The small ailed fox let out a sharp yip before suddenly pung my nose—adorably, yet with an urgency that sent a jolt through my entire body.

  I blinked in surprise. “Over there!” The words left my mouth instinctively, my hand shooting up to point toward a dech of trees just off the road.

  Catherine’s sharp voice cut through the air like a whip. “Code Nine!” she barked, already moving. In one swift motion, she grabbed her satchel and slung her backpack over her shoulder, her usual posed demeanor sharpening into focused determination.

  Yuzu, standing tense beside me, nodded without hesitation. “Yuzu got it!”

  Before I could even process what was happening, her dark eyes locked onto mine, and in a blur of movement, she scooped me up into a princess carry as if I weighed nothing at all.

  “W-Waa!” I yelped, arms filing before I instinctively clutched the tiny fox tighter against my chest. The little creature trembled in my grasp, its golden glow pulsing rapidly against my skin, like the quied heartbeat of something desperate.

  Then, with an explosive burst of speed, Yuzu took off.

  The world blurred around us, wind tearing past my ears as she moved like a shadow slig through the trees. Her steps were impossibly light, her every movement fluid, like she art of the wind itself.

  Catherine followed close behind, muttering an intation under her breath. The air around her shimmered, and then—whoosh—her speed nearly doubled, her boots barely making a sound as they struck the dirt path.

  The once quiet forest became a rush of blurred green and streaks of golden light, the afternoon sun flickering through the thick opy above. The leaves rustled violently in our wake, our sudden presence disturbing the eerie stillhat had settled over this pce.

  The little fox let out another soft cry, its tiny paws clutg at my clothes with a desperate grip. Its ails, shimmering with golden light, twitched erratically as if responding to an invisible force. The warmth radiating from its fur intensified, seeping into my skin like embers burning just beh the surface.

  It was afraid.

  Catherine’s voice rang out behind us, sharp and unwavering. “Stay alert! If this thing’s giving off a dungeon signature, there’s no telling what we’re running into!”

  Her words sent a shiver down my spine.

  Yuzu, uerred, pressed forward, her steps light yet impossibly fast. “Yuzu feel close! Not bad pce, beryyy… lost pce!”

  A lost pce…?

  The phrase lingered in my mind, heavy and uling. The fox’s heartbeat pounded against my chest, its rhythm oddly in sync with my own. Something ulling at us—ning us forward, like an uhread eg this creature to whatever y ahead.

  Then—

  Without warning, the glow around the fox fred ohen twice, before suddenly bursting outward in a wave of golden light. The brilliance of it washed over me, seeping into my skin like liquid fire. A shudder ran through my entire body, the sheer force of it making my breath hitch.

  A sensation crashed into me like a tidal wave, overwhelming and absolute. The world around me faded, swallowed by something vast and unseen. I could no longer hear the rustling leaves, the hurried footsteps, or even the frantic beat of my ow. Instead, there was only a deep, resounding presence, an echo of something a.

  A whisper threaded through my mind, soft yet urgent. I couldn’t make out the words, but I felt them. A plea. A cry for help. Desperation woven into the very fabric of the energy noing around me.

  My vision blurred, tilting at odd angles before sharpening into perfect crity. And for a fleeting moment, I saw it.

  Red tates stood before me, their wooden frames weathered and splintered, half-buried beh creeping vihe sacred pathway they once marked was rown, fotten by time. Stoerns, their surfaces cracked and worn, lihe path in uneven intervals. Their fmes flickered weakly, struggling against an encroag darkhat slithered at the edges of my sight.

  The air was thick with the st of old inse, fai persistent, as though lingering from a prayer long past. A feeling of loneliness settled deep within my chest, heavy and unshakable. Something was waiting there—someone was waiting there.

  A name surfaced in my mind, unbidde undeniable. It g to me like an old memory, as if I had always known it but had only just remembered.

  "Yuki."

  The word escaped my lips before I could stop it, no louder than a breath, carried away by the whispering wind.

  Yuzu’s ears twitched. “Mashiro say something?”

  But before I could ahe world shifted.

  A deep, resonating hum pulsed through the air, loowerful, rattling the very bones of the forest. The trees ahead, once solid and unyielding, shimmered, their forms bending and twisting like refles in disturbed water. The sensation was dizzying, as though reality itself had been caught in an uide, rolling and ing under some unknown force.

