After traveling for a while, the girl finally slowed near the edge of the forest, where it opened into a clearing with a pond.
The two men from earlier had filled her hunger somewhat, and she would usually have found somewhere safe until nighttime arrived by now.
But she wanted to find that person first.
She still did not understand why she is doing this.
Only that ever since the day she bumped into her and heard her voice, a strange tug had latched onto her and never let go. Before that, nobody had ever truly acknowledged her. They looked through her. They stepped past her. They only reacted when she used her Umbra.
She inhaled slowly.
The scent she had been searching for had passed through here.
A faint spark flickered behind her empty eyes. Interest, small as a candle. The scent tickled her nose but her face remained calm anyway, like it always did.
She sank into the shadows again and moved along the treeline, following the trail while avoiding the open clearing. She felt there was a strong animal in the pond, and it was agitated. So she did not step near it.
She kept moving until the trees gave way to a cliff wall. The scent ended near a messy patch of leaves and branches piled against stone. To her, it looked like nothing. Just clutter.
But the scent went up.
She rose out of the shade and tilted her head, confused. How did that person go up such a wall?
She stared upward for a few breaths.
Then the person she was searching for appeared near the edge above and looked down.
She stiffened and dropped back into the shadows fast, almost like a reflex.
Up on the cliff, Yue Rin frowned slightly. For a moment she thought she saw something shift near the trees below, but she was too high up to see clearly. A bird, maybe. Or her nerves making shapes out of nothing.
She shook it off and started climbing down.
From the shade of a farther tree, the shadowed girl peeked out again.
She watched Yue Rin's body, the way her arms reached, the way her feet searched for stable stone. She tried to copy it without thinking. Her shoulders rolled like she was climbing too, but there was nothing under her hands. And that resulted in her looking awkward, almost childish .
With a soft grunt, Yue Rin dropped the last stretch and landed on the ground. The moment her boots hit dirt, she felt something was wrong.
Her spine tightened and she glanced around.
Nothing.
Still, her hand drifted closer to her sword as she headed toward the distant swamp forest where the broken church awaited.
Behind her, the girl followed at a careful distance.
After some walking, Yue Rin's cloak snagged on a branch. She tugged it free with an irritated scowl and kept walking.
Behind the trees, the girl tried to copy that expression too. It did not sit right on her face. Forced and wrong, like a mask pulled tight.
She had always wanted to approach Yue Rin ever since that first bump. But every time she tried to imagine it, the memory of other people's reactions rose up. Fear. Shouting. Swinging. Running.
So she watched instead.
If she acted the same way, maybe Yue Rin would not be afraid.
And she had even gathered small valuables from the dead as gifts, because people liked gifts. But that still did not give her the courage to step out.
The voice of Yue Rin slowly drifted into her ears, she was speaking in a strange way, the sound light and repetitive.
"Hm-hm hm-hm-hm… hm-hm hm-hm-hm…"
She did not understand what it meant, or who it was meant for, but something about the rhythm made her feel… pleasant.
And so she kept following.
As they neared open ground where shadows grew thin, she hesitated.
Then made a decision.
* * * *
Yue Rin felt like she had been walking for hours.
The sky was paling. Dusk was creeping closer. She had already left the dense forest behind and was moving through fields of grass and wildflowers.
And the moment she stepped out, she felt her body was heavier for some reason.
Like something invisible had been hung on her back. Each step dragged slightly more than it should.
She looked behind her. Seeing only her backpack, with nothing clinging to her cloak.
Still, the feeling would not leave.
She frowned and kept walking, but the wrongness pressed closer. Her breath grew shallow, maybe someone is using a weird technique on her? as soon Yue Rin thought that, she stopped and grabbed her sword, unsheathing it in one smooth motion. Then she used Falling Leaf, and with a burst of Qi, her legs shoot forward.
She stopped hard and spun.
Still, nothing was out of place.
The field was empty. The flowers swayed. The wind whispered over grass.
But her heart still would not slow.
And now, facing away from the sun, her shadow lay in front of her like a stain.
Yue Rin stared at it.
For a heartbeat, she thought her eyes were playing tricks, because the shadow at her feet looked… thicker at the edges. Darker than the surrounding ground. As if it had swallowed more light than it should.
Her stomach tightened.
The feeling of being watched crawled up her neck.
Needle Draw.
Her sword cut down toward her own shadow.
It should have struck dirt.
Instead, the blade met something that resisted.
Not flesh. Not steel.
Something strange. Like thick mud, but wrong.
A low sound escaped from the ground.
"Ugh."
Yue Rin's blood turned to ice.
Her shadow rippled, and something peeled away from it, separating itself as if it had been stuck there the whole time. A veil of darkness slowly rose and gathered into a silhouette. Then the darkness thinned, revealing a girl standing where no one had been.
Her clothes were torn, the fabric around her stomach shredded where the sword had hit, but her skin was untouched. Pale. Clean. Almost unreal in the growing light.
Yue Rin's face drained of color.
"A-ahh!"
She stumbled back, nearly tripping over her own feet before she forced herself upright.
A ghost!
It had to be a ghost!
It had come out of her own shadow!
The girl froze too. For a moment, she looked almost lost. As if she was trying to find the right thing to do, the right sound to make, and coming up empty.
Then she did the only thing she could think of.
She hummed.
"Hm-hm hm-hm-hm… hm-hm hm-hm-hm…"
The tune was the same one Yue Rin had been humming earlier, but it came out wrong. Like paper being shredded.
Paired with that blank, cold stare, it did not soothe Yue Rin at all. Instead it made her skin crawl even more.
Terror punched through her chest. She did not know what this thing was. She did not know what it wanted. She did not know how strong it was.
But it had followed her without her senses catching it, and her sword did not appear to have harmed it in the slightest.
That was enough.
When faced with an unknown enemy, especially one that made no sense, there was only one answer.
Run!
Yue Rin bolted.
Falling Leaf fired again, Qi rushing through her meridians as she kicked off the ground. She slapped a Light Step talisman against her clothes and fed it Qi, and her body surged forward even faster.
She did not dare look back.
She avoided the forest and stayed on the rolling hills, where the sunlight stretched long and shadows were shallow.
Behind her, the girl tried to chase.
But open ground was awkward. There were no shades. She could not melt into darkness the way she liked. She had to run with her legs, which she was not used to.
After a few big steps she stumbled and fell headfirst into the grass.
She pushed herself up and tried again, trying to copy the way Yue Rin ran.
She stumbled again.
Yue Rin's figure grew smaller, swallowed by distance and failing light.
The girl stopped trying and stood up.
Then she started walking instead, slower but steady, following the scent.