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The sound of utensils scraping against porcelain echoed too loudly in the dining hall. My appetite hadn't been real until the first bite, and then it was as though my body remembered what hunger felt like. I devoured everything in front of me. Meat, rice, stew, bread—it didn't matter. Each mouthful disappeared too quickly, washed down by gulps of water that barely touched the dryness in my throat.

What struck me wasn't the food, though.

It was the eyes.

Every time I looked up, at least one of them was watching me. Mei with her sly smirk, though it was softer now, more tender than mocking. Rin with her chin in her hands, her ears twitching nervously every time I raised my fork. Akane leaned back, arms folded, but her gaze didn't waver from me for a second. Sora fiddled with her napkin, pretending not to look when I caught her, but her silver eyes darted back like magnets. And Elira—her regal composure never slipped, but the intensity of her stare was enough to make me swallow harder.

It was overwhelming.

Finally, I set the fork down with a sigh, pushing the empty plate forward. "Okay. Enough. You're all staring like I'm going to vanish again if you blink."

The words broke the silence, but no one laughed. Not this time.

Sora leaned forward, her voice quiet but steady. "Ren… there's something you need to understand."

I rubbed at my temples. "Something else? I already feel like I've woken up in someone else's story."

Akane shifted, resting her elbows on the table. "You deserve to know. All of it. What we did. What it cost."

Elira exhaled softly, almost like a prayer. "And what nearly destroyed us."

I leaned back, crossing my arms. "Fine. Hit me with it. I'm listening."

The girls exchanged looks again, that unspoken current flowing between them, and then Mei broke the silence.

"When the clone took over, we tried everything," she began, her tone unusually subdued. "Every purification spell we knew. Every charm. Every ward. Elira scoured half her homeland for relics. Nothing stuck. It was like trying to wash tar with water."

Elira nodded solemnly. "I returned home, to the archives of my people. I brought back a grimoire—one far beyond what any of us should have touched. Forbidden texts, meant only for the elder council. Its pages alone threatened to unmake weaker minds."

I stiffened. "And you just—brought it here?"

"Would you have preferred we let the clone keep you forever?" Elira shot back, a rare flash of sharpness. "I would have sacrificed anything."

Her words cut, but I said nothing.

Rin's tail swished anxiously behind her chair. "We tried for days. Weeks. Nothing worked. The clone was too strong… or maybe too tied to you. Every spell we cast, he twisted back at us. And you… you weren't responding."

My stomach turned as I remembered faint echoes—flashes of light, the sensation of heat pressing against me, voices shouting spells I couldn't grasp. I had thought those were dreams. But they hadn't been. They'd been real.

Sora's hands trembled as she folded them on the table. "Ayame even tried reversing the spell—the one that created him in the first place."

I jerked upright. "She what?"

Akane's voice cut like a blade. "It nearly killed you."

My throat dried.

"She poured everything into it," Rin whispered. "Every ounce of her power. But instead of tearing him apart, it started unraveling you. Your body collapsed, your aura cracked. We almost…" Her voice caught, breaking into silence.

Elira's eyes lowered. "We almost lost you that night."

My hand went to my chest, feeling phantom pain where their words dug. I remembered something—like fire consuming my veins, the sensation of my body splitting in two. A scream that had never reached my lips.

I shook my head slowly. "And still… it didn't work?"

"No," Mei said flatly.

Sora shifted, and her silver hair slid across her shoulder as she finally met my gaze. "That was when I… found it."

Her words carried a weight the others leaned into.

"The grimoire?" I asked.

She nodded. "At first, I was just… reading it. Studying. Trying to find patterns in the spells we didn't understand. But the more I read, the more it started making sense. It was like the words… wanted me to understand them."

I frowned. "Sora, that book was—"

"Dangerous," she finished softly. "I know. But it didn't feel wrong. Not for me." She clasped her hands tightly. "And then I found a spell. Not one meant to banish or destroy… but one meant to separate."

Akane's voice picked up, steady and calm. "We all helped. We gathered power from everywhere we could. Elira brought her elves here. They lent their strength, weaving mana into barriers around the mansion. Together, we cast it."

