The shadow slammed down somewhere unseen.
My feet struck first, then my torso, then my head snapped into place a breath too late.
The impact drove the air from my lungs as the tendrils tore free and sank back into the darkness, retreating as though nothing had happened at all.
I lay there gasping, chest heaving, vision swimming for a moment, while Nagra remained utterly indifferent.
I suspected this wasn't unfamiliar to him, that whatever this method was, he had endured it countless times before, enough to develop a natural resistance to the disorientation it caused.
"Huff… huff… what the hell was that?" I asked, forcing the words out as my gaze met his. "Your technique, perhaps?"
He nodded once, which could have been out of dismissal or acknowledgment too.
Though the urge to interrogate him further, about its functioning, its limits, its costs, rose sharply within me, I pushed it aside for now.
