Arthur did not fall.
He did not stumble.
He did not step back.
But in the instant time ceased to exist around him, something inside his body seemed to sink far deeper than flesh, blood, or bone.
There was no sound.
No wind.
No breath.
Mia remained with her chest unmoving, her eyes open, trapped in the exact fragment of a second in which she was trying to breathe. Kazuko was frozen between pain and the effort to stay standing. Shirō and Ayame had stopped like living statues, and even the silent tension around Kidero seemed to have been torn from the world and fixed there, unmoving, like a drawing without continuation.
A dark drop still hovered near Kazuko's skin.
It did not fall.
It did not tremble.
It simply existed.
Arthur felt his own heart.
Or at least, he felt where it should have been beating.
The impulse was there.
But not the sound.
His body remained standing at the center of the empty room, before that wide space — too perfect, too smooth, too silent.
And then—
— So… that is your name now?
The voice appeared without crossing the air.
It did not come from the right.
Nor from the left.
Nor from above.
Nor from within.
It simply emerged in his awareness, as if it had been there for a long time, waiting only for the rest of the world to move out of the way.
Arthur did not respond immediately.
His eyes slowly moved through the emptiness.
Nothing.
No visible presence.
No form.
Only that motionless space — and the weight that now seemed to be watching him from all directions at once.
— Arthur — the voice repeated, calm, almost thoughtful. — Yes… it suits you.
Arthur narrowed his eyes.
— Who are you?
The answer took a moment.
Not like hesitation.
As if the silence itself had been chosen before it.
— Someone who has stood by your side in other moments.
A chill ran down Arthur's neck.
— I don't know you.
— You know less than you should. More than you imagine.
The discomfort deepened.
The voice was not hostile.
And perhaps that was exactly what disturbed him the most.
There was no threat.
No urgency.
No desire to dominate, frighten, or provoke.
Only a familiarity Arthur could not accept.
— Was it you? — he finally asked. — That voice before?
Silence returned for a second.
— I have spoken to you more times than you can remember.
Arthur didn't like that answer.
Because it didn't deny it.
But it didn't reveal anything either.
— During the sandworms?
— In danger. In pauses. In moments when the world opened just enough for me to reach you.
Arthur felt the fingers of his right hand tighten slightly.
— Why?
— Because you have always been advancing toward places you should not reach so soon.
Arthur took a deep breath.
Or tried to.
The air around him did not move, yet he still felt the pressure of the failed attempt in his chest.
— And why now?
The voice seemed to come a little closer.
Not in distance.
In attention.
— Because you have gone too far.
Arthur glanced briefly at the frozen group behind him.
Mia.
Kazuko.
The others.
All trapped inside that dead second.
— Monte Arf — the voice continued — has always been worse than they made it sound to each other. Much worse.
The words carried no fear.
Only certainty.
— Traps, distortions, deviations, records… — it said, as if naming ordinary things. — This place does not only deceive your steps. It deceives perception, time, and what a being believes it knows about itself.
Arthur remained silent.
It made sense.
More than he would have liked.
The black-water lake.
The dolls.
The corridor of records.
The images that seemed alive.
The feeling that every wall was less showing and more remembering.
The voice went on:
— Even so… I must admit I am impressed.
Arthur frowned.
— With what?
— With the fact that most of you are still alive.
The way it was said almost sounded casual.
Almost.
Arthur felt the unease grow.
— Most?
There was something close to dry humor in the next response.
— And, surprisingly enough, only one of you is truly in a more critical state.
Arthur looked again at Kazuko.
The shadow still inside him.
The healing failing to fully reach it.
The pale body forcing itself to keep going.
— Kazuko…
— Yes — the voice said calmly. — Too close to the threshold. More than he realizes.
Arthur clenched his jaw.
— You know too much.
— I know too much and can say very little.
Arthur hated that kind of answer.
— Then at least tell me what's happening.
