The cameras hum softly, almost imperceptibly, a faint electric breath drawn through still air.
They hide where glass meets marble, where shadows lie too evenly to be natural. Tiny red eyes that never blink, watching without hurry, waiting without end.
The villa is bright and mercilessly clean. White stone floors stretch toward glass walls that frame the gardens like a painting. Every leaf is in place, every petal angled to catch the light.
The rows of trees outside are too precise for nature, their symmetry shaped by unseen hands. Flowers spill in perfect asymmetry, arranged to seem careless yet balanced to the millimeter.
Even the breeze smells constructed, air strained through filters until even its flaws have been erased.
Somewhere above, a lens pivots with a whisper too faint for most to notice. I notice.
Matsuo moves through this place as if he has always belonged to its silence. But this time, he said something.
"I look exactly my age."
I see. So, he has finally come to terms with it.
Butler Matsuo was sixty years old and still working for his son, Eichiro. Unfortunately, he had Eichiro late in life, around forty-eight or fifty, when his son was born.
Sixty is the age when most people retire and live comfortably. But for Matsuo, ensuring his son would never fall short meant working without pause.
He stood before the mirror, studying his face, especially the wrinkles.
A sad smile crept across his lips before he turned to me.
"Kiyotaka, what do you think the afterlife is like?"
Normally, I could answer questions within seconds. But this question... it might be one of the very few I could not answer.
I looked at Matsuo, searching for words in my mind.
He must believe in God to ask such a question. If so, I would have to find the answer using the same method.
Since ancient times, there has been a debate, a debate about God.
Does He exist?
Unironically, this debate is most often carried by those who argue for a living or by the unemployed.
It usually goes like this.
The believer begins by praising God.
God is merciful yet vengeful. He made this world to test His creation, granting them free will to choose the path worthy of heaven or hell. Everything is done by His will.
This is where the debate begins.
The non-believer counters.
If God is so merciful, why doesn't He make the world good for everyone? Why create sadness, crime, and grief? If everything is by His will, could He not make a world free from suffering?
The believer replies.
It is to test us. God gave free will and challenges to measure the strength of our faith. He will reward us in time. The world runs freely because God willed it so. If He controlled every action, it would not be freedom but a cage so vast we might mistake it for liberty.
The non-believer presses further.
So to God, circumstances are nothing but trials? Most crime is born from circumstance. The one who starves steals food, not out of malice but desperation. People take justice into their own hands because authorities are corrupt. Families beg God to save their loved ones suffering in hospitals, yet it was the same God who gave them that fate. Is this truly the free world He envisioned?
And so the debate continues endlessly, without ever reaching a definitive conclusion.
Ironically, those who argue with such certainty rely only on theories, words without substance. None of it holds factual value if it is spoken without proof.
All they do is debate theory against theory. No one looks at logic. If I look at it this way, nothing truly adds up from both side.
And currently my task is not to find the correct answer using logic and science... My task is to find a answer that can satisfy Matsuo.
If every argument relies on theories, does that not mean I must also build my answer from them?
So...
Let me look through this world, and find an answer that will satisfy Matsuo.
***
If according to Matsuo, God exists, and in these debates the world is said to be controlled by human will, then does it not mean that our good is the world's bad?
Think about it.
The same way energy cannot be created from nothing, good cannot exist without bad. There must be darkness in a room for light to brighten it. A candle has no meaning under the sun, yet becomes precious when surrounded by shadow.
You can help others only because incompetence exists. Kindness has value only because cruelty is possible. Justice is worshiped only because injustice prevails. What is called virtue is simply the act of standing against the vices that already infest the world.
Every smile is sharpened by the memory of tears. Every triumph carries the shadow of someone else's defeat. If everyone could succeed, success itself would mean nothing. If everyone was safe, bravery would not exist.
And it does not end with ideas.
Humans are no different.
To give to one person is to take from another. A mother's love binds her child to warmth, but in that same embrace she withholds herself from the rest of the world.
