Just over two weeks after Aina’s birthday, Tokui High travels to the Kanto tournament.
The girls compete on Saturday.
The boys follow on Sunday.
The tournament hall is already crowded when Tokui arrives early Saturday morning.
Prefectural champions enter beside the other top qualifiers who advanced by a single arrow.
Equipment cases line the preparation areas beneath school banners unfamiliar to most of Tokui’s team.
Sayuri recognizes all of them.
She spent the last two weeks studying results, established shooting orders, and the archers most likely to close for each school.
Winning the Tokyo prefectural qualifier brought Tokui here.
It guarantees nothing more.
The leading teams from Regionals will advance to the National Inter-High in August, where qualifying schools from across Japan will gather for several days of team and individual competition.
Every archer there will have survived the same narrowing path through prefectural and regional tournaments.
For months, Nationals existed as one word on the club schedule.
By the end of this weekend, Tokui will know whether it belongs to them.
Their opening round begins shortly after nine that morning.
The girls retain the same order.
Morita shoots first.
Hit.
Ishida follows.
Hit.
Fujimoto holds the center.
Hit.
Aina stands fourth.
Sayuri closes from fifth.
Five archers.
Four arrows each.
Twenty chances to remain in contention.
When Aina raises her first arrow, nothing moves behind the targets.
No narrow figure waits among the shadows.
No empty face watches from beyond the range.
There is only the target.
She releases.
Hit.
Sayuri follows with another.
Hit.
The sequence continues.
Tokui completes the first round with seventeen hits.
Their second produces eighteen.
Thirty-five out of forty.
Enough to advance.
Only after they leave the shooting area does Sayuri approach Aina.
“How’s your side?”
“It hasn’t hurt.”
Sayuri watches her closely.
Aina does not look away.
“I would tell you.”
“You said that before during the preliminary.”
“And then proved why you should question me.”
“That is accurate.”
“I learned from it.”
The concern in Sayuri’s amber eyes remains for another moment before she accepts the answer.
“Good.”
They return to the preparation area together.
No Hollows appear during the quarterfinals.
None wait in the gallery during the semifinals.
By late afternoon, Tokui has survived two elimination matches and secured one of the region’s limited places at the National Inter-High.
The final places Tokui beside Korin Academy again.
Kanda Yukina closes from fifth across from Sayuri.
She has changed nothing visible since the Eastern Kanto preliminary.
Her black hair remains secured away from her face.
Her violet eyes stay on the range.
Even while the other Korin archers follow the changing score, Yukina looks only toward the next target.
The teams remain tied through the first two sequences.
Korin gains one during the third.
Aina enters the final sequence knowing Tokui cannot afford another miss.
Morita hits.
Ishida follows.
Fujimoto’s arrow strikes near the lower edge and remains inside.
Three.
Korin answers with three of its own.
Aina raises Tokui’s nineteenth arrow.
Across the divider, Korin’s fourth archer has already drawn.
Yukina waits behind her, composed and motionless.
For one instant, the tournament hall thins around Aina.
White stone replaces the polished floor.
A divided door rises where the targets should be, its edges burning beneath a colorless light.
Four figures stand before it.
Another figure remains beyond the illuminated boundary.
Midnight-black hair moves against a sky Aina cannot see.
The figure’s posture is straight, almost severe.
Her face is missing—not hidden by shadow, but absent wherever Aina’s memory tries to place it.
She watches the four without stepping closer.
The image creates no feeling of reunion.
Only distance.
Deliberate and old enough to resemble rejection.
Then the Korin archer releases.
Twang.
The impact returns Aina to the range.
Hit.
Aina completes her own draw before the remnant can disturb her form.
Her arrow lands.
Sayuri closes Tokui’s sequence with another hit, but Yukina answers from across the divider.
Korin finishes one arrow ahead.
Tokui finishes second.
As both teams complete their closing movements, Aina looks toward Korin’s fifth position.
Yukina is already looking at her.
The distance between them is no greater than the divider separating the two teams.
