"Morisaki-san?"
She stood in the doorway like a ghost.
Afternoon light spilled in behind her, casting a long shadow that reached all the way to my feet.
Her eyes were on me.
Or maybe, on us.
I followed her gaze downward.
Iroha's head rested gently on my lap, hair tousled, breath warm against my sleeve. Our fingers were still intertwined, like neither of us had wanted to be the first to let go.
By the time I looked up again, Rika had already turned to leave.
"W-wait! This… this isn't what it looks like!"
But she was already gone.
I didn't move.
Not because I didn't want to but because I didn't want to leave Iroha behind.
Half-asleep. Barely conscious. Trusting.
She shifted slightly, brow furrowing.
"Mnn... Ranjiro?" she murmured. "Why're you yelling...?"
I didn't answer.
Just stared at the open doorway, sunlight pouring in like the story was daring me to follow her.
She stirred again. "The door... it's opened. How?"
"Morisaki-san," I said.
That got her attention.
"She was here?" Iroha asked, sitting up groggily. "Did she leave?"
"Yeah," I said quietly. "She's gone."
I couldn't keep the conversation going.
Not when everything inside me felt like it had sunk through the floor.
I swear I hate doors.
I feel like I've been caught behind one in every chapter of my life, just trying to exist, only for someone to walk in at the worst possible moment.
I get the whole crossing the threshold recurring motif the writer is going for, but isn't it getting a little old having to always be the butt of awkward misunderstandings?
The last few times were recoverable, I'd like to hope.
But this time...
The way Rika looked at me. The warmth she'd shown earlier today.
Gone.
"Uh, Dungeon Boy?" Iroha said. "This is nice and all, but maybe let go of my hand before I lose circulation."
"Oh right. Sorry."
"Don't be."
We both stood up, the silence between us lingering like smoke from a fire that hadn't quite gone out.
Iroha didn't speak right away.
She just looked at me, her head tilted slightly, lips parted like she was still deciding whether or not to say the next thing.
Then she did.
"So?"
Her voice was gentle, almost amused. "You're not gonna chase after her?"
I blinked. "What?"
Iroha looked at me, a soft breath escaping her lips.
"Morisaki-san," she said. "I wasn't even conscious when she showed up… and even I could tell she was upset."
Her words weren't teasing anymore. Not really. They were soft like she'd put the claws away, just this once.
"...Yeah," I murmured. "It looked that way."
She stepped closer, brushing a few strands of hair from her face, and smiled but not in the usual smug, Iroha way.
This one was quieter. Wiser. Like she already knew what I was about to decide, and had made peace with it before I did.
"Well then, Dungeon Boy..."
She hesitated, just for a beat.
Then gave me a small push on the shoulder.
"Go be the hero."
I looked at her confused, hesitant, caught between two worlds.
"But what about you?"
She shrugged. "I'll be fine. You don't need to worry about me."
Then she smiled, faint and warm.
"Just make sure… when you come back here tomorrow, that our party isn't left without its wizard."
I blinked.
Then smiled.
She smirked, pointed a finger toward the door, and said "Go!"
"Bring her back, Dungeon Boy."
"Right!"
And in that moment, my world shifted.
A surge of energy rushed through my chest, like lightning dancing along my spine.
My school uniform shimmered, threads unraveling mid-stride into black-lacquered robes, glinting with golden trim. A katana slid into place at my side, balanced, familiar, like it had been waiting for me.
Finally.
I wasn't built for four straight chapters of hopeless subtle romance.
The tiles beneath my feet cracked and gave way, falling into a sea of shifting stone.
Desks and chairs splintered into dust.
The chalkboard warped into crumbling stone brick.
Torchlight flickered in from nowhere. Casting long shadows that twisted with the motion of my breath.
The door I faced stretched wide.
Its frame now rusted iron bars, bent outward like something had finally broken free.
Chains hung loose from the ceiling, clattering as if they'd just been snapped.
The room had become a prison.
And that open doorway? That was the way out.
Wind howled through it, thick with the scent of moss, cold metal, and forgotten air.