— With the mountain? With you? With what this place has been holding for so long? — the voice seemed to examine the question, as if deciding where to touch and where not to. — Today, I can only say enough to keep you from moving blindly.
Arthur remained still.
The voice knew him.
Knew the weight of a poorly placed answer.
Knew exactly the kind of thing that would make him push further.
That bothered him more than any direct threat would have.
— Who are you? — he repeated, now more quietly.
This time, the silence lasted longer.
Arthur realized that, even though nothing around him moved, that pause had intention.
As if there were a line the voice could not cross.
— I would like to show myself to you — it said at last. — I would like to speak more clearly. Much more.
Arthur kept waiting.
— But I cannot.
The simplicity of the phrase made it heavier.
— Why?
— Because, at this moment, I do not have a physical body capable of sustaining this encounter.
Arthur frowned.
— What does that mean?
— It means I used too much power. Long before you arrived here. Long before this conversation. And I am still… incomplete.
The word echoed inside him in a strange way.
Incomplete.
It did not sound like weakness.
It sounded like consequence.
— Later — the voice continued — I will be able to appear before you.
Arthur slightly raised his gaze.
— When?
— When there is enough strength. When the interval allows it. When you are a little less close to breaking things you still do not understand.
Irritation rose inside him.
Not explosive anger.
A dry, growing unease.
— You talk as if you've known me for a long time.
— I have.
— As if you've fought alongside me.
The answer came without hesitation.
— I have fought by your side.
Arthur went still.
The weight of that sentence hit harder than expected.
Not because he fully believed it.
But because some deeper part of him couldn't reject it.
There was a brief silence.
Then the voice added, more quietly:
— More than once.
Arthur's gaze hardened.
— In other lives?
The next pause was too short to be hesitation and too long to ignore.
— In other moments — the voice replied.
It did not deny.
It did not confirm.
Arthur clenched his teeth.
— I hate the way you talk.
For the first time, the presence seemed to lean slightly toward something close to a restrained laugh.
Not a sound.
A sensation.
— I know.
Arthur closed his eyes for a moment.
It was unbearable.
The calm of the voice.
The fact that it knew too much.
The way it spoke of him like someone watching another grow and fall again and again, without pity, without affection, without cruelty.
Just… observation.
He opened his eyes again.
The blue began to appear before he realized it.
First, a faint glow deep within his irises.
Then, a thin, cold line crossing his vision like a crack of light.
The voice stopped speaking.
Arthur felt it.
Not in the environment.
In his vision.
As if something inside him was pushing his sight beyond what the world allowed.
— Arthur — the voice said, and for the first time there was something different in it. Not fear. Attention. — Don't force it.
But he already was.
The blue intensified.
Not like flame.
Like depth.
His right eye pulsed once, and the space ahead seemed to tremble.
The empty room distorted.
Its smooth edges bent for an instant.
Lines that should not exist appeared in the air, as if the void were being cut into transparent, overlapping layers.
Arthur took half a step forward without noticing.
His vision began to pierce through.
Not the room.
Something beyond it.
His chest tightened violently.
His head grew heavy.
But he continued.
He wanted to see.
He wanted to tear at least one truth from that presence.
The blue pushed further.
And then—
A shape.
Just a fragment.
White.
A mass floating within the distortion.
Not a complete body.
Not a full face.
Just a part.
Hair.
Too long.
Too white.
Straight, thick strands falling forward like a dense curtain, completely covering whatever should have been behind them.
The form seemed suspended in nothing.
No visible shoulders.
No full outline.
No ground.
No light.
Only that white mass hiding the face of something Arthur could not name.
And even so, the sensation that came from it was immediate.
Ancient.
Vast.
Far older than the mountain.
Far older than any stone in that place.
For the first time, the voice lost its calm.
— That… is not possible.
Arthur's eyes widened slightly.
The distorted form trembled.
The blue in his vision surged violently for a single second, and his perception seemed to tear through another layer of the void.
He almost saw more.
Almost.
Pain exploded before that could happen.
A dry, cutting pain, as if something inside his eyes were being forcibly pulled out of place.
