The clearing was quiet now.
The scent of blood lingered in the still air, and the false sun sagged low toward the horizon—its final rays turning the silt amber. The death of the Bitter Chorus was likely to cause the Dark Sea to claim this area come nightfall, so the group had tediously climbed to the top of the beheaded Slayer statue.
They had survived, but not without a price.
Sunny sat, right arm cradled against his side. The limb was shredded with deep, haphazard cuts, the remnants of the Bitter Chorus's death throes. Blood Weave had stopped the bleeding, but the pain remained.
He didn't need Cassie's foresight to know it would be a tedious recovery.
Across from him, the oracle in question lay still, her head wrapped in a bandage torn from her cloak. She stirred now and then, murmuring soft and fractured phrases. She had restrained the Bitter Chorus long enough for Sunny to kill it, but the blow she took to the head had left her mind scattered.
Saint sat dimly in his Soul Sea, repairing slowly. She survived, thankfully, though it would be a long time before she could be summoned again. The Scavenger Echo was dead.
A few meters away, Effie was at work, trying to cinch a strip of fabric around the gash in her side. Her hair was matted with blood, and an eye was swollen shut, but her hands were steady, and she worked in silence.
Caster was nearby, one leg extended stiffly in front of him. His breath was still labored, and his face looked older. The faint stubble on his jaw wasn't there before the battle. He clearly had overused his Flaw.
Kai was lying on his back nearby, shirt off, chest and arms streaked with dried blood. Cuts peppered his skin, and a deep wound was bandaged thoroughly below his right shoulder. He hadn't spoken much since the fight, only checking on Aiko when she passed out.
Aiko, for her part, sat a short distance away. She had a mirrored injury on her left shoulder, though it came from a different source. Her rotor cuff was completely blown, and there was likely damage to her tendons and wrist bones. Her arm hung limp, and her expression was unreadable. The silver thread of her dagger coiled around her fingers loosely.
No one was talking. They didn't need to.
The stillness wasn't peaceful. It was the kind of quiet that followed a tragedy.
Sunny watched them all, using Serpent to circulate his essence and speed the recovery of his arm. Though he was silence, his thoughts churned.
He rushed.
He hadn't tried to learn more about the creature, or scope out the environment. He hadn't probed to identify how the creatures fought. Had he waited until acquiring his second core, Saint would have been able to absorb much of the beast's rage.
They had grown much stronger, but they weren't yet at the point where they could simply brute force fights. He had let himself believe he could carry Nephis' absence without consequence, that he could more than shoulder the burden of leadership. That they were safe, under his watchful eye.
But he was wrong.
Without her healing flame, their margin for error shrunk to almost nothing. Their victory had come from desperation, the minimum strength in the most critical moments, and a series of small miracles.
Not preparation. Not strategy.
He clenched his jaw. Their injuries slowed their expedition timeline dramatically, and even stronger foes lied ahead. He needed to grow stronger.
***
Caster winced as he shifted his leg, pain flaring from deep inside the limb. The injury wasn't just a problem for later—it was why he'd overused his Aspect during the fight.
With his old mindset, the demand placed on him during that fight would've aged him into an early grave.
But he'd come out mostly intact. Just a few more lines on his face. A bit of stubble.
And he knew why.
It wasn't his Legacy training, or his natural talent that let him do it. It was the time he spent with this cohort. The lessons Sunny had hammered into him about wielding his Aspect correctly.
He'd known the training helped—but seeing it shown like that, with his life on the line, was sobering.
Growing up as a Legacy, he had developed a sense of pride. Saw himself as the elite.
And sure, it was true.
But the world didn't care if you were 'elite.' The world wasn't fair. Their enigmatic leader was impossibly strong, and even he had been gruesomely injured.
Humanity was not at the top of the food chain. Seeing himself as better than his kind was pointless, when the true rulers of the Dream Realm make them all look like prey.
He wouldn't waste time being the biggest fish in a shallow pond anymore. Around him, there was an entire ocean, swimming with sharks, krakens, and horrors which put any fish, no matter how big, to shame.
He exhaled slowly, then looked down at his hands. Some years had been taken from him due to his Flaw, but many more had been given to him by the boy in black.
He would repay him for that, at least.
***
Effie peeled the bandage back from her side and hissed as fresh blood welled up, warm and stubborn. The cut was deep and messy, but she would live.
