Yori’s voice echoed into the vast plex maze that stretched out before him. But it echoed in a strange way heightening the impossible nature of the pbsp; The volume of his voicreased with each repeat aed at irregur patterns. Then it pletely closed off in silenly to leap ba behind him near his ear. It sounded almost as if someone whispered it in his ear with seductive tig. Chills went down his ned back.

  As if he wasn’t already on edge enough, the pce itself easily assaulted his mind with impossible shapes and dimensions that he couldn’t hope to prehend with any sort of words or reference from his reality. He struggled to not allow it to pletely break him. Yori wondered how long he could st and remain sane in such a pbsp; ‘The mind is truly a pce we don’t belong. I must find Yumi quickly before I end up like Athene and Nerine before me…’

  A step forward caused the entire grouood upon to shift into aire new form. Ooh an oddly medieval almost Western architecture became pletely covered in grass and trees. Unged was the endless moving and transf of the space out in the distanbsp; Whifortunately also meant all of the previous paths he used to have ged. No longer was there a way forward and to the left. The gate behind him now was the only path.

  Yori turned his body to match his head. There was only one course for him now. “Is this Yumi telling me how to find her?” It was his only hope. He might have had mental abilities, but they were pletely fn to him. He had no practice with them and had no idea how they even funed. So any sort of help from her would be wele. As much as his determination hardened his resolve, a strange doubt grew like roots in stone creating cracks in his heart.

  Any bit of hope that Yori held onto quickly disappeared when his only path transformed into a fork. “…Yumi? Are you doubting me?” The space that he existed in art of her mind. He could only guess that any ge happened because of her. But it was only a guess.

  Chapter 382 – Labyrinth of the Subscious

  He could only follow oh as much as he would have liked to have some ability to e himself. Having only a flip of a ce of being right made his mind ache. He only hoped that even a wrong path could bee the right path if he did things right. But he had no basis for such hope.

  It wasn’t long before more choices came to him. Hesitation did him no favors he knew. If he deyed it would only hurt his ces of finding his sister. Each sed inside her mind chipped away at his own sanity. The mere presence of the pce threatened him, he could only imagine how existing inside her had on his long term mental state. He still ran forward making choices merely on the feeling of his gut needing to find her quickly.

  If he was making progress he couldn’t tell. There was no signal of her or ao the maze. He had no clue how long he had been running, but he ired, just as the maze ired of ges. It was random and stant in a way that was impossible for him to find a pattern. He saw the same thing multiple times, but it didn’t make it any easier for him to know which was the correct path to take.

  Theher shoe dropped, in that the ground fell out from underh Yori. Dirt crumbled to his step and quickly spread out, preventing him from even running away. Into the darkness he fell until crashing into hard stone.

  Groaning, it didn’t feel as painful as he thought it would be, though it still hurt. “Ugh…traps now?” Yori started to look around to get his bearings on the room. Fitting with the transitory nature of the maze, he couldn’t find where he fell through. There was a ceiling ag as though it had always been there.

  As he stood up, there was only a sih for him. “At least I know where to go…” He took it as a positive sign. Though he wasn’t sure if he should have dohat.

  The single hall quickly became forks once more auro the same state as before. He rushed through each hall pig anything that made seo him. Ewists and turns piled up on him. A routiarted to develop with it, evee it being pletely random. ‘I think I’m starting to figure this out… Somehow this akes a little bit of sense. I don’t know how, but it does…’

  Suddenly the path came to an end. No wall saying it was a dead end, just no wall literally. The ground stopped and out beyond him was the rest of the maze twisting and ing about. Worst was that he couldn’t see the path. “Where am I supposed to go now?” He looked behind him and the path he took disappeared. It already pletely ged and locked him away. This was the only way to go. “I’m supposed to just jump? But to where?”

  Kneeling down to the ground, he poked at the emptiness. He kept poking around at the air hoping for a sign, but came up short. “So it’s not one of those leaps of faith sorts of things where the path is just invisible. It’s just not there at all.” Yori stepped back to take stock of things once more.

  He really only had oion and he k. “I’ve been running blind this whole time believing that Yumi is just in reabsp; No time to stop now.” It was the only path that he could take. That much he knew and uood. So he just had to push out the doubt and charge forward.

  A running leap, a leap into the void he expected. Everything was ected. He would end up somewhere. That much he could be certain of. He just didn’t know where he would be. With nothing underh him and the distaoo far, it was only iable that he would fall into the darkness. But even that shifted to bee something else. Nothing remaiatid the void followed the same rules, if there could even be sidered rules within such a pce.

  He fell into a field of flowers. Multi-colored daisies and tulips filled the rolling hills that grew out before him. “No more maze?” It was as fusing as anything else in this spabsp; He couldn’t make any more sense of it than anything else he found. Nothing he found really seemed to feel like it fit his sister. He expected things that might represent her, but all that e the guards of the gate. Inside, he could make nothing out of any of it. It was just a mess in the least logical way.

  But the colorful sight gave him a bit of a ge of pace from narrow passages. Despite being in an open field it somehow felt just as tightly packed and custrophobic as the hallways. And worse, he had even less guidan his path. He could only pick a dire and keep running.

  Unlike in the walled areas of the maze, he could actually see the sun and clouds. A sense of time and progression actually seemed to hold meaning. Whily made it worse when it became night aill kept running. The field never ended and never ged. “I almost wish I could have the hallways babsp; I sort of felt like I was making progress even though it was still just as endless as this field of flowers.” But his wish wouldn’t be granted.