  Then, like a curtain being drawn back, the forest split open.

  The dehicket that had oood before us peeled away, dissolving into nothingness, revealing a hidden path carved from a stohe air around us thied, charged with something both fn and familiar, crag against my skin like static before a storm.

  A veil had lifted and beyond it, hidden deep within the embrace of the fotten woods, stood a shrine lost to time. T red tates framed the entraheir weathered surfaces entwined with creeping ivy, the sacred wood cracked and splintered with age. Moss bhe stoh leading forward, its uneven surface broken in pces by the roots of arees that had long since cimed the nd as their own.

  The shriself loomed in the distas once-proud structure worn by turies of . The wooden beams, though faded and ed, still held firm, as if stubbornly resisting the passage of time. Flickering foxfire wove through the air, its ethereal glow casting eerie shadows across the rown courtyard. The nterns that lihe path sputtered with faint embers, their light barely holding on, like the final breath of a dying memory.

  The air carried a heavy stillness, thick with something unseen—something waiting. The moment my feet crossed the threshold, a chill crept up my spine, and the small fox in my arms trembled.

  This pce was not merely fotten.

  It had been abandoned.

  “Nyaa… is it m already?” a soft, sleepy voice murmured.

  The figure y sprawled out in front of the shrine, her limbs tangled in thick ropes, as if she had been unceremoniously left there. She stretched slightly, the movement zy and uned, as though waking from an afternoon nap rather than captivity. The moonlight caught in her hair—pure white, like freshly fallen snow, the same shade as the small fox trembling in my arms.

  I swallowed hard, my grip tightening instinctively around the tiny creature. “…Yuki…”

  The name slipped from my lips before I even realized it. The resembnce was uny. Too uny. The uniform she wore—a cssic sailor-style outfit—felt familiar, almost nostalgic, yet something about its design was subtly off. The fabric g to her form in ways that didn’t quite match my memories, the details just slightly different from the uniforms I knew from Japan.

  The girl attempted to sit up, but the ropes held firm, causio wobble before flopping bato the moss-covered stone.

  “ervert! Mashiro not see!”

  Yuzu shrieked in arm, her dark tail bristling as she cmped her hands over my eyes while still holdiight in a princess carry.

  “Huh—what?!” I yelped, nearly dropping the fox as I squirmed in her grasp.

  Catherianding a few steps away, let out a long-suffering groan. “Seriously? This is what we find at the end of all that?” She crossed her arms, scrutinizing the bound girl with a skeptical gre. “Why is she tied up like that?”

  The white-haired girl yawned softly, her feline ears twitg with the movement. “Mmm… dunno. Just woke up like this.” She wiggled her arms zily, testing the ropes with a distinct ck ency. “Kinda fy, though.”

  Yuzu, still c my eyes, gasped dramatically. “Nyo! Bery not good! Suspicious!”

  I struggled against her hold, my ears flig in frustration. “Yuzu, I ’t see—”

  “Not allowed! Mashiro will get bad ideas!”

  Catherine pihe bridge of her nose. “We don’t have time for this. Code Nine, let her go.”

  Yuzu hesitated, the out a relut huff before slowly removing her hands from my face. But even as she did, she tightened her grip around me, as if afraid I’d bolt toward the strange girl the moment I was free.

  Now that my vision was clear, I took in more details of the peculiar girl in front of us.

  Her sailor-style uniform, while undoubtedly simir to those from my old world, bore slight yet unmistakable differences—extra yers of embroidery along the colr, an unfamiliar crest stitched onto the sleeve. The fabric, though wrinkled from her current predit, shimmered subtly uhe shrine’s eerie flow.

  Her snow-white hair cascaded over her shoulders in unruly waves, framing a face that carried a strange blend of elegand childlike drowsiness. With a tilt of her head, her cat-like ears twitched slightly, adjusting to the sounds around her. Her long, fluffy tail swayed behihe fur pristie the ropes binding her wrists and ankles.

  She blinked up at us with sleepy snow eyes, as though we were the strange ones in this situation. Then, with another yawn, she muttered, “So, uh… anyone gonna untie me, or are we just gonna stare all night?”