Far in the distance, I heard the echo of footsteps. Hers? Maybe. I didn't care.
I dropped into a stance. Legs firm, eyes burning.
Not with fear.
Not with hesitation.
But with purpose.
And in the blink of an eye. I was gone.
Into stone halls cloaked in flickering firelight.
Past shattered pillars and crumbling relics left behind by forgotten gods.
Every step forward peeled away what was left of the classroom and pulled me deeper into adventure.
Don't worry, Morisaki-san.
I'm on my way.
The wind screamed through the corridor like a warning I refused to hear.
Stone underfoot blurred past in rhythmic cadence, the sound of sandals pounding against the floor like a drumline to purpose. My breath was sharp. My grip tighter. My robes snapped behind me as I ran, faster than I thought I could move.
The world had shifted, but I wasn't paying attention to its shape.
She didn't leave footprints.
She left presence, a pull in the air, a tilt in the light.
And I was running straight into it.
Rika.
I didn't know where she was going.
But I knew what that silence meant.
She didn't say a word.
She didn't need to.
Her leaving said everything.
And maybe I didn't owe her anything.
Maybe we were just friends playing a game.
But even so.
The thought of her walking away like that, thinking whatever she's thinking...
It made my chest feel tight.
I wasn't running to explain.
I wasn't running to fix it.
I just… I didn't want her last memory of me to be that.
The corridor stretched onward like a throat about to swallow me.
Torches burned cold along the walls.
And somewhere between my third breath and my next step, the heat disappeared.
The stone beneath my feet grew slick.
The walls stopped sweating moss and began to glitter.
Crystals formed along the edges of each brick, delicate at first, then growing, reaching.
Frost climbed like ivy.
The air grew thin.
I didn't stop.
But I felt it.
That shift.
Like I'd stepped out of the world I knew...
and into hers.
The firelight was gone.
Only pale-blue light remained. The kind that doesn't come from a source.
The kind that just... exists.
Like moonlight on snow.
Each breath left my lips in clouds.
Each step echoed like a footfall on glass.
This wasn't a prison anymore.
It was a cathedral of ice.
A place not meant to hold people in but to keep them out.
I slowed.
Only then did I notice how far the stone had receded.
How much of the warmth was gone.
This wasn't just a corridor anymore.
It was a boundary.
A warning.
Everything around me felt curated, not by a dungeon master, but by someone who'd spent a lifetime choosing silence over risk.
Walls that gleamed like frozen glass.
Ceilings so high, they disappeared into fog.
And not a single door in sight.
This is how she keeps people away.
That thought hit harder than it should've.
Because I wasn't even sure if it was true or just what I believed, standing in a place that felt so much like her.
And then I saw it.
Something stood ahead.
Still. Towering.
Outlined in frost and shadow, where the corridor narrowed into pale mist.
A knight.
But not the kind you fight in games.
This one felt... older.
Like it had been forged from the silence itself.
Its armor was dark, not rusted, but frozen, plates rimmed in ice like it had stood in this place longer than memory.
A plume of silver trailed from its helm, unmoving despite the wind.
Its sword wasn't drawn. Just planted into the frost-covered stone, both hands resting atop the hilt like a gravemarker.
The temperature dropped around it.
And though it made no sound, no motion...
I felt it.
Like it was watching me.
Judging me.
Despite everything, the frost, the weight in the air, the way it just stood there like a monument.
I knew what this was.
I dropped into a stance.
Low. Focused.
My hand gripped the hilt.
"I don't have time for this."
I lunged.
In a flash of robes and steel, I closed the distance and brought my blade down in a clean arc, sharp, fast, decisive.
But I never made contact.
Steel rang out. A shuddering clash that echoed down the corridor.
His sword was up, blocking mine with impossible ease.
A moment ago, it had been buried in the frost.
Now it was in his hands.
And I never even saw him move.
His parry sent me reeling.
Steel met steel, and the force behind it jolted through my arms like lightning.
I staggered back, boots skidding across the frost-slick floor.
But I stayed upright.
Barely.
Teeth clenched. Blade raised.
"Echo Step!"
