Resolve

The world beneath the surface was silent, too silent, and the only light came from the faint blue glow of the floating cores inside their circular shields.

In the depths of the watery black, eyes began to appear, massive, slow-blinking orbs, wide and ancient. They stared without fear, watching each step the travelers took as if judging them, weighing their presence.

Dune caught glimpses of sea creatures with translucent bodies longer than trees, with thin glowing fins and mouths lined with serrated teeth. Tentacled beings coiled like vines in the distance, and once or twice, something large brushed the barrier wall, shaking the core slightly in response.

Syras shivered. "Why are there so many eyes?" he muttered, glancing around.

Dune said nothing, his gaze steady, but Syras suddenly stiffened.

An enormous eye floated just beside him,

nearly pressed against the barrier. The pupil narrowed and focused directly on him, unblinking, its iris glowing with shifting colors like oil on water.

Syras stared back, slowly raising a brow.

"…I know I'm good-looking," he whispered under his breath, "but this is getting weird."

He turned stiffly and sat down, arms crossed, shutting his eyes with forced calm. "Wake me up when its day and these things stop looking at me," he muttered. 

Dune stifled a laugh, his own tension easing for just a second.

The group pressed forward through the dark, the monstrous eyes never straying far, watching them with hungry gazes.

Dune had just closed his eyes, body heavy with exhaustion, when a voice softly echoed in his head.

"Can I ask you a question?"

His eyes opened slowly. That voice again, Yellow Fox.

He turned his head slightly toward the cage, brow rising.

"Sure."

Liora's voice came gently, with a hesitance that wasn't there before.

"Why did you guys come here?"

Dune blinked at the ceiling of the glowing barrier. "Obviously… to get stronger."

There was silence for a moment. Then her voice returned, deeper, more thoughtful.

"But why? Why risk your life?"

He frowned. A fair question. One he hadn't truly considered out loud.

"In our world… things happen. And if you're not strong enough, it gets rough fast. I've seen what happens when you're too weak to protect the ones you care about. I don't want to be that person again," he said, voice steady. 

"We didn't know exactly what awaited us in the trials, but we knew one thing, if we want to live, we have to get stronger."

From the other side of the cage, Liora, still masked, still veiled in mystery, nodded silently. Her voice came again, softer this time.

"Can I ask something else?"

Dune smiled faintly. "Only if I get to ask one too."

"Deal."

Liora hesitated, "i already asked you, so you can ask me this time…" 

There was a beat of silence, then Dune's voice lowered. "…What happened to your face?"

Liora's body stiffened. Her hand trembled slightly as it rested on the cage. Dune noticed the way her aura changed to more shaken.

He frowned. Too early? he thought. Maybe it's something she doesn't want to talk about…

But she spoke.

"We all lost our faces a long time ago. Our Lady Ruler Rosell told us that only by fulfilling our role, stopping Whispers from completing the trials, can we earn them back."

Dune's eyes narrowed with thought. "And your Lady Rosell… does she have her face?"

Liora was silent. Her grip on the cage loosened.

"…No, i don't think so. She always wears a mask. Just like us."

But now there was doubt in her voice. A slow-burning crack in the certainty she'd once held. Why had no one questioned it before? And why did this boy, this Whisper, instantly suspect her having a face?

Whispers truly thought differently.

Dune leaned back against the cold bars, his eyes following the flicker of passing shadows, monsters with too many eyes and mouths pressed against the invisible walls of the barrier. 

He didn't speak for a long while. Neither did Liora.

But eventually, the silence was too loud to ignore.

"…What happens to us," Dune asked quietly, "once we arrive at your destination?"

Liora, who had been staring blankly into the dim horizon, didn't answer right away. Her gloved hand twitched slightly. She didn't want to answer. But she did.

"First…" her voice was quiet, and shaky. 

"They'll take out your cores."

Dune didn't move.

She continued, slower now, as if each word physically hurt to say.

"That way… even if you escape somehow… you still can't pass the trial. Without your Green Neba core… it's impossible."

Dune's eyes were unreadable.