Elira's tone went heavy. "But we were not ready. The sheer weight of it tore the balance apart. A rift opened—violent, unstable. It nearly devoured everything."

I stiffened. "The vortex chamber."

She inclined her head. "Yes. To keep the magic from consuming us, we bound it there. Contained it, locked it into a place where the energies could churn without breaking the world."

"And me?" My voice was hoarse.

Sora looked at me, eyes shimmering. "The spell pulled you into the astral plane. It separated you from him. The original Ren… from the clone."

Rin's voice trembled. "We thought it failed at first. You collapsed. You didn't wake. The clone vanished, yes, but so did you."

Akane's jaw tightened. "We sealed him away somewhere else. We don't even know where. But your body…"

Elira finished for her, voice quiet as snowfall. "It remained, but lifeless. Your spirit was elsewhere. Trapped."

"And that's why…" I swallowed hard, throat burning. "That's why I didn't wake for three months."

Sora's hands shook. "We tried everything to call you back. Every day. I stayed with the grimoire. I searched, read, prayed. Until finally… finally… something gave way."

I stared at her, unable to form words. Her silver eyes glistened, her shoulders trembling with the weight of what she wasn't saying—how many nights she had cried over those pages, how many times she had nearly broken herself chasing me through ink and glyphs.

The room was heavy. Their silence pressed on me like stones.

I laughed weakly, a sound with no humor. "So that's it then. Three months of me locked away in the astral plane. Three months you spent fighting, building, bleeding… all while I was asleep."

But then Elira shook her head. "Not three."

The words landed like knives.

My heart skipped. "…What?"

"It was not just the three months you were gone in the astral," she said softly. "It was the weeks before. The days we tried spell after spell. The time lost in our struggle."

Akane's voice was blunt, but quiet. "It's been nearly five months, Ren."

The air fled my lungs.

"Five…" I whispered, numb. "Five months."

The room tilted. I clutched the edge of the table, knuckles white. My heart hammered, my breath quickened, but no air came. Five months. Stolen. While a mockery of me lived in my place, poisoning everything I'd built.

Rin reached for me, her hand trembling. "Ren—"

I jerked away, standing abruptly, the chair screeching against the floor. "Five months of my life… gone." My voice broke. "Just like that. Like some—some bad movie where the hero wakes up and the world's already moved on."

No one spoke.

I laughed bitterly, dragging my hands down my face. "Do you even know what that feels like? To open your eyes and realize the world kept spinning without you? That you were just… erased?"

Silence. Then Akane spoke, her voice low but steady. "We know, Ren. Because we were here. Waiting. Fighting. Watching days turn into weeks. Weeks into months. Watching you not move. Not breathe. Not wake. We know what it feels like."

Her words hit harder than anything.

I froze, chest heaving, my anger hollowing out. And then… I crumbled back into the chair, burying my face in my hands.

"Five months…" I whispered again. "Gone."

But this time, I felt hands on my shoulders. Rin's warmth pressing from the side. Sora's delicate fingers curling against my sleeve. Akane's steady hand on my back. Mei's presence at my side, quiet for once. Elira standing tall, her aura wrapping like a shield around us all.

"We're here now," Sora whispered.

I let out a shaky laugh through the tears I didn't even know were falling. "Yeah. You are."

And for the first time since waking, I let myself believe it.

The silence that followed was soft, almost fragile, like a thin sheet of glass balanced between all of us. Their hands lingered on me, warmth pressing in from every side. I thought—just for a moment—that maybe things could steady. That maybe I could breathe again.

Then—

Click.

The door creaked open, spilling light from the hall.

"I'm back. Sorry it took so long, the merchants were being stub—" Ayame's voice cut in, firm and even as always, until the words died in her throat.

Her eyes found me.

The box she was carrying slipped from her hands, crashing to the floor, fruit and parchment spilling across the wood.

Ayame stood frozen in the doorway, staring at me as though she were seeing a ghost.

And in her silence, the entire room stopped breathing.

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