The spell burst forth from my throat.
Two shadowed copies burst out from my form, flickering silhouettes drawn from light and will.
I lunged again.
All three of me, charging side by side.
We struck in unison.
Three blades slashing in perfect rhythm, mine real, theirs meant to confuse.
And for a second, it worked.
The knight shifted, reacting to the wrong one.
But his armor was too thick.
Even when my strike landed, it barely scratched.
Then his helm turned.
And I felt it.
He'd found the real me.
The sword came down in a single, brutal arc.
An overhead swing with enough force to shatter the ground.
I leapt back.
Felt the wind of it pass an inch from my face.
The floor where I'd just been exploded in a spray of frost and shattered stone.
The moment my feet hit the ground, he moved.
No roar. No anger.
Just motion, smooth and silent, like gravity deciding to fight back.
The knight advanced.
Each step cracked the frost beneath him.
Not fast but unstoppable.
Like the corridor itself was leaning forward to push me back.
He swung again, wide this time, forcing me to dodge sideways, then again, then again.
I parried once, barely.
The impact numbed my hand.
My illusions had already faded.
No time to recast.
This wasn't a flurry of attacks.
It was precision.
Each strike meant to halt.
To deny.
To make continuing forward seem not just impossible but foolish.
And still, I held my ground.
Sliding, stumbling, adjusting but refusing to fall.
I ducked a sweeping arc, rolled beneath the next, and dragged my blade upward toward his exposed flank. Nothing.
A clang.
No dent. No give.
Just armor. Just silence.
He turned with me. Always with me.
Never overextending. Never giving me an opening.
I stepped in again.
Tighter. Closer. I aimed for the joints this time, under the arm, behind the knee. But the blade sparked off the knight's armor like it didn't matter.
His counter came fast. A twist of his body, a rising elbow into my chest. I hit the ground hard and slid across the frost-slick stone, air torn from my lungs.
I gritted my teeth. Pushed up. Charged again.
Another strike. Another deflection. A shoulder to my ribs this time. I staggered sideways, breath catching as the cold bit deeper.
He wasn't overpowering me. He was unmoving me. Holding the line.
He wouldn't fall.
Not by brute force. Not by repetition.
I glanced at my katana. It felt heavier than before, dull in my grip.
Not like this.
I needed to reach her.
But "North Pole" here clearly wasn't planning to make it easy.
I turned.
Behind me — ice.
Around me — ice.
A corridor that had become a tomb, lined in frost and silence.
This was her.
Not a prison. Not a warning.
Just a place others rarely dared to reach.
Her armor made of ice.
A pause.
But beneath it all — warmth.
She had the power to burn the world, if you let her.
And right now… she needed someone to remind her of that.
I raised the katana upright, its tip catching what little light remained, a glint sharp enough to split the dark.
A pulse thundered through my chest.
A fire kindled deep inside my chest. Quiet at first, then roaring, flooding my limbs with warmth.
I let it spread.
Through my hands.
Into the hilt.
Down the blade.
The steel flushed red, glowing like a brand pulled from the heart of a forge.
Beneath me, the frost hissed, a warning too late.
Steam coiled in serpent shapes as cracks spiderwebbed across the ice.
I turned.
Flames licked down the edge of my blade.
Then… I struck.
A wide slash to the left wall, fire peeled out in a crescent, searing ice into mist.
Then the right. Another arc, and another, carving lines of heat into the corridor like I was writing new rules into its bones.
The air screamed.
The corridor groaned beneath the strain, walls trembling, frost evaporating in sheets.
I didn't stop.
Because this wasn't just spectacle.
It was strategy.
I saw it.
His armor shimmered. The chill that cloaked him was breaking.
He staggered.
His footing slipped where frost had receded.
His frame, still immense, still solid. Steamed beneath the plates like a furnace barely holding its pressure.
The silence cracked.
One chance.
I stepped forward, into stance.
Katana tip pointed high, angled with purpose.
"Sunkissed Blade Horizon Line."
The name hit the air like a command. A confession.
