To You Beyond the Fog - A white blade, red blood, and a blank name.

The first step she took was eerily silent. Something was fundamentally different from the outer and middle layers she had walked through until now. There was no sound. No wind, no rustling leaves, no distant howls of mist-beasts — every noise seemed to have been swallowed by thick walls and vanished. All that remained was her own breathing, and the faint beating of her heart. (So this is… the Deep Layer.) Mizunashi Shiori gripped the bead bracelet on her left wrist with her right hand. The small, faded plastic beads bit into her palm. Someone had given this to her. It should have been precious. Incredibly precious. It had become so familiar on her left wrist that taking it off felt like she would stop being herself. She felt that, and yet — she could no longer remember who it had come from. Only the sensation that *this is warm* sustained her. "[serious]Visibility's less than three meters." Rio's voice was strained, as if forced out. The tips of his long silver hair trembled faintly. His left hand repeated its habitual small gestures of manipulating the mist, but his fingers were sluggish, as if clawing through mud. Even he, usually so quick with a flippant remark, had barely spoken since entering this region. His steps, too, were visibly heavier than when they had been in the middle layer. With each stride, it was as if invisible weights were being fastened around his ankles. The mist of the Deep Layer scraped away the memories inside one's body. Rio, too, was aware that something precious to him was spilling out, little by little, bit by bit. "[quiet]…Rio. You look pale." "[bitter]Don't look at me. You've got the same face." He said that and tried to force a smile. But the old scar on his right cheek only twitched; it never became a smile. The two of them walked in silence. The moss covering the ground here was a deep green, almost black. Even when stepped on, it returned barely any sensation. Moss that swallowed sound. The mist-light trees around them had already lost their glow. Their outlines dissolved almost completely into the mist, leaving only faint, pillar-like shadows standing hazily. Abruptly, Rio stopped. "[tense]…No good." He pulled a small talisman from his chest. A simple barrier charm, made from hardened mist-light tree sap. It had functioned in the outer layer — the last bastion of his mist-weaving arts. But the moment he gripped it again— *Crumbled.* With a dry sound, the talisman turned to powder and slipped through his fingers. The silver dust was swallowed by the heavy mist and vanished before it could reach the ground. "[scared]…You're kidding." Rio's voice trembled. His deep-green eyes showed clear terror for the first time. "[scared]My mist-weaving… it's been completely nullified. Here, I can't protect anything." His left hand clawed at the air. Not a single fragment of mist was born from his fingertips. The two of them stood at the bottom of this white abyss, without weapons, without barriers, without anything. "[whispers]…It's cold." Shiori murmured it unconsciously. The air was cold. But it was more than that. She felt a discomfort, as if someone had thrust a hand deep into her chest and was stirring up every last shard of her memories. *Souta's winter when he was seven? What was that about?* *I won first place at the sports festival for the first time? I don't know. I don't remember that.* No — just moments ago, she should have remembered. *(I won't even be able to notice that I'm forgetting.)* That, more than anything, terrified her. That was when it happened. The silence itself changed in quality. The mist converged toward a single point at terrifying speed. The air moved with a *whoosh*, and the visibility around them cleared in an instant. A vacant space, roughly ten meters in diameter, opened up around them. "[tense]…It's coming." Rio grabbed Shiori's arm and tried to pull her back. But it was already too late. The converged wall of mist split open. As if a giant white curtain had been slashed apart by a razor-sharp blade. There stood a woman. She was about a hundred and seventy centimeters tall. Jet-black hair hung straight down to the base of the translucent wings on her back. In the windless space, only her hair swayed slowly, as if it were alive. Both of her eyes glowed coldly, amber, piercing through the two of them. There was no emotion. She stood there like a mere machine. And yet, her presence held an overwhelming weight — not like a living creature, but as if the forest itself had taken form. Even drawing breath felt like an act of hesitation. Every terror they had experienced until now — the moment Shiori had learned of her husband's death, the time a horde of mist-beasts had nearly broken the barrier, that sensation of memories crumbling like sand — was fundamentally different in nature from this. A being that felt no hesitation whatsoever in ending a life. A primal trembling in her very cells. Shiori's feet were rooted to the ground, immobile. "[cold]You are unworthy of the truth." The woman — Carmilla — opened her mouth. It was not even a declaration. The words were delivered as a simple, given fact, like gravity or temperature. "[cold]Eliminating." Carmilla's right hand rose, silently. The surrounding mist surged backward. It swirled, howled despite the absence of wind, and converged all at once into her slender arm. The condensed mist became countless white blades. Razor-like shapes, roughly thirty centimeters long. They filled the space around Carmilla, their points aimed at the two of them, motionless. "[angry]Get down, Shiori!!!" Rio shouted and shoved Shiori's body aside. Immediately after— —They were unleashed. A shrill sound tore through the air. The swarm of white blades surged forward all at once, carving into Rio's body. The first dozen or so slashed his left arm. The sound of cloth tearing, the dull sound of wet flesh being severed. Fresh blood fanned out into the white of the mist. The next