Tsukia's POV
The silence of the basement was a lie.
Even though we had hidden ourselves away after the mess at the market, the air still felt like it was vibrating with something unspoken.
Lori and Jasmia had already fallen into a restless sleep after we returned around 5:00 PM, but I couldn't close my eyes. My skin felt too tight, too aware, so I retreated to my room and locked the door.
I needed to wash away the sensation of blood from my hands, as I can still feel my hands vibrating when I had struck the man's body eighty-three times.
But the moment I pulled off my stained shirt, a sharp, persistent itch flared between my shoulder blades.
It wasn't normal irritation.
It felt like something was trying to break through from beneath my ribs.
I turned toward the mirror, twisting slightly to look over my shoulder.
My breath hitched.
Dark obsidian veins had spread outward from my spine, spidering across my back in a jagged, unnatural pattern. They weren't just markings as they were raised, dense, and felt more like cold metal embedded under my skin than flesh.
"I'm not human anymore..."
The thought echoed in my mind with quiet finality.
"Maybe I never was."
I reached back hesitantly, fingertips brushing the hardened ridges. The moment I pressed them, a sudden surge of static electricity shot through my body.
The room blurred.
The walls of my bedroom dissolved into fragments, like broken glass reflecting memories that weren't mine.
And then I saw her again.
The woman with towering wings and iridescent chakra glowing on her forehead, standing like a silhouette of blinding light against a vast, dark sea.
"Aile..." she whispered, her voice soft like a distant bell.
"You have risen well."
My hand lifted instinctively, reaching for her, desperate to confirm she was real. The air around me grew cold as if responding to her presence.
Then I felt it-a gentle touch on my cheek.
I forced my eyes open through the haze, squinting against the strange light.
She was there.
Close.
Cradling my face with an expression that felt almost... familiar. Maternal, even.
The chakra on her forehead shimmered like shifting starlight.
I reached up with my left hand again, trembling, needing to feel her, to prove she wasn't just another fracture in my mind.
"No, no, darling..." she said softly, her voice like silk wrapped around steel. "Not yet. It isn't time."
She gently caught my wrist and lowered my hand with care that didn't feel human.
"I'll see you again..."
Before she could finish, everything vanished.
I was suddenly standing on the surface of a vast, silent ocean beneath a brilliant moon. There was no wind, no sound, no trace of her.
Only stillness.
When I turned, a single white door stood in the middle of the water, glowing with an intense, unnatural light.
Without thinking, I stepped toward it.
As the moment I crossed through in-
I suddenly woke up.
I was back in my bed, gasping for air, but the nightmare hadn't ended as I looked down and froze in horror.
Long black thorns had erupted from my forearms, twitching as though they were extensions of my own nerves, alive and searching.
With a panicked surge of will, I forced them down.
They withered and sank back into my skin until only faint black traces remained.
It wasn't a dream.
"Aile? You still alive in there?"
Lori's voice came through the door, followed by heavy knocking that shattered the silence.
I scrambled out of bed and threw the door open.
Lori stumbled back immediately, his face flushing deep red.
"O-oh! Hi. You slept until 10 PM. I thought you'd turned into a statue," he said, scratching the back of his head.
"I'm fine," I replied, forcing a tired smile.
"Good! Because it's time to get stronger," he said, his eyes lighting up instantly.
"The world isn't going to wait for us to be ready. Meet us in the yard!"
The door clicked shut, leaving the room suddenly quiet. I stood there for a moment, the command still ringing in the air like a fading bell.
My hands were shaking-not much, but enough that the fabric of my sleeves felt like sandpaper against my skin. I tried to smooth the wrinkles, my fingers fidgeting and tugging at the threads until my knuckles turned white.
I couldn't get her out of my head. The winged woman.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the curve of those feathers, the impossible weight of her presence. It was a memory that felt too big for my mind to hold, drifting back into focus the moment I tried to think of anything else.
I don't even remember walking down the hall. I just remember the sudden, sharp bite of the cold as I stepped outside.
***
As we stood at the very edge of the river behind the base. The roar of the rushing water was relentless-a steady, low growl that seemed to vibrate in my very bones.
The wind was just as aggressive, cutting through the clearing and tangling my hair across my face in messy, stinging knots. The world felt violent and wide, and for the first time, I felt incredibly small standing against it.
Lori held a wooden practice stick, but my hand instinctively went to the hilt of the black blade I had carried since infancy.
"You know..." Lori said, curiosity breaking through as he stared at it.
"I've never seen a blade like that. It doesn't look like it was forged by any smith I know."
"It has a pulse," Jasmia added quietly, narrowing her eyes.
I slowly unsheathed it.
The blade was matte-black, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. Ancient symbols ran across its surface, shimmering faintly like oil on water.
Oath of Beyond's Darkness.
Or OBD, as I called it.
My adoptive parents said I was found as a kid with this sword lying beside me, as if it had been waiting.
A swordsmith once offered a fortune for it, claiming it was forged from "Black Blood Diamonds," a relic from a forgotten age-something meant for a rampaging god, not a discarded child.
My eyes drifted to the dark red hollow pearl embedded in the crossguard.
A thought settled in my mind.
If I am a disaster... then maybe this sword is one too.
Because we appeared in the world at the same time.
I focused.
Black veins crawled up my arms, but this time I didn't resist them. I guided them.
I fed the energy into the hilt.
The pearl responded immediately, glowing faintly as it absorbed my power. A wave of dizziness hit me as it drank deeper, but I held on.
The blade ignited with a cold, dark aura-flames that did not burn, but swallowed light itself.
Then the sword trembled violently.
A sharp crack echoed over the river.
The blade split.
Instead of one sword, I now held two perfectly balanced obsidian blades.
I swung once and a massive, invisible force erupted forward, six trees in the distance were severed instantly, falling apart in perfect silence before crashing into the ground.
I stared at my arms.
The black veins were gone.
All of it had been absorbed into the twin blades in my hands.
"Whoa..." Lori breathed, his practice stick slipping from his grip.
I looked at the swords, then up at the sky.
The woman in my dreams had said the same thing again and again.
Find the source.
And for the first time, I wondered maybe the source wasn't something inside me.
Maybe it was already in my hands.
A strange feeling rose in my chest as it was not fear or confusion, but something closer to resolve.
For the first time, I felt like I could bite back at the world that had been swallowing me whole.