A soldier defends his homeland, but to do so he must destroy another's. One man's protection becomes another's loss.
Even emotions carry this exchange.
To trust someone means you risk betrayal. To forgive means someone else had to wound you. We call love pure, but love is sharp it makes us guard one person at the cost of neglecting another. It gives meaning to one bond while leaving countless others in silence.
And then there is what we take from the earth.
We tear down forests to build homes, so that some may rest warm while countless creatures lose theirs forever.
We empty the oceans to feed the hungry, yet leave them poisoned and barren for those yet to come.
Medicine heals the sick, but leaves scars on rivers and skies. Every comfort carved by human hands is written into the ruin of something else.
So perhaps the design of this world was never to be good or bad, but to hold both in balance. A scale that tips and sways, never still, because it must give weight to both sides for either to matter.
And if that is true, then this world is not the conclusion, but only the stage. A place where meaning is forged by opposition. Where the soul is tempered not in comfort, but in conflict. Where every bond, every act, every joy and every wound, is nothing more than a fragment of something larger, something unfinished.
If so, then what we call life is only half of the story.
The afterlife... must be the other half.
The place where what was tested is revealed. Where the weight of every action, every shadow and every spark of light, is measured not by how it felt in this world, but by what it built in the soul.
***
But then another problem arises.
If the afterlife is the other half, then it cannot stand on its own. It can only exist in relation to what came before. Its meaning would not be absolute but comparative.
Heaven is not Heaven unless Hell stands beside it. It derives its value from being its opposite. A paradise without suffering would be indistinguishable from ordinary existence, nothing more than an endless continuation of comfort stripped of contrast.
Hell too depends on Heaven. Eternal pain has no shape unless it is compared against the possibility of relief. If there is no good to measure it against, then torment is simply the only state of being, and therefore ceases to be torment at all.
And Purgatory rests upon both. It is neither reward nor punishment but a middle ground, a bridge with meaning only if there are two shores it connects. Without Heaven and Hell, the bridge leads nowhere.
Remove one, and the others collapse. They are not truths, but structures leaning against each other, standing only because of their dependence. When they fall together, what remains is nothing.
But... Now I would like to propose an interesting question.
Does nothing really exist?
Again, think about it.
If I were to ask you about nothing, what would you say? You might call it the absence of everything. You might picture an empty room and say there is nothing inside. But even that is false. You only call it empty because you recognized its state. The moment you give it recognition, it becomes something.
If you see it, recognise it in your brain and has a dedicated word for it, how is it nothing?
Nothing is not emptiness. It is not silence. It is not void. Those are all descriptions, and descriptions already give form. True nothing cannot be seen, cannot be named, cannot even be thought. Yet the instant we attempt to deny it, it enters existence in the mind.
So in reality, even nothing is something.
Even... Nothing... Is something.
So... That's what it was all this time?
[Ayanokouji sighed out loud]
Everything folded into the same pattern. The divisions I had used to name meaning revealed themselves as mirrors reflecting one another.
Good existed because there was evil to define it.
Mercy held value only because cruelty was possible.
Honor was visible only when shame was feared.
Every category of thought was chained to its opposite. To declare one was to summon the other.
Even cause and consequence, the scaffolding I trusted for prediction, betrayed me.
Every choice carried with it unseen outcomes, each act creating both relief and harm.
A kindness lifted one person yet overshadowed another.
Punishment corrected one life but distorted another.
Balance was never absolute, only shifting.
Every truth I reached leaned on a contradiction.
Even memory, the tool I relied on to track the past, reshaped itself into stories convenient for the present. What I believed to be truth was compromise, altered by perception, bent by necessity.
And the world around me confirmed it. This villa with its perfect symmetry was only meaningful because disorder existed elsewhere.
The order of the garden, the hum of the cameras, the illusion of control each mattered only because their opposites lurked beyond the glass.
Even this sanctuary of precision was proof of the chaos it tried to exclude.
