“Do you think we’re gonna die here?” Emilia asked as she skipped along beside Rin. Overall, it was pretty clear that her come-what-may personality and frivolous actions were annoying the other girl. That said, not only could the former Risen Guard trainee not get away from her—they were stuck in a long hallway with seemingly no end or beginning, after all—but Emilia had also realized they both needed something to keep them from freaking the fuck out.

Not that she was liable to freak out, because of the whole, you know, can’t really die thing. It was still rather creepy, though, for the library to have suddenly vanished, or for them to have been moved through the aether without their knowledge—it was unclear exactly what had happened. They’d headed back down the hallway, going far past the point where the library should have been and finding more empty hallway, and as much as she knew this was a world easily manipulated by the system, the strangeness of the situation would get to her if she let it.

Still, even if she ignored the displaced from reality part, it was such an odd place. Nothing echoed off the walls—if anything, the depthless black seemed to eat all sound that touched it. Everything was smooth, not even the ripple of panels of metal or wood or any other material meeting each other marring its perfect length.

They also had no idea where the light was going, Rin having assured her that there was no sign of magic or light eating material anywhere around them, and yet, the hallway was darker than the normal, unaltered air of the world. Everything was just empty and existed. For Emilia, that was fine. She was used to weird things—not to mention compartmentalizing—and was in a world where everything was new and strange. For Rin, it was a different story, and for the first time in their brief friendship, Emilia could see her starting to crack under the pressure of the otherness of this place.

So, distraction via being so totally, completely annoying it was.

⸂I do not know,⸃ Rin replied testily. Honestly, Emilia was surprised she was answering at all.

“I feel like we really should have asked Key more about these original access routes,” she mused, more to herself than her friend, eyes glued to the ceiling she couldn’t actually make out but knew was there after she’d taken a running jump a while ago, her hand having swiped across the equally smooth material. The one good thing about the boring tunnel was she didn’t have to worry about tripping, as long as she picked her feet up properly.

⸂I doubt he knew.⸃

“Oh~” Emilia sighed, skipping ahead so she could turn and walk backwards as they spoke. “Noticed that too, did you?”

Rin’s eyes clasped onto hers. Her core was still active, vibrating gently out of her, searching for something—anything—different about the world as they moved. Emilia had given up using hers. Not only was it tired and achy, but using it had been starting to give her a headache.

⸂He does not hide his lack of knowledge well.⸃

“Did he only start hiding stuff when I showed up? Or did he do it before all this as well?” Emilia asked, hands clasping behind her back.

⸂Before, but it was never over something so important.⸃

“No? What did he lie about then?”

The other girl bristled slightly. ⸂I would not call it lying.⸃

“Okay~ What did he bend and avoid the truth over, then?”

Rin still didn’t seem to like her phrasing, but she said nothing about it, instead listing off a handful of reasons Key hadn’t been entirely forthcoming in the past.

“He let his sister bake using the wrong recipe?” Emilia asked incredulously, blinking wide eyes at her friend. “That seems like a stupid thing to lie about.” She had also been known to lie and avoid giving all the information all her life, but something like that? Even she would never. “Was it a prank?”

Rin shook her head, rare amusement shining in her eyes. ⸂I believe he did not want to let Harmony down. She really wanted to make that cake.⸃

“What was so special about it?”

Rin gave her an exasperated look—at least, that’s what Emilia assumed it was. It was a difficult to tell what kind of look the girl was giving her sometimes, what with how… muted they were.

Despite the look, Rin indulged her, explaining in exaggerated details that she certainly knew Emilia wouldn’t understand—what was lough? Sterial? Plunting the batter? Mysterious cooking terms, that’s what they were. By the time Rin’s aethervoice trailed off, the last of the recipe fading into the depthless black of their surroundings, Emilia wasn’t sure if the girl had been indulging her or torturing her—it really was a very complicated recipe.

She also still had no idea what made the cake special.

“Do you think we should… do something different?” Emilia asked a short while later, Rin once again walking slightly ahead of her. They couldn’t just keep walking forever.

