Shura didn't move, staying where he was as if movement itself might collapse the situation further.
Osiris knelt there, still alive, but visibly wrong his control no longer holding together cleanly like it used to.
His face, usually a locked mechanism, was breaking in ways Shura couldn't read: not anger, not fear, but something deeper, something the body understood before the mind had words for it.
"…Stabli—"
Osiris tried to speak, but the sentence never formed, collapsing halfway into a silence that felt too long, too unnatural.
Then a drop of blood fell from his left eye, followed by the right thick, dark, not like injury, but like something inside him had started leaking out.
His body dropped to one knee with a dull thud, and Shura's breath broke as the room stopped feeling stable.
"…What happened?"
His voice cracked louder than he intended.
The sound bounced off the narrow walls and came back wrong—too sharp, too alive in the dead room.
"WHAT HAPPENED? RESPOND!"
He moved instantly, dropping to his knees as his hands reached out on instinct then stopped mid-air.
Frozen there, as Osiris's earlier words echoed inside him: don't touch me again.
Shura's fingers trembled, caught between reaction and restraint, uncertain for a single suspended second.
"…I don't care," he muttered.
And grabbed him anyway.
"Osiris!"
No response came back.
The boy's body was still warm, but something inside it felt like it was peeling away in layers instead of shutting down all at once.
The room shifted again, and Shura noticed the ceiling cracks stretching wider, longer, like something on the other side was pulling them apart, while a cold thought formed without permission this isn't normal unconsciousness and his grip tightened.
"…What do I do now…"
No answer came only Osiris's breathing, thin and unstable, almost artificial in the way it struggled to stay consistent.
Shura looked again, and the blood that had fallen from Osiris's eyes wasn't falling anymore it was lifting, unraveling upward in thin dark threads like smoke returning to something unseen.
Shura froze completely, the room no longer feeling like a room at all.
"…What…"
He leaned closer. The smoke wasn't rising randomly. It was moving in patterns. Like it was being pulled somewhere invisible.
His eyes narrowed.
"…This isn't injury," he whispered.
He tore a strip of cloth from the curtain. Fast. Rough. Wrapped it around Osiris's eyes.
The moment it covered them—
the smoke slowed.
Not stopped. But reduced. Controlled.
Shura stared at it for a second.
"…it works," he muttered.
He didn't understand it, but he saw enough to know one thing this wasn't medical.
Osiris wasn't just hurt; something inside him had been triggered, like a system reacting to a condition Shura couldn't name.
Shura reached toward his shoulder again, stopped just before contact, then exhaled sharply through his teeth, holding himself back.
"…Fine."
Carefully, he lifted Osiris.
Like carrying a body that hadn't decided whether it was alive or not.
Shura adjusted his grip.
"…Don't die," he muttered.
Not like a plea, like instruction something the situation itself was forcing into form.
Shura turned toward the door, and for a moment it looked thinner, weaker, like it understood what was about to pass through it.
He stepped forward, once, then again, but the air near the exit grew dense and resistant, as if the room itself didn't want Osiris's condition crossing its boundary, and Shura paused.
"…What is this…"
He tightened his hold again and pushed through, forcing the door to open with a slow, unwilling creak.
Outside, the corridor felt darker than before not because of light, but because perception itself had shifted, like the space was filtering what could be understood.
Shura stepped out into the cold air, noticed Osiris's condition react slightly as the smoke slowed again, then moved faster into the narrow, empty street, scanning left and right no guards, no help.
"…Hospital…" he muttered.
Then corrected himself.
"…Which direction."
Silence answered again.
Osiris's body gave no guidance.
Only weight.
Shura exhaled sharply.
"…Tch."
He adjusted his grip and pushed forward again, faster now, his footsteps echoing too clearly against the stone like the street itself was amplifying him.
The sound felt wrong too loud, too exposed but he didn't slow, because slowing meant thinking, and thinking meant facing the fact that he didn't understand what was happening in his arms.
Then the street ahead filled with coordinated footsteps, three figures stepping from a side passage, then five more behind them, positioned instead of rushing, and Shura stopped as his grip on Osiris tightened slightly.
"…Not now," he muttered.
No request.
Just acknowledgment.
The lead man stepped forward.
Eyes sharp.
Voice calm.
"Hand him over."
Shura didn't respond immediately.
His eyes scanned them once.
No uniforms.
No clear identity.
But their stance wasn't street-level either.
Organized.
Controlled.
"…Move," Shura said flatly.
The man didn't react.
"Hand him over," he repeated.
A pause.
"Now."
Shura exhaled once.
Slow.
"…I said—"
"Not a negotiation," another voice cut in from the side.
Two more figures stepped into view, closing the shape of the street without needing to rush or announce themselves.
Shura didn't even turn fully; he already understood surrounded, clean formation, no escape gaps.
He didn't ask why, and something in his expression shifted slightly, not fear, but decision settling in where uncertainty had been.
"…Take him," he said.
The lead man blinked once.
For half a second—
he hesitated.
Then he nodded.
Two of them stepped forward immediately.
Careful.
Controlled hands reached for Osiris.
Shura loosened his grip.
Slowly.
Not because he trusted them.
Because resisting didn't matter anymore.
Osiris was lifted from his arms.
Lightly.
Almost too efficiently.
Like they had done it before.
Shura stepped back half a step.
Still watching.
Still calculating.
"…If something happens to him," Shura said quietly,
"…I'll remember your faces."
No threat in tone.
Just fact.
The lead man didn't respond.
He adjusted Osiris's position slightly.
Then turned.
"…Move," he ordered.
The group shifted instantly.
Too synchronized.
Too fast.
Just… disappearing into motion.
Shura's eyes narrowed.
"…Wait."
He took one step forward.
"I'm also—"
But the sentence never finished.
Because they were gone.
The alley ahead was empty again.
As if no one had ever stood there.
Only silence remained.
Shura stood still.
His hand slowly lowered.
Empty now.
"…What's that," he muttered.
Then—
he exhaled slowly.
But something in that exhale didn't settle.
It tightened.