I blinked.
And then, slowly, a grin spread across my face.
It worked.
In my head, I felt it—a second Red Stitch. Not just the cursed technique I've lived with, trained with, and nearly died with—but a mirrored version of it. Copied. Duplicated. Fed back into me through Rika like I was testing the laws of this damned universe.
Ha… It's really possible, huh?
The thought filled me with something I hadn't felt in months. Not relief, not safety, but exhilaration. A sense that I had stepped into a territory no one else had dared to touch.
How wonderfully absurd. How beautifully broken.
The understanding of my own cursed technique expanded in ways I didn't think were possible. It wasn't like learning a new move or figuring out a new application. It was deeper than that.
It was like this—if knowing Red Stitch before was like knowing how to type on a keyboard… then copying it was like suddenly receiving a divine manual on how typing itself exists. A manual written in my own blood, my own cursed energy, but annotated by something outside me—Copy.
The same knowledge, but layered with truths only accessible by another path. Something innate, something unreachable without this method.
And it was mine now.
I chuckled, my chest shaking even through the bandages. Then the chuckle broke into a laugh, sharp, ragged, and echoing in the empty woods.
"Hahahaha… Oh my god…"
This was it.
With this, I might have already surpassed the heights Yuta ever reached with his copy. He never had another cursed technique. He could never attempt this. But me? I've bent the rules. I've copied myself. And more than that—this insight, this depth—it's the key. The door to rewriting everything.
I pressed a hand against my chest, steadying myself as the numbness in my body still lingered from Shoko's repairs. My head was light, almost too light, but it wasn't unpleasant.
For the first time in months, my mind felt clear. The weight, the constant dragging heaviness that had been crushing me—it was gone.
I drew a deep breath, eyes opening wide to the forest's dim canopy.
"Rika," I muttered, my voice calm and steady. "Could you give me a book and pen?"
She moved without hesitation, her massive clawed hands materializing a worn notebook and a black pen, both stained from months of neglect inside her storage.
I took them. The familiar texture of the notebook grounded me. I flipped through the pages quickly—old scribbles, scrawled notes, and wild theories. Half-formed ideas. Hypotheses that had once felt too insane to test.
Notes written before Geto. Before Sutoku. Before I sealed Rika with the binding vow. Before… everything.
I stopped flipping, staring at one particular note: "Information leak—days before Geto's return. Coincidence?"
I snorted. "Huh. Almost forgot about that."
There were dozens of little details like that, scattered through my notes. Inconsistencies. Shadows between the lines.
And once upon a time, those little things had consumed me. They had felt important. Vital.
But now?
Now I closed the book, thumb tapping on the cover.
"They won't matter."
Not when the Culling Games begin. Not when I've already broken past the boundaries of what sorcerers think is possible. By the time that nightmare begins, I'll be more than ready.
If my plan works… no, when my plan works, I'll stand above. Strong enough to fight anyone. Strong enough that those little tricks, those bullshit details, those betrayals and leaks… they'll all burn away in the shadow of my strength.
Even if everything collapses, I have a fallback. Project (Re). My reset button. My "second life."
And yet… even that might pale in comparison to what I'm about to make.
I turned the page, uncapped the pen, and began writing.
"Project Evolve: Red Stitch."
My handwriting scratched fast across the paper, urgent and deliberate.
"I will create vows around Red Stitch. Enhance it. Limit it. Define it. I will strip it apart thread by thread until it reforms not as the weak, utility-based technique I've dragged along… but as a weapon. My weapon. In the next seven days, I will deconstruct and rebuild it. Piece by piece. A new cursed technique born from the ashes of the old. One that doesn't just bind… but destroys."
The pen pressed harder against the paper.
"This isn't just about getting stronger. It's about evolving. Turning theory into reality. Cutting out the useless and reforging it into something worthy of a fight against gods."
I stopped, leaning back, staring at the words.
My chest rose and fell with controlled breaths. I could already see it—feel it. The bindings I would craft. The vows I would make. The evolution of Red Stitch reshaped it into a tool not of defense or support, but of overwhelming offense.
My lips curled into a grin again.
This is it. The start of something entirely new. Seven days. Seven days of tearing apart what I once relied on. Seven days to become something I've never been before.
I tapped the pen against the page and whispered to myself a promise, a vow.
"I'll turn Red Stitch into a technique worthy of everything I've survived."
And in the silent woods, notebook clutched in my hand, with Rika's looming shadow standing behind me, I laughed again—quiet, fierce, and unbroken…
HahahahHaaa…