⸂Such as?⸃

“Well…” Emilia stopped, bouncing on her feet and trying to work the kinks out of her legs. Too much walking. Too much running. Too much footwear. She tugged one of her borrowed shoes off, Harmony having grudgingly told her these would be better for walking than the ones she’d opted for on arrival. Personally, she didn’t really see it, and she groaned as she flexed her feet, stretching the ache out of them.

“We could run? Skip? Split up—although, that could end with us getting permanently separated, so maybe not. You could ditch your shoes, too. We could ditch out weapons—but, that also seems like asking for trouble, plus with magic your entire body is kinda a weapon?” Emilia ran her eyes over the former trainee’s body. Fit, if still shorter than even she was, and dressed in loose, greyish-pink clothes that reminded Emilia of her world’s loungewear.

⸂Those are all ridiculous suggestions,⸃ the other girl said sharply, the stress of the situation probably beginning to get to her. It was going to happen eventually, no matter how much Emilia tried to distract her, but she’d honestly figured they’d have a bit more time before she started to get so testy.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Maybe, but walking isn’t doing it. So we have to do something.”

⸂No.⸃

“No?”

⸂No.⸃

Emilia blinked at the girl. “You can’t be serious. You really want to keep walking until our feet fall off, or we die of dehydration?” She wasn’t entirely sure that was a thing here, but it certainly felt like it could be a thing, given she’d forced herself to down the weird red water multiple times since arriving here.

⸂Yes.⸃

“That’s insane.”

⸂Then you can stay here.⸃ Rin’s eyes narrowed, just the slightest bit, and for a moment Emilia could see the Risen Guard inside her—could see the person who would have become a killer just like all the rest of them.

“It’s more dangerous if we split up,” Emilia argued, trying to be sensible. She wasn’t used to people ignoring her in emergencies. Even when she was younger, before the military and rank had placed her firmly above practically everyone, people had defaulted to leaving her in charge. Usually, it had been annoying as fuck, but given the circumstance, she’d much rather be capitulated to!

⸂Probably.⸃ Rin turned back the way they had been heading, leaving Emilia behind in the darkness, her slim shoulders vanishing far too quickly.

“Well… fuck…” Emilia sighed, gazing around at the nothingness of the hallway. They really should have tried to get more details out of Key—stars, even Zach might have known a bit about these original passageways, had either of them thought to discuss the heartcores and how to get to them. Instead, they had nothing. No facts or clues, just an empty hallway and a vanished library and, well, there was one fact: someone had once gotten through this place and excavated the easy entrance. That was assuming the passage hadn’t changed, though—hadn’t adapted to become harder to navigate.

The wall of the hallway met Emilia’s back, and she slid to the floor, pressing a hand to her mouth as she yawned. She was tired, the adrenaline from the building collapse dissipating into the general norm of stressful situation. That wasn’t new, even if she hadn’t experienced it much in a decade. This level of vague threat wasn’t new—if anything, it was like a long-lost home. Shitty and unsafe, but hers, and it was easy to let her eyes flutter shut and let sleep take her.

✮ ✮ ✮

Emilia’s eyes opened for exactly .3 seconds before she slammed them closed against the blinding light of… something. There was no way the world was suddenly as bright as the sun, right?

She grumbled, pushing herself off the floor—which she had apparently decided to topple over to nap on—back to sitting. Even closed, light blasted through her eyelids strong enough to make her slap a hand against her eyes. She leaned back against the wall, debating what to do since she definitely couldn’t open her eyes like this, and—

Emilia yelped as she fell through the nonexistent wall, her head whacking soundly against the floor. “What the fuck!?” she growled, rolling over and groping for the wall, thinking that maybe she had rolled during her nap.

She spun in a circle, reaching in another direction when the hand came up empty. Empty space met her hands again, again, again. Her knees ached from crawling over the ground, going far enough in every direction that she couldn’t lie to herself: the walls were gone. Instead, the bright room seemed to gape around her, just like the black, endless world her core had seen before her nap, not even being able to detect those depthless walls…

Her core. It hadn’t been super useful in the dark hallway, but it couldn’t hurt to try it out here, right?

