---
Interlude: Echoes of the Seal
After the door pulsed with Yuki's energy, Haru wasn't immediately transported. Instead, a single strand of mythic wind spiraled from the seal—like a thread pulling him forward. It wasn't just guiding him. It was responding to him.
He followed it, sprinting across the ever-shifting black-glass floor as the environment bent and changed—corridors forming, twisting, breaking. The void prison wasn't static. It moved like a living thing, adapting to its prisoners.
Haru's instincts took over. He closed his eyes, trusting the energy trail left behind.
Then… voices. Not words—emotions.
Fear.
Frustration.
Determination.
He snapped his eyes open.
A long corridor opened before him, and at the end, a door cracked with golden light. That was when he heard Aiko's voice echo faintly, distorted through layers of reality.
"Yuki, if you can hear this…"
He ran, each step carving the corridor open, until he burst through.
There, scattered but alive, were Ren, Himari, and Aiko—surrounded by fragments of mythic energy. They were trapped in a stasis barrier that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Haru didn't stop.
Drawing from the wind and the memory of his fight, he struck the barrier with one clean blow.
It shattered like crystal under pressure, and the moment it broke, the air exploded with spiritual backlash. Ren stumbled forward, blinking. Himari gasped. Aiko collapsed to her knees, clutching her chest—but smiled the moment she saw him.
"…Took you long enough," she muttered.
"I got lost," Haru said simply, helping her up.
Ren looked around, breathing heavily. "This place is more than a prison. It's… measuring us."
"And separating us," Himari added. "But not anymore."
They were together now.
And that meant things were about to shift.
---
Yuki stares at a floating number above his head.
"What the… 40 power stones?! Are those edible? No? Whatever they are, thanks!"
Ren shakes his head. "You're hopeless."