The chamber was colder than the others. No torches. No sigils. Just stone that seemed to hum faintly, like it had been listening since before Rei was born.
The hooded figure waited inside, unmoving. No words, no introduction. Only a stillness that pressed into Rei's lungs like deep water.
Rei drew the Blade of Resolve. The steel quivered faintly against his palm, as if warning him.
The Elder did nothing.
Then the air bent.
It wasn't visible, but Rei felt it. His Enso flickered, the pulse breaking apart like glass struck by a hammer. His chest tightened, his rhythm shattered.
This wasn't a strike. It was a silence so complete it unstitched every thread of energy he tried to weave.
Rei gasped and forced his breath steady, sweat sliding cold down his back. He pushed Enso into his blade, trying to ignite it, only for it to die mid-pulse, strangled by nothingness.
The hood tilted faintly. Still silent. Still waiting.
Rei stumbled, his heartbeat erratic. The presence in the chamber was suffocating, wrong in a way that made his bones ache. It was the same weight he had felt once before, back in Hurukoya, when the Elders tore the world apart. Not the same person, but the same kind of power. A counterpart.
The void to their violence.
The stillness to their storm.
Rei dropped to one knee. His vision blurred, his blade heavy. But the memory of Shira's voice cut through the emptiness: Live.
He forced his focus tighter, smaller. Enso not as a flare, not as a storm, but as a pulse... a whisper that refused to die.
The blade quivered, then steadied.
Rei stood, trembling but upright, Enso thin as a thread but alive. He met the Elder's hidden gaze with his own and didn't bow.
The silence broke, not with words but with absence. The weight lifted, the hum in the walls faded, and Rei realized he had passed.
The Elder turned, walking away without acknowledgment. But Rei felt it, a sliver of recognition. The faintest nod in the dark.
He had survived silence.