Rin's stolen data chip didn't unlock with a password.
It responded to memory.
When she pressed her thumb to its surface and whispered her Ralts's name—"Mika"—the chip bloomed with light, projecting a holographic schematic into the humid air of their forest camp.
Teo stepped closer, Lucario mirroring his stance, both their eyes reflecting the rotating image: a palm-sized crystalline implant, threaded with neural filaments, pulsing like a mechanical heart.
"Apex Seed – Prototype VII," Rin read aloud, voice tight. "Implanted at the base of the skull. Grants System-like access to anime-based abilities. But the fine print…" She swallowed. "Side effect: progressive empathy degradation. Subjects report emotional flattening within 72 hours. Full dissociation by Day 14."
Yumi signed sharply: It doesn't evolve them. It hollows them.
"Exactly," Rin said. "The Cult isn't giving people power. They're building perfect soldiers—obedient, fearless, and utterly alone."
Teo's jaw clenched. "And they've already deployed them."
As if on cue, the forest went silent.
Not the gentle hush of nightfall.
The void-silence of something unnatural approaching.
Then—laughter.
Light. Musical. Wrong.
A figure stepped from behind a kapok tree—tall, androgynous, skin faintly luminescent, eyes the color of polished jade. Their hair shifted like living vines. At their feet, shadows crawled, not away from light, but toward it, as if feeding.
[ WARNING: HOMO VERDANTIS DETECTED — ABILITY SIGNATURE: JUJUTSU KAISEN – CURSED TECHNIQUES ]
[ THREAT LEVEL: ELITE ]
"Hello, Bond-Keeper," the figure said, voice like wind through crystal chimes. "My name is Elara. I was once elf. Now… I am evolution."
They smiled. "And you are obsolete."
Before Teo could react, the shadows beneath his feet surged, forming hands that gripped his ankles with crushing force.
Not physical.
Cursed.
[ CURSE DETECTED: "GRASP OF VOID" — TARGETS EMOTIONAL ANCHORS ]
Agony lanced through Teo's mind—not pain, but absence. The memory of his lola's face blurred. Lucario's presence in his mind dimmed like a dying star.
"They call it the Empathy Engine," Elara said, stepping closer. "The Apex Seed doesn't just remove weakness. It feeds on it. Every bond you've ever formed? It becomes fuel."
They raised a hand. The shadows tightened.
"You feel it, don't you? The loneliness. The fear that you'll lose them all."
Teo gritted his teeth. "I won't let you—"
"Heartstep!" Lucario roared.
They vanished—reappearing ten meters away.
But the curse clung.
Teo's left eye flickered. His hands trembled—not from nerve damage, but from doubt.
Elara tilted their head. "You're strong. But strength without isolation is just noise. We've transcended that."
They snapped their fingers.
The shadows coalesced into a Domain Expansion—a pocket dimension of shifting bone-white corridors and whispering walls that echoed Teo's deepest fears:
"You'll fail them."
"You're not enough."
"They'd be safer without you."
"Welcome to Labyrinth of Echoes," Elara said. "Where every doubt you've ever hidden becomes real."
Inside the domain, time dilated. Teo saw visions:
—Lucario walking away, aura cold and gray.
—Yumi planting Bathala's seed over his grave.
—Rin reporting to the Cult: "Target eliminated."
"Break free," Lucario urged through their bond, voice strained. "It's not real."
But it felt real.
Because the curse didn't lie.
It amplified truth.
Teo was afraid. He had failed. He might lose them.
But then—he remembered Kael's last words.
"Loneliness is the real rot."
He looked at Lucario—not with fear, but with choice.
"I'm scared," he admitted aloud. "But I choose you anyway."
He reached into their shared consciousness and pushed—not with Haki, but with raw, unfiltered kapwa.
"I see you. I trust you. I stay."
The domain shattered.
Not from power.
From love.
Elara stumbled back, eyes wide. "Impossible. You didn't break the curse. You… embraced it?"
Teo stood, aura blazing gold-amber. "You think empathy is a flaw. But it's our weapon."
He raised his fist—Armament Haki flaring black.
"And we're taking your seed."
Elara laughed, but it lacked its earlier confidence. "Then come. Let's see if your bond holds when I rip it apart."
The battle that followed wasn't won with strength.
It was won with memory.
Every time Elara's shadows struck, Teo didn't block.
He shared the pain with Lucario—spreading the curse's weight across their fused soul.
Every time doubt whispered, Yumi hurled a Bathala petal infused with communal memory—reminding him of joy, not just fear.
And when Elara tried to sever their link with a cursed blade, Rin chanted a Conclave reversal rune—not to destroy, but to reflect.
The blade turned on Elara.
Their Apex Seed cracked.
They collapsed, screaming—not in pain, but in sensation. For the first time in weeks, they felt.
"Make it stop," they sobbed. "It hurts… everything hurts…"
Teo knelt beside them. "That's what it means to be alive."
He placed a hand on their forehead.
And with Lucario's help, gently extracted the broken Apex Seed.
It crumbled to dust.
Elara's eyes cleared. "Mika…" they whispered—the name of their own lost partner.
Then they dissolved into light, absorbed by the Maw.
[ APEX SEED RECOVERED — CORRUPTION PURGED ]
[ WARNING: IMPLANT TECHNOLOGY IS EVOLVING. NEXT GENERATION MAY BE RESISTANT TO BOND-BASED COUNTERMEASURES ]
That night, Yumi brewed a new tea from Bathala's core fruit.
Not to heal.
To warn.
"The tree is dying," she signed, tears in her eyes. "Every time we use its power, it gives a piece of itself."
Teo held the last fruit—pulsing with soft silver light.
He looked at Lucario.
They both knew.
To stop the Cult, they'd need more power.
And power had a price.
He ate the fruit.
The forest screamed in gratitude.
And Bathala's leaves turned to ash.