Ai met Elara's stare, face unreadable, like a mask carved from stone. "There's nothing to talk about."

  Elara let out a scoff. "The fact that you just ghosted through my hands feels pretty worth talking about, Ai."

  Ai crossed her arms, the slightest tightness in her voice.

  "It was temporary. And by the way...call me Akamatsu."

  Elara opened her mouth to ask why, but Ai silenced her with a raised finger.

  "Because in ōkuninushi, my homeland, surnames come first. Hence Akamatsu Ai, as I've introduced myself earlier. You only call us by our first names after becoming close-knit and all that. Not to be a dick about it, but like...you don't know me, and I sure as hell don't know you. So unless you want me to feel icky, then stick with Akamatsu for now.”

  Elara blinked, once, then twice, taken off guard by Ai's bluntness. It was such a…normal reply, so unexpected from someone who normally spoke like a soldier giving orders.

  Then her surprise faded, replaced with a small, crooked smirk. "Alright then...Akamatsu it is." She drawled the name like she found it amusing, but without any mockery in her voice.

  Ai didn't react to the subtle teasing, just kept watching her.

  Elara tilted her head, arms still crossed. "So, Akamatsu... 'spirited away,' huh?" She paused. "Still haven't explained what that even means."

  Ai gave a minimal shrug, practically imperceptible. "It means I died."

  Elara froze.

  Then she blinked, slow, deliberate, as if processing the words one at a time.

  "...What?"

  Ai stared straight ahead, voice flat again. “I died. But I was brought back in a state where I exist between life and death.” She flexed her hand open and closed slowly, shadow flickering at the edges like smoke from candle wax just snuffed out.

  “I'm not fully alive,” she said quietly, “and not fully dead.”

  Silence fell heavy between them.

  Elara didn’t move for a long moment… then exhaled sharply through her nose, a sound almost like disbelief mixed with reluctant respect.

  "So," she said finally, voice low but steady, "you're basically a half-ghost who can punch reality in its smug face."

  A beat passed…

  Then Ai’s lips twitched, not quite a smile, but damn close to it.

  “...You could say that.”

  Elara's eyebrow quirked slightly, like she caught a glimpse of the real person lurking behind Ai's mask.

  "You know...not gonna lie, that's pretty badass."

  Ai glanced away, as if not wanting to show how that one word—badass—actually made her almost smile.

  Elara folded her arms. "But I have questions."

  Ai crossed her arms in return, not turning back to her. "Figures.”

  Elara rolled her eyes. "Don't get smart with me."

  She took a step closer, almost toe-to-toe now, watching as a shadow curled lazily around Ai's hand.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "First of all..." she said slowly, studying the shadow. "If you're not 'fully alive,' then how come I can't touch you?”

  Ai glanced sidelong at her, expression unreadable. "My body is basically a spirit. Your physical world and my spiritual world cannot truly intersect."

  Elara's brow furrowed, watching the shadow twist around Ai's fingers like a dark snake.

  "So...what, that means you're always in your 'ghost' form?" she asked, half-musing aloud.

  When Ai answered, her voice held a note of dry irony.

  "Pretty much."

  Elara leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "...And do you...feel anything?"

  Ai shrugged. "No, I don't feel anything. I also can't sleep or get hungry. Also..."

  Ai began to levitate, floating up in the air until her feet leveled with Elara's head, then floating back down. "I can levitate as well, so there's that.”

  Elara’s eyes tracked her movement, unimpressed but thoughtful. “Levitate, huh? No hunger, no sleep…” She tapped her chin. “Sounds like you’re more machine than mage now.”

  Ai landed silently. “I’ve been called worse.”

  Elara tilted her head slightly. "Well...I also wonder how I can see you if you're technically part-ghost or something."

  "Because you're a Void Mage," Ai answered. "Users of Void Magic can see me, but ordinary people can't.”

  "Huh." Elara tapped her temple. "Guess that’s one more perk of this power I didn’t know about."