The katana ignited in my hands, no longer glowing, burning, molten-red from hilt to tip. Flames didn't just curl along the blade. They devoured it, dancing like a second edge forged from sunlight itself.
The knight stepped forward.
Too late.
I surged. Faster than breath, faster than doubt. Spinning into motion.
The fire caught the wind.
And the wind caught me.
I became momentum. I became purpose. I became heat.
The corridor blurred, stone and frost warping into streaks of light as I cut across it like a comet. A blazing, spiraling blur of red, gold, and fury.
His blade came up, a wall of metal and silence.
I broke through it like dawn splits the night.
Impact.
The sound wasn't a clash. It was a slow shear, a warped shriek of metal unraveling under heat too intense to resist.
A bloom of flame surged from the point of contact, peeling the frost from the corridor in waves. Steam erupted like applause.
Steel parted.
Not shattered. Melted.
His armor split from hip to hip. A molten line etched across his core like a brand from the sun itself. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Then, with a groan of metal and a hiss of vapor. His torso slid backward, severed clean, parting from his lower half in a slow, dreadful unraveling. Both halves collapsed in opposite directions, swallowed by the heat, leaving only fire in their place.
A glowing line traced the air behind me, like the world itself had been marked.
The trail lingered, fire painted across the corridor floor like a horizon caught in mid-sunset.
The knight hit the ground in two parts.
And didn't rise again.
For a second, everything stopped.
Flame crackled gently in the air.
Welcoming.
The corridor pulsed with it. Not just scorched, Rewritten.
I exhaled.
Then stepped forward… through the line I'd carved,
Not far now.
The flames dimmed behind me, flickering into embers that danced once, then vanished.
The corridor, once frozen over like a mausoleum of silence, now breathed again. The stone beneath my feet was warm. The air had softened. Even the shadows seemed to retreat, no longer clinging to the walls like warnings.
But I didn't stop to admire.
I moved.
Faster.
The weight in my limbs was lighter now like something inside me had burned away with the frost. The tightness in my chest had loosened. My steps came quicker. Quieter. No longer desperate. Just determined.
Torches faded into daylight.
The corridor widened, thinned, disappeared behind me until it was nothing but the memory of a dream.
And I burst through the last threshold, out into the open.
Golden light.
That was the first thing that hit me.
A soft breeze tugged at my uniform, the fading sun soaking the courtyard in a warm, molten hue. The old stone path ahead, cracked and crooked, shimmered beneath the amber light like a bridge between two worlds. The gates stood open. The shadows stretched long across the ground. The warmth felt earned.
And there, at the edge of it all, was her.
Rika.
She was just stepping past the school gates, her figure catching the last gold of the sun like a painting still in motion. Her platinum hair gleamed, crisp and radiant, pulled neatly behind her ear, every strand in its rightful place. She wore her fitted winter sweater, tucked at the waist, pressed clean against her frame like even the fabric knew better than to wrinkle near her. Her skirt didn't sway, it carried.
Her schoolbag sat properly over one shoulder. Posture upright. Pace measured. Precise.
The kind of composure that wasn't shaken. Only hidden behind.
Her silver eyes, half-shadowed by her glasses, faced forward. Not cold. Not angry. Just... unreadable. A mirror turned away.
And still, I felt it.
The presence.
The same one that had pulled me through fire and frost.
She looked… still.
Composed, even now.
Like what happened back there didn't shake her.
Like maybe nothing could.
And then just before I could call out, she turned.
Not slowly. Not dramatically. Just a simple, instinctive glance over her shoulder.
Right at me.
Her eyes met mine.
And they didn't narrow. Didn't widen.
She just… saw me.
I didn't wait.
My legs moved before anything else did.
I ran.
Across the courtyard. Down the path.
My breath hitched halfway there.
My knees were heavier than they should've been.
Like I hadn't just sprinted across a schoolyard but out of a frozen tomb and through a knight that refused to fall.
The warmth of the sun hit me harder than I expected.
But I didn't stop.
And when I finally reached her, I didn't speak.
Not yet.
Just stood there, chest heaving, heart somewhere between my ribs and my throat, trying to catch my breath, and trying even harder not to lose my nerve.