For a moment, it feels much larger.
Then Yukina turns with Korin, and the impression disappears before Aina can decide whether it belonged to the echo or to her.
No one treats the result as a defeat.
They came to earn the right to stand among the strongest high-school teams in Japan.
They have.
✦ ✦ ✦
The boys take the range the following morning.
Okabe leads.
Saki shoots second.
Mori and Takeda follow.
Ryosuke closes from fifth.
Their path is less orderly.
Saki misses his opening arrow, then records three consecutive hits.
During the walk back from the range, he examines his release beneath his breath while Ryosuke listens.
“You corrected the angle on the second,” Ryosuke says.
“I created the problem that required correcting.”
“And then corrected it.”
“That does not improve the first arrow.”
“It improves the next three.”
Saki looks at him.
“When did you become optimistic?”
“I am describing the result.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you need.”
Saki considers arguing.
Instead, he nods.
Aina notices the exchange from the opposite side of the preparation hall.
A few months ago, Saki would have buried the criticism beneath a joke.
Ryosuke would have offered one correction and left him to decide whether to accept it.
Now Ryosuke already knows which part of the release Saki is questioning.
Saki listens when he answers.
Before the next round, a loose strand in Saki’s bowstring serving catches beneath his thumb.
He reaches toward his equipment bag.
Ryosuke holds out a prepared replacement before Saki can open it.
Saki looks from the string to him.
“You brought an extra for me?”
“You damaged one during practice on Thursday.”
“You noticed that?”
“You complained about it for fifteen minutes.”
“I thought you weren’t listening.”
“I usually am.”
Saki accepts the replacement.
“I’m beginning to understand why Aina finds that unsettling.”
Across the hall, Aina lifts her head at the sound of her name.
Ryosuke does not respond, but something near his mouth shifts before he turns toward the waiting area.
Saki follows him without another joke.
The change between them is small.
It is also unmistakable.
They no longer move like a captain supervising a new transfer student.
They move like two archers who have learned one another’s timing.
The boys advance through the preliminary stage.
No shadows gather behind their targets.
No unnatural cold enters the hall.
Saki records three hits in the first elimination match and four in the next.
Ryosuke remains steady from fifth, closing every sequence without looking toward the result board until the team completes its final movement.
By Sunday afternoon, the boys secure third place.
Tokui High has earned two places at the National Inter-High.
Both teams will travel in August.
They will enter a national field composed of schools that dominated their prefectures, survived their regional brackets, and arrived with no intention of surrendering a single arrow.
The closing ceremony proceeds without incident.
Certificates change hands beneath the regional banners.
Tournament officials confirm the National Inter-High registration process, equipment inspections, travel deadlines, and the separate schedules for the boys’ and girls’ divisions.
The club advisor listens with the roster board beneath one arm.
When the officials finish, he faces Tokui’s two teams.
“You have earned August,” he says.
“Do not mistake that for being prepared for it.”
Twelve archers straighten.
“National competition will not allow you to recover from careless sequences.
We resume practice tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
Only after he turns away does Ishida begin crying.
Morita embraces her.
Fujimoto attempts to remain composed for several seconds before joining them.
Aina watches from beside Sayuri.
“We’re really going to Nationals.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be shooting against the best teams in Japan.”
“Yes.”
Aina glances toward her.
“You could sound slightly more impressed.”
“I will be impressed after we defeat them.”
Aina releases a quiet laugh.
“There’s my Sayuri.”
Across the preparation area, Saki attempts to straighten the National Inter-High qualification ribbon attached to his equipment bag.
Each adjustment leaves it at a different angle.
Ryosuke watches through three failed attempts before taking the bag from him.
Saki lets him.
“That seems familiar,” Aina says.
“He made the same mistake with his uniform sash last month.”
“You fixed that too.”
“It was distracting.”
“Was that the only reason?”
Sayuri considers the question.
“Probably not.”
Ryosuke finishes securing the ribbon and returns the bag.
Saki examines it.
