Dead.

  Arghnipraksma stared at the human’s motionless body. That fragile, broken, blood-soaked being had died crying, her face twisted by fear and longing. Her eyes reflected nothing anymore—only a still emptiness that did not move.

  She remained there, unmoving.

  Though she could not speak like humans, though her throat was not made for gentle words, Arghnipraksma felt something wet fall down her face.

  A sensation she had not experienced in a very long time.

  She was crying. She did not understand why.

  That human… was her enemy.

  She had hurt her several times, with that disgusting, razor-sharp pain that had paralyzed her. So what was this… strange sensation she was feeling?

  With titanic effort, she brought her hand to her disfigured face.

  It was wet.

  She truly was crying.

  She had not understood all the words the human had murmured before dying. They were broken sounds, incomplete phrases, weak wishes.

  But she grasped something.

  You could call it a primordial instinct that even a being from another dimension like her could understand and comprehend.

  That human… had not wanted to fight either.

  That understanding pierced her more deeply than any sword.

  Arghnipraksma was tired. Tired of fighting humans who entered her territory with ambition in their eyes. Tired of other Ethereals who desired her position, her power, her core. Tired of those repugnant things that had begun to appear without expnation—creatures that belonged to nothing, that only devoured.

  When had been the st time she felt the warmth of the sweet yellow sun?

  She did not know. Time was abstract to her. Yesterday, today, the future—it was all the same.

  And yet… she remembered how pleasant it had been, the single time she managed to enter that other world. One filled with warmth and color alike.

  It had been… rexing.

  Truly, she would have liked to remain beneath that sun. In that moment, she felt something she had never experienced before. A sensation so intoxicating that it made her awaken.

  Peace.

  Her life had been a meaningless sequence.

  Fight.

  Kill.

  Break.

  Repeat.

  Kill.

  Fight.

  Repeat.

  Fight.

  Repeat.

  Repeat.

  Repeat.

  That was why that new sensation had been so… so liberating.

  But all good things come to an end.

  Before she realized it, those humans had banished her back to the Negative Zone.

  And once again…

  Her life returned to...

  Fight.

  Kill.

  Break.

  Repeat.

  Before she knew it, exhaustion had settled into her existence like a crack impossible to seal. It was not one particur battle. It simply… happened.

  The only thing her core had desired for so long was something simple. Ridiculously simple.

  To see the yellow sun.

  To feel its warmth piercing through her bluish skin. To lie upon the earth, stretch her tired body, and let the light caress her without the intention of hurting her.

  Just like that day.

  But that was impossible.

  Her life, as a Floor Boss, was condemned to be a struggle.

  Even when she managed to leave the Negative Zone for brief moments into the interstitial space, the story was the same.

  Fight humans.

  Humans who entered the interstitial space only to kill her and steal her core.

  Why?

  That was the only thing she ever asked herself.

  If it were up to her, she would not fight anyone.

  She only…

  She only wanted to rest.

  Now she had returned to the Negative Zone, without her core.

  That meant death. A definitive death.

  And, curiously, a part of her being accepted it calmly. She would not return to her floor. She would not fight again. She would not have to raise her tentacles once more. It was better this way.

  If she could not leave, if she could not feel the yellow sun again… then what was the point of continuing to struggle?

  She only wanted to rest.

  That thought crossed her mind like a whisper.

  Her vision began to fail. A sign that her body was already starting to fracture.

  Soon… she would finally rest…

  But something blurred appeared in her field of vision.

  It was the human’s face.

  The sadness was still there, frozen in her features. The fear. The frustration of a life that had never been lived.

  Something moved within Arghnipraksma.

  Her eyes were failing, her vision colpsing little by little, yet she could still see that face clearly. As if the world insisted on showing it to her one st time.

  The two of them… wanted the same thing… right?

  That was what she understood.

  Not words. Not concepts. A shared feeling.

  Then she made a decision.

  If she was going to die anyway, what did it matter to risk everything in one final madness?

  …Live.

  See the sun.

  Sleep.

  “Arghnipraksma… B.K.C… La…”

  With her agonizing body, gathering the few forces she had left, Arghnipraksma slowly brought her face closer to the human’s. Her cold skin brushed against Nene’s pale brown complexion.

  She pressed their lips together.

  And…

  “Mmm… huh? Where… am I?”

  It was the first thing the young woman asked herself as she regained consciousness.

  The cold was the second.

  A dry cold that did not bite at the skin but seeped straight into the bones. Nene slowly opened her eyes and found herself beneath an impossible night sky—a dark vault made of luminous panels that imitated stars. At its center, motionless and silent, floated a white sun that radiated no warmth, only presence.

  “W-What…?”

  She blinked once. Then again. Inhaled. Exhaled.

  The air flowed in easily.

  That… was already strange.

  For several seconds she did not move. Did not think. Did not react. As if her mind refused to fit the pieces together. Then, all at once, memory returned like a hammer blow.

  “…Ah!”

  She shot upright, eyes wide, as if waking from a nightmare far too long. Her heart pounded violently against her chest.

  “I-I… I’M ALIVE!”

