Ten Minutes That Stretched Forever

The forest seemed to hold its breath. Ayato stood on damp sand at the swamp’s edge, those violet eyes gleaming from the dark—deep as a well, cold as rain-soaked steel. Shadows bloomed into black wolves around him—silent, waiting for a signal from the giant body whose steps fell quiet yet certain.

Ten minutes. I just need to survive that long!

He counted in his head, maintaining the rhythm Lys had drilled into him for two months: heat to repel, cold to lock, emptiness between so his breath wouldn’t run out. Fenrir advanced a step—darkness beneath its paw shifted like thick liquid.

Ayato rolled his wrist. Bwoosh—KRAK. A short strike: pressure of heat capped with a ring of ice; not meant to injure—meant to delay. Fenrir tilted its head, then pressed again. Once, twice. Shadow wolves lunged from the side; Ayato shaved them away with thin blades of wind, triggered by shattering magic stones.

Seconds dragged. At his pulse, a soft tick marked time—the silver seal-stone Lys had slipped under his collar. Almost ten.

Ayato twisted the seal ring twice. The beacon lit, sending coordinates. He pulled a suppressor pendant from beneath his cloak. The yellow gem in the center glowed—thin membranes spread through the air, piercing Fenrir’s shadows to prevent escape.

“Come,” he murmured—meant for Lys, meant for Irea.

Silence.

Nothing leapt from the air.

Fenrir rumbled low; the ground beneath its paws blackened like a charred crater.

Why haven’t they—

...

At the Fenlareth portal point, Cielle sat cross-legged, back straight, robe’s hem brushing slick runes carved into the stone floor. In her left palm, Ayato’s comm-stone pulsed—the “emergency pull” line ready should Ayato’s rhythm falter before the tenth minute.

The wind changed.

Not just its direction; a faint scent of wet iron—like a blade dragged slow across skin. Vampire.

Cielle rose soundlessly. Head tilted; her mask shifted as lightly as breath. She stepped from the runic circle, gliding along roots and shadow, following the trace of scent hanging like fine threads in the air. Between ferns, a dark flash passed—a tall silhouette that left no shadow on the ground.

Cielle gave chase.

Deeper in, she found signs that shouldn’t be there: a marker stone at a tree’s base—supposed to anchor teleportation—scored with seal-eating glyphs, swept by foreign mana. One mute; two mute; three mute—the chain of Fenlareth markers cut clean. A lure. You’re drawing me off course.

The silhouette halted among firs. Red eyes glowed faintly beneath its hood.

“…you.” Cielle’s voice was only air.

A thin, cold smile. Fingers etched the ground—not a challenge to duel; a switch thrown.

A dark zone bloomed from beneath their feet—vampiric spatial rupture, its anchors already planted along the trail. Cielle’s teleport line flared to lock—snapped.

She raised her scythe—not for show. Ready. She managed to drop a small marker for Lys; its gleam sank into black like a coin into a midnight lake.

The zone sealed. The forest outside turned into a blurred wall. Their battle ricocheted without direction—and at the far portal stone, only a faint flicker remained: alive—then silence.

Elsewhere, Lys and Irea stared at the twitching rune-map: many Fenlareth markers had gone dead—struck by alien magic. They abandoned the failed portal lock, rushing for the nearest teleport, forcing acceleration to their limits—time devoured them mercilessly.

...

Ayato sensed something wrong in the way shadows crept across the ground. The beacon lit. The suppressor pendant flared. Help… wasn’t coming.

“Damn! If this keeps up... I have no choice!”

He sealed himself in a double-layered ice dome—outer “sacrificial” shell, inner core—raised to his shoulders and anchored to the sand.

Fenrir’s blows ground against it like surf on cliffside. Ayato thickened the struck side, thinned the opposite, letting force slide off the surface. His dome: outer shell that could break, inner bulk that must hold.

When four shadow wolves slammed from four directions, their muzzles only chewed the outer layer; Ayato patched cracks—heat to quicken regeneration, cold to freeze a new layer. Saving breath, saving strength.

Minute twelve—

fifteen—

twenty.

Fenrir shifted tactics: no longer clawing walls, but drowning them. Darkness welled up from below like tar, merging with the ice ceiling, rotting the chamber into a crater. The forest’s sounds died; even seconds seemed swallowed.

Ayato raised the pendant higher. Its light faltered—energy nearly gone. He built the cycle again—heat–cold–empty—but the shadows had reached his shoes, his calves, his waist. His breath rasped as though through wet cloth; the ceiling pressed down, the floor surged up.

