The weight of the night settled heavily in the dimly lit briefing room, its silence thick enough to drown in. The last embers of twilight had long since bled into an ocean of darkness, and the stale air carried an almost tangible weight—like an unspoken truth hovering just beyond reach.
Yuuji's gaze drifted across the four figures before him, dissecting their every movement, every flicker of hesitation they failed to mask.
Himari leaned back lazily in her chair, twirling a strand of golden hair between her fingers as if the night's events were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Tetsuya sat stiff as a board, hands gripping his knees, knuckles pale—trying, and failing, to look unaffected. Ryou's sharp eyes were narrowed, his expression unreadable, yet there was a calculation in his stare, a puzzle being pieced together in real time.
And then there was Reika.
Still. Silent. An unmoving shadow at the edge of perception.
"I took care of it," she said.
Three simple words. Yet the air in the room shifted, a phantom chill creeping into the space between them.
Yuuji let the statement settle, let the weight of it fill the cracks of uncertainty before finally breaking the silence. "How?"
Reika did not answer immediately.
Ryou tilted his head ever so slightly, watching. Tetsuya's gaze fell to the floor, as if he already knew he wouldn't like what came next. Himari scoffed, rolling her eyes, unimpressed.
And then, finally—
"Regeneration. Close combat. That's all."
A response so neat, so precise, that it barely felt like a response at all.
Yuuji's fingers tapped idly against the table, his expression unreadable. He studied Reika the way a seasoned hunter might study unfamiliar tracks—searching for the beast that left them.
Too perfect.
Too polished.
Too little detail for something that should have been messy.
His mind ticked through the possibilities:
One—Reika never embellished.
Himari might exaggerate, Ryou would lace his words with sarcasm, and Tetsuya... well, he was painfully honest. But Reika? She spoke in facts, stripped down to their barest form. No excess. No waste.
Two—She was filtering.
She could have provided more. The sequence of the fight. The moment she outmaneuvered her enemy. The decisive blow. But she didn't. She left the details buried.
Why?
Yuuji inhaled slowly, nodding. "Regeneration and close combat, huh?"
He leaned back, stretching slightly, a faint, easy smile curling at the edge of his lips—disarming, effortless.
But his eyes remained sharp.
"Hmm... that's surprisingly simple."
Reika did not react. Ryou's gaze lingered on her, as if weighing his own unspoken thoughts. Tetsuya remained frozen in place. Himari merely shrugged.
The silence stretched, deliberate. Yuuji let it linger before finally exhaling. "Alright, we'll go over the full details later. For now, get some rest. I want your written reports by morning."
Chairs scraped against the floor as they stood. But as Reika passed Yuuji, she murmured—so quietly it almost didn't exist:
"I didn't lie."
And then, she was gone. Yuuji's brow lifted slightly. No one had accused her of lying. And that, more than anything, made him curious.
Just as the last of them reached the doorway, Himari hesitated. She turned, arms crossed, a playful smirk tugging at her lips, but her eyes—her eyes hinted at something else.
"Sensei," she said, almost sing-song. "Something's off."
Yuuji exhaled through his nose. "What is it?"
"The curse," she said, pressing her back against the doorway. "It just... disappeared. But Reika never touched it." A flicker of something unseen passed through the room.
Tetsuya's head snapped toward her, face uneasy. "Himari, drop it—"
"But it's weird, right?" She nudged Tetsuya with her elbow, forcing him into the conversation. "C'mon, you saw it too, didn't you?"
Tetsuya opened his mouth, hesitating. His gaze darted to Yuuji, then to Reika, who stood at the edge of the room, half-lost in shadow.
"I... I mean…" He swallowed hard. "Yeah... It was weird." Himari's smirk deepened, victorious. "See? Not just me."
Yuuji didn't reply immediately. His eyes rested on Reika. Something there—something just out of reach, slipping through his fingers before he could grasp it.
"Reika," he finally said, voice steady. She lifted her head slightly. "What happened to the curse?" A heartbeat of silence.
—"I took care of it."
Himari sighed dramatically. "Yeah, yeah, we know. But how? You didn't even touch it, did you?" Reika met her gaze. Unblinking.
Ryou finally spoke, voice calm, measured. "Himari, if she doesn't want to explain, you won't get anything out of her."
"Or maybe she can't explain," Himari countered, eyes narrowing.
Yuuji's gaze remained locked onto Reika. And for the first time tonight, something deep in his gut told him—
He needed to pay closer attention to this one.
The hallway stretched ahead, dimly lit by the dying embers of daylight filtering through tall, dust-streaked windows. Shadows sprawled across the floor like silent spectators, watching the four figures walking in uneasy silence.
Reika moved ahead of them, her pace unhurried but eerily soundless. Not a scuff, not a footstep—like she was gliding rather than walking, a figure carved out of darkness itself.
Himari, arms folded tight across her chest, was anything but silent. She was a storm brewing, her frustration crackling in the air as she lengthened her stride to match Reika's. Her golden hair swayed as she threw an exasperated glance at Tetsuya.
"I don't get it," she huffed, voice dripping with impatience. "We all saw it, right? That damn curse just—poof!—vanished into thin air. No trace, no remains, nothing. And she—" she jabbed a finger toward Reika's back, "—acts like it's the most normal thing in the world!"
Tetsuya flinched at the sudden movement, his brown eyes flickering with hesitation. "I-I mean… yeah, it was weird…" His voice was barely above a murmur, more like he was agreeing just to keep the peace rather than because he was convinced.
Behind them, Ryou strolled with an almost lazy grace, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket. Unlike the other two, he wasn't speaking. But his sharp, calculating gaze was locked onto Reika, watching. Studying.
Her shoulders never moved with breath.
The ends of her sleeves never shifted against her wrists.
Her hair—so dark it seemed to swallow the dim light around it—hung unnaturally still.
Something didn't add up.
Himari clicked her tongue, clearly unsatisfied with Tetsuya's half-hearted response. She whirled on Ryou instead, eyes narrowing. "You're quiet," she accused. "You don't think it's weird?"
Ryou finally looked at her, his expression unreadable. He tilted his head slightly, the corner of his lips twitching in something that wasn't quite a smirk. "Weird?" His voice was casual, almost bored. "Depends on how you look at it."
Himari scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ryou let the silence stretch just long enough to let the tension seep in. Then, with an almost amused glint in his eye, he spoke.
"Maybe the curse didn't just vanish," he said smoothly. "Maybe something ate it."
The words landed like a rock in still water.
Himari stiffened, expression flickering between shock and discomfort. Tetsuya took an instinctive step back, as if realizing for the first time just how close he was standing to Reika.
And ahead of them all, Reika kept walking.
No reaction.
No protest.
Not even the slightest flicker of acknowledgment.
She just moved forward, soundless as a ghost, leaving the air behind her heavy with the weight of unspoken things.