He looked at Shinobu, the corners of his mouth slowly lifting into a smile as warm as sunlight, yet filled with boundless affection.
"We're family," Rokuya said softly.
The light in Shinobu's eyes instantly dimmed. That faint glimmer she had finally managed to gather seemed about to be swallowed by darkness again.
But then Rokuya's words exploded in her mind like spring thunder.
"It's the same relationship I have with your sister..." Rokuya gazed into her eyes, enunciating every word as though announcing it to the entire world. "We're lovers, too."
BOOM!!!
Those words were like a massive hammer blazing with fire, smashing mercilessly into Enmu's cold, despairing dream.
Shinobu's eyes flew as wide as they could, her purple pupils trembling violently. Her mind completely shut down at that moment. Those words, "lovers, too," echoed and swelled in the depths of her soul, crushing all her inferiority, despair, and fear!
She was no longer a burden.
She was no longer someone cast aside.
She was the one he had chosen... his lover.
Crack, crack, crack-
The entire basement began to shake violently, countless enormous fissures appearing across its walls.
"Bang!"
With a crisp shattering sound, the dream space broke apart completely into countless flickering specks of light, dissipating into nothingness.
"RUMBLE!!!"
Amid shrill alarms, the Mugen Train derailed completely. Its immense inertia tore the carriages apart, sending smoke and dust billowing into the sky.
Amid the wreckage, Rokuya's eyes snapped open!
"Did I fail?"
He gasped for breath, his entire body drenched in cold sweat. His normally deep black eyes were still bloodshot from forcibly unleashing Arcana Power in the dream.
Almost the instant he regained consciousness, Rokuya's heart clenched. The dream had shattered too quickly, too violently. He had had no time to check Shinobu's mental state!
"Shinobu!!!"