Snow still clung to Chi's shoulders as she stepped out of the sealed ruins.
The wind hit harder, as if the land above had been holding its breath and finally exhaled the moment she returned.
Hinata followed a few steps behind.
Neither spoke.
The climb from the buried chamber had left something behind. Chi couldn't tell if it was part of herself or just the heavy weight of what she'd seen and sealed away. What she'd almost become.
Red Crescent rested heavier at her side, though the sword hadn't physically changed. The blade had quietly absorbed some of that strange Pulse energy from the chamber, without its usual humming or call for blood.
It was just waiting.
They walked through jagged stone arches, bleached white by centuries of wind and volcanic steam. The landscape ahead glowed faintly with red veins—volcanic rock split by streams of slow-moving lava far beneath the surface. Snow grew thinner as they traveled east, melting into wet gray ash.
Hinata finally broke the heavy silence.
"That girl," she said carefully, "the one trapped in the crystal..."
Chi didn't stop walking.
"She had your face. But she didn't have your eyes."
Chi answered without looking back. "No."
Hinata tried again. "She said you were meant to be bound to the Queen. That your Pulse was chosen for something special."
"It was."
"But you fought against it."
"I ran away."
"Same thing, isn't it?"
"No," Chi said firmly. "Running doesn't save you from anything. It just changes the shape of what hunts you."
Hours passed in silence.
By late afternoon, the sky had taken on a reddish color—thick clouds choked with volcanic ash that muted the sunlight. They crossed what remained of a scorched field, walking between blackened tree stumps that stood like burned guardians.
Then Hinata suddenly went stiff.
Chi felt it too.
Pulse energy ahead.
Moving with purpose.
Deliberate.
Ancient.
They dropped low behind the crumbling wall of a collapsed shrine.
Across the wide basin, five figures approached their position.
Four were Bloodbinders—wrapped in bone-trimmed robes, their skin marked with fresh ritual scars, carrying crude weapons that hummed with twisted Pulse energy.
The fifth person walked in the center of their group.
A woman.
She wore no mask.
Tall, draped in robes of deep red and black. Her hair was silver-white, and her eyes were completely blind-white.
A Flamebound Priestess.
Hinata whispered, "What the hell is a Flamebound doing this far from Oniheya?"
Chi's voice was quiet as steel. "She's here for what we just sealed."
The group stopped in the center of the basin.
The priestess raised one hand high.
Without needing to be told, the four Bloodbinders stabbed their weapons deep into the ash-covered ground.
The earth began to pulse like a heartbeat.
Hinata gasped. "They're trying to open the chamber."
Chi stood up slowly. "No. They're calling to what's inside it."
Dark red flames rose in slow spirals from where the weapons had been driven into the ground. The fire was almost black, like dried blood.
The priestess began to chant in a language that made Chi's teeth ache.
Chi moved.
Red Crescent flashed into her hand.
She was across the basin and among the enemies before Hinata could even speak.
The first Bloodbinder turned toward her.
Too slow.
Chi cut through him with a single strike.
Clean. Silent. Final.
The second one raised a bone talisman, probably trying to cast a binding spell—Chi severed both his hands at the wrists before he could speak the command word.
Hinata appeared beside her, both blades spinning in deadly arcs.
The third attacker burst into flames—not from Hinata's sword, but from her own Pulse energy igniting as she swung.
The fourth Bloodbinder tried to run—
He made two steps before Hinata struck him down from behind.
Only the priestess remained.
Still chanting.
Not afraid.
Not even surprised by the violence.
Chi walked toward her slowly.
The woman opened her blank white eyes—somehow managing to see everything despite being blind.
"You carry it with you," the priestess said softly.
Chi didn't answer.
"The sealed one. The Queen's great hope. A blade waiting to be properly named."
Chi stopped moving. "What are you to her?"
The priestess smiled, showing teeth that were too white.
"I am her memory."
She moved—faster than Chi had expected.
Fire exploded outward in all directions—not real fire that burned things. Binding fire that trapped souls.
Hinata was flung backward by the blast.
Chi stepped straight through the flames.
Their weapons clashed.
The priestess fought with a whip made of fire and broken glass, her movements wide and graceful like a dancer. She wasn't trying to kill Chi—she was trying to wrap her up, trap her, hold her perfectly still.
Chi cut through the burning coils with raw willpower.
Her Pulse energy flared hot. Red Crescent drank the power hungrily.
But the priestess was still chanting under her breath, even while fighting.
Some kind of seal was forming.
In the ground beneath their feet.
In the air around them.
Inside Chi herself.
She could feel it happening.
Old words creeping into her bones like poison.
The Queen's mark—unfinished and buried long ago—was reactivating.
Chi stumbled.
The world tilted sideways.
Her vision swam with red light.
The priestess stepped closer, no longer attacking.
"You sealed her away," she whispered. "But she still knows exactly who you are."
Chi fell to one knee, gasping.
Pulse energy was burning through her—not just inside her body, but through every part of her spirit.
The priestess reached down with one pale hand.
"Let go of your fear," she said gently. "Let it burn away everything you used to be. Become what you were always meant to be."
Then—
A blade flashed through the air.
Not Chi's sword.
Hinata's.
The priestess screamed in shock and pain.
A deep wound opened across her chest, blazing with violet light where blood should have been.
She spun around, shrieked like an angry bird—
And vanished completely into a pillar of fire.
Chi collapsed fully onto the ash-covered ground.
Hinata dropped down beside her. "Stay with me! Don't pass out!"
Chi's breathing came in harsh gasps.
The binding seal was gone—but it hadn't been completely undone.
It had touched her soul again.
Left a new mark.
A burn-like scar just below her ribs that throbbed with each heartbeat.
She gripped Hinata's arm tightly. "I need to keep moving."
"You need to rest—"
"We need to keep moving. Now."
Hinata looked at her with worried eyes, but nodded.
She helped Chi stand up.
Together, they left the basin behind.
That night, their campfire burned low and weak.
Chi sat with her travel cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders, Red Crescent resting across her lap.
The blade was completely silent.
But inside her mind...
A whisper remained.
Soft. Patient. Familiar.
"You are not alone in this skin anymore."
Chi said nothing out loud.