.
The knight tried to speak.
His lips trembled desperately, as though he wished to say something important before death claimed him, but the words refused to form. His tongue seemed frozen, as though he were attempting to say something forbidden.
In the end, the only words that escaped him were weak and broken.
"Liza… my precious daughter… I'm sorry… I wasn't there today…"
His voice faded before the final word could fully leave his lips.
He had believed cutting off his foot would save him.
Instead, it had doomed him.
Sora watched silently as the light within the knight's body began to fade. The light of his life weakened, while the light of his soul flickered like a dying flame struggling against the wind. Only a faint spark of consciousness remained.
The woman slowly rose to her feet.
"Step back," she said firmly.
Sora obeyed without speaking.
She raised her hand toward one of the tall banners nearby. The banners stood against the surrounding walls, each surrounded by a circular ring of eternal flame.
She reached toward the fire.
The flames bent toward her hand as if responding to an unspoken command. Slowly she gathered them into her palm, shaping them with careful control. The color of the fire began to change, shifting from ordinary flame into a calm mixture of black and crimson.
She released it onto the knight's body.
The strange fire spread instantly. It burned his armor, his flesh, and the fading light within him all at once. Yet the flames made no sound. They consumed everything with an eerie silence.
From the burning body, faint streams of light rose into the air like drifting dust.
The light of his life.
The light of his soul.
They floated upward toward the distant sky, carried toward the sake of Apis beneath the red sun.
Only when the final spark of consciousness vanished did the fire fade.
Nothing remained.
No body.
No armor.
No blood.
Not even ash.
The woman clasped her hands together and whispered something quietly. Sora could not hear the words.
Perhaps it was a prayer.
Perhaps it was simply tradition.
When she finished, she turned toward him.
"You will come with me," she said firmly. "You will explain everything that happened here."
Before Sora could respond, something strange appeared in the distance.
A house.
Red and white.
It rose far higher than the surrounding buildings, almost touching the sky itself. At first it stood still, silent and towering above the city.
Then it began to move.
The structure twisted slowly, as though it were alive. Walls bent and folded. Stone shifted and rearranged itself like pieces of a living puzzle. Across the surface of the building, shapes began to gather and form.
A face appeared.
Two glowing white eyes opened across the structure.
More sections of the building stretched outward, folding and shifting as though the creature were trying to assemble the rest of its body.
It hummed.
The sound drifted through the air like a distant melody from a forgotten age. The creature had no mouth, yet the vibration spread through the ground and along the surrounding walls as though the building itself were trying to sing.
The sky above remained calm.
But the ground beneath them began to tremble.
As though something inevitable had finally begun.