The field was vast.
A near-endless sea of wild grass and late-blooming flowers swaying in a lazy breeze that seemed to exist just for this moment.
Golden light, thick and honeyed, poured over everything, elongating shadows and setting the seed heads ablaze with color.
It was empty.
Perfectly, utterly empty.
No leaves on trees were moving. Not even a trace of living creatures—no birds, no insects, no distant sounds of animals in the woods.
Just silence.
Heavy, waiting silence.
The kind of silence that felt alive. That felt like it was holding its breath.
And then that person was there.
A figure in white, standing at the exact center of the field as if she'd been planted there. Like she'd grown from the world itself.
Arcueid.
Her back was to me. Blonde hair a splash of pale fire against the deepening blue of the distant hills.
The last sunlight caught the edges of her silhouette, making her glow. Making her look less like a person and more like a painting. Like something that shouldn't exist in the real world.
She wasn't moving.
She was so profoundly still she seemed less a person and more a feature of the landscape—a strange, beautiful statue that the field had grown around. Like she'd always been here. Like she'd been waiting for centuries.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up.
Muscles tensed. Breath hitched. A phantom weight pressed against my leg where my Azinthenium blade should be. The blade that had killed dozens of Dumans. The blade that had saved my life more times than I could count.
In RAW, we have terms for measuring threat levels. Star class. Ginefa class. Demon class. We classify everything we fight, everything we kill, everything that might kill us. It's a system. It makes sense. It keeps us alive.
If I had to measure her threat level—
Threat assessment: Unknown.
Power level: Beyond anything I've felt before.
Can I defeat it? Obviously no.
Why am I even measuring this?
Is she our enemy?
I don't know.
She said what happened in the jungle wasn't intentional. She said she was learning to control her power.
How much do I need to believe in her?
How much can I afford not to?
I didn't know that either.
But my feet were already moving.
I walked toward her.
The tall grass whispered secrets against my pants. Each step felt heavy. Felt important. Like I was crossing a line I couldn't uncross.
I'd covered half the distance before she spoke.
Without turning.
Without moving.
Without any indication she even knew I was there.
"The grass here sings a different song than the grass in the jungle."
Her voice was clear. It carried effortlessly on the still air, soft but distinct.
It held none of the mischievous lilt from our roadside meeting.
This was pure, unadorned observation. Like she was reading from a book only she could see. Like she was translating a language only she could hear.
I stopped a few paces away.
"What does it sing?"
She finally turned.
Her red eyes caught the sunset, and for a terrifying moment, they looked like pools of molten gold. Beautiful and wrong and absolutely mesmerizing.
Like looking into something ancient. Something that had seen civilizations rise and fall. Something that would still be here long after everything I knew turned to dust.
"Safety," she said. "Monotony. Deep, slow roots. The jungle grass sang of fear and blood. Of things passing through too quickly to put down roots. Of death waiting in every shadow."
She was wearing the same white turtleneck and black skirt as always. But she looked different here.
Less like an intruder from another world. More like a translator—someone reading a text I was blind to, interpreting a language I couldn't hear.
"And you?" I asked. "What do you sing?"
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips.
"According to this grass?" She looked down at her own hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. "A wrong note. A tear in the sheet music."
She paused.
"But I am learning to hum along."
We stood in the gathering twilight.
The tension from the house—Angy's worried glances, Shenhe's silent watching—faded.
The absurdity of the school email faded.
The ever-present ghost of my erased team faded.
All of it muted by the sheer, vast quiet of the field and her strange, calm presence.
She's not doing anything.
Just standing.
Just existing.
And somehow, that's enough.
"So." I finally said. "Why here, though?"
She considered the question carefully. Like each word mattered. Like she was choosing them one by one.
"It is a neutral point. The energy here is flat. Calm. Easy to exist in." A pause. "In the jungle, everything was screaming. The trees, the ground, the air itself. Here, everything is... breathing. Slowly. Peacefully."
She looked at me.
"So. Why are you here, Nams?"
I moved to stand beside her. Not close enough to touch. Just... present. Existing in the same space.
