Aria's breath came shallow, as if the wrongness in the air had slipped down her throat and lodged there. She could still hear the wet sound of those threads punching through the air, could still see the way they had glistened in the dim light. For a moment, she forgot about the sea outside, about the paintings, about everything except the fact that the old man lay crumpled at Masamia's feet like a discarded sketch.

She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand.

Bosch's voice still rang in her ears, that gentle fondness when he'd spoken of his wife, the soft way his mouth had curled as though he were remembering the scent of her hair, the warmth of her laugh. Even if that warmth was gone now. Even if, behind the porcelain mask, she was something else entirely.

And yet… he had kept her. He had found a way to keep her, even when everything in the world must have told him to let her go. That… that wasn't weakness. That was strength. Real strength. The kind that wasn't about cutting faster or striking harder, but about holding on.

Aria's fingers tightened on her bow. She thought of her own life, of the year with no one but herself to rely on. How she had learned to sleep light, to keep her hopes down, to be ready to vanish before anyone could notice she'd been there at all. It had been easier that way, easier than trusting someone new... Especially after all she had been trough.

And yet… since meeting Kaiser, she had begun to forget the habits that kept her alive. She had started walking at his side instead of in the shadows. She had started sleeping without her boots on. She had begun to think of "we" instead of "I."

Bosch had given up everything for that woman. If someone like him, someone Masamia called a Titan, could choose love over power, over freedom, over the world itself… then maybe love was not a chain at all. Maybe it was the only reason worth holding chains at all.

A hollow pang twisted in her chest. She looked at Kaiser's back, the same broad frame she had followed until now. He stood so still, the broken glasses in his fist dripping glittering shards, his shoulders loose and certain, as if nothing could touch him.

Her lips parted before she could stop herself. 'Would you…?' she thought. 'Would you stay for me? If it were me rotting behind that glass… would you give up everything to keep me close? Or would you walk away?'

The thought frightened her more than Masamia's inhuman tendrils. Because she didn't know the answer. Because she suspected she wouldn't like it. She swallowed, tasting the salt of the air, or maybe her own fear, and forced her voice into something steady.

"Kaiser… we have to warn her. Celestine's the only one who can face something like that." From the corner of her vision, she saw him turn his head slightly toward her, the barest acknowledgment. His tone was flat. "You heard her. It's going to be a tought battle for her, as we predicted. She has her job, as do we ours."

Masamia's voice glided in, smooth as oil over water. "Your valiant lady has already met the mistress of this house. She will be dead shortly, as I have already told you."

Kaiser's eyebrows shot upward, a flicker of something—recognition? satisfaction? flaring in his eyes. Without a word, his gauntleted hand closed around the back of her collar. The sudden yank stole her breath; a heartbeat later, she was airborne, boots leaving the floor.

She hit the ground in a roll, instinct snapping her into a backflip that put her on her feet again, bow already in hand.

Where she had stood, The floor erupted.

Black-red threads burst upward in a vicious tangle, writhing like veins torn from flesh. They punched through the air with wet, whiplike cracks, gouging stone, curling around shattered frames and splintered wood. Masamia stood at the center of it all, her porcelain mask fixed in that same serene, unreadable expression, even as the seams across her face split wider and the blood-filaments poured from her scalp like some obscene waterfall.

Masamia's tendrils struck, their movements so fast they blurred into red arcs against the dim, green-lit air. The sound they made was a sharp, wet hiss, as though they sliced not through space but through the flesh of the world itself.

Kaiser met them head-on. His blade moved in quicksilver arcs, every cut clean, every step measured, silver light flashing as steel bit through writhing cords. Severed strands curled back, wriggling like dying worms before melting into nothing.

Then, for the first time, he missed.

One slick coil, thicker than the rest, slipped past his guard with a speed that made it seem to flicker in and out of existence. It slammed into his chestplate with a sound like a war drum struck by a hammer. Steel warped and cracked under the force, and the blow hurled him backward—his entire body lifted off the ground, spinning once before sheer momentum carried him down the hallway.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Kaiser—!" Aria's voice ripped from her throat before she could think. She lunged forward, arm half-extended as if she could catch him, but the truth came to her in a heartbeat: he was too big, too fast, and if she put herself in his path she'd be broken before she could even slow him.

Something in her mind flared then. It wasn't thought so much as instinct, a picture burned into her mind so vividly it seemed carved there: a web, vast and white, strung from floor to ceiling, each thread gleaming like drawn silver and pulled so taut they could hold the weight of the world.

