She ran on, spending her Mystic Power like kindling, each burst sending her faster. Above, Kananin Rin rode a monstrous bird, stooping like an eagle after a hare.

Time blurred to ash; when Yun Shi had no Mystic Power left, she dropped to her knees, sweat pattering like cold rain, breath rasping like torn bellows.

Fight after fight had scoured her, mind and body wind‑worn; her reserves were a dry well, her frame at the cliff’s edge of its limits.

She needed rest, a quiet shore to gather breath, yet fate offered no shade, not now.

Kananin Rin dropped from the sky with the beast-bird, shadow falling like a hawk’s wing, and stood over her, gaze cold from the high ground.

Yun Shi tugged down her mask, bared her mouth, and gulped air like a swimmer breaking the surface.

"You're foolish," Rin said, voice like frosted iron. "You knew you were empty, yet you took my challenge."

"Tell me why you accepted so calmly," she pressed, words like needles. "Didn't you know how little strength you had?"

"...What else could I do?" Yun Shi’s mood was a tired sigh before the words. "If I refused, we'd wait for the Church to crush our people."

"Tsk." The sound snapped like a pebble on glass; Rin had no easy rebuttal to such clear reckoning.

"Even so, you're at an absolute disadvantage," she said, truth landing like a stone.

"You plan to fight me like this?" Yun Shi let a bitter smile flicker, thin as smoke. "I've got barely anything left."

"This world offers no fair field, Night Phantom," Rin said, a winter wind in her tone. "You know that."

"Of course," Yun Shi breathed, resolve like a steady flame. "But you won't do it—duel and war are different, and you don't mix them."

"What makes you so sure?" Rin asked, doubt coiling like mist.

"Because I know you won't," Yun Shi answered, confidence like a pillar in a storm.

She wasn't worried that Kananin Rin would strike while she was down; such carrion timing was for war’s crooked rules, not for her.

Long ago, she'd heard Yuuya speak of Kananin Rin's character, and that memory sat like a lantern in fog.

"You win," Rin said, and with a snap of her fingers the monstrous bird unraveled like smoke.

A stranger who read her that cleanly was a thorn of curiosity; Rin wanted to know who this girl was.

Yun Shi pushed herself upright, muscles trembling like drawn bowstrings; years of training kept her from crumpling.

"Save the fight for another day," she said, words the calm of deep water. "If you have something to say, say it."

She started toward a cave across the way, body crying for rest like parched earth for rain.

Kananin Rin said nothing and followed, questions flocking like restless crows.

Yun Shi entered the cave and chose a stone to sit on, its chill like a river rock; the place offered speech and shelter from the Church.

Battlefields had shifted again and again like drifting dunes; at last, she could sit.

Rin surveyed the cave—quiet, natural, undisturbed—perfect for two people to talk like a stream behind a screen of bamboo.

"Night Phantom," Rin began, her eyes sharp as flint, "I want to know who you are."

"What do you mean?" Yun Shi asked, voice level, a still pond.

"Do I need to spell it out?" Rin's words came tight as a bowstring. "You and Yuuya... Shitou Yuya—are you acquainted?"

She had to know why Shitou Yuya’s spirit had been unsettled because of this girl, a bell rung off‑time.

"You suspect I have something with him?" Yun Shi asked lightly, amusement a thin veil over her eyes.

"Isn't that obvious?" Rin shot back, heat under ice. "Not just Yuuya—even Shen Ling Zou. What did you do?"

From any sensible angle, a stranger stirring close friends into strange moods was a red flag snapping in wind.

Yun Shi fell silent, the hush heavy as snow; she couldn't say.

"Why keep silent? Why won't you answer me!" Rin's temper flared like dry tinder, Mystic Power already stirring in her veins.

"You think you'll find your answer in me?" Yun Shi returned, her tone a closed door.

In truth, Rin hadn't thought she could pry the truth straight from Yun Shi; she came because every other path was a dead end.

"I don't know..." Rin admitted, confusion like a knot that wouldn't loosen.

"But I have to know," she said, and drew a gun from her coat; the barrel touched Yun Shi's head, cold as winter steel.

"..." Silence pooled like a shadow around Yun Shi. She knew the magazine was nearly dry; forcing a fight would only make the ending uglier.

"Tell me—who are you?" Rin asked, the demand a blade against silk.

She was ready to use an ugly method to get a vital answer; its weight hung like a millstone.

In the Underworld, the Night Phantom was the worst famed and the most elusive Witch; legend wrapped her like fog.

People only knew she came from one of the three darkest Clan Heads in the Underworld—a traitor—but no one knew which, a mask over a mask.

They knew she was strong, yet her weakness was a locked box no one had found.

They didn't even know what face she really wore.

"This isn't your style," Yun Shi said, the words soft as dust, but firm.

"Then tell me how you'd know that," Rin shot back. "Only people close to me know my style. We've never met—so why do you?"

Yun Shi had no answer; her gaze drifted upward to bare earth and stone, like someone looking for stars in a cave.

She'd never thought the day would come when her past was dragged into the light; you can choose to forget, but memory clings like burrs.

"Night Phantom, last chance," Rin said, muzzle pressed tight, cold sipping into skin. "Do you know Yuuya?"

"I do," Yun Shi said, the admission falling like a pebble into still water.

Rin's expression said as much—of course—and she pressed on, voice a lantern brought closer. "Then what's your relationship with him?"

Why ask that? Yun Shi felt a wave of helplessness, like a tide hitting rock.

She stood, not minding the muzzle at her back, and took a few slow steps forward; Rin thumbed off the safety, ready to fire.

"If you stay silent, I won't hesitate," Rin warned, the words a drawn blade.

"I don't want to be silent," Yun Shi said, weariness like a shadow at noon. "But you keep forcing me into helpless choices."

Slowly, Yun Shi raised a hand and unhooked her Goggles; as her hand fell, she turned to face Rin, a mask set aside like shed skin.

—!

"You..." Rin forgot even to lower the gun, staring dumbfounded at the girl with her face unveiled, as if a cloud had torn from the moon.

"Two years, isn't it?" the girl said, Goggles in hand, a wry smile like a cut that never healed.