The ceiling was gone.
So were the walls.
Even the weight of the body had vanished.
When ryo closed his eyes, the white void returned to welcome him—a space without boundaries, without directions, as if it were an embryo suspended before birth. The air was not still, yet it wasn't a wind either. It was a potential movement, like a living being.
Then…
The black shadow formed.
It stood before him as it did every time; a featureless body, dense, swallowing the light around it. No aura, no energy, no display. Just a presence pressing against the void.
ryo held his breath.
This time… he would not summon anything again.
No EIU.
No winds.
No forced surge.
He let his shoulders drop. He let his knees relax slightly. Just his body, as it was, with its true weight. For the first time in his previous training, he felt how accustomed he had become to being carried, being pushed, and having his movement corrected by an energy that did not belong to his muscles.
The shadow moved.
A straight punch, incredibly fast, yet cutting.
ryo tried to slide, but his body lagged by half a second.
Strike.
The void shook.
A sharp, muffled ache pierced his forehead, as if his thoughts had been slapped from the inside.
He held himself together. He stood his ground again.
"Don't think… move with the wind..."
The shadow moved for a second attack with a swift side punch.
ryo moved his foot, but the angle of his knee betrayed him. The fist collided with his shoulder, and his body was pushed back. He didn't fall, but he felt the weight dragging him down.
The third attempt.
A roundhouse kick.
ryo raised his arm, too late.
The pain this time wasn't just in the imagination. It was a real, throbbing headache, knocking against his skull from the inside.
He stopped.
The shadow did not attack. It waited.
ryo closed his eyes within the void itself. Nothing vanished. But he listened.
For a brief moment, he felt something passing by him… not a force, but a direction. A slight tilt, as if the void itself were leaning.
He opened his eyes.
The shadow lunged.
For the first time, ryo did not move before the strike, nor after it.
He moved with it.
His body tilted at the exact moment the "air" tilted. The black fist passed alongside his cheek; he felt its passage without it touching him. No jumping. No surging. A small, natural step, as if he were walking beside someone he didn't want to collide with.
Time froze for a fraction of a second.
Then the white void shattered.
ryo opened his eyes suddenly, throwing his body back onto the bed. His chest was rising and falling, and a light headache buzzed in his head, but it wasn't chaotic. It was… organized.
Drowsy, he gave a short smile, then drifted into a deep sleep.
He woke up to warmth.
Sunlight filtered through the window, cutting through the room's light with golden streaks. The scent of warm rice and eggs filled the air. On the table beside him, a familiar plate.
ryo sat up, without haste.
He held the plate with his right hand and began to eat the rice as if it were soup, the grains sliding into his mouth easily. With his other hand, he picked up an egg and bit into it whole.
At that same moment...
"Get away from him, you monster!"
A sharp, agitated voice pierced the room.
ryo froze in place. He turned quickly.
shimoro was sitting on the adjacent bed. His chest was heaving violently, his eyes were wide, and his right hand was on the wall beside him. The wall… was frozen. A layer of ice had crept across the surface as if it had frozen in a moment of rage.
ryo moved immediately at high speed. He grabbed shimoro's hand with a steady, firm grip.
"The fight ended a long time ago."
The voice wasn't loud, but it was final.
shimoro stopped.
His breathing faltered, then began to calm down. He looked at ryo, then at the hand holding him, then raised his other hand to his head.
"Where are we...?" he asked in a hoarse voice. "And what happened?"
ryo released shimoro's hand and took a step back. A slight smile escaped the corner of his mouth.
"We are in a kingdom or, to be precise, in a hospital… Coma Boy."
shimoro blinked, his confusion deepening.
"Hospital? Kingdom? What happened? Weren't we fighting the red scale fish in the forest of arabisel?"
ryo gave a short, mirthless laugh.
"The fish stabbed you, you idiot. But I killed it… and carried you here."
In that moment, the memories exploded.
The blood.
The penetration.
The sensation of cold spreading faster than the pain.
Something broke inside shimoro's chest. Not an ache, but a weight. He turned his head slowly, looked at the frozen wall, and saw a faint reflection of his face.
The face of someone… who did nothing.
"If I had..." He stopped. His voice choked. "If I hadn't been injured—"
"You would have died," ryo interrupted him with firm calmness. "You were injured because you were full of yourself. And because we faced something higher than us."
shimoro slowly clenched his fist.
He felt weak. Helpless. He felt the emptiness left by being carried, treated, and saved.
"I..." he whispered to himself. "I was a burden."
ryo looked at him directly.
"No."
"I was," shimoro repeated with a strange steadiness. "If I hadn't stopped… if I had been stronger… no one would have needed to save me. I wouldn't have nearly died. I wouldn't have..."
He went silent.
The last sentence wasn't spoken, but it was there.
No one would have died in front of me.
He closed his eyes. The coldness of the ice was no longer just external. It was inside him.
When he opened them again, the anger was gone. So was the panic.
Instead, there was a raw, unpolished decision.
"I won't let this happen again," he said in a low, steady voice. "I won't be a burden."
ryo did not object. He did not comment.
He only smiled—the smile of someone seeing something being demolished… to be built anew.
"I will control my power," shimoro continued. "And if I can't… I will make it obey me. I won't let anyone pay the price for me again."
Silence prevailed.
But it wasn't empty.
It was filled with the beginning of something new.
And on the wall of the room, the ice cracked slightly—
Not because it melted…
But because it settled.
To be continued...