In the end, everything was bound in dependency. Life. Death. The afterlife itself. They could not exist alone. Strip them down and what remains is the same circle that refuses to break.
Paradox was not the exception. It was the rule.
This... this is all nothing but a paradox.
The thought pressed against me with a heaviness I rarely felt. My logic, usually seamless, had doubled back on itself until it no longer resembled an answer but an endless loop. For the first time in a long time, there was nowhere else for reason to go if I wanted to find the answer using theories.
Matsuo must have noticed. He stepped closer, laying a hand on my shoulder. His grip was steady, his warmth unshaken by my silence.
"You do not have to know everything now," he said quietly. "Some truths only arrive when you live them."
His words lingered in me. Not sharp, not demanding. Simply present. A reminder that not all questions could be forced open. Some had to wait, unfolding with time.
And in that moment, I understood something about myself.
I did not want to be taken by violence. I did not want to disappear into sudden silence.
If I must die, then let it be by old age, at the end of a long line of mornings. If anything else were to try and claim me, I would resist it with all my strength. Not because I fear death, but because my life should be finished by time itself, not stolen before its shape is complete.
I wish to die of old age, or die struggling.
๐น๐น
The corpse dropped with him, sending up a faint cloud of silt and blood.
The blood froze.
'So this is how it ends?'
The words rang inside his skull.
A heartbeat later, the same.
'So this is how it ends?'
And again.
'So this is how it ends?'
His nightmare-corrupted mind could not recognize the loop. Each thought returned as if it were new, yet he could not remember the one before. Memory was a hollow well, and only the echo remained.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
Time passed, yet it did not. In this lake, there was no concept of time.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
Time only stayed, locked in place.
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
'So this is how it ends?'
In this new world, There was nothing for him.
"So this is how it ends?"
"So this is how it ends?"
"So this is how it ends?"
"So this is how it ends?"
And it kept repeating, again and again, without measure, without end.
Some time passed no, not time. There was no time here to pass.
Then, the rocks stirred. The floor shifted with a low, heavy groan, silt rising like smoke in the dead water.
Nothing came out but the moment nothing was mentioned, it became something.
"าโฆโกโงโฆโกโงโฆโกโง ว ฯอออฯ ัชาาโโ ๐๐๐ โโโโ โฆาโงซาโ ว าาา ๐๐ซ๐ โฆโกโงา"
Something emerged, invisible to the eye. It slipped through the cracks, shapeless, unseen, yet undeniable. It pressed against him not with touch, but with presence. The moment it was thought of as nothing, it had already become something.
A voice spoke with wisdom that could only be gathered over centuries.
It said something, yet nothing. No voice could be heard, yet it resonated in Ayanokouji's mind.
The voice was inaudible at first.
"าโฆโกโงโฆโกโงโฆโกโง ว ฯอออฯ ัชาาโโ ๐๐๐ โโโโ โฆาโงซาโ ว าาา ๐๐ซ๐ โฆโกโงา"
Now the voice looped in Ayanokouji's mind.
'าโฆโกโงโฆโกโงโฆโกโง ว ฯอออฯ ัชาาโโ ๐๐๐ โโโโ โฆาโงซาโ ว าาา ๐๐ซ๐ โฆโกโงา'
'าโฆโกโงโฆโกโงโฆโกโง ว ฯอออฯ ัชาาโโ ๐๐๐ โโโโ โฆาโงซาโ ว าาา ๐๐ซ๐ โฆโกโงา'
Without a concept of time, no one knew how long this repeated. Suddenly, some words became audible.
Those words now carried the same vocals as Ayanokouji, it was as if it was him who said it.
Unfamiliar words became familiar.
'าโฆโกโง๐๐ซ๐ฯอออฯโโโาโฆาโงซา๐โโ๐ ... descend ... าาาโฆโกโง๐โโ๐ ... judgment ...'
Now the words began to loop:
'าโฆโกโง๐๐ซ๐ฯอออฯโโโาโฆาโงซา๐โโ๐ ... descend ... าาาโฆโกโง๐โโ๐ ... judgment ...'