Liora kept going, though her tone was barely above a whisper.

"If you survive that… you'll be used for Fragments. Sent on hunts. Or used as bait… for other whispers. Sometimes worse. There are… other things too."

Her voice broke near the end it was hard to make out what she said. And she didn't elaborate any more. She couldn't.

Dune didn't respond. He didn't blink. His silence was louder than any scream.

The cage shifted again as the ocean groaned outside, crashing against the Neba barrier. 

Liora could feel her thoughts swirling like a storm. She stared at the floor and finally said, voice barely audible. 

"…I'm sorry."

Dune let out a small chuckle.

Liora blinked, caught off guard by the sound. 

"You're… laughing?" she asked, genuinely confused. "Aren't you sad? You're probably going to die soon."

Dune didn't look at her. He just smiled faintly, the kind of smile born from long, bitter experience.

"Death isn't that scary, there are worse things than death, that could happen to you." he said quietly. 

"You see… I've already died many times, just not in the way you think. I've felt pain so deep many would wish for death just to escape it. And yet…" 

he looked up at the dim, shifting ceiling of the cage, "I'm still here."

His voice was calm. Grounded and unshaken.

"My whole life's been one step away from the edge. Every loss for me means death. Every mistake could be the end. But even so, I rise. I crawl back. Every single time."

Liora stared at him, stunned. His mindset was… unshakable. There was no hesitation in his words. No fear, just a steady will to keep moving forward. She was amazed.

Then, just as the moment grew quiet again, Dune tilted his head and asked, almost 

casually, "So… you guys don't have faces. How do you see?"

Liora blinked, caught off guard again. "Ah… we see through Neba," she said, lifting her hand slightly. "It's… hard to explain, but we can sense Neba, shapes, movement, even tiny details. I can see your face clearly, actually, our vision might be even better than yours."

Dune narrowed his eyes in curiosity. "Huh… that's kind of crazy. What about eating?"

"We still eat," she said. "We burn the food with Neba, turning it into a liquid-like energy or a circle shaped core, and then we absorb it directly. Straight into our stomachs."

"That's weird," Dune muttered.

Liora gave a shrug of agreement. "That's the only way we can do it."

"What about breathing?"

"Through our skin."

Dune raised a brow, looking her up and down. "But you're covered head to toe. Isn't that hard for you?"

She nodded. "It would be. But our battle gear is designed to reveal as much skin as possible. We usually wear capes around it, unless we're inside our villages or safe zones. Out here, it's too dangerous and it's better to not reveal much." 

Dune's eyes widened at one specific word. Villages? He leaned back in thought. So there really is a whole world behind all this…I wonder how many villages are there? 

So there was a whole society built around this system. And now he was right in the middle of it.

"One last thing. We never asked each other our names. I'm Dune."

There was a small pause.

"…I'm Liora."

Dune smiled gently and reached his hand through the bars of the cage.

"Nice to meet you, Liora."

She hesitated, unsure, but then reached forward, and gently placed her hand in his.

For a moment, it was quiet. 

But in the next instant, everything shattered.

Dune's grip tightened with sudden force, crushing her hand against the cage's sharp edge. 

Bones cracked. Liora tensed in pain. Before she could react, Dune reached through the bars, yanked her toward him, snatched the scythe from her waist, and pressed it against her throat.

The moment froze.

"Hey!" Dune shouted.

Masked warriors around them snapped to attention, weapons drawn, battle-ready.

"One move and I kill her!" Dune barked, his voice iron.

Syras jolted awake, blinking, then grinned as he took in the scene. "Dune, you sly bastard," 

he laughed, kicking at the bars. "Open this up! Or your precious Yellow Fox gets her throat slit!"

Liora couldn't speak. Her body trembled. Her hand throbbed in agony. Shame burned hotter than the pain. She had trusted him, lowered her guard, and this was what it cost her.

She had been weak and foolish.

She had believed that maybe talking would help. That maybe this Whisper was different.

She had been wrong.

And outside the cage, Dune's eyes held no guilt. Only resolve.