His neck touched cold. His head closed in—darkness swallowed whole.

In that moment, something else crept through the ice’s cracks: darkness not Fenrir’s—dense, cold, familiar, like residue from another object. He didn’t know its name; he only knew it slid behind his eyes, pressed into his skull—opening something.

...

Images moved on their own—sharper than before.

A counseling room/classroom beneath pale neon; rain scored the glass. Rows of slipper lockers lined the wall; chalk dust and wet umbrellas mixed. A woman’s voice exploded at an old man—her trembling fingers Ayato knew.

In the corner, a man with too-white teeth smiled faintly; his gaze looked down, weighing as if judging damaged goods. The word dropped like spit—“whore.”

A thick bundle of bills—large denominations—he tossed across the table; sheets split air, scattered across vinyl flooring. “Think of it as compensation,” he muttered flatly. “And shut that mouth of yours.”

The homeroom teacher stood by the board, file pressed to chest, lips thin as pencil strokes. He didn’t interrupt—bowed, as if seeing nothing.

His mother held her breath. She knelt, picking up the notes one by one—not in defeat, but because Ayato’s hard-case satchel was split at the edge, his thin jacket and PE shirt torn at the elbows with dried blood, his rubber slippers broken, his running shoes peeling, his convenience-store umbrella snapped, the home first-aid kit nearly empty, and clinic bills came every time Ayato returned beaten.

Her fingertips blackened with dust; her cracked skin rasped against the floor. Ayato stood stiff in the doorway—his white school slippers yellowed. Shame and rage scraped in his chest, sparking endlessly.

Whispers curled from deep inside: Hate. Their fault. No one will save you. Just hate—end it.

Stop…

The image jumped—days without calendar.

A cracked rice bowl glued with cheap adhesive; a bento box lid hair-line fractured; hard satchel tied with faded cloth; paper door taped; wood cabinet bound with string.

“Why so late?”—cold.

“Don’t finish the side dishes.”—sharp.

Another night—with awkward hands—his mother spooned leftover rice from a tiny pot.

Love, but broken. Warmth, but painful. Where should hands rest? On a lap, or on… someone’s throat?

The whispers sharpened, needles at his ear: She’s disgraceful. Strike back. Don’t forgive. Choke them; silence after.

Please… stop.

Kleting. A ceramic spoon fell in the cramped kitchen: damp entryway, thin tatami, steam from miso pot blurring breath.

Ayato’s hand rose. Skin—vein—bone—

At disgust’s end was rage, at rage’s end was void. Stop.

He tried to turn away—darkness twisted his spine, driving him deeper. Forest shadows joined old hatred, forming a vortex eager to welcome him, like a pit long waiting. He sank.

Whispers closed over his head like wet cloth: Hate—hate—hate. No one matches you; destroy before you’re destroyed. You’re alone. No one cares. Let fall. Let silence replace all.

A hand landed on his shoulder.

A small crack opened light—but whispers lingered, crawling through: Throw the money back in their faces. She’s to blame. They all are—hate them all.

In that depth, Ayato saw a woman’s silhouette standing at the circle’s center. Darkness devoured ground, trees, stars—yet her eyes were wet, not hungry; loss trickled from them.

Another image: a mother wolf dragging her lifeless cub away from the cold. Teeth at its nape clenched, not harming—protecting. Love that still carried loss.

GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

A second touch. Not soft—rough, callused, like skin tempered by rain and thorns; a hand that lifted, not embraced. An echo of Fenlareth’s hard lessons—the way that never spoke love well, but always demanded survival.

And this time, the vile images stepped back. Warmth rose instead—only half, but enough to thaw his heart’s edges:

Young Ayato in his mother’s lap; silent tears slipping as she read him picture books; hot soup and rice offered clumsily on nights too long.

A split-second decision: she hadn’t ended her pregnancy though abandoned by her lover; she chose Ayato—and paid for it. Her brother rushing to find her crashed; her family struck her name from the registry. In despair that echoed for years, the only one left with her was the child in her arms—Ayato.

That warmth was real, imperfect. Hate and love balanced: neither dominant, both essential—and strangely, both irrelevant at once. What mattered was what he would do with them.

Ayato turned.

This time, he seized the hand.

Click—like a key finding home. The images snuffed out. The ice walls rang again with real impact. Breath touched his lungs again. The whispers dissolved like salt in boiling water—gone. He didn’t have time to ask whose hand; he chose to grip it tight—the hand pulling him from nightmare.