'าโฆโกโง๐๐ซ๐ฯอออฯโโโาโฆาโงซา๐โโ๐ ... descend ... าาาโฆโกโง๐โโ๐ ... judgment ...'
Nothing, yet something, just stood there or maybe it didn't. No one knew.
Just as time passed but it actually didn't.
Now the words became more audible:
'าโฆโกโง๐ฯอฯโโโาโฆาโงซา ... descend ... ไฝ ... โฆโกโง ... giudiz'
Suddenly, Ayanokouji's eyes snapped open. Darkness surrounded him, but something in the looped voices shifted. His limbs twitched, moving slowly through the thick silt as though he were swimming in molasses.
Disoriented by the unending repetition, he tried to push against the still water, testing the boundaries of this strange place.
A flicker of awareness returned to his mind. The horror of the endless repetition remained, but he could confront it now rather than being trapped within it. His thoughts raced, dissecting the incomprehensible loops, separating the layers of language and meaning.
Gradually, he felt a strange calm descend. His motions slowed, his mind cleared, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he sensed his own agency.
He was not just a participant in this nightmare he could act, he could perceive, he could judge.
Ayanokouji's eyes roamed the endless lake, and he realized that the voices, the loops, the "Nothing, yet something"... were now responding to him. He could process them, understand them, and finally, confront the test.
***
What was happening was simple yet complex.
Ayanokouji, having mastered multiple languages, realized the words 'Nothing, yet something' were trying to take shape in a form he could comprehend.
Eventually, each word carried its own language that Ayanokouji knew.
After a moment, Ayanokouji flinched.
Now, the words finally had their own language, each one distinct:
Tu steh jako unico qui ha descendu ุฅูู este profunditร . Avant te sunt misurato, du debes antworten. Dic... in omni tua wandering, in tout ton lucha, habes tu realmente beheld ce monde et rendu tuo giudizio?
Only Ayanokouji's mind could process this loop at that speed. His eyes roamed, and he soon calmed.
He thought.
Tu (French) steh (German) jako (Polish) unico (Italian) qui (Latin) ha (Spanish) descendu (French) ุฅูู (Arabic) este (Spanish) profunditร (Italian). Avant (French) te (Latin) sunt (Latin) misurato (Italian), du (German) debes (Spanish) antworten (German). Dic (Latin)... in (English) omni (Latin) tua (Italian) wandering (English), in (French) tout (French) ton (French) lucha (Spanish), habes (Latin) tu (Latin) realmente (Italian) beheld (English) ce (French) monde (French) et (Latin) rendu (French) tuo (Italian) giudizio (Italian)?
Even 'Nothing, yet something' flinched at the speed Ayanokouji processed everything, but the test wasn't over.
That moment Ayanokouji looked through the very being of this nightmare. For some reasons it restricted everything to English.
Even when Perla said something in Latin, the lips formed in Latin yet what came out was English.
So.
Ayanokouji dissected everything into English, cracking the final test.
'You stand as the only one who has descended to this depth. Before you are measured, you must answer. Tell me... in all your wandering, in all your struggle, have you truly beheld this world and rendered it your judgment?'
Ayanokouji broke free from the nightmare trying to influence his mind.
***
The instant he finished translating the last phrase, the water shifted.
Not violently, not with sound, but in a way that pulled him forward.
He did not feel hands, did not see forms, did not hear a voice, and yet he was moving. Slowly at first, then with subtle acceleration, as if the water itself remembered the path and carried him along it.
He did not resist, but he did not trust. His mind ran through possibilities, analyzing the unseen presence guiding him.
Whatever this was, it was powerful. If it was helping him, that meant it wanted something, and he had no idea what.
He could joke silently at the absurdity of it, even in this state.
'Survived one situation just to get thrown into the next.'
The humor was dry, almost mechanical, but it kept him anchored to thought.
