The days slipped silently past the thirtieth mark, measured only by the shifting light and shadows within the abandoned storehouse.
A wordless understanding had taken root between Seraphilia and Robin.
Seraphilia no longer even needed to wait intentionally; the supplies she left in the hidden corner would always vanish by the next day, replaced occasionally by one or two slips of paper covered in symbols.
Sometimes they corrected errors in her "research," and other times, they marked the location of a cleaner water source nearby.
Language remained an icy sea stretching between the two of them.
But their actions were already warm currents crisscrossing beneath the silent surface.
Until a rare storm swallowed the entire West Blue without warning.
On the afternoon the storm arrived, the sky was as dark as a block of ink.
Braving a gale that threatened to tear a person apart, Seraphilia brought food wrapped tightly in oilpaper and a fragment of an ancient nautical chart to the storehouse, when a strange sensation seized her nerves.
It wasn't the damp cold brought by the wind and rain.
It was blood.
The scent was extremely faint, mixed with the earthy stench and humidity, yet it was like a cold needle piercing precisely into her perception.
At the stone platform where she usually placed supplies, the previous day's package had been taken, but the discarded wrapping was left in a state of hurried messiness—completely unlike Robin's almost obsessive caution.
Seraphilia's breath hitched for a moment.
She walked quickly toward the corner where Robin usually stayed, and the metallic scent of rust became clearly discernible there.
A few drops of half-dried, dark red blood were splattered beneath some abandoned files. Beside them was a blurred, muddy footprint that did not belong to Robin.
Pursuers.
The word exploded in her mind.
The wisp of Aura Mark attached to Robin fed back a perception that was weak, distant, and like a string tightened to its limit—vibrating, filled with exhaustion and reactive terror.
Something had happened to her.
She was injured and being hunted.
Seraphilia forced herself to calm down, her surging internal fury suppressed by cold logic.
Rushing out now would be foolish.
She quickly hid the supplies she had brought and erased all traces of her presence. Then, with the agility of a cat, she noiselessly climbed onto a sturdy crossbeam inside the storehouse.
Hiding herself behind the clutter and cobwebs at the highest point, her cloud energy diffused from her body, merging completely with the cold air inside the storehouse.
She became a stone, a shadow, a hunter waiting for the prey to come to her door.
The wind and rain hammered against the roof, playing an anxious movement.
About two hours later, the "squelch" of footsteps in puddles mixed into the roar of the storm.
More than one person.
Low voices in conversation were torn to pieces by the gale.
"...Are you sure it's this way?"
"...The blood trail cut off near here... That brat is definitely hurt, she can't have gone far!"
"The higher-ups want her alive... The 'child of the devil,' that's a mountain of gold..."
CP lackeys, or hyenas who had caught the scent of a bounty.
A grim, cold light flashed through Seraphilia's ice-blue eyes hidden in the shadows.
Robin had led them away on purpose.
To protect this fragile "home" they had maintained together for a month.
Foolish... and brave enough to make one's heart tighten.
The footsteps lingered outside the storehouse for a moment, cursing, before moving off in the opposite direction of the Aura Mark.
Seraphilia waited patiently for another half hour.
After confirming there was no further threat, she landed as lightly as a feather, slipped out through a hole in the side wall, and her figure was instantly swallowed by the violent night and storm.
—
Following the guidance of that flickering cloud energy, Seraphilia trekked through the wind and rain.
The mark eventually pointed to the outskirts of the town, a desolate area near the coast filled with jagged reefs.
The roar of the waves was deafening.
When she rounded a massive black rock repeatedly lashed by the waves, she finally saw that small, curled-up figure deep within a crevice.
Robin was leaning against the cold, damp rock wall, her body shivering violently from blood loss and the cold.
Her left arm was twisted at a strange angle. Beneath her tattered sleeve was a wound deep enough to see the bone, with fresh blood constantly seeping out, washed to a pale red by the rain.
The last trace of color had drained from her face, her lips were tightly pursed, and her dark blue eyes were wide with vigilance.
The moment she recognized Seraphilia's figure, that vigilance exploded into shock, panic, and a hint of... a fragile vulnerability on the verge of collapse that even she hadn't noticed.
Seraphilia stopped a few meters away, letting the cold rain wash over her, simply so Robin could see her clearly.
"The pursuers have been led away."
She spoke; her voice wasn't loud, yet it was like a stone cast into the raging waves, landing precisely in Robin's ears.
This was the first voiced sentence between them.
Her tone held no deliberate comfort, only the calm statement of facts.
"But this place will soon be submerged by the tide."
Robin's eyes widened, her chest heaving violently, but no sound could escape her throat. Her right hand pressed firmly against the wound, her knuckles white.
Seraphilia pulled out the small cloth bag she carried and placed it on a rock between them.
"The wound needs to be treated immediately, or you will die of infection."
She still did not approach, handing over the power of choice.
"I can carry you to a safe place. Or, you can use these things to treat it yourself. You choose."
To this startled bird, any forced kindness might seem like a new cage.
Robin's gaze jumped frantically between Seraphilia's face, the cloth bag on the ground, her own bleeding arm, and the violent storm outside.
Fear, pain, and a long-standing, deep-rooted distrust of the world whipped up a tsunami in her heart.
The tide had already overflowed the edge of the crevice, licking at her ankles.
Seraphilia waited quietly, like a silent reef, shielding a final place for her to breathe amidst the storm.
Finally.
Robin's lips trembled, and a faint sound, almost completely swallowed by the wind, drifted out.
"...Is it far?"
Seraphilia's heart was struck by these two words—softly, yet with great weight.
It was a response.