She'd been buried in that stampede—trampled, clawed, lost in the crush of screaming beasts and flying limbs. At one point, she'd been sure her ribs were broken. At another, that her luck had run out.
But she didn't fall.
She fought. Not wildly. Not blindly.
She remembered what Sunny had told her:
"You've spent your entire life wielding a spear and shield, but you've only learned to be the spear."
She didn't get it then, not fully anyway.
She did now.
Every block, every step, every redirection of force had mattered. She wasn't the hammer anymore, trying to end it in one hit. She'd stayed grounded, flexible, and alert.
She had been the shield.
Effie tied the bandage off and let her head rest back against the stone. Her vision swam. Her knuckles throbbed. Her side burned like fire.
And still…
She was breathing.
"Alright, doofus," she muttered with a tired grin. "Point taken."
A beat passed. Then softer, almost reluctant—
"...Guess I should thank him," she muttered, stirring.
A flash of pain dissuaded the notion, though.
"Maybe later."
***
Aiko sat cross-legged near the edge of the statue's neck. The adrenaline from the fight was long gone, leaving behind only a dull ache. Her wrists ached, and her fingers trembled, though her mind was too empty to care.
"Mind if I sit?"
Aiko looked up to find Kai hovering nearby, a cautious smile tugging at his lips. His bandaged shoulder looked stiff, and his shirt still hung loose over one arm, half-dried blood etched across his side.
She gestured at the stone beside her. "Do what you like."
He groaned theatrically as he lowered himself down.
They sat in silence for a beat, the wind skimming over them with a cool hush. Behind, the others rested in pockets of quiet.
Kai glanced at her arm.
"Huh," he said. "Yours is the other shoulder."
Aiko blinked. "What?"
He nodded to her makeshift sling, then tapped the bandages on his own shoulder. "You're left. I'm right. Between our uninjured sides, we almost make one fully functional person."
Aiko huffed, then let out a soft laugh she didn't expect. "If we were one person, we'd be dead."
Kai winced in exaggerated pain. "Don't ruin the fantasy."
Another silence. This one more comfortable.
Eventually, Aiko spoke again, voice quiet. "I was terrified, you know. When it came for you."
Kai turned his head toward her, expression suddenly open. "Yeah. Me too."
He paused, then added, more quietly, "I… actually woke up, right before that final exchange."
Aiko blinked, caught off guard.
"I didn't move, couldn't even speak. Just watched it shoot at you like a bolt of light. And you just—" He exhaled, shaking his head slightly. "You didn't flinch. You moved. Like you knew exactly what to do."
She looked down at stone below, suddenly unsure of what to say.
"I was so scared," Kai went on. "You were all that stood between me and it. I thought I was going to watch you die, and instead I watched you win."
Aiko's heart beat a little faster.
"I didn't think it would work," she said softly. "But it wasn't even a choice, in the moment. I just acted on instinct."
"That's the thing," Kai said, his smile lopsided again. "You have the least experience here, but you looked so strong. You made it look so easy..."
Aiko looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head slightly.
"You think I made it look easy?" she said. "You were fighting that thing in the air. I can't even imagine what that felt like."
Kai gave a half-shrug, wincing as it pulled at his shoulder. "I was mostly trying not to die. The sword was faster than anything I've ever seen."
"But you kept it busy," she said, voice soft but certain. "For so long. You're not even a melee fighter. That thing was designed to kill people like you."
"And yet," he said, raising an eyebrow, "still mostly alive."
"Exactly. You were adapting mid-fight. Using momentum, turns, diving and lifting like you were dancing with it. It was beautiful."
He blinked, surprised. "You think so?"
"How could I not?" she said. "If you hadn't kept it busy for so long, I wouldn't have been able to figure out what to do. I was frozen for so much longer than you!"
Kai looked down, his expression softening. "Didn't feel like I was doing much."
"But you were," she said firmly. "Every second you pulled it away, you bought me time to compose myself."
He glanced at her again, something unreadable in his eyes. "I guess we pulled each other through it."
"Yeah," she said, more quietly. "I guess we did."
A pause.
"Thank you," they both said at the same time.
They froze.
Kai blinked.
Aiko looked away, suddenly very interested in the silver thread coiled around her fingers.
Kai cleared his throat. "Jinx?"
