Inside the inn, Mochi stood by the main door.
Hours had passed since Haruka had left with the search party, and since then the strange snowstorm had only continued to worsen. The wind howled fiercely outside, and the snow kept piling up beyond the door.
Mochi closed her eyes once more, concentrating with all her strength. She had already spent several minutes trying to perceive the ether outside, clinging to an ever more fragile hope of confirming that Haruka was still safe.
"It's useless, Miyu…" she murmured at last. "No matter how hard I try, I can't sense anything beyond this door."
From the beginning, she had known it was an almost impossible task. She had no way of knowing how far away Haruka was, but she was certain she wasn't nearby. In recent months, Mochi had managed to greatly expand the range at which she could perceive ether—enough to cover the entire inn without effort… but Haruka could easily be more than a mile away.
And even so, that wasn't the real problem.
Every attempt at perception crashed against the same invisible barrier. Mochi felt the environment completely saturated, as if an enormous wall of fog stood before her senses, preventing her from seeing beyond it. The amount of ether in the air was atrocious, unnatural.
The hours passed slowly. The storm intensified even further, and with it grew Mochi's worry, as she continued to stare through the door.
"You don't need to be so worried about your friend," a calm voice suddenly said beside her. "Everyone is fine, I assure you."
Mochi turned around. The speaker was one of the inn's employees; she immediately recognized her as the woman who had brought them dinner earlier.
"Everyone in the group has lived in this area since they were children," the woman continued with a gentle smile. "They know these woods like the back of their hand. Besides, my boyfriend went out with them too. He's very strong, so I'm sure he'll bring everyone back safely… including your friend."
A strong boyfriend…? Mochi thought.
Then an image appeared in her mind.
"Is your boyfriend… the chef?"
The woman seemed to light up.
"Exactly!" she replied proudly. "He's the best."
Mochi remembered the excessively muscular cook she had seen earlier, impossible to forget even under normal circumstances. He had also joined the search party.
"My name is Kaori. Really, don't worry so much."
Mochi nodded. Talking with Kaori helped distract her a little, and for a few minutes she managed to push aside the anxiety tightening her chest.
"Senpai, look!" Miyu suddenly said, pointing outside. "Over there…!"
Mochi looked up.
"Yes… you're right. Those are lights. It must be them… they're coming back."
In the darkness of the forest, several points of light could be seen—undoubtedly the flashlights of the search party. Seeing them, the other employees quickly gathered by the door, holding their breath, anxious to know whether they had managed to find Rin.
However, that hope collapsed the moment the group entered the inn.
The search had yielded no results.
And that wasn't the worst part.
Haruka wasn't with them.
According to their explanation, she had separated from the group shortly after leaving the inn… and they hadn't been able to find her either.
At those words, all strength left Mochi at once. Her legs gave out and she staggered forward, but Miyu reacted in time and caught her before she fell.
Mochi's chest felt tight, as if she couldn't get enough air. Worry mixed with a bitter guilt: the last thing she had done with Haruka was argue with her. That thought kept repeating in her mind.
"I have to go look for her…" she murmured, struggling to break free.
Desperate, she tried to head for the door, but Miyu held her more tightly.
"Senpai, stop! Don't you realize how dangerous it is to go out in this weather? And besides… how would you even find Haruka-san? Are you going to search blindly in the middle of the forest? You'd just end up getting lost too."
Mochi clenched her fists, unable to answer. At that moment—
The main door burst open.
The sound cut through the argument, and all eyes turned toward the entrance. There stood Haruka.
She walked in with a calm stride, as if she had just returned from a simple nighttime stroll. However, a visible cut ran across her arm, and blood stained the sleeve of her coat, standing out unsettlingly against the light fabric.
"Ha… Haruka…" Mochi whispered.
She didn't waste a second.
Mochi ran toward her and, without thinking, jumped to hug her, knocking her to the floor.
"Agh! Mochi, what are you doing?!" Haruka exclaimed, completely taken by surprise.
She ended up sitting on the floor, with Mochi clinging to her, burying her face against Haruka's abdomen as if afraid she would disappear if she let go.
Kaori, who was nearby, reacted immediately. She hurried away and came back with a first-aid kit, while other employees gathered around Haruka with worried expressions, asking what had happened.
"I just… cut myself on a branch," Haruka replied calmly.
It was a lie, but she couldn't tell the truth in front of everyone.
"There's no need," she added right away when they tried to tend to her there. "The cut is small. I'll take care of it in the room."
Leaving no room for argument, she stood up and headed toward her room, with Mochi still glued to her side and Miyu following closely behind.
Once they were alone, Haruka finally began to recount what had happened.
As she spoke, Miyu used the first-aid kit to clean and bandage the cut on Haruka's arm. Fortunately, it wasn't deep—at least it didn't require stitches. Mochi watched silently from the side, uneasy. The reason she wasn't the one handling first aid was simple: her clumsiness was legendary, and if she were given the task, Haruka would probably end up wrapped in bandages like a mummy.
When Haruka finished her story, silence filled the room.
Both girls were stunned.
Two rank B anomalies.
That was the same rank as the fire anomaly Zeke had struggled against. And Haruka hadn't just faced two of them… they had also cooperated flawlessly, on terrain that favored them, under a strange storm that worked completely against her.
Mochi and Miyu couldn't imagine emerging victorious from a battle like that.
That revelation gave them a new perspective.
A much clearer—and deeper—understanding of just how powerful Haruka truly was.
"What worries me the most about all this isn't the two anomalies, but the storm," Haruka said with a frown. "I've never felt such a massive concentration of ether before. It's obvious this storm is artificial."
"Artificial…?" Miyu asked, swallowing nervously. "Do you mean there's some anomaly behind all of this, Haruka-san?"
"I don't know yet," she replied honestly. "To begin with, a single anomaly couldn't generate something this large or maintain it for so long. One might think that several high-rank anomalies joined together to cause this storm, but I don't see it as likely. So many anomalies cooperating like that is already strange… and even then, I doubt they could create something of this magnitude."
Haruka let out a tired sigh and leaned her back against the wall.
"Worrying about it now is pointless. There are still a few hours until dawn. We should get some rest. Tomorrow I'll contact headquarters using the inn's phone; my cellphone doesn't have any signal here."
The three of them lay down again, though this time in different positions. Mochi ended up in the middle, while Haruka and Miyu cuddled up on either side of her.
The next morning, Mochi was the first to wake up. Her arms felt numb, with a faint tingling sensation. When she looked around, she understood why: both Haruka and Miyu were using her arms as pillows.
Very carefully, so as not to wake them, she slipped out of the futon. She thought about stepping out onto the balcony to clear her head, but the moment she opened the window even a little, a blast of icy air hit her full on, forcing her to shut it immediately while shivering.
Shortly afterward, sharp knocks echoed at the bedroom door, waking the others. Haruka was the one who got up and opened it. On the other side stood one of the inn's employees, his expression tense.
He explained that the storm had knocked down the power poles, leaving the place without electricity or communications. On top of that, the snow had completely covered the roads, making travel impossible. He handed them a bag of firewood and explained that it was for the stove in the room, which was normally just decorative, but now—without electricity—was the only way to keep warm.
The employee looked as though he wanted to say something else, but hesitated. Haruka noticed and urged him to speak.
After a few seconds of hesitation, he finally said it:
"The lake… the lake has changed."
The three of them exchanged glances and quickly stepped out onto the balcony, ignoring the biting cold. When they looked out, they were left completely stunned.
The lake was completely stained red.
A dark, thick red, as if the water itself had turned into blood.