"Well, if you ask..." I shrugged. "I just came because I got bored at home."
She laughed.
A small sound. Quiet. But genuine. It caught me off guard.
"Did you laugh at my words?"
She composed herself—or tried to. Her lips were still twitching.
"No, no. Obviously not. Why would I?"
She was still laughing. Slightly. Under her breath.
A laugh.
From her.
The being who can erase existence.
A laugh.
"Ahem." She cleared her throat. "So, Nams. I have a question."
"Don't ask me if I'm a human or not." I sighed. "I've already told you multiple times."
"Oh, come on, Nams." That mischievous glint was back in her eyes. "I wasn't going to ask that. At least not this time."
She stopped. Her voice dropped to something softer. Something vulnerable.
"I was asking..." A pause. Longer than it should have been. "Are you not mad at me?"
A whisper.
Mad at her.
For erasing my team.
For erasing Marcus.
For changing everything.
"If you're talking about the jungle..."
I looked at her. Really looked. At the red eyes that held galaxies. At the face that could have been human if you didn't look too close. At the being who'd erased something precious without meaning to.
"Then yes. I am mad. Obviously I'm mad."
She didn't flinch. Didn't look away.
"But..." I paused. "Do you really think I can do anything against you?"
She looked at me. No shock. No pity. Just... acceptance.
"Do you really think I can defeat you in a fight?"
The soft air hit our faces. Warm for evening. Gentle. Like the world itself was listening.
"I don't know."
She was quiet for a moment, gaze drifting toward a tree standing proudly beyond the field. Ancient. Solid. Unmoving.
"In this creation or beyond it... only a few have resisted my Exofail."
She looked back at me.
"And one of them is you."
"So... were they stronger than you?"
"I don't know."
Another pause. Longer. Heavier.
"We just never got the chance to fight. Before that, they already—"
She stopped.
Looked at me.
Something shifted in her expression.
"I'm sorry." Her voice was barely audible.
"For erasing something precious of yours."
I sighed. Deep. From somewhere in my chest. From somewhere that still hurt when I thought about it.
"Don't mind it." The words came out rougher than I intended. "I know what you did is unforgivable. But—"
"But?"
"Nothing." I looked away. At the sky. At the hills. At anything but her. "It's just... I'll miss that guy. The one who used to make me laugh when I was feeling down."
Yes. I'll miss him.
He'd been with me for forty-five missions.
Forty-five.
He was an idiot. A complete, absolute, wonderful idiot.
He made stupid jokes at the worst times. He fell off helicopters. He never took anything seriously.
And now he's gone.
Or not gone.
Walking around wearing my friend's face.
I don't know which is worse.
"You really fell off this time, Marcus."
For real.
After that, we didn't speak for more than ten minutes.
We just stood there, side by side, looking at the empty sky. The weather wasn't hot—cold season was settling in, making everything crisp and clear. The kind of cold that made you feel alive. That made every breath visible.
The sun continued its slow descent. Colors bled across the horizon—orange and pink and deep purple. The field turned gold, then amber, then something almost silver in the fading light.
This is what peace looks like.
If I squint.
If I pretend.
If I forget everything else.
"Hey, Nams." Her voice was soft. Polite. "How is this world?"
I thought about it. Really thought.
"You see..." I searched for words. "Some places are actually good. Peaceful. Like here." A pause. "And some places are occupied by Dumans. So you know how bad those places are."
"I see."
A pause.
"It is very... supernatural. For this world."
"What? The eating-humans thing?"
"Yes." A small nod. "That's creepy."
"Yes." She nodded. Small. Serious. "That's kinda creepy."
She said kinda.
Kinda creepy.
Like she's learning our words.
Learning to be human.
I almost laughed. Almost.
"Isn't that what you do?" She looked at the endless sky. At the stars beginning to emerge.
"You eat those who are below yours. Sometimes you don't even care if they're stronger or not."
Her voice was distant. Philosophical. Like she was working through something.
"Every being needs to kill something to keep themselves alive."
Is that true?
Do we all need to kill?
