Chapter 23: The Landing in the Mist

The sensation of teleportation is not like falling asleep. It is like being unmade. For a terrifying, infinite second, I am not Juiro Minasaki. I am not a body. I am not a history. I am just a coordinate. A point of data hurtling through a void of static and white noise.

Then, reality slams back into place with the force of a car crash.

I hit the ground hard. The air is knocked out of my lungs. I taste mud and pine needles. The silence that follows is deafening, broken only by the ragged sound of my own gasping breath.

"Hitane? Minaki?" I croak, pushing myself up. My arms tremble violently. The world spins, a kaleidoscope of gray and green.

We are in a forest. The trees here are ancient, their trunks thick and covered in moss. A heavy, damp mist hangs in the air, obscuring everything beyond a few yards. It is cold, a biting, wet cold that seeps instantly into my bones.

"We are here," a voice whimpers.

I turn. Minaki is on her knees a few feet away, her dress stained with mud. She is cradling Hitane's head in her lap.

Hitane is pale. Deadly pale. Her eyes are closed, and a thin line of blood trickles from her nose, mirroring the blood on my own face. She is breathing, but the breaths are shallow and jagged.

"She is not waking up," Minaki says, her voice rising in panic. "Juiro, she is cold. She is so cold."

I crawl over to them, fighting the nausea that rolls in waves through my stomach. I reach out and touch Hitane's cheek. It feels like touching marble.

"She paused time," I whisper, the memory of the inn flashing back to me. "She stopped a Cleaner. A Jumper. She said it would not hold."

"She overextended," I say, more to myself than to Minaki. "She burned her own life force to buy us those ten seconds."

I look around. We need shelter. We need warmth. The mist is thickening, and the light is fading. I do not know where we are, but I know we cannot stay out in the open.

"We have to move her," I say. "Minaki, can you help me?"

Minaki nods, wiping tears from her face with a muddy hand. "Yes. I can."

We lift Hitane together. She is shockingly light, as if the effort of manipulating time has hollowed her out. I take her shoulders, Minaki takes her feet. We stumble through the undergrowth, guided only by the slope of the land. We head downhill, hoping to find water or shelter.

My mind is reeling. The Cleaner. The gray suit. The mechanical voice. Deletion is authorized. We are not just anomalies anymore. We are targets.

After what feels like an hour of trudging through the mist, we find it. A small, dilapidated shrine, barely more than a lean-to with a rotting wooden roof. It is old, forgotten, half-swallowed by the forest, but it is dry.

We lay Hitane down on the wooden floor. Minaki immediately curls up beside her, wrapping her arms around her sister, trying to share her body heat.

"She is fading, Juiro," Minaki whispers. "I can feel her light. It is... flickering."

"She is strong," I say, trying to sound certain. "She is the Mind. She will figure a way back."

I sit in the doorway of the shrine, looking out into the swirling mist. I try to drop my anchor. I try to feel the here of this place. But the static is deafening. My head throbs with every heartbeat. I pulled us out of the inn without a destination. I just pulled.

We could be anywhere. We could be on the other side of the world. But the trees look like Japanese cedar. The air smells like home.

I grip the rotting wood of the door frame. I am the Anchor. I brought us here. Now, I have to keep us safe.