gouged his shoulder. The next slashed open his back. "[crying]Guh…!" Rio clenched his teeth and crushed the scream that tried to escape his mouth. Blood trickled down his chin and dripped to the ground. He did not retreat a single step. Even as his entire body was being torn apart, he stood firm, a shield for Shiori. "[angry]…I said, run!!" Rio yelled without turning around. His deep-green eyes, burning with pain and rage, glared at Carmilla straight ahead. But Shiori's feet would not move. It was the same as when she had learned of her husband's death. The world was not functioning correctly. The scene before her eyes felt like it could not be real. Some part of her heart rejected it, insisting it must not be real. "[cold]You still stand." Carmilla simply, mechanically, unleashed a second wave. This time, the blades were even finer — countless needle-sharp edges. Rio spread both arms and took the rain of blades with his entire body. A continuous sound of skin splitting. Blood spurted from everywhere — his shoulders, his chest, his thighs. One of them grazed his right cheek. Right above the old scar. Blood ran from the corner of his eye, past his temple, and into his ear. In that instant, a sensation raced through Rio's body — not a memory, but something more primal. *That night two hundred and thirty years ago, when all he could see of his sister was her hand beneath the beam.* *He couldn't save her.* *He couldn't grasp her hand.* *I can never, ever, protect anything.* "[crying]…U, aaaaaaaahhh!!" The scream he had been holding back burst from Rio's mouth. His feet stopped. He ceased retreating. With a face from which all reason — all calculation of his own life — had been utterly blown away, he stood before Shiori. "[angry]I won't let anyone else… die in front of me…!" His back was battered, on the verge of collapse at any moment. And yet, it was a wall. Infinitely fragile, and infinitely strong — the wall of a single man. Carmilla, expressionless, slowly extended her right hand forward. Her staff let out a low growl. "[cold]It ends." The surrounding mist converged on an unprecedented scale, forming a single enormous spear before her palm. Thick, sharp, its tip gleaming ominously. It was not a blade. It was meant to pierce, to destroy completely. The third wave. The launched mist spear pierced deep — through the left side of Rio's chest. *Thud.* A sound so dry, so anticlimactic, was swallowed by the mist and vanished. "[crying]…Ah." A small breath escaped Rio's lips. He pitched forward, his knees buckling, and collapsed onto his side. A massive amount of blood gushed from his chest. The white moss was dyed a murky, dark red. The stain spread rapidly, as if his very life was flowing out of him. "[crying]Rio!? Rio!!" A voice that was not a voice burst from Shiori's throat. She clung to Rio's body and pressed both hands against the wound on his chest. But no matter how hard she pressed, warm blood overflowed between her fingers and would not stop. "[crying]No, no, no… Rio, open your eyes, please…" Rio's eyes were half-closed. The focus of his deep-green pupils wandered through empty space, unable to find Shiori. Only his lips moved faintly. "…Did I… protect…?" The words did not even stir the air; they spilled from the corner of his lips along with bloody foam. (*Protect? You didn't protect anything. You didn't protect anything at all!*) Shiori gripped Rio's hand as it grew colder. She held his blood-soaked hand tightly, tightly. "[crying]Someone!! …Please, someone, help!!" She raised her face and screamed. It was a scream from the very depths of her soul — the kind she had never once uttered in the forty-eight years she had lived. But. Her voice, as expected, was swallowed without resistance by the heavy, cold mist of the Deep Layer, reaching no one. Only the silence of the world, cruelly, enveloped her. Carmilla looked down at the two of them, expressionless, unmoving. The target of elimination would soon die. Then that was sufficient. The mechanical judgment within her halted any further attacks. However. Deep within those amber-glowing eyes— Something wavered, just for an instant. What it was, even Carmilla herself did not know. Perhaps it was the last remnant of the emotions the mist had continued to strip from her over many long years. She said nothing, merely standing still. —That was when it happened. Inside Shiori's mind. A voice echoed directly. "[gentle]…Do you wish to save him?" It was not a sound that vibrated her eardrums. It was a sensation of words being carved directly into her very thoughts. A tone that gently enveloped her. It sounded exactly like the voice of her late mother, which she had heard as a child. And precisely because of that, the absolute cruelty lying at the bottom of those words seized Shiori's heart in an iron grip. "[gentle]I can heal him. I can open the path to the spring." "…Help." Shiori, her blood-soaked hands still pressed to Rio's chest, spoke in a trembling voice. "[gentle]…I require all of your remaining memories." The voice of her late mother, infinitely gentle and infinitely merciless, demanded the final price. "[gentle]That there was a child named Souta. That you loved him. That you were a mother. All of it — relinquish it, now." Shiori's thoughts froze solid. *Souta.* The moment she tried to recall that name in her mind, a violent pain shot through her, as if an iron wedge were being driven into the top of her skull. There was nothing but white emptiness. His face, his voice, his warmth — she could no longer remember any of it. But. Even so, that name alone was seared into the very foundation of her existence. *I was his mother.* That fact alone — even if she could no longer sensibly understand what it meant — that one last fragment remained. What Wisp was demanding was for even that last fragment to vanish. (*…Even the

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Episode 5

Name: To You Beyond the Fog
Author: Novelia

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