A Moment Between Monsters

The sky was still bleeding when Kanji got back to camp.

The Soul Core had at last subsided. Not healed. Just… resting.

He moved like a man of glass and wire — burned out from the inside. Dirt smeared his knuckles. His eyes were half-shadow.

And there she was.

Lyra.

She's leaning against a jagged stone pillar, her long hair unbound for once, loose and slightly tousled by the wind. She was in a fitted green combat set, something that wasn't meant to flaunt but challenged the imagination, built for motion rather than for show, for choreography rather than artistry, for muscle rather than flesh. As she wiped down her blade, her muscles flexed gracefully.

She hadn't looked up yet.

She didn't have to.

Kanji stopped walking. Eyes resting a second too long. Not out of lust — but something more shocking:

Recognition.

She seemed untouchable — and, nevertheless, real.

Like the world' threadbare, and she's the last thing left to stand.

"Keep looking," she said nonchalantly, "and I might start charging you for it."

He didn't smile.

"Can't help it," he said. "You're… different out here."

She finally glanced up. Eyes sharp, but not unkind.

"And what am I back there?" she said, shaking her head vaguely toward the direction of the Church.

"Caged," Kanji answered without pausing.

Lyra's lips curved.

And for a rare moment, silence hadn't become a barrier between them. It was a bridge.

They were sitting again, near the strange, campfire now pulsing with ember.

Kanji sunk back against a stone, hands on his knees.

"I don't know if I'm human anymore," he added. Voice low.

Lyra did not reply right away.

Next: "What do you think you are?"

He thought about it.

"The system considers me a deviation. The gods — what's left of them — watch me like a threat. And the monster I just wiped from existence called me the seed of the one who devours." He looked up. "What does that make me to you?"

Lyra met his gaze.

And didn't flinch.

"It makes you a person I'm not done watching yet."

That hit harder than any title the system could bestow.

Kanji exhaled slowly.

"You ever feel it?" he asked. "The split. Between who you are and who you're becoming?

Lyra nodded.

"All the time."

He blinked.

She leaned in a little, elbows on her knees. "But I don't fear it as you fear it."

"Why not?"

"Because I was never meant to fit," she added. "Not their systems. Not their stories. I was born to break them."

She held his gaze. "Just like you."

For an instant — for a single instant — Kanji looked beyond the force, beyond the overpowering superiority, beyond the flawless grace.

He saw someone equally broken.

But opting to be whole nonetheless.

He did not say anything else that night.

Neither did she.

But there was something exchanged between them — not romance, at least not yet. Something harder to name.

Trust. Or perhaps reflexive wariness evolves into something more.

The fire crackled.

And out in the distance, the system stirred —

(Warning: Church Inquisitor On The Way.)

[Mission Override Incoming…]

[They Know.]

It happened just before dawn.

No sound.

No warning.

Just a brief surge of divine pressure—and then a flash of light, as the sky tore open above the camp.

Kanji was already standing up on his own.

Lyra didn't move.

A presence fell from the sky—armored in bitter chains of fire, blade reverberating with prayers etched into metal.

His eyes blazed like somebody had lit scripture on fire on the wall behind his pupils.

[Inquisitor-Class Entity Detected: S-Rank Enforcer — "Seraph-Veil"]

The best part of my day was Post def with the Lethal's subjunctive.

[Access Override: Church Alpha Clearing]

Kanji readied his weapon.

Seraph-Veil was not, however, looking at him.

He was looking at Lyra.

And for just a breath—one spark in the air—his hands trembled.

"Lyra Veyne," he said.

She never took her eyes off the fire.

"You're over your head," she said coolly.

"I wasn't sent to go after you."

"I didn't ask."

The Inquisitor faced Kanji, steel scraping black rock.

"I am here for the fragment. The system deviation. The anomaly."

Kanji stepped forward.

"Guess that makes me special too."

"No," the Inquisitor said. "It makes you broken."

[Soul Core Pleroma Minima Detected.]

[Target: Seraph-Veil — Can Use Soul Seals]

[WARNING: Seal-class weapon systems are immune to regenerative measures.]

[No option to negotiate.]

He moved.

Fast.

Too fast.

Kanji barely avoided the first strike. His blade sparked as it met Seraph-Veil's chain blade — an ethereal weapon that screeched with trapped voices.

The ground skidded beneath Kanji's feet. His shoulder burned.

[Skill: UNMAKE – 1-hour cooldown (18 mins left.)]

[Nova Modifier Involved: Inquisitor-Class Soul Seals Nullify Passive Enhancements,]

[You are outclassed.]

The fight wasn't fair.

It wasn't meant to be.

Lyra sat by the fire and watched.

Arms folded. Expression neutral.

The Inquisitor did not take his eyes off her again.

Because he couldn't.

[System Note: Inquisitor Class — Rank Lower Than "System Ghost" Status. Lyra Veyne: Preamble Exempt Operating Directive.]}

[Seraph-Veil Cannot Engage.]

[RAISON: Not Enough Power.]

Kanji blocked another strike.

Barely.

Blood ran down his forearm.

He slipped.

And then the chainblade descended — quickly, savagely, conclusively.

Lyra's voice pierced the air.

"Stop."

Seraph-Veil froze mid-strike.

Kanji's blade shook in his grasp.

Lyra now stood, patient and unhurried, within the radius of the fight. She glared at the Inquisitor, cool as a tempest waiting to break.

"You don't get to erase him," she said. "He's under my protection."

"I was told—"

"They told you nothing," she interjected. "You were destined to clean up for what they don't know. Get out before you're another mistake I have to bury."

The Inquisitor hesitated.

Then—he knelt.

With no further word, Seraph-Veil disappeared. A teleportation seal throbbed under his feet, and he was gone.

Kanji waited in the silence that followed.

Breathing hard. Chest heaving.

"…You weren't going to come help me?"

"I would've," she said, "if it would've mattered."

He stared at her.

Lyra stepped closer. Slowly.

"You're not at that point yet, Kanji," she said. "But you're close."

He looked away.

"…He was scared of you."

"Good."