  Time tio pass only making the sense of eternity worse. Without the time he had no idea how long he had been searg. In his mind he could still rationalize reality and perception as to different things. It might have felt like hours, but it was only minutes. Now he k was wrong.

  He had been running in the field for four days without stopping. That itself seemed impossible to him. But he never fatigued or wished to stop to catch his breath. Which meant he could tinually search for her even without sleep as well. But the same sight began to sour on him even more. Seeing no ge at all ended up being worse for him. “I just want anything different now. Even the bck void would be wele right now… I feel like I’m going to go insane just from seeing flowers…” Which seemed like a very real possibility for Yori after a week.

  “…Yumi…” he muttered as even her arted to lose any sort of meaning to him. “Yumi? Who is that? I keep saying it, but why?” Yori shook his head as the fshes of fetfulhreatened him. “No, I must find her. I will. You ’t stop me!”

  Finally, the fields came to an end. He reached the point where there was nothing more. “We meet again,” he said to the void. “How long has it been now? Weeks?” Without eveation anymore, he stepped into the void for it to e him.

  Ft on his back, he didn’t evehe pain of the fall. He didn’t remember if there ain. Just a different and wele ceiling. “I remember you…” It returo him. The byrinth that he thought he had escaped. Yet now there was something wrong with the pbsp; Walls stopped being a thing. There were only surfaces in an eesseltion. And out there was himself. “Why is there more than one of me?” There were tless other Yoris running everywhere. Eae shouting out for someone called Yumi. “So I’m searg for Yumi as well then?”

  He began to run like the others did. It only made sense. If they ran it must be because it was important. They had somewhere to be, to find. They had to find Yumi. “I must find Yumi too.” That was his purpose. Right?

  Time held no meaning anymore. He just kept running along the path. The sense of the ed space didn’t even unnerve him anymore. It just made sense. It was natural. This was the way things should be. Dire was ay word for him in such a space.

  Run.

  Run.

  “…Yumi…” Another Yori passed by. They alassed by. Eae had a path and course. Their paths intersected regurly. It was easier to cover mround with them. They would find Yumi this way for sure. The goal would be found.

  However, as the running tinued few of them crossed paths as regurly. It seemed time started to mean something. There looked to be fewer Yoris. None of them found what they sought, yet there were fewer with each passing course.

  “…tired…I…Yori…is tired…” Those that still held strong no longer ran. It became a sprint, even though a sprint was short it was just an endless short sprint. But they started to jog and then walk. Eventually, they could only crawl

  Colpsed on the ceiling, they couldn’t move anymore. Fatigue finally strud it wasn’t the same sort of push through fatigue that normally existed. It was pletely empty and drained, no reserves, ra will of fortitude or determination to draw upon fatigue. An immovable fatigue that glued them to the wall.

  “…’t…move…Yumi…must…find…”

  It was the end. They wao keep searg, but it was impossible. Nothing would move their bodies anymore. They could only y and it wasn’t even a rest. The fatigue and heavy breathing never ended. It tinued no matter how still they remained. It couldn’t be escaped or eased.

  They were finished.

  “…I must…” They paused suddenly, not remembering. “What…was…I…?” Lying on the floor was their purpose. That must be it. That was what they could only clude. They never moved. It was something that they had never done before. It only made sense.

  “…here…”

  A voice echoed through the chamber. It called out to them. Something familiar about it alerted them. They didn’t know why it was familiar. But it had their attention.

  “You must find her! Find your sister, Yumi!”

  “…sister? Yumi? I…was?” It made no seo them. That couldn’t be right. “…bas…tard…” It felt familiar to him. He seemed to remember something. Yori lifted his head knowing that voibsp; “Hayashi…you don’t have to remind me. I will find her! I will find YUMI!!”

  He stood up on his feet once more as he shouted into the void. All around him the others disappeared into dust. Then the surfaces disappeared with shattering. The space created within the subscious broke and all that remained was a familiar room of fort.

  “Yumi’s room…” He walked over to her bed seeing her sleeping peacefully without any or worry. It made him smile a little to see that she could be safe and unaware of everything. His sister had been protected.

  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he reached out for her hand. “Yumi…it’s time to wake up now…”

  “Yori!” shouted another familiar and annoying voice from a distanbsp; It pulled him away from her room, but it was fine now. He didn’t have to worry anymore. “Yori! you hear me?!”

  He groaned in pain as his body and mind ached like nothing he had ever known before. It felt like he had stayed awake for a whole month studying without any sleep or break. Nothing more could be crammed into his brain. And he already fot everything he had learned. He was useless. “Yes…I hear your annoying voice…where are you?”

  “Don’t scare us like that man!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You stopped breathing for a moment. We thought you died!”

  “…oh…”

  “Is that all you say?!”

  Yori didn’t really have much more he could say to Seiji. He couldn’t even see him. His eyes wouldn’t open. “I just exhausted myself a little. I’m too tired to even open my eyes.”

  “What are you talking about, your eyes are open and pletely red.”

  “Open? But I see nothing…” He suddenly thought back to Athene and what happeo her while she was in his mind. It robbed her of her sight. The reason for it never made any seo him. He could only specute that the experience destroyed her mind in a unique way that it no longer could make a e. “This is my price then…”

  “Price?”

  “Never mind that, Yumi? Is she awake?”

  “I am…” Yumi said softly to everyone’s surprise.