Arthur gasped in a sharp spasm.
Or tried to.
The blue shattered.
The distortion collapsed.
And the world returned.
All at once.
Air slammed into his face.
Sound came back in a suffocating impact.
The drop of blood fell.
Kazuko staggered.
Mia inhaled sharply, as if breaking the surface of water.
Ayame moved her shoulder.
Shirō blinked.
Kidero narrowed his eyes.
And Arthur nearly fell to his knees.
Nearly.
But he managed to hold himself.
His chest rose and fell too fast.
His hands trembled.
Cold sweat ran down the side of his face.
Mia was the first to notice.
— Arthur?
Her voice sounded distant for a moment, muffled by the pain still throbbing behind his eyes.
Arthur raised a hand to his face instinctively.
His right eye still burned.
— What happened? — Shirō asked, alert.
Arthur took a moment to answer.
As if his own tongue had returned too late.
— Nothing.
Kidero let out a short sound, clearly unconvinced.
— You're breathing hard out of nowhere.
Arthur lowered his hand slowly.
He said nothing about time.
Nothing about the voice.
Much less about what he had almost seen.
Mia stepped closer.
Her eyes searched his carefully.
— You felt something, didn't you?
Arthur looked away for a moment.
He didn't want to lie.
But he also couldn't explain.
Not yet.
— Just… a strange weight — he said, steadying his breathing little by little. — When I stepped in.
Shirō looked around the empty room, suspicious.
— I felt something was off here too.
Ayame crossed her arms.
— The entire mountain is off.
Kazuko let out a weak sound, still pale:
— Fair point.
The tension broke for a second — but not enough to dissolve it.
Arthur slowly raised his gaze and looked at the empty room again.
Nothing seemed different.
Nothing revealed what had just happened.
No marks.
No echoes.
No presence.
But he knew.
He knew something had been there.
Or beyond there.
And more importantly—
that presence had not expected him to see it.
— That… shouldn't be possible.
The words still echoed in his mind.
The group began moving again.
Carefully.
More slowly than before.
Kazuko still needed support, so Shirō and Ayame kept close to him. Mia glanced at Arthur from time to time, as if expecting to notice something else. Kidero walked in silence, as always — but now his silence felt sharper.
They crossed the perfect room.
No traps activated.
No sounds emerged.
No new markings appeared.
For a brief stretch, the mountain became too quiet.
That was what Arthur liked the least.
Because that silence did not feel like rest.
It felt like observation.
After a few minutes walking through a narrow corridor, the path opened once more.
The stone changed texture.
The walls became smooth, dark, and reflective.
Mia was the first to notice.
— Wait…
The group slowed.
The next opening revealed another room.
Large.
Cold.
Filled with mirrors.
Tall, short, wide, narrow, curved, straight, edges cracked, centers intact — arranged at strange angles, forming broken paths of interrupted reflections.
Some were fixed to the walls.
Others seemed to rise from the stone floor itself.
There were many.
Dozens.
Maybe more.
None showed anything beyond the empty reflection of the room and the group slowly stepping inside.
Arthur stopped at the entrance.
The others did too.
No scenes played.
No memories surfaced.
No distorted visions appeared like before.
Only mirrors.
Silent.
Facing them without expression.
As if waiting.
Mia spoke first, almost in a whisper:
— They're… empty.
Shirō narrowed his eyes.
— No. They're quiet.
Ayame didn't like the difference between those two things.
Kazuko, still breathing with difficulty, let out a weak laugh without humor.
— Great. Another totally normal room.
Arthur said nothing.
His eye still burned.
And for some reason he couldn't explain, staring at those motionless mirrors felt far worse than if they had been showing something.
Because deep down, he immediately understood:
the problem wasn't that they weren't revealing anything.
It was that they seemed to be waiting for the right moment to begin.
And it was there, standing before that room filled with silent mirrors, that Arthur realized Monte Arf had not yet shown even half of what it truly concealed.