A small cottage sat quiet, its furniture settled like stones in a riverbed; with a heartbeat inside, it would make a good home.

This was the outskirts of London, trees standing like sentinels over open grass, a pond laid out like a mirror; the city’s roar faded to a distant tide, its smog a bruise you left behind.

The house had been a harbor Yuuya bought after weighing travel and storms, an anchor thrown before tempests; now it served as a shoreline against the Church’s hounds.

It felt ironic, like rain again on a path just walked; days ago he’d toured here with Shen Ling Zou and Kananin Rin, even spent one night, and now he used it as a refuge.

“Zou, want tea?”—steam curled like pale fog as Shitou Yuya set cups down for the boy whose face carried rainclouds.

Shen Ling Zou stayed quiet, his silence a frozen pond; Shitou Yuya’s sigh rippled like wind across reeds.

“Rin hasn’t come back, and outside’s a storm; staying here is the safest cove, Zou—whatever you’re thinking, remember we’re a team, and a lone arrow vanishes in the dark.”

Shitou Yuya’s tone hovered between warning and balm, like a lantern held to a threshold; he wanted to cool a fire before it ran into the woods.

He knew Shen Ling Zou loved a Witch, a secret already dusk-lit and known; he just didn’t want that love to turn him into a moth diving for flame.

Seeing Shen Ling Zou still dead-eyed, he exhaled like autumn, then slipped out of the room, his retreat a shadow under a door.

Outside the window, birds stitched songs through blossoms, fragrance rising like morning mist; it should have soothed him, but the day sat heavy like rain-soaked cloth.

Too much had hit like hail: a sudden strike by the Third Vessel Soul, a nameless Witch pulling him from the brink, Shen Ling Zou shaking near collapse, then Rin’s vanishing act leaving no footprint.

He had a forest of problems, trunks thick and tangled, both impossible to fell at once and messy to cut one by one; frustration pooled like stagnant water.

“Rin…”—her name fell like a leaf.

He prayed she was safe, a candle kept from wind.

Yuuya sighed again, the sound soft as ash, then turned and walked outside, letting the view wash over him like a river over stone.

Inside, Shen Ling Zou stared at the tea, the surface a still lake; after a long hush, he raised the cup, the rim kissing his lips like cool porcelain.

The faint fragrance drifted in, and the slight bitterness struck his tongue like winter bark; his senses flinched.

He wanted another sip, but his hand trembled like a twig in wind; the cup lost support and fell, shattering with a bright, hard splash.

He blinked at his empty hand, at shards scattered like ice and tea pooling like rainwater; hollowness opened in him like a cave.

He didn’t know why tears pressed like storm clouds; when he caught his breath, his mind was full of the Witch’s shadow, a silhouette framed by battling flames.

He’d thought about her before, but this time the memories came with a bruise, pain flooding in like cold tide; the battles, the brief sharing of air—those fragments were sunlight through leaves.

Today, she refused him like a door swung shut, wouldn’t look, wouldn’t speak, her distance a line drawn in sand; she pushed him away.

Since he’d tried force that time, a crack had spread through everything like frost; the Witch’s gaze no longer warmed him.

“Night Phantom, Night Phantom…”—the name fell like stones.

Shen Ling Zou bent, clutching his chest like a wound.

“Why…”—the word drifted like smoke.

Why treat me like this—the thought cut like wind over a barren ridge.

“I…”—I never thought the road would darken like this.

“Aaaahhhh!”—his voice tore out, a canyon scream that sent dust skittering.

He couldn’t have the Night Phantom; he was hated, repulsed, met with a blade’s edge, all born in that battle like lightning splitting a tree.

When the shout spent itself, he slumped against the chair, sinking into grief like a stone into deep water.

Self-blame gnawed, but pain was the tide; being despised by the one he loved burned like salt, and he couldn’t swallow it, a man raised to have everything hitting the cliff where “no” breaks you.

“Night Phantom!!”—he flung the table, wood arcing like a broken branch, cups smashing on the floor with thunder.

He stood, a boy stripped of reason, panting like a beast after the chase; his hands clamped his head, a low moan seeping out like fog.

Why, why, why—the words beat like drumming rain.

Why can’t I seize everything—the hunger raked him like claws.

His childhood had been training grounds and missions, corridors with no sky; freedom was scarce as spring in drought, and nothing held him except one bright star—Night Phantom.

He feared losing her like a lantern to wind, feared not reaching at all; fear frayed into madness like cloth pulled too hard.

“Night Phantom…”—the name thinned as he stood in a room shattered like ice.

If I can’t have it, then I’ll take it by force—his vow hardened like iron cooled in snow.

Shen Ling Zou tightened his fist, knuckles white as bone, eyes reddened like embers as he glared at shards, killing intent rising like winter steel.

He wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t sink here like driftwood; throwing a fit was a whisper to an empty field, and Night Phantom couldn’t see it.

“Night Phantom, I won’t let go—even if you hate me, I won’t… give up!”—his words struck like nails.

His gaze burned with resolve, heat shimmered with sharpness, but deep inside, a twist coiled like a knot in dark wood.

He and Night Phantom were fellow sufferers, two travelers under the same storm; but their paths angled apart, the things they guarded like different altars, and they wouldn’t reach the same horizon.

No one would know that truth, leaves falling without witnesses.

“Zou, what happened?”—Shitou Yuya came in, the noise inside tugging him like a stray wind.

He found a wreckage of splinters and glints, and Shen Ling Zou standing motionless like a statue in ash.

His eyes held a wrongness, not a warrior’s bright edge but a fevered shadow, like someone who’d lost a vital star and vowed revenge; that inner madness was a wildfire under bark.

“Zou…”—the name hung like a warning bell.

“Yuuya, I’ve decided.”—his voice was a blade laid down.

“Eh…”—the word flicked like a sparrow.

“Some things won’t come unless you fight for them; if you just wait, you end up with empty hands and dust.”

“So, what are you saying?”—the question rose like smoke.

“Yuuya, I’ll topple the Church first, cut off their swagger like a storm felling banners; then I need your Clan Head to help me declare war on the Magic Institution.”

In his eyes, a twist turned like a worm in wood, and the plan inside him slid into motion like gears catching at dawn.