Ironically despite everything Ayanokouji was taking note of, this was the only thing he thought, Not giving any hint to the entity.
Movement was effortless but controlled. He did not swim, did not push, did not even adjust his posture. His body, numb from exhaustion, followed the current without effort.
The cave's mouth loomed ahead, emerging from the darkness. Its walls pressed close, smooth, cold. The water guided him toward it, threading him between unseen boundaries, ensuring he did not collide with anything.
His lungs were still, muscles slack from fatigue, but his mind was active, observing, calculating.
He could not predict the entity.
Could not name it.
Could not measure its intentions but he could prepare.
Awareness was the only leverage he had.
The passage narrowed. Silt swirled faintly, clinging to the walls, drifting with the current.
Pressure changed, the subtle rise and fall of the cave's floor and ceiling imprinting itself on his awareness. Nothing yet Something guided him precisely.
And soon he entered the cave. Water had a path to go in, yet it never did. An invisible barrier held it back, leaving the chamber hollow and still.
Ayanokouji floated in the air for a moment before being lowered gently onto the stone surface.
His body was numb from being in the water, fatigued and drained after the battle above. At last, he could rest, though rest came only as stillness forced upon him.
Particles of dirt drifted in the cave, moving unnaturally, drawn toward his wounds. They settled across his skin, thin layers clinging and sealing the cuts. There was no sting, no sharp sensation. Numbness dulled it all, yet he felt the strange weight of his injuries being bound.
He lay spread on the ground, arms and legs heavy, chest struggling to rise and fall. Breathing was shallow, uneven, as though even air demanded effort he could barely give.
For now, he simply remained there, pinned between exhaustion and awareness, unable to move, unable to act.
***
Ayanokouji's breath steadied little by little.
The ache in his chest did not vanish, but enough air reached him to quiet the strain.
His arms and legs remained heavy, refusing to move, yet his mind began to clear.
Words formed in his throat, dry and faint, though there was no one to hear them.
"So this... is where I ended up."
The cave around him was narrow, its walls bare stone. No carvings, no markings, nothing of design. It felt untouched, as if no one had ever walked here.
Darkness pressed close, broken only by faint threads of light that seeped from a single point.
His eyes followed it.
At the far side of the chamber lay a skeleton. Centuries old, its bones were yellowed and thin, fragile enough to break if touched. Yet from its frame leaked subtle rays of light, dim but constant, spilling like dust through cracks.
The glow was not bright enough to chase away the dark, only to mark its presence.
Aside from that, there was nothing. The air was still, the silence unbroken. Only the skeleton and its quiet light existed here with him.
Ayanokouji remained on the stone floor, arms spread, body unresponsive. He could see. He could think. He could speak. But that was all.
***
Ayanokouji's eyes lingered on the skeleton. At first glance it seemed ordinary, just ancient bones left behind by someone who had fallen here centuries ago.
But the light told another story.
It was not reflecting from stone or seeping through cracks. It came from the skeleton itself, thin rays escaping between ribs, joints, and the hollow of its skull.
He watched carefully. The glow was steady, not flickering, not dimming. It breathed in its own rhythm, slow and deliberate, as if something still resided inside those remains.
"So... it is you," Ayanokouji whispered, his voice faint but steady.
Nothing yet Something had brought him here, had pulled him past the water and into this hollow space. Now, stripped of all movement, it presented itself not as a shape he could grasp, but as a frame of bones leaking light.
He did not move. He could not. But he observed with the same caution as always. Every detail, every shift of the faint glow, every subtle movement of dust in the air around it. The silence of the cave pressed close, broken only by his shallow breath and the strange quiet hum of the light.
Ayanokouji knew without doubt. The skeleton was not just a relic. It was the entity itself. The one that had carried him here. The one that now waited.
And just then the skeleton laughed.
"Kekekekeke"
It moved, it had nothing to make a sound. Its skull just moved, making a sound from the bones that gave the illusion of laughter.
Ayanokouji, just lying there, looked at him.
