As they sat in the office, night began to fall as Halstein exhaled deeply before picking up the phone and calling one of the managers. "Go get Aria. We need her input on this," he instructed. She was part of their team, and they needed to decide their next steps together.
The manager nodded and made her way to Aria's room. Knocking firmly on the door, she waited for a response. Silence. Frowning, she knocked again. Still nothing.
After a few minutes of waiting, she pulled out the spare key and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she flicked on the lights—only to be met with an empty room.
Her breath caught for a moment before she turned on her heel and bolted back to Halstein's office.
"She's gone," the manager announced, slightly out of breath. "She's not in her room."
Halstein pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a slow sigh. "Dante, can you call her?"
"About that…" Dante hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. "My phone got crushed when I tried to answer a call earlier."
Halstein frowned not wanting to say anything about his call earlier using Aria's phone.
Dante stood up, rolling his shoulders. "I'll go find her." Without another word, he turned and strode out of the office, heading straight for the guild parking lot. He climbed into his truck, started the engine, and pulled onto the road, scanning the area as he drove off into the night.
Halstein turned his attention to SteelArm. "You're not going with him?"
SteelArm leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Considering my face is all over the news for 'kidnapping'—and, y'know, my height kinda makes me stand out—I don't exactly have the luxury of walking around in public right now." He let out a deep breath before standing. "I'll be in the training room if you need me, sir." With that, he exited the office, heading down the hall with steady, heavy steps.
Halstein sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. "Nothing about this night is going right."
As Dante drove through the night, scanning every street, every alley, and every corner he could think of, frustration gnawed at him. Every road he checked led to nothing. His grip tightened on the steering wheel as exhaustion threatened to settle in, but he refused to stop.
Turning down another road, he carefully searched between parked cars and dimly lit houses before finally pulling off to the side. He stepped out, locking his truck behind him, and took a deep breath. The cool night air did little to ease his growing unease.
With a determined stride, he moved through the city's alleys, weaving between the shadows in hopes of finding any sign of Aria.
Back at the guild, SteelArm remained in the training room, pushing himself harder than ever. Each repetition, each drop of sweat, was fueled by the lingering frustration from earlier.
No one had noticed how much the fight had shaken him—not just physically but mentally.
"Can I even continue as a hunter… if something happens to Stiles?" The thought weighed heavy on his chest.
He clenched his fists.
"I only got into this because of him. I only enjoyed it because we worked together…"
Gritting his teeth, he shoved the thoughts down, forcing himself to move. Sitting still wouldn't change anything.
With renewed determination, he increased the weight on the bar, adjusted his routine, and pushed himself harder—tripling his usual workout as if trying to crush his doubts beneath sheer effort.
Far away, beneath a canopy of trees, Aria lay sprawled along the thick branch of an old oak, staring up at the night sky. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting faint silver glows across her face.
She exhaled softly, her breath barely a whisper against the silence of the forest.
"This world… I've seen bits of it. I have these memories… but none of it feels real. None of it feels like home."
A lump formed in her throat as a deep, unshakable feeling of displacement clawed at her heart. It had been there ever since—
She flinched. The memory of earlier—the storm, the lightning, the voices that echoed in her mind—sent a shiver down her spine.
Tears welled in her eyes, slipping silently down her cheeks before falling onto the earth below.
"Can I just rest for a while?" she thought bitterly. "I don't want to deal with this anymore…"
Aria's body pulsed with an eerie dark blue glow, frost creeping outward from her skin as if the very air around her was bowing to her presence. The icy tendrils wrapped around the tree, the leaves crystallizing into frozen stillness. Yet, despite the cold, a strange sense of comfort washed over her, numbing the weight pressing down on her soul.
She closed her eyes for what felt like a fleeting second, and when she opened them again, she was no longer alone.
A figure sat before her on the branch, legs crossed elegantly, hands resting in her lap. Long, flowing purple hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her eyes—an unnatural, almost hypnotic shade of violet—peered into Aria's very being.
"Is that thy wish? Truly?" The voice didn't come from her lips, yet it echoed within Aria's mind, gentle yet unwavering.
Aria felt her breath hitch, uncertainty flickering in her chest.
