The wind stopped.
Not in any natural sense.
Something heavier had pressed down on the entire space-even the paths of the sand grains suspended in midair had frozen.
Gaara knelt on the sand.
His forehead rested against the cracked ground, his fingers dug deep into the grit. The blood seeping from beneath his nails was absorbed by the sand without leaving a trace.
His breathing was rapid and ragged, like a bellows on the verge of breaking down. Every breath carried a sob from deep in his throat. It wasn't his body tormenting him. It was his pain.
Miki Yūya stood before Gaara.
Looking down on him.
His shadow stretched so far that it covered Gaara's entire body.
That shadow wasn't cast by light—there was no sun in this Spirit World, no source of light. Yet a thick darkness always trailed behind Miki Yūya, spreading slowly and irreversibly like ink dropped into clear water.
"Can't stand up? Even being underdeveloped shouldn't mean you can't walk. I called you a cold-blooded lunatic, and now you're actually acting like a reptile?"
Miki Yūya's voice was grating.
So grating that he didn't sound like someone speaking to a fifteen-year-old child. He barely sounded human.
Gaara didn't move.
Miki Yūya raised his foot.
He kicked Gaara in the chest.
Gaara flew backward again like a puppet with its strings cut, plowing a deep furrow through the sand and rolling several times before coming to a stop.
He curled up and coughed out a mouthful of blood.
The blood fell onto the sand and was instantly absorbed.
"Is that all you've got?"
Miki Yūya walked toward him slowly. With every step, the sand beneath his feet turned ashen white, as though all its life had been drained away.
"Aren't you supposed to be good at