“Acceptable.”
“It is straight.”
“That was included in my assessment.”
Ryosuke lifts his own equipment case.
Saki falls into step beside him.
Aina watches them cross the hall.
“They’ve become close.”
“They understand each other.”
“Ryosuke even knows when Saki-kun is about to need something.”
“So do you.”
“That is different.”
Sayuri looks at her.
Aina recognizes the weakness in her argument.
“Fine.
It may not be entirely different.”
The club advisor calls for the captain and vice-captain to confirm the National Inter-High departure schedule.
Sayuri turns toward him, then notices Aina searching through her school tote.
“What’s missing?”
“My phone.”
“Where did you last use it?”
“In the girls’ preparation room.
I plugged it in before the semifinal.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“The advisor is waiting.”
“He can wait.”
Aina glances toward the corridor.
Students, coaches, tournament staff, and families continue moving past the entrance.
Neither of them has seen a Hollow throughout Saturday’s competition or during any part of Sunday.
“There are still hundreds of people inside the hall,” Aina says.
“Nothing has appeared all weekend.”
“That does not prove nothing is here.”
“No, but it substantially lowers the likelihood of something approaching me unnoticed.”
Sayuri’s expression does not change.
Aina touches her wrist lightly.
“I’ll be inside a crowded tournament building for less than five minutes.”
Sayuri looks from her to the corridor.
“Send me a message the moment you find it.”
“I will.”
“If you are not back when we finish with the advisor, I am coming to get you.”
Aina’s cherry-pink eyes soften.
“I know.”
She leaves before the advisor has to call for Sayuri again.
The main corridor remains crowded near the entrance.
Aina passes two teams posing for photographs, several parents carrying flower bouquets, and a tournament attendant guiding a cart loaded with folded target covers.
Normal conversations surround her.
Normal footsteps.
Normal late-afternoon light entering through the windows.
She turns into the passage leading toward the preparation rooms.
The crowd thins with every step.
At first, the change is reasonable.
Most schools have already collected their belongings.
Several doors stand open, revealing empty benches, forgotten paper cups, and scraps of athletic tape.
Aina continues.
Ten steps later, the tournament announcements become difficult to distinguish.
After another ten, she can no longer hear them at all.
She stops near the first preparation-room door.
The main hall is less than thirty meters behind her.
The distance should not be enough to erase several hundred people.
Aina looks back.
Students still cross the opening at the end of the passage, but they move without sound.
No footsteps reach her.
No voices enter.
A tournament attendant pushes a cart across the opening, yet its wheels make no noise against the tile.
Cold settles over the corridor.
It does not arrive as a draft.
The temperature falls evenly around her, sinking through her uniform and tightening the skin along her arms.
Aina exhales.
A faint cloud forms before her lips.
Frost traces the lower corner of the window beside her.
A single white line branches across the glass, divides, and begins climbing toward the frame.
The phantom scars beneath her uniform turn cold.
A Hollow is near.
Aina continues more slowly.
Her phone rests where she left it, connected to an outlet beneath the far window.
She enters the preparation room without removing her attention from the corridor.
No movement.
No shadow.
No distortion in the glass.
Frost spreads beneath the window frame and gathers around the metal outlet cover.
It has not reached the phone or charger.
Not yet.
Aina unplugs the charger and checks the screen.
Three messages from her mother wait above one from Sayuri.
[Sayuri]: Tell me when you have it.
The tension beneath Aina’s ribs eases enough for her to answer.
[Aina]: Found it.
Coming back now.
She leaves the message open and places the charger inside her tote.
The fluorescent fixture above the preparation-room door begins to hum.
Aina looks up.
Frost has formed along the metal casing.
The right tube flickers once.
A gray band crawls from one end to the other as ice feathers across the translucent cover.
The light dims beneath it, struggles, and goes out.
The second tube flashes hard enough to leave a white impression across Aina’s vision.
Then it dies.
The fixture outside the neighboring room follows.
One tube.
Then the other.
