Shira moved like someone who had already taken the map of death into her hands. Her training revealed itself. Silent sigils carved into the ground. Breath shaping rope-like lights. She pressed the black stone into the scar on her palm and the air answered.
"This is what I am," she said, voice raw. "Hurukoya's gatekeeper. I lived because I held the pieces together."
Rei's eyes opened at that. Understanding. Horror. A child's need to run forward.
She smiled once. Crooked, and not for him. "You survive. You carry them."
Shira began the gate. The Elders surged forward. Their power was a physical weight pressing down. She bent it into a doorway. Pain and light braided together. The cost was written on her face. Each symbol she carved flayed a memory from her mind. Each breath spent took a year of life.
The largest Elder stepped down from the field and reached. Its palm was a sun of empty space. Shira's teeth gritted. She shoved Rei toward the opening.
"Go!" she shouted. "Run!"
Rei grabbed her arm. "I won't leave you."
She pushed him. "If you stay, they'll take everything. You run and remember them."
He hesitated, then dove through the gate as the world fell apart. Behind him, the final sound he felt was a blade hitting flesh and Shira's voice, steady. "Live."
Light slammed. The gate closed with the smell of burned paper and old promises.
When Rei landed it was not the forest. He was alone in white noise and rain. His body ached. His soul felt hollowed out. He clutched the black stone.
Behind, the clearing was a ruin. The Elders stood where the gate had been. One stepped forward and looked at the place where Shira had been. For a moment, something like curiosity passed over the presence. Then it turned and walked away. The world had been corrected.