CHAPTER 60 — The Shadow and the Ash
Night had fallen over the Academy like a cloth too heavy.
Zayn and Yojuro walked side by side through a secondary corridor, where the torches were sparser and the shadows denser. Their footsteps made no sound. Yojuro had insisted: "We don't tell anyone. If she knows we're coming, she'll hide."
Zayn hadn't argued.
They stopped before a door. Shizumi's. A faint blue glow filtered beneath the wood, weak, almost imperceptible. Yojuro placed his hand on the handle, opened it without a sound.
Shizumi sat on her bed, back to the door. She hadn't turned around. She was speaking.
"… he didn't survive. They say it was an experiment, but I know they killed him."
Her voice was calm, almost empty. She wasn't crying. She had passed the age of tears.
Beside her, a shadow trembled.
Not a normal shadow. A shape, a masculine silhouette, thin, elegant, with blurred outlines. Its eyes glowed with a red light. It was smiling.
"I know, Shizumi. That's why I'm here. To give you back what was taken from you."
Zayn stepped forward.
"Shizumi."
She turned around. Her face was pale, her eyes red, but she wasn't crying. She looked at Zayn as if she had been expecting him.
"You came."
"You're talking to a shadow."
"It's Naraku. He's helping me."
The shadow smiled more widely. A red gleam crossed its eyes.
"You must be Zayn. I've heard about you. The bearer of Borealis. The boy who can't control his Primals."
Zayn clenched his fists.
"I don't know who you are, but you have no business here."
"I'm already here."
Naraku turned to Shizumi. He placed a hand on her shoulder — a hand that wasn't quite solid, like smoke and ash.
"I'll come back when you've decided. Remember: your brother is waiting for you."
He dissipated. Ash floated in the air for a moment, then fell to the ground.
Silence returned.
Shizumi stared at the ash. She didn't move. She didn't speak.
Yojuro approached her.
"He's manipulating you. He won't bring anyone back. He just wants living Paladins."
"Maybe. But it's the only chance I have."
"What if you're wrong?"
She didn't answer.
Zayn approached as well. He crouched before her, to be at her level.
"I know what it's like to lose someone. I know what it's like to want to bring them back. But what you're doing, Shizumi… you're erasing the living for shadows. You're becoming what the UAP did to your brother. A butcher."
Shizumi looked up.
"Then stop me."
Zayn looked at her. He didn't answer.
---
The next morning, a Class Zenith student didn't wake up.
His bed was empty. His belongings were still there. A thin layer of gray ash covered his pillow.
The boy's name was Aldric. He played guitar in his room at night. No one remembered his face.
Zayn learned the news as he came down to the refectory. He stopped at the threshold. He looked at the faces of his classmates — some tired, some empty, others still trying to smile so as not to cry.
He couldn't find the words.
Cynthia joined him.
"That's the third one this week."
"I know."
"What do we do?"
Zayn looked at his hands. He remembered the ash. He remembered Naraku. He remembered Shizumi's face.
"We save her. Even if she doesn't want to be saved."
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