Frost spreads across its casing at the same time, coating the metal before branching down the wall.
A second fixture farther along the corridor begins to pulse.
Its light contracts toward the center, fades to a dull violet, and disappears beneath a thin white film.
Darkness and frost advance together.
Not toward the preparation room.
Toward the main hall.
Something is cutting off her path back.
Aina steps into the corridor.
The cold deepens with every breath.
Ice crystals gather in the seams between the floor tiles.
Frost closes over the door handles and whitens the edges of the abandoned benches.
The green emergency light above the exit remains illuminated for two seconds longer than the ceiling fixtures.
Ice clouds its plastic cover.
The word EXIT blurs beneath the frost.
Then the green light vanishes.
Aina’s analysis finishes before fear can overtake it.
The fixtures do not belong to a single circuit.
The emergency lighting should remain active during a complete power failure.
The temperature could not have fallen this far without affecting the crowded hall beyond the passage.
The muted sound, the spreading frost, and the sequential failure are connected.
This is deliberate.
She turns toward the preparation room.
The door slams shut.
Frost seals the frame in a white border.
The handle refuses to move.
Three minutes later, Sayuri checks her red watch.
Aina’s message arrived at 4:17.
It is now 4:20.
The conversation with the advisor has ended.
Most of the crowd near the preparation-hall entrance has begun moving toward the outer doors.
Aina has not returned.
Sayuri looks toward the corridor.
People cross the opening, but their numbers are diminishing quickly.
Each person who leaves exposes more of the passage beyond them.
No light reaches its far end.
Morita is fastening the certificate tube to her bag.
“Morita.”
She looks up.
“Yes?”
“I’m going back for Aina.”
“Do you want me to—”
Sayuri is already moving.
The advisor calls her name from behind.
Ishida says something she does not hear.
Sayuri breaks into a run.
Across the hall, Ryosuke notices first.
Saki follows his attention.
They see Sayuri disappear into the corridor without looking back.
Ryosuke lowers his equipment case.
Saki is already beside him.
Neither needs to explain why they follow.
The moment Sayuri enters the passage, cold strikes her face.
Her next breath clouds before her.
Frost covers the floor along the walls and climbs every preparation-room door.
The white spread thickens toward the darkness ahead.
Sayuri runs faster.
Inside the sealed passage, Aina tests the handle again.
Ice cracks beneath her fingers, but the door does not move.
“A mechanical lock would not have engaged from this side.
A power failure would have released it, and neither would account for the frost.”
Her voice falls flat against the walls.
The cold has swallowed its echo.
A reflection crosses the preparation-room window.
Aina turns.
Nothing stands behind her.
In the glass, however, a narrow figure occupies the center of the corridor.
Its body stretches higher than the ceiling should allow.
Long, indistinct hair frames an empty oval where its face should be.
Frost radiates from its reflected feet.
A Hollow.
Aina turns away from the reflection without looking into the void.
The path to the main hall remains open.
She moves toward it.
The corridor lengthens.
The preparation rooms slide past her more slowly than her steps should allow.
The opening ahead retreats until the last traces of the crowd disappear.
Frost races across the floor ahead of her, sealing each tile beneath a white layer.
The cold enters her lungs and turns every breath shallow.
Aina stops.
The reflection is no longer behind her.
The temperature falls again.
Cold presses against her back.
A hand closes around her right side.
Every phantom scar ignites at once.
Pain drives her against the wall.
Her unlocked phone falls from her hand, strikes the frozen tile, and slides beneath a bench with the message thread still open.
The Hollow’s fingers do not press against her uniform.
They pass through it.
Through skin.
Through bone.
The cold follows them inside.
They close around something deeper.
Aina tries to turn, but the muscles along her right side refuse to respond.
One hand braces against the frost-covered wall while the other catches the shadowed wrist disappearing into her body.
Blue light flickers beneath her palm.
Ice fractures beneath her fingers.
The Hollow bends over her.
A sound enters the side of her head.
Not through her ears.
Through the scars.