I opened my mouth.
Tried to speak.
But she beat me to it.
"Don't," she said softly.
Not cold. Not sharp.
Just... still.
"I wasn't waiting," she added, eyes forward. "I was just heading home."
I nodded, swallowing breath. "Right. I figured. I just—"
"It's fine," she said. "You don't need to explain."
Then, quieter:
"You and Minazuki-san… seem close."
No accusation.
No hint of a smile.
Just a fact laid between us like a line I hadn't noticed I'd crossed.
"It wasn't what—"
"You don't owe me an explanation."
Critical hit.
I flinched. Swallowed. Then tried again.
"Okay, but… please. Just hear me out."
She didn't stop me.
"I'm sorry," I said. "That I made you upset. I know what you saw must've looked like something's going on between me and Iroha-san—"
She cut in: "What you do with others is none of my business."
I hesitated.
"Even so… I can't just stand by and watch a friend be upset."
She paused.
Her grip tightened on the strap of her bag.
Then…
"Are you insinuating that I felt jealousy over your relationship with Minazuki-san?"
"No… no, that's not what I meant," I said quickly.
She didn't respond.
But her eyes shifted. Just slightly.
The doubt was there.
I took a breath. Looked down. Then up again.
"I know we might not owe each other anything…"
My voice caught for a second.
"But you're the first person who I fe—"
I stopped.
Stumbled.
Reset.
"What I'm trying to say is… you're someone worth not losing."
Silence.
Her eyes didn't flinch.
Didn't waver.
Just held mine steady. Quiet.
Not cold. Not cutting. Just… hesitant.
Like she was weighing something fragile between us.
Then she looked down, lashes falling and stepped forward.
I didn't move.
I couldn't.
Her hand came up and brushed the side of my face.
Fingertips to cheek.
Warm. Human. Barely there.
Then… she leaned in.
A kiss.
Soft. Bare.
Pressed to my cheek like a secret she wasn't ready to say out loud.
Just warmth. Just contact. Just her.
My heart didn't skip a beat.
It rewrote the rhythm.
I opened my mouth, to breathe, to speak, I didn't know but she was already turning, like the moment had settled softly inside her, and that was all it needed to be.
Her hand lingered a second longer than it needed to.
Then slipped away.
"That's for… running after me," she said, barely above a whisper.
Her voice was calm.
But her ears, flushed scarlet.
"Don't get used to it. I'll deny it if you bring it up."
Didn't matter.
My soul had already left my body. Locked in place.
Or maybe just broken.
She turned on her heel and walked.
But this time,
She didn't walk fast.
She paused just before the gate, glanced back over her shoulder and smiled.
"See you tomorrow, Samurai."
Her footsteps faded. Mine didn't try to follow.
I didn't need to.
I stood there sun warm on my cheek, heartbeat stuck in the moment.
Somewhere between disbelief and full emotional collapse, my brain finally caught up.
"What the fuck just happened?"
Steam curled from the tea like it had something to say. The cup stayed in hand, untouched, just warm against the fingers.
My foot grazed something under the table. A kick was returned, light and lazy.
"Took you long enough to get home."
"Didn't realise I was on a leash."
"You're not. If you were, I'd have yanked it harder."
A glance sideways met a smirk and a sip.
"It's been forever," said with a sigh like the day owed interest.
"We had dinner last night."
"And?"
"…Sorry for missing you."
A pause.
"You missed me?"
"Pfft. No. Just wanted to see how you'd react."
No comeback. Just stared back at the cup. Same blanket. Same tea. Same quiet.
After everything, this was the first breath that didn't feel borrowed.
The heater rattled gently. A stretch, subtle, enough to steal half the blanket.
"So?"
"So what."
"You gonna tell me?"
"There's nothing to tell."
"Liar."
"I didn't say it was a good lie."
Another stretch. A yawn tucked into a sleeve.
No more questions. None needed.
Still here. Still sharp. Still insufferable.
Still felt like the one place untouched by today's chaos.
At least here the world stayed still for once.