  The scream burst from her lungs with full force and vanished into the artificial sky. Nene immediately covered her mouth, panic returning like a conditioned reflex.

  The Rank B Floor Boss.

  If she was still alive, then that powerful monster most likely was too. And worst of all, it could be nearby.

  She crouched down, breathing hard—and that was when she noticed.

  Nothing hurt.

  There were no stabbing pains in her chest. No burning in her bones. None of that viscous, desperate sensation of a broken body she had come to know far too well.

  “…Huh?”

  Confusion overtook her.

  Slowly, as if afraid reality might shatter at her touch, she felt over her body. Her Assault Suit was still there: torn, shredded, battered. Its ivory white was stained with dried blood, mud, and dark residue. The marks of battle were still present.

  So she wasn’t crazy.

  It had all happened.

  She brought her hand to her left side.

  Her brown skin was exposed… but where there should have been a fatal wound, there was only a scar. An irregur, faintly purple mark, as if the flesh had been stitched together from within.

  “W-What the… hell…?”

  A chill ran down her spine.

  She felt her right arm. It didn’t hurt. That relieved her… and at the same time unsettled her even more.

  “You know, we shouldn’t stay still for too long. We’re in the Pins. If we’re not quick, we might run into-”

  “W-WHAT THE HELL?!”

  Nene screamed as she rolled across the ground on pure instinct.

  The voice had sounded right beside her ear.

  She scrambled to her feet, heart nearly bursting from her chest, spinning around desperately in search of the owner of that female voice. There was no one. Nothing. Only the metallic ground, crystalline roots emerging from the surface, and the distant reflection of the white sun.

  “W-Who said that?”

  “Uh… sorry. I still don’t know how to form an image. But with that reaction, I think I’ve already learned how to nguage speak properly your.”

  “AGAIN!”

  Panic clouded her mind.

  She tried to steady herself, but tripped over a root sprouting from the floor and fell ft on her face. Her reflection shimmered in a small puddle formed between the metal ptes.

  “…Huh?”

  She touched her face.

  Her eyes were no longer the same.

  They were now amber, faint but unmistakable, and her pupils were sharp and vertical. Her fangs protruded a few millimeters more than normal. Her hair, once perfectly divided bck and white, now had loose strands of deep purple she did not remember ever having.

  She looked at her hands.

  Her nails were bck. Longer. Too long.

  Almost like cws.

  “What… what the hell…?”

  The water’s reflection rippled. And with it, the female voice echoed once more.

  “Done taking a good look? If so, can I expin what happened so we can leave?”

  “W-Where are you? A-Am I dead and this is the afterlife?”

  “No. I don’t know what that ‘afterlife’ thing is. But we’re not dead… though we will be if we stay here. So I’ll get straight to the point: for now, we’re together.”

  “What?! Th-This is just a hallucination from the hit I took… yeah, that’s it!”

  Or she had gone insane; that was what Nene thought. But unfortunately for her, it wasn’t that simple.

  The voice did not come from outside.

  It came from within—so deep within that Nene knew it was inside her.

  Nene clutched her head as the world spun around her.

  “N-No… no, no, no… what did you do? Where are you? Get out of my head!”

  “I can’t. And even if I could… I wouldn’t.”

  The tone was not hostile.

  “My name is... Uh... I guess on your lenguae Arghnipraksma. I… was the Floor Boss.”

  “YOU?!” Nene spat, her breathing unsteady. “Because of you I’m in—where the hell am I?!”

  “Because of me? I wasn’t the one who pierced your chest. It was your companion… Jargen? Jürgen? Whatever his name is. On the contrary, I saved you.”

  Nene stood and began walking aimlessly.

  Maybe that way she could distance herself from the madness she was living.

  “Stop, idiot! Don’t just walk off. You don’t know what’s out there. You only need to follow the path I tell you, understand, human?”

  “Ha! Yeah right, l-listen to the voice in my head? O-Of course! I m-must’ve hit my head hard and I’m h-hallucinating!”

  “Stop!” Arghnipraksma shouted. “You were dying. And so was I.”

  Silence fell like a heavy veil. At the same time, Nene stopped just before entering what looked like a metallic forest.

  “I had no core, and neither did you. The White was ciming us both. I had to make a decision. I chose to survive.”

  The Hunter understood something—something she did not want to accept, but could not deny.

  That voice… sounded very real. Very honest.

  And that… could only mean one thing.

  “Y-You’re really… inside me? Why…?”

  “I have my reasons. Not wanting to die was the main one. So I fused with you. I shared what little remained of me. Enough for us to survive.”

  That made no sense!

  She had never heard of something like “fusing with an Ethereal.”

  Even if she wasn’t the best or most experienced Hunter, if something like that were real, there would be hundreds of reports!

  Not to mention an Ethereal capable of communicating and feeling enough empathy to save a useless girl like her.

  “Well, start believing it. You’re the proof.”

  “W-What?”

  “You are me, and I am you. So you’re forbidden from dying or giving up.”

  And so, without fully understanding her situation, Nene overcame death—and gained a… rather curious companion in that unknown world.

  Ouro