“Found…”
The voice is composed of several voices speaking at different speeds.
A child.
An old woman.
A man whose final breath rattles beneath every syllable.
Another voice sounds disturbingly similar to Aina’s own.
“Found the one… who carries them.”
The fingers inside her tighten.
The clustered scars along her right ribs and abdomen tear open with the pain of eight different deaths.
Heat spreads beneath her uniform, trapped beneath a cold so severe that Aina can no longer feel her fingertips.
The corridor fractures into other places.
Burning wood.
Blood-soaked earth.
A train platform beneath winter rain.
A stone tower divided by blue fire.
At the edge of each place stands the same incomplete figure.
Midnight-black hair.
A rigid posture.
Too far from Aina to reach her and never close enough to explain why she is there.
Every time Aina searches for her face, the memory fails in the same place.
Features smear into damaged light.
Violet flashes once and disappears.
The final image is the divided door from the tournament echo.
Four figures stand inside its illumination.
The midnight-black-haired figure remains beyond it, watching.
The Hollow pulls.
Something inside Aina begins to separate.
Not flesh.
Memory.
Names rise through her faster than she can organize them.
Shiori.
Towa.
Setsu.
Chiyo.
Mayumi.
Kana.
Yui.
Mio.
The Hollow speaks again.
“Open.”
Its hand draws farther through her.
Frost closes around Aina’s knees and stiffens the fabric of her uniform.
“Return what was hidden.”
Aina forces her fingers around its wrist.
The shadow has no solid surface, yet the blue light beneath her palm allows her to hold it.
“No.
These memories are attached to distinct lives, but they belong to one continuous soul.”
The Hollow pulls harder.
Aina’s knees strike the frozen floor.
“They are not yours.”
The darkness around them contracts.
At the far end of the corridor, a door crashes open.
“Aina!” Sayuri runs toward her.
The impossible distance snaps back into place.
The main hall returns beyond the passage.
Sayuri crosses the remaining space in seconds, following the extinguished fixtures, the spreading frost, and Aina’s fallen phone.
She reaches for Aina.
The Hollow turns its empty face toward her.
This time, Sayuri sees one completely.
Her stride does not break.
She catches Aina’s hand.
Blue light erupts between their fingers.
The frost around them fractures.
The Hollow recoils.
Its arm tears free from Aina’s side, dragging strands of darkness and white vapor with it.
The force throws the creature into the opposite wall, where its body spreads across the frozen surface like spilled ink.
Aina folds forward.
Sayuri catches her around the waist.
“Aina.
Stay with me.”
Aina forces her eyes open.
Sayuri lowers herself beside her while keeping her body between Aina and the Hollow.
One arm supports Aina against her chest.
Their other hands remain locked together.
“Look at me,” Sayuri says.
Aina finds her amber eyes.
“I’m here.”
Blue light moves beneath their joined fingers.
Warmth returns to Aina’s hand where Sayuri holds it.
The Hollow gathers itself along the wall.
Frost thickens around its body, spreading outward in jagged white branches.
Sayuri looks directly at it.
“Do not touch her again.”
The shadow launches toward them.
Sayuri shifts in front of Aina, prepared to shield her with nothing but her own body.
The movement belongs to too many lifetimes.
The same step.
The same choice.
The same ending.
The thought cuts through Aina’s pain.
“Not again.”
Light bursts from her scars.
It travels across Sayuri’s arm and races along the walls in branching lines.
The corridor flashes blue.
The Hollow stops in midair.
Cracks of light spread across its body.
The frost covering the walls fractures with it.
It has no mouth, but it screams.
The sound enters Aina through every scar at once.
Dozens of voices cry out inside her skull.
Some plead.
Some curse.
Others call names she almost recognizes.
Aina clamps her free hand over one ear.
It changes nothing.
The scream is not outside her.
Several of the voices are hers.
Her body jerks against Sayuri as eight deaths tear through her again in a single instant.
Then the Hollow collapses into itself.