"What am I supposed to call you?"
The skeleton stopped moving, and a voice was heard, Voice that came out of nowhere yet everywhere and was heard directly inside Ayanokouji's mind.
๐น๐น
"I am nothing, yet something in the eyes of those who shall not be named, and the ones who can be named do not know of my existence. I once sought knowledge and clung to neutrality, hoping to understand the world and my place within it. Those I served cast me aside without thought. Alone, I unearthed the secret of immortality. What once appeared to be a gift has decayed into a curse. Time does not flow, it suffocates. The world slips further and further away, and I remain, unseen, forgotten, condemned to carry the weight of what I lost, what I will never touch, and the bitter truth that I was never meant to endure what I now cannot escape."
The words bled from the dark, yet they were my own. When I was outside in the water it spoke. At first the sound was faint, a whisper drowned in silence. Slowly it grew louder, but only after I had already thought the words myself. It was not speaking. It was reflecting. It was me.
Its answer was vague, but not hollow. There was meaning in its obscurity.
Nothing yet something. A paradox. Perhaps it meant insignificant, yet still holding a small weight of use. From that contradiction the truth began to form.
Nothing yet something in the eyes of those who shall not be named. And the ones who can be named do not know of its existence.
I was almost certain those who shall not be named were its masters. Yet the phrasing unsettled me. First it said they must not be named, then it spoke of ownership.
Perhaps that was the point. They can be known, but not spoken. The very act of naming would summon what should remain hidden. And ownership was only the shape it chose to give them, a crude mask placed over something that defied form.
As for those who can be named but remain unaware of its existence, there must be a tether. Named and nameless, bound together. I could not see the link, yet I could feel it. Perhaps those who can be named live in ignorance only because this thing exists, shrouding them from truths too heavy for their eyes.
Discarded. Regret. Immortality.
The ceiling of the cave loomed above me. Shadows clung to stone, and within them I saw the outline of answers, as if darkness itself kept the record.
Immortality. That was a lie.
"I was called dry water by my colleague."
How fitting. Nothing yet something becomes dry water. Water cannot be dry, and so it can be nothing. But the instant I recognize it as nothing, I shape it into something. It exists the moment I try to deny it.
I finally spoke.
"Dry water, what is it you want from me?"
There was no pause. To say it answered quickly would be wrong. In this place, time had no meaning.
Outside the cave my blood was frozen in the water, suspended and unmoving.
Its words were not words at all. They were already in my mind. For me to hear them one by one, there would have to be speech, rhythm, and time.
None of those things were present here.
What I experienced was not hearing, but remembering. As if its voice had always existed within me, buried and waiting for recognition.
"You have come far,"
It said, voice folded into the stillness around him.
"But far is meaningless. Depth does not grant insight. Those who linger in silence often mistake endurance for understanding. I have dwelled where worlds collapse, where time is nothing and everything at once. I have seen ambition crumble, wisdom falter, and yet they persist, chasing meaning that cannot be held."
It paused, though not in breath. The cave seemed to lean closer, shadows pressing, though never touching.
"To endure is not to see. To witness is not to grasp. You believe that by following the loops, the echoes, the fragments of thought you uncovered, you arrive at truth. But truth is not a thing to arrive at. It is the shape left behind when all else has decayed. You do not understand, not truly. None can."
I studied the glow seeping from the skeleton. The presence was infinite and subtle, every word layered with centuries of knowledge, yet all circling back, revealing nothing I had not already accounted for.
"I have traced the loops,"
I said, voice low.
"I have followed every echo. I have measured every shadow, every turn, every fragment of thought you assumed would hide you."
It shifted, imperceptibly, as though my calm recognition unsettled it.
"You presume too much," it said. "Even now, you have seen only edges. The center is veiled. The heart remains untouched. You cannot fathom the weight of timelessness."
I did not flinch. I had not seen the future, but I had deduced the design of this place, the patterns of its control, the invisible hand guiding my path. Every circle, every diversion, every test it set before me was visible to a mind willing to trace it without fear.
