The shoji doors slid open with a whisper.
Beyond them lay the one place Elijah had built with intention, not impulse. A pocket of stillness carved from chaos. Polished tatami reflected the warm lantern light, casting golden shadows across the chamber's sacred relics. Not trophies—memories. Proof that he had lived.
The scent of cherry blossoms drifted through the air—faint, nostalgic. A cosmetic effect he'd never turned off. It reminded him of peace. Or what peace might've felt like, once.
He stepped inside and slid the doors shut behind him. Silence folded in around him like a familiar embrace.
Here, he wasn't a burnt-out husk clocking overtime. Not a ghost behind a desk. Not the afterthought whose family spoke to group chats more than they spoke to him.
Here, he was Elijah. The Lone Reaper. Shadow. Justice. A phantom who hunted the monsters people became when they thought no one would stop them.
The silence welcomed him home.
His eyes moved over the walls, the floor, the quiet collection of weapons and armor. Nothing was arranged for show. Everything had weight.
The sword that turned the tide against a griefer guild's frontline. The scorched stave of a raid boss that wiped three servers before Elijah cornered it solo—out of spite, not glory.
And beside them all… the cloak.
It hung on its lacquered stand like a sheathed nightmare. Mimic. A World Item. Ancient. Sentient. Terrifying. Loyal.
The black material shimmered with restrained power, constantly shifting at the edges like it hadn't fully decided what shape it wanted to be. The air around it bent faintly, subtly warped by its presence.
He stepped close. Reached out.
His fingers brushed the fabric.
Mimic pulsed. A low, intelligent ripple rolled through the cloak—acknowledgment. Understanding.
"Not yet," Elijah murmured. "A few minutes more."
The cloak settled.
He crossed the room slowly, his steps soft but precise. Not cautious. Ceremonial. Like walking through the remnants of something sacred and long dead.
At the center of the room, a sword rested across a stand of white silk. It gleamed with age, not polish. Folded steel. Scarred from time, not damage.
It wasn't a raid reward. Not a PvP trophy.
It was Touch Me's first sword.
The one he used before he earned his World Champion blade.
The one he gave away.
Elijah knelt before it.
"Touch Me," he whispered.
The name landed heavy. Reverent. It wasn't just a player handle. Not to him.
And then, in the silence of his own mind, the voice returned—earnest, unwavering, and just a little too loud.
"Because saving someone in need is always the right thing to do!!"
A smile ghosted across Elijah's face before it vanished.
He remembered it all—down to the heartbeat.
He'd been Level 9. Cornered by laughing PKers. His armor stripped. Items gone. Screaming for an admin that wouldn't come.
Then… white.
A blur of brilliance. Silver and gold. Touch Me had arrived like a myth forged in code. The PKers never had a chance. Not against that kind of righteous insanity.
But it was what came after that mattered.
Touch Me didn't just kill them.
He offered Elijah a hand.
"Because saving someone in need is always the right thing to do!!"
It had sounded almost silly at the time—too idealistic. Too loud.
But it stuck.
Elijah took that hand.
And never let go.
He watched. Learned. Grew. Became something else. Not a copy.
A weapon cast in the same forge.
He stood, eyes moving once more across the room.
Every piece was memory. Every relic a scar.
The cracked skull of a demon king whose fortress Elijah cleansed alone. The ruined buckler of a PK leader who made a hobby out of hunting low-level healers.
Scrolls with messy handwriting, written by players he'd saved.
"You didn't just kill them. You saved me. I still remember your name."
"You freak. You ruined everything I built."
"Are you real?"
He kept them all. Even the hate.
Especially the hate.
It meant he existed.
A flicker in the corner of his vision.
00:04:11
The server countdown.
He moved toward the window where a lacquered box sat waiting.
His hand trembled. Just slightly.
His head gave a faint shake—like the world wasn't holding still. The narcotics were settling in now, spreading slowly through a body he could no longer feel.
It wouldn't be long.
He didn't look back. Didn't hesitate.
He opened the box.
Inside, on black velvet, lay a feather.
Pristine. Pure white.
One of the rarest drops in all of YGGDRASIL. Plucked from a celestial raid boss—an angelic monstrosity that tore apart elite guilds like paper.
Elijah hadn't been part of the original raid.
He just saw the carnage and went in.
Alone.
Touch Me showed up not long after.
They didn't speak. Not then. The battlefield was radiant madness—blinding spellfire, collapsing zones, holy magic that distorted entire regions. Together, they endured.
And together… they won.
Afterwards, they sat in the floating garden. Just the two of them. The sky was fake.
But it felt more real than anything Elijah had ever seen.
Touch Me laughed that night. Not a chuckle. A real, full laugh. Honest and warm.
Elijah had never heard it before.
He never heard it again.
Because not long after… Touch Me stopped logging in.
No goodbyes. No "one last raid." Just fewer logins. Then none at all.
Real life had called him away.
And Elijah—
Elijah had taken it harder than he ever admitted.
The feather was all that remained of that night.
He closed the box gently.
Returned to the cushion in the room's center.
Sat cross-legged. The sword across his lap. Mimic wound around him like a shadow coiling into place—protective. Proud. Now… anxious.
She pressed closer. Tighter.
She knew.
He pulled out one last item from his inventory.
A charm. Cheap. Handmade. A bit of digital wood tied with gold thread.
A Level 8 player had given it to him once after he saved her from a grief party.
"For luck," she'd said. "You're like… a superhero."
Her hands had been trembling.
No one had ever called him that in real life.
00:01:01
He didn't cry.
Didn't smile.
He just sat.
Out there, his body was slowing. Quietly.
But here…?
He had mattered. Truly mattered.
He had saved people.
He had fought beside heroes.
He had been seen.
And when the servers shut down—
He wouldn't go back.
He wouldn't log out.
He would die here.
By choice.
00:00:08
He exhaled slowly. A final breath, shared only with memory.
00:00:04
The lanterns flickered. Mimic shivered around him, her form tightening like a heartbeat. She reached for something—beyond code.
00:00:01
Darkness.