"If you truly want to rest… close your eyes and rest," the woman continued, her voice a soothing melody in the quiet frost-laden night. "I will take the burden from you. I will reshape this world… into something far more comfortable."
There was no hesitation. No fear. Just… relief.
Aria reached out, her fingers trembling slightly. The woman smiled, warm and reassuring, as she clasped Aria's hand. A deep calm settled over her, heavier than sleep yet lighter than anything she's ever felt.
Her vision blurred. The last thing she saw was the woman's gaze before everything faded into darkness.
Then—her eyes opened once more, glowing with a rich, unnatural purple.
A sharp breath escaped her lips, mist curling from her mouth as her katana dissolved, reforming into a weapon sculpted purely from frost. It hummed in her grasp, alive, as if welcoming its true master.
She exhaled slowly, stepping onto the branch with a poise that was both graceful and absolute.
"This world… has become tainted."
With a single motion, she unsheathed her weapon, its icy edge gleaming beneath the moonlight. The frost swirling around her spread like an unstoppable tide, freezing the entire forest in an instant—branches, leaves, the very air locked in an eternal, unbroken silence.
"May everything sleep until the world… is worthy of waking to."
She leapt from the branch, her descent effortless, almost weightless.
And as she landed, her eyes shifted again—from the haunting violet to a piercing shade of grey.
A slow, satisfied smile curled on her lips.
"This... this is the way it should be." She said slowly, every breath she took released frozen mist into the air.
Her hair faded into a pure dark blue color.
With each step Aria took, frost spread outward, encasing the earth beneath her feet in a crystalline sheet of ice. The once-thriving forest had become a frozen graveyard, the silence only broken by the soft crackling of ice expanding through the trees.
Then, without warning, a cold mist enveloped her form. Ice crawled up her body, encasing her like a fragile sculpture. A sharp gust of wind howled through the night. The frozen shell around her fractured into countless shards, scattering like glass in the moonlight. And just like that, she was gone, vanishing into the night as if she had never been there at all.
On the opposite side of the city, Dante continued his search, exhaustion creeping into his limbs with each passing hour. He had checked every alley, every abandoned lot, even places he knew she'd never go, yet there was nothing. The city stretched on endlessly, offering no sign of Aria's presence.
After six fruitless hours, he let out a long, weary sigh and leaned against the hood of his truck, rubbing his face. His eyelids felt unbearably heavy. He had pushed himself far beyond his limits.
With no other choice, he climbed into the driver's seat and forced himself to stay awake long enough to make the drive back to the guild. His body ached, his vision blurred, but somehow, he made it.
Dragging himself through the front doors, he headed straight for Halstein's office.
"I didn't find anything…" he reported, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. He hesitated before adding, "Can I… just sleep for a few hours?"
Halstein took one look at him—his slouched posture, the dark circles under his eyes, the sheer exhaustion radiating from his entire being—and simply nodded. "Go rest."
Dante barely made it out of the office before his body finally gave in. His knees buckled, and he collapsed in the hallway, unconscious before he even hit the floor.
A few nearby guild members rushed upstairs upon hearing the thud. Seeing Dante sprawled across the ground, they exchanged quick glances before carefully lifting him up and carrying him to his room. They laid him down, pulling the blanket over him before quietly shutting the door behind them.
Meanwhile, in the training room, SteelArm was still pushing himself. His fists clenched around the weights, sweat dripping onto the floor as he tried to drown out the turmoil in his mind. His thoughts were a whirlwind—Stiles, the fight, the overwhelming power gap between them, the feeling of helplessness that gnawed at him.
"Can I even keep doing this? Can I even call myself a hunter… if I couldn't stop him?"
His grip tightened. His body screamed in protest, but he ignored it, increasing the weight, pushing beyond his limits. His breathing turned ragged. His muscles burned. His vision blurred.
Then—
The weights slammed back into place as his strength suddenly failed him. His body lurched backward, crashing onto the floor. His mind barely registered what was happening before everything faded to black.
He had pushed too far. So far that even his skills couldn't keep up.
And so, for the first time in a long time… SteelArm, too, finally succumbed to exhaustion.