"I do not need to see," I said, cold, each word a blade. "I have deduced. You are pattern and pause, shadow and mirror. Nothing here can surprise me. Nothing can trap me."
The presence recoiled faintly, recognition flickering but restrained by the limits of its centuries-old patience.
"You are infinite in your circling," I continued, "but finite in what you can conceal. Your centuries do not grant omniscience. They grant repetition. Every step you moved me, every trial you orchestrated, every layer you folded into this nightmare I have seen it all."
The cave seemed to shudder under the weight of the silence, the shadows pressing closer, yet still failing to touch me.
And then I said it, voice colder than stone, final and unyielding.
"You believed I would not notice the strings that wrap around my mind. You are not here to help me, nor are you here to kill me and take this body, not because you do not want to, but because you cannot."
Everything was written to end this way. The Vowalkers, the illusions, they were only the beginning. And you, you are not even the endgame. You are merely someone betting on the only winning piece you have ever glimpsed.
"You once must have despised people like me, and now the one you hate most is yourself for never becoming like me."
Everything you said only proves one thing, You said things like Nameless, Named, a pain that never ends. It all comes down to this... you could never give your all to those who made you, and you were never useful enough not to be discarded. Your entire existence is really nothing but something.
๐น๐น
Dry Water, who had lived for centuries, must have long lost his mind along the way. Yet now, confronted by someone utterly unknown, someone who did not falter, even he seemed to feel something he had not in countless ages.
The light streaming from the skeleton disappeared entirely. The cave became a void, pitch black and absolute. There was nothing to see, nothing to touch, nothing to measure.
Ayanokouji lay there, eyes closed, breathing shallow, attuned to the faintest hint of movement in the darkness. He knew Dry Water needed him.
Ayanokouji had spoken deliberately, aloud and in thought simultaneously, words and monologue intertwined.
Dry Water had infiltrated his mind while he floated in the water, and now Ayanokouji used that connection, confronting the entity both verbally and mentally.
Even without the passage of time, the cave grew cold, as if it carried its own definition of temporality a time revolving entirely around Dry Water. Nothing was hearable, yet everything was.
Then, the skeleton's light returned, flickering in and out. One second the cave was illuminated, the next swallowed again by darkness. It was time to see what Dry Water had decided.
A raw sound emerged from the void. Was it anger? Was it annoyance? Perhaps both? No. It was something else entirely.
Laughter.
A sound indescribable, impossible to capture, as though the cave itself had come alive. The skeleton flickered in light and shadow, each pulse rising and falling like a breath taken only to laugh again.
Ayanokouji, still lying there, let out a quiet sigh and opened his eyes. He could not help the curiosity rising in him. He had never heard laughter in his own voice before. He had always wondered how it would sound, and now, even as the echo came from something older than centuries, it did.
It was beautiful. Unearthly. Perfect. Ayanokouji felt a strange twinge, almost jealousy Dry Water had been the first to wield Ayanokouji own voice in laughter, to claim it and twist it into something else entirely.
The laughter subsided, leaving the skeleton bathed in steady, pulsating light. The presence lingered, patient, amused, satisfied.
Then Dry Water spoke, voice rich with delight, almost playful:
"Oh heavens, when did you notice? Tell this old man everything. Tell me how you played me."
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phew, finally uploading again.
How was it?
Sorry for not uploading for so longย personal life has been a bitch.
I have a question.
Should I end this nightmare in the next chapter (Ch. 14) or Ch. 15? If I finish it in Ch. 14, it might take 1โ2 days to upload because it'll be a big chapter. But if I do it in Ch. 15, I might be able to upload two chapters โone tomorrow and one the day after.
If I finish it in the next chapter, I might end up rushing a little.
Why haven't I continued this chapter yet?
It's just easier to start chapters with an explanation, then continue the story, rather than weaving explanations into an ongoing chapter.
Peace :D