...

Light returned.

Ayato coughed—and realized his shoulder was under Irea’s arm. Her limbs—clean-muscled, tattooed green, clad in hide—folded before his chest, shielding him as dark pits tried to swallow them. Her wolf ears tensed; shadows bit her shoulder; blood dripped on her fur mantle.

“Finally awake? Geez, now’s not the time for a nap, you know.” Irea winced, but didn’t yield. “Save it till this is over, okay?”

BRAKK!

The dome cracked from outside. Yellow sigils spread in the air—Lys leapt from a slit of light, breath short, eyes steady.

“Vin-chan, sorry—our route was blocked. Marker stones sabotaged.” Runes branched into the earth; the wild shadows slowed. “Your pendant only blinded Fenrir. Without my anchor field, it couldn’t intercept shadows. Now it’s complete.”

Fenrir lunged. Irea braced at front, claws clashing cold; between, she fired light-arrows from her wristband—cleaving through shadow wolves rushing Ayato’s still-shaken stance.

Ayato swung right, a short burst of heat striking Fenrir’s neck; Lys bent her fingers—chains of sigils looped from air, binding Fenrir’s shadow-paws to the ground.

“Now, Vin-chan! Pendant—reactivate!”

Ayato yanked the cord. The yellow gem burst into motes—this time merging with Lys’s field; blinding became binding. Escape routes nailed shut.

“Go in!”

Irea dove through the gap, slamming a binding artifact—a small box that flared into bands of light—into Fenrir’s nape. The beast shook; earth split; its pack of shadows evaporated like breath on glass.

Lys raised her palm, third sigil flaring—low resonance to calm rage. Fenrir cornered.

“Hold,” Irea cut in, tapping Lys’s wrist before the final strike. “Leave it to me.”

She stepped close. Fenrir still snapped, but she didn’t dodge. Light wounds scored her, but each fatal blow that should’ve felled her sealed instantly under Lys’s tether runes glowing across her skin.

“You fought hard alone, didn’t you?” Irea whispered, stopping within reach of its head. Her palm rested on fur above its eye.

Those violet eyes wavered. Fear. Loss. And behind both—something yearning for embrace.

Ayato—knees just steady—rose. In his chest lingered thin warmth from the world beyond dark: a small lap, awkward tears, scant rice spooned with care, broken love that still existed. Hate and love—balanced; no need to annihilate.

Fenrir rumbled—not in words, but the feeling carried.

The first thing I felt was fear.
What haunted me: loss.
What gave my life meaning… was love.

Dark surged again—suddenly condensing from Irea’s side. Not from the orb it once devoured; from Irea herself—an old trace, perhaps a dagger she hadn’t pulled free.

“Irea!” Lys reached—too late. Irea thrown; Ayato caught her.

Fenrir reared, forcing all the darkness it had sucked from Irea into its jaws.

Back—can’t hold! That was the feeling Ayato caught.

He faced the pulsing black sphere. Inside it: rage, disgust, fear, and… void. He shut his eyes. Don’t run. Face it.

Cold wrapped his arm; warmth stayed in his chest—two lines crossing.

Irea thrust something from her band—a spear born of green crystal. “Use this,” she said curtly. Ayato understood: a catalyst.

They aligned breath. Ayato’s heat–cold cycle met Irea’s crystal core; the spear’s tip hissed—no longer wild, but clear.

“Now!” Lys anchored the field—path clear to Fenrir’s jaws.

The black sphere launched—at the same moment, their spear flew.

The crash didn’t destroy: white bloomed, washing darkness like sudden sun at hand. The heavy black dissolved; in the air, it fell as motes of light—small living seeds.

Something dropped from Fenrir’s mouth—the black orb—dead. Lys caught it with runed gloves, studied a moment, then handed it to Irea.

She turned it over, exhaled, and passed it to Ayato. “Keep it. You’ll need it, right?”

Ayato accepted. Cold, but silent—emptiness he could bear.

The forest exhaled relief. Shadow wolves dimmed like candles snuffed. Fenrir lowered to all fours—not collapse; submission as far as its honor allowed.

Lys noted briefly, closing the final seal on the bindings. “Done.”

Ayato wanted to smile—but another tremor came. Deeper; foreign. Not from Fenrir. Not from the forest. Toward the small northern city—Lunareth—the night seemed to thicken.

Irea looked up. Lys stopped writing. Ayato gripped the orb—its cold balanced the warmth in his chest.

“It seems,” Lys murmured, brow tight, “this is only the beginning.”