Aiko gave a tiny laugh — mostly through her nose. "That's not how jinxes work."
"Guess I missed that lesson. Traded it for the 'bleed gracefully in midair' dance class."
She rolled her eyes, but her smile lingered. The air between them had changed — still fragile, still tentative, but undeniably warmer.
Aiko rose slowly, careful not to jostle her shoulder, turning towards the center of the platform. "I should rest. Before my arm forgets how to exist entirely."
She glanced once toward the others—Effie crouched in pain, Cassie unmoving, Sunny with his eyes closed, but not resting.
Kai gave a mock salute with his good arm. "You've earned it, bladebreaker."
He added a second later, "I think I will too."
Aiko took a step, then hesitated. She looked back over her shoulder.
"I got it, by the way."
Kai blinked. "Got what?"
"The Echo," she said simply, "of the blade. It's named the Quiet Dancer."
For a moment, Kai just stared at her. Then a slow smile spread across his face.
"Huh," he said. "Guess I probably shouldn't have called you 'bladebreaker', then. Might've jinxed that."
Aiko smirked. "There you go. Now you understand how jinxes work."
Kai pressed a hand to his heart. "I'm a fast learner."
She rolled her eyes, but didn't argue.
Then she turned and walked away. Kai leaned back against the stone, watching her go, a grin still tugging at the corner of his mouth.
***
Cassie lay still near the center of the group, the bandage on her head tight and warm with drying blood. Her breath had evened, and her pain had dulled to a constant faint ringing.
She heard a short laugh behind her—Kai and Aiko, from the sounds of it. It ached more than it should have.
They were barely alive, nursing gruesome wounds.
And that was the problem.
She hadn't stopped that.
She could have. She saw it — the Bitter Chorus's scream, the raw, ruinous sound that would tear through the sky and bring the stampede down upon them like an avalanche of madness. She'd known it would happen. Not guessed. Known.
She could have told Caster to use his flute Memory — the one that could isolate sound and prevent it from propagating. If he'd used it when the creature opened its mouth, none of the surrounding creatures would have heard.
The battle would have been hard, yes. But manageable. Controlled.
Instead, she had said nothing.
She clenched her teeth, fingers curling into the thin fabric of her cloak.
Every wound they bore… every drop of blood spilled… that was her fault.
She told herself it was worth it.
Because it was, wasn't it?
They had survived. More than that, they had become something else. Aiko and Kai, once strangers, had moved in perfect sync. Caster had grown a modicum of actual loyalty, not just mercenary cooperation. Effie had fought like hell and walked away alive, shattering the notions she held of her potential. Sunny had given them the tools to succeed, held them all together, and slain the champion.
Now, they were no longer a collection of merely cooperating warriors. They were a cohort.
Forged, not assembled.
But the forge had burned hot.
She could still hear Kai's panicked voice asking if Aiko was wounded. The pain in it. The fear. She could still see Effie collapsing. Caster limping. Sunny bleeding from dozens of cuts, his body pushed beyond its limits.
She also knew they'd survive. She knew they would all still make it to the Crimson Spire, after all.
But that didn't make the injuries in front of her hurt less. It didn't make the guilt quieter.
Cassie drew in a breath and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear. "Please forgive me."
She didn't know if she was talking to them.
Or herself.
***
Sunny asked Aiko to look at the runes of the Quiet Dancer, curious about its potential as a Shadow, should he ever find a means to make it one.
Echo: [Quiet Dancer.]
Echo Rank: Awakened.
Echo Class: Devil.
Echo Attributes: [Living Weapon], [Dancer], [Mute].
[Living Weapon]
Attribute Description: [A tool in life, a tool in death. Sentient though it may be, a tool it will forever remain.]
[Dancer]
Attribute Description: [Her movement is misery made manifest. As long as agony endures, so too will the dance continue.]
[Mute]
Attribute Description: [No voice warned her. No voice protested. None spoke her name. So now, she has lost her mouth—so her blade may speak in her place.]
Echo Description: [Upon a sacrificial altar, the conduit writhed. Countless souls were poured into her until she collapsed into a single, tortured form. In a desperate plea for release, she cast away two parts of herself: the resentment of the innocents, and the agony of her now twisted vessel. One became a scream—housing the endless voices of the wronged. The other, its resulting agony given form through dance.]
Perhaps… it would be best left as an Echo.