Emilia tentatively stood, hands raised above her head, lest the ceiling of this place suddenly be lower. Nothing, and when she reached a hand up as high as she could, even jumping to see if she could reach anything, there was nothing.

“Guess I should be grateful there's a floor,” she mumbled, arranging her hands so one was reaching far in front of her while the other was protecting her face.

“Breathe,” she reminded herself as she began to walk blindly through the world. Her core vibrated slightly, both it and the muscles around it immediately straining with effort as she sent her power hurtling through the aether, searching for something, anything, and—

And that was easy? Emilia walked towards the wall her core had located, outstretched hand waiting to connect with it and… nothing. Her core vibrated, spiralling out again and—

No. According to her core, something was definitely there—something that her physical body couldn’t connect with.

Emilia grumbled, letting her core search farther. Only a few feet farther, her senses detected another, just as formless wall running parallel to the first.

“Invisible hallway, eh~” Emilia muttered to herself, walking herself between the two. “Which way, then…”

She let her core reach out down either way, searching for any difference in the two aetherwalls, but everything was so wide and unknown, her core control too questionable, and all her search accomplished was leaving her with the feeling she had missed something—probably multiple somethings.

“Well, can’t be worse than the other hallway,” she sighed, choosing a direction at random and pulling her core back in towards her, willing it to etch its way along the edges of the world it saw while she walked.

It was, quite frankly, exhausting. With almost no experience using her core, the effort was quickly draining her and requiring that she sit and wait for her energy and control to return every few metres. Worse, she couldn’t trust what her core saw, and was forced to keep her hands positioned so she didn’t accidentally walk into anything. Not being able to see the ground, every step was careful and precise, and the few times she dared to open her eyes—to see if the world was somehow less bright—she came away cursing herself for being, well, herself.

She’d never been good at the whole patience thing—it was part of why she hated doing long-distance support. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike was boring and anticlimactic and—

“Focus!” she mentally hissed at herself. Damn wandering brain needed to chill, or they were going to miss something important and—

Emilia’s stepped halted as the smallest flaw in the wall to her left caught her attention. The slightest scuff, the aether bubbling slightly and protruding where it didn’t belong. She swallowed, stepping towards it, her hand finding where it would have existed if it weren’t formless. It felt like nothing against her skin—not a single indication that something was wrong—but her core could feel it. Her core knew something wasn’t right.

⸂When you want to use your core to effect the world… it is slightly different. Where searching and touching with your core is a small dribble of any energy out of your body and back, interacting requires more precision. You need to use… specific energy to do your bidding,⸃ Zach had told her, his words hesitant and leaving Emilia feeling like he hadn’t wanted to tell her this particular piece of information. She’d asked, though, and he hadn’t once refused to answer her questions, even if he often didn’t have clear answers for her.

Now, Emilia focused, trying to draw the smallest tendril of energy out of her core and through her body.

⸂The risk,⸃ Zach had explained, jaw flexing with every word, even as his voice spilled out of the aether itself, ⸂is you can burn yourself out. Especially without the aid of the system. If you let out too much power at once, you will destroy the path it travelled. You could lose use of a limb, destroy an organ, die. If you do not use enough, you will fail and potentially lose your energy to the aether, and while it will recover, there can be… consequences for losing too much, either at once, or over time.⸃

Emilia had smiled at her teacher and told him what she told everyone: that she couldn’t really die. He, at the very least, had acknowledged that fact, muttering that it would suck if he had wasted all his time teaching her only for her to destroy her body before doing anything useful.

He really was such a grumpy old man.

Still, grumpy safety dad or not, she would be stupid to not listen to him. She clamped down around her core, forcing all the focus she had onto it.

“Just… a little… bit…” she breathed through her body, searching for whatever specific type of energy Zach had mentioned. She gasped when she found it, warm and tiny within her, willing the smallest wisp of it out, out, down the natural pathways—meridians, Zach had called them—of her body. Breaching and connecting, weaving its way through her body and soul and—

A bubble of power burst out of her fingertips, connecting with the anomaly in the aetherwall, and Emilia fell, barely registering the smack of her body against the floor as the world melted black.