The world around her seemed to shudder. A deep, cold hollowness rushed into her veins, as if every drop of Sol she owned was being drawn through a needle's eye. The air thickened. Then, from nothing, pale strands began to weave themselves before her, spinning outward in impossible patterns, each filament humming faintly with a tension she could feel in her bones.

Kaiser hit them a moment later. The web shuddered under the force of the impact, bowing back so far it seemed certain to snap. But it didn't. The threads held, flexing like living steel, slowing his momentum until he hung there, suspended between floor and ceiling like an insect caught in a snare.

For a moment, the battlefield fell silent, as if even Masamia's writhing tendrils were caught off guard. Kaiser shifted against the web, testing its give before twisting his head toward her. Their eyes met.

For the first time since she had met him, through battles, through blood, through every cold calculation, there was no indifference in his gaze. His eyes lit with something rare and startling. Not approval. Not even gratitude.

Pride.

The weight of it hit her harder than any blow could. She felt it settle in her chest, bright and burning, eclipsing the ache from her drained Sol. The thought came unbidden: 'I can be useful to him. I can be worth keeping.' It was ridiculous, but the sight of it sent a surge of warmth through her chest, momentarily burning away the fear. 'If I can be useful to him… maybe he'll stay. Maybe I'll be worth staying for.'

She drew an arrow to her cheek, breathing through the ache in her limbs. She pictured it piercing Masamia clean through, sliding past those writhing red strands—saw it in her mind's eye before she even loosed.

The string snapped forward. The shaft screamed across the room.

Masamia, still locked on Kaiser, flicked a tendril up to swat it aside—

—yet the arrow was already past her guard, already buried in her shoulder. Green ichor welled from the wound, hissing as it met the air. She staggered, just a step, but it was the first movement Aria had seen her make that wasn't controlled.

Kaiser dropped from the web, sword already in motion, closing the distance between them in a blur of steel. But the moment he entered striking range, something was wrong. His steps, normally as sharp and certain as a hawk's dive, were slower, almost imperceptibly so, like the air itself had thickened around him.

Masamia noticed. Even with the green blood still spilling from her shoulder, she slid her head to the side in a movement so smooth it might have been choreographed. The blade missed her by a breath.

Then her hair erupted.

Every strand stiffened, writhing into its own black whip, their tips snapping like the tongues of predators. They struck all at once, the sound like canvas tearing apart under a gale, like waves smashing themselves to pieces against jagged rock.

Kaiser didn't escape this time. The first volley slammed into him full force, his body driven backward as if loosed from a bowstring. He struck the far wall with the speed of an arrow, stone and shattered frame bursting outward from the impact. Dust and shards rained down over him as he landed in a jagged crater.

Before the debris had even finished falling, Masamia was there. She closed the distance with a speed that mocked her wound, her figure a blur framed in scarlet threads. Her claws, long, black, and curved like the talons of some ancient beast, slid free from her fingertips. In all honesty, Kaiser hadn't even known she had them.

Tendrils coiled up from the floor, striking for his midsection. They met steel instead of flesh, skidding off his armor in showers of sparks. But the claws… the claws were aimed higher, creeping past his guard, driving straight for his throat.

For the first time, Kaiser's expression changed. Concern flickered in his eyes. His voice came out urgent.

"Aria! Help me!"

She was already raising her bow, hands trembling. The first arrow flew wide, swatted aside by a tendril before it even crossed the gap. The next fared no better. Masamia's threads moved like a shield with a mind of its own, batting each shot away with contemptuous ease.

Aria's breath quickened. She couldn't get through, she couldn't even imagine her arrow hitting her. The claws were closer now, so close she could see the faint red gleam running along their edges. Masamia leaned into him, her full strength bearing down, their locked struggle tilting steadily in her favor.

"Kaiser!" His name tore from her throat, louder this time, desperate, as if the sound alone might be enough to keep the claws from finding their mark.

"Aria!" Kaiser's voice was a raw bark, a command and a plea all at once, strained under the weight of Masamia's claws pressing closer to his throat. The grinding lock of their strength seemed endless, steel against tendon, neither willing to yield.

Seconds bled out like hours. The claws were almost there, his pulse brushing their edges—when a sound cut through the struggle.

A single word.

"Origin."

It didn't come from Kaiser or Masamia. It drifted into the room like a breath that shouldn't exist, heavy with meaning neither of them could yet name.

Masamia froze mid-strike. Her porcelain mask didn't move, and yet, somehow, the shock was plain.

Kaiser's reaction was the opposite. Slowly, impossibly, his mouth curled upward, stretching into something feral and terrible, the kind of smile that promised nothing short of ruin. No living man should have looked that pleased.

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