Darkness rushes toward the floor and disappears through the narrow seam between two tiles.
Silence follows.
A crack travels through the ice beneath Aina’s knees.
The frost begins to recede.
It withdraws from the ceiling first, thinning into beads of moisture along the metal fixtures.
The white branches covering the walls dissolve.
Ice releases the door handles and retreats from the seams between the tiles.
Aina exhales.
No mist forms.
The fluorescent fixture nearest the main hall sputters.
Its tubes ignite together.
The next fixture returns.
Then the next.
White light advances through the passage until the fixture above Aina floods the corridor with its ordinary electric glare.
The emergency-exit sign turns green.
The preparation-room latch releases.
Sound crashes back into the corridor—rolling equipment carts, distant announcements, closing doors, and hundreds of conversations continuing as though nothing happened.
Only the wet streaks on the walls and the cold water shining between the tiles remain.
Aina sags against Sayuri.
Footsteps strike the tile.
Ryosuke reaches them first.
Saki follows beside him, one hand already inside his equipment bag as though he expects to find something useful against a creature made from shadow.
Both stop when they see Aina on the floor.
Sayuri’s arm tightens around her.
“A Hollow attacked her.”
Ryosuke surveys the restored corridor.
“Where is it?”
“Gone,” Aina manages.
Saki crouches beside them.
His attention moves to the faint blue light retreating beneath Aina’s skin.
“You forced it away.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You repelled it,” Sayuri says.
Aina looks at their joined hands.
“We repelled it.”
The last trace of blue fades between their fingers.
Ryosuke retrieves Aina’s phone from beneath the bench.
A new crack runs from the lower corner through the dimmed screen, but the display remains unlocked.
Her conversation with Sayuri is still open.
[Aina]: Found it.
Coming back now.
He checks the time.
“Your message was sent six minutes ago.”
“It changed the corridor,” Aina says.
“The distance expanded when I tried to leave.”
Saki looks toward the preparation-room door.
“It controlled the lights and sealed the room.”
“It waited until the crowd began leaving,” Ryosuke adds.
“It knew where I would be,” Aina says.
Silence settles among them.
Then Aina remembers the voices.
“It spoke to me.”
Sayuri turns toward her.
“What did it say?”
“It said it found the one who carries them.”
“The memories?” Ryosuke asks.
“I think so.
It told me to open and return what was hidden.”
Saki’s usual humor is absent.
“That was not a random attack.”
“No,” Aina says.
“It chose the corridor, isolated me, and tried to remove something specific.”
Aina presses her hand more firmly against her side.
“There was someone else inside the echo.”
Sayuri’s attention sharpens.
“Who?”
“I couldn’t see her face.
She had midnight-black hair.
She stood beyond a divided door while four people remained inside the light.”
Ryosuke’s grip tightens around Aina’s recovered phone.
“I may have seen someone holding position behind us during the battlefield echo.
There wasn’t enough left to identify her.”
Saki’s gaze moves between them.
“I heard a girl warn me from behind at the preliminary.
That does not prove she was the same person.”
Sayuri’s arm remains around Aina.
“I saw someone watching from a distance.
Every time the memory shifted toward her, it ended.”
None of them can say whether they remember one girl or several incomplete impressions their minds are forcing together.
“The Hollow pulled harder when I tried to see her,” Aina says.
Ryosuke looks toward the seam where it disappeared.
“Record what you saw.
Nothing more.”
It is the only safe conclusion.
The figure could be an ally, an observer, or someone who chose not to stand with them when the door opened.
The echoes make the last possibility feel most convincing.
“Until now, we assumed they were drawn toward awakened souls by instinct.”
“This one assessed the building,” Saki says.
“It waited for an opportunity and constructed a trap.”
“It communicated,” Aina adds.
Sayuri’s attention remains on her.
“And it knew what you carried.”
The conclusion forms between them.
The Hollows can observe.
They can plan.
They can manipulate the space around them.
They can speak.
Most dangerously, they understand more about Aina’s memories than the four of them do.