  She paused, then smirked.

  "So what you're saying is… only I can see and hear you out here, right now?"

  Ai nodded once. "Yes.”

  Elara's smirk deepened, her golden eyes glinting with something dangerous and playful.

  "Then you're stuck with me," she said, voice low, almost purring. "No running, no hiding. If I'm the only one who can see you…" She took a slow step forward. "...you’re literally bound to me."

  Ai didn't flinch, but something flickered in her expression. Not fear.

  Annoyance? Amusement?

  Maybe both.

  She crossed her arms again, the shadow around her form coiling just a little tighter.

  "Don't get cocky," she said flatly. "Just because you can see me doesn’t mean I have to obey."

  Elara laughed, a short, sharp sound like cracked glass dancing across stone.

  "Oh, I'm not asking for obedience..." She leaned in slightly. "...I’m just saying, I finally found someone who can’t disappear on me."

  Ai stared at her, really stared, and for the first time… there was no mask fully in place.

  Just quiet understanding...and maybe the tiniest hint of something else beneath it all.

  Then Ai looked away first.

  "...We should keep moving.”

  Elara held her gaze a second longer, then stepped back with a lazy shrug, the moment dissolving like smoke.

  "Fine, fine," she said, turning toward the storm-laced horizon. "But don’t think I didn’t see that."

  Ai blinked. "...See what?"

  Elara smirked without looking back. "That. The almost-smile. The flicker in your eyes." She started walking, voice light but edged with truth: "You’re not as hollow as you pretend to be."

  Ai stood still for half a beat, then followed silently behind.

  Above them, thunder cracked, but neither flinched.

  The storm wasn't just in the sky anymore.

  It was walking with them.

  Elara suddenly stopped walking.

  Ai almost walked right through her, then caught herself, floating slightly to the side.

  "You okay?" she asked, voice neutral, but not unkind.

  Elara didn’t turn around. Her hands were clenched at her sides.

  "...I just keep thinking about that fake Lyra," she said quietly. "Why her? Out of all the people it could’ve copied… it picked her."

  Ai floated a little closer, still hovering just off the ground. "Maybe because she matters."

  Elara scoffed, but it was weak, brittle. "She’s gone, Ai. Dead or missing or whatever, if she were alive, don’t you think she’d have found me by now?"

  Silence stretched between them like a wire.

  Then Ai spoke, softer than before:

  "Or maybe...she's been looking for you this whole time."

  Elara froze.

  The wind died down, for just one heartbeat, as if the world itself held its breath.

  Then Elara turned her head slightly, just enough to see Ai from the corner of her eye.

  "...You really believe that?"

  Ai didn't flinch under her gaze."I believe shadows only mimic what hurts us most."

  Another long pause.

  Then Elara exhaled, a slow release of tension, and started walking again.

  But this time...she slowed her pace.

  Just enough...for Ai to stay beside her.

  Elara walked in silence, the storm behind them slowly fading into the distance.

  Then Ai spoke again. "We're close."

  Elara didn't ask how she knew, she just nodded.

  The land ahead twisted into jagged cliffs, cracked earth splitting like broken glass underfoot. Wind howled through narrow canyons, and within that wind, whispers curled like smoke.

  Familiar voices.

  Echoes of people long gone… or maybe never real at all.

  Elara’s jaw tightened, but she kept walking.

  Ai floated beside her, a shadow wrapped in stillness. Then…

  "Wait."

  She reached out, not touching Elara’s arm but hovering near it, the way one might warn another away from flame without burning their own hand.

  "There," she said quietly, nodding toward a fissure ahead split down the center of a massive black monolith. "That’s where Rubina is."

  Elara stared at the crack in stone, narrow as a blade-slash across reality itself. She had no idea who in tarnation Rubina is, but seeing as this was the only sense of direction she had in this unpredictable realm, she tagged along. Her voice came low, like thunder before it breaks:

  "Then let's do this.”