The purple haze lingering from the previous battle hadn't yet dissipated, as if the world itself refused to breathe normally. Ryouhei and Sera walked through the remnants of the distortion—not in complete silence, but wrapped in a tense calm, as if any misplaced word could shatter the fragile balance they still held onto.
Ryouhei kept one hand at his side—not because of a physical wound, but from the pressure twisting inside him ever since he had seen what he should not have seen. Sera noticed, of course. But she said nothing. Not yet.
The landscape was gray, not from a lack of color, but from an overabundance of uncertainty. The distortion left scars: trees split in half as if time had changed direction, stones vibrating without rhythm, and echoes of footsteps belonging to no one.
"We can't stay here for long," Sera finally murmured, her voice barely a thread. But Ryouhei didn't respond right away.
Instead, he stopped in front of a crack snaking through the ground like a fracture in a painting too perfect to be real. Inside it, there was no darkness—only light. A light that pulsed like a forgotten heart.
"I don't know if this is still part of the world," he said, "or just a reflection of what we're breaking."
Sera stepped closer, slowly. She didn't touch him, but she looked at him. With that look that didn't demand answers, but understood them even before they were spoken.
"Maybe… it's not about fixing it. Maybe it's about deciding what comes after everything breaks."
Ryouhei looked at her. And for a moment—just a moment—his expression softened. As if the storm within him had eased just enough to let in a spark of something different.
Then he nodded. Not like someone accepting fate, but like someone beginning to shape one.
"Then… let's keep breaking what broke us."
And together, they took the next step.