“We have underestimated them,” Ryosuke says.
Saki rises.
“Then we stop giving them opportunities.”
“No one separates from the group at tournaments,” Sayuri says.
“Or anywhere crowded enough to create the illusion of safety,” Aina adds.
Ryosuke nods.
“We establish check-in times.
If anyone misses one, the others move immediately.”
“No assumptions,” Saki says.
“Not even after a full day without seeing one.”
Aina looks toward the corridor before lowering her eyes.
“Next time, I do not decide that a crowded building makes me safe.
I call one of you before I move.”
Sayuri watches her.
“Before?”
“Before.” The agreement passes between them without argument.
Sayuri helps Aina sit upright.
“Where are you hurt?”
“My scars.”
“All of them?”
Aina presses one hand against her right side.
“All eight.”
Sayuri’s grip tightens around her hand.
“We’re leaving.”
“The advisor needs an explanation.”
“He will be told you became ill.”
“What about the rest of the team?”
“They qualified for Nationals,” Sayuri says.
“The tournament is over.”
Her voice remains controlled, but each word carries an edge.
“You are more important than another photograph or meeting.”
Aina does not argue.
Ryosuke rises with her phone.
“I’ll speak to the advisor.”
Saki stands beside him.
“I’ll collect our bags.”
Ryosuke looks at Aina.
“Can you walk?”
“Not yet.”
“Then don’t.”
Saki gives Sayuri a brief nod.
“We’ll bring everything here.”
The boys leave together.
Their steps remain close until they turn the corner.
Sayuri waits until they are gone.
Then her composure loosens.
Aina feels the change in the arm around her before she sees it.
Sayuri’s shoulders are rigid.
Her breathing has lost its measured rhythm.
Fear stands exposed in her amber eyes, and one tear gathers along her lower lashes, held there by the last of her control.
“Aina.”
“I’m here.”
“When I reached you…” Sayuri stops.
Her gaze drops to Aina’s right side.
“I could see its arm inside you.” Her voice thins.
“It was pulling something out, and you were disappearing beneath it.
For one moment, I could not tell where you ended and that thing began.” The tear slips free.
Sayuri does not wipe it away.
“I thought I was too late.”
Aina raises her hand to Sayuri’s face.
Sayuri leans into the touch before she can restrain the movement.
“I thought I had lost you,” she says.
The claim is barely audible.
Aina’s chest tightens for a reason that has nothing to do with her scars.
“You didn’t.”
“That does not change how close I came.”
“No.” Aina brushes the tear from Sayuri’s cheek.
“I should have let you come with me.”
“I should not have allowed you to convince me otherwise.”
“There were hundreds of people nearby.
Neither of us had seen anything for two days.
My conclusion was reasonable.”
“It was wrong.”
“Yes…”
Sayuri looks at her.
Aina lowers her voice.
“I was wrong.”
Some of the rigidity leaves Sayuri’s shoulders, but her arm remains firmly around Aina.
“There will not be another time when you walk into an empty corridor alone.”
“That may be difficult to guarantee.”
“Then we will make it less difficult.”
Aina recognizes the answer for what it is.
Sayuri returning to certainty because uncertainty nearly took Aina from her.
“All right,” Aina says.
“We will.”
Sayuri closes her eyes briefly and rests her forehead against Aina’s.
Their joined hands remain between them.
A faint blue point appears beneath Aina’s skin.
It brightens once, no larger than a distant star.
Sayuri opens her eyes.
“But something inside me fought back,” Aina says.
“Inside both of us.”
Aina looks at the place where their palms meet.
“We need to know what.”
Beyond the corridor, Tokui celebrates two places at the National Inter-High.
In August, both teams will stand among the strongest high-school archers in Japan.
But the four now carry a danger no tournament official can record.
Until today, the Hollows watched from a distance.
Now one has chosen its moment, constructed a trap, spoken to Aina, and reached inside her for the memories hidden across her soul.
The Hollows are no longer watching.
They have begun to hunt.