In Aventic, yes.
Here?
Here, people kill vegetables. Kill animals. Kill time.
Not each other.
Not like we did.
She looked at me again. Neutral expression. Unreadable.
"Maybe." I considered her words. "Maybe that's what we do. But we can't just let them kill our people."
"Sure." That small smile again. "You don't want to."
Don't want to.
No.
I don't.
The conversation drifted after that.
Small things.
The weather—how it was colder here than Aventic, how she didn't feel temperature the same way.
The stars—how many there were, how I'd never seen them before, how they made her feel small.
The grass—how it moved in the wind, how it sounded different at night, how it would be covered in dew by morning.
She notices things.
Everything.
Like she's seeing the world for the first time.
Maybe she is.
I found myself answering her questions. Pointing out constellations I barely knew. Explaining things I barely understood.
And somewhere in the middle of it—
Why am I still here?
Why haven't I left?
Why do I keep talking?
She erased my team.
She's dangerous.
I should run.
But I didn't.
I stayed.
Because she's listening.
Really listening.
Not like people in Aventic, who listened because they had to, because information meant survival.
She's listening because she wants to know.
Because she's curious.
Because she's... alone.
The stars came out fully.
Thousands of them. Millions. Probably infinite. Spread across the sky like someone had thrown diamonds at velvet. The milky way—a river of light I'd only read about in books—stretched from one horizon to the other.
This is what they meant.
In those old stories.
When they talked about beauty.
This.
"I've never seen stars before," she said quietly. "Not really."
"Never?"
"In my world, there was no sky. Just ceiling. Endless and grey and empty."
No sky.
No stars.
No sunsets.
No wonder she's always looking up.
"No wonder you're always looking up."
She glanced at me. "What?"
"Nothing." I shook my head. "What do you think of them? The stars?"
She considered it. Really considered it.
"They're beautiful." A pause. "But they make me sad."
"Why?"
"Because they're so far away. And I'll never reach them. And they don't know I'm here, looking at them."
Far away.
Unreachable.
Unaware.
Like her.
Like me.
"Maybe that's okay."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe they don't need to know you're looking. Maybe just looking is enough."
She was quiet.
Then,
"That's... strangely comforting."
Is it?
I don't know.
It just came out.
---
We stood like that for a while.
Two people. A Uncountable numbers of stars.
The wind picked up slightly—cooler now, carrying the smell of distant trees and coming night. The grass whispered around us.
Fuck!
I should go.
They're waiting.
They're always waiting.
They're always there.
But here—
Here, for the first time in a long time—
I don't feel like I'm waiting for something to go wrong.
I feel like I'm just... here.
Existing.
With someone else who's just existing.
But the thought of home pulled.
Of Angy's loud voice. Of Shenhe's silent presence. Of the way they'd be watching the clock, counting minutes, worrying.
One hour.
How long had it been?
Too long.
They'd mobilize.
"I should go." I said it, but didn't move.
She glanced at me.
"Me too."
Neither of us moved.
The silence stretched. Comfortable. Heavy. Full of things neither of us knew how to say.
Why don't I want to leave?
Why does this feel important?
Why her?
Then I stepped back.
"Same time tomorrow?" The words surprised me. I hadn't planned them.
She looked at me. Those red eyes searching my face.
"If you want."
"I do."
She smiled. Small. Real.
"Then I'll be here."
I turned.
Started walking.
The grass whispered against my legs. The field slowly receded behind me.
What is this?
What is she?
Why do I keep coming back?
The questions followed me as I walked.
But also—
The memory of the sky.
The colors.
The silence that wasn't silence at all, but something else. Something alive.
The way she'd said "Then I'll be here."
Like she meant it.
Like she'd actually wait.
Like anyone's ever waited for me before.
The village appeared ahead. Lights in windows. Smoke from chimneys. Normal life continuing.
And in my mind—
Young Master!!
Angy's voice.
Followed by Shenhe's silent glare.
They're waiting.
They're always waiting.
They're always there.
I smiled. Just a little.
And kept walking toward home.
-----