Chapter 591: Nari Remains Behind

Rumi’s voice reached Nari through the surviving vent, too close to the stone for its usual careless brightness.

"I’ve got three prepared now."

Nari lifted her head from the shelter of her shoulder.

"Your fourth?"

"Yes."

She smiled before the dark strand beneath her right claw pulled hard enough to hurt.

"Show me later."

"I’m trying to show you now, there’s a piece of the old mark under my hand."

Nari looked back at the crushed sliver beneath the fallen block.

The place Rumi had touched was broken through its middle, its remaining line ending in a scatter of pale grit.

"Don’t open to it."

"I can feel the scar."

"The endpoint is gone."

Silence followed, broken by the scrape of a stone being lifted from the outside fall.

Nari drew her left knee closer to her body, making room for the aching arm that held the second strand.

"You’d reach broken stone," she said, "I’m behind it on a floor you haven’t touched."

"Nari..."

"I know."

She hated the sound of her own answer, hated the small pause that told her Rumi had understood it before wanting to argue anyway.

Her sister had always been quickest to see a way through.

Now Nari could almost hear her searching for one that would let that crushed piece of stone become a doorway again.

"Keep the three you actually have," she said, "I don’t want you in the wall beside me."

Rumi made a sharp, unhappy sound.

"I’d be unbearable company."

"You are on this side too."

The familiar exchange helped Nari finish the breath caught beneath her aching shoulder.

She heard Rumi move her hand across the outside scar, the scrape stopping where a loose fragment shifted beneath it.

"That piece is moving," Nari warned.

"I felt it."

"Set it down on your side."

The fragment scraped again, then stopped.

Nari closed her eyes for one breath, relieved by the small, obedient sound of a stone being left where it could do no harm.

"Tell me what you can see," Rumi said.

"Shelves, wrapped records, a lot of dust."

"Yourself?"

"Unfortunately filthy."

"I meant your injuries."

Nari looked at her shaking shoulder, then at the boot planted beside the second pin.

"Shoulder hurts, my lip is cut, both legs still work."

The answer brought a quieter breath through the vent, followed by Rumi telling the clearing workers which side of the ledge to leave undisturbed.

The right-hand strand suddenly slackened beneath her claw, making her stop smiling.

The hunting remnant had folded backward along its own exposed edge, drawing a little mouth out of the dark beyond her pin.

"Movement inside," she called.

It lunged toward the nearest wrapped record.

Nari slid her right claw along the pinned margin, cutting across the remnant’s narrow throat before it could reach the shelf.

The broken piece struck the floor, writhing against stone while the rest pulled away from her point.

Her left claw stayed planted on the second strand.

Another mouth opened at its far end.

Nari shifted her weight forward, using the sound floor under her boots to bring her body between that remnant and the records behind it.

The move dragged pain through her shoulder.

She bared her teeth at the little mouth, catching its exposed edge beneath her claw before drawing it down against the bedrock lip.

It split with a brittle crack.

Dark residue scattered across her boot, the remaining length circling away from the pin as a third hungry edge emerged farther along the shelf.

"How many?" Hajin called through the vent.

"Remnants of the hunting seams," Nari answered, watching the third opening creep toward a loose wrapper, "they’re still trying for the records."

"Your floor?"

"Sound."

She rose from the seated guard in stages, one knee first, then her other foot beneath her while both claws kept the exposed lines within reach.

The wrapper fluttered toward the third mouth.

Nari stepped on its loose corner before it could lift, pinning only the cloth against the floor while she hooked the hostile edge away from the plate beneath it.

Her claws met across the narrow seam.

The remnant broke between them, dropping inert flakes beside the intact wrapper.

Nari stood breathing hard, looking down until she was certain her boot had not caught the record itself.

She moved her foot away.

The cloth settled over its own plate.

[ Nari Hostile Route Experience: 1,000,000 ]

[ Nari Wing Progress: 6,500,000 / 7,500,000 ]

The reward lit the nearby shelves, revealing more wrapped vessels extending toward the vault’s central core.

Nari read the progress once before calling it through the vent, the sound of Rumi’s quick answer making her straighten despite her aching back.

"You held them off."

"They’re quiet now."

She wanted that to last long enough to sit again.

Nari wiped her mouth with the cleanest part of her sleeve, checking the small stain before pressing the cloth against the cut for a moment.

Her hands smelled of hot stone.

She flexed them slowly, letting the claws rest against the sound floor while she looked at the wrapper she had caught beneath her boot.

One corner had folded backward.

Nari eased it into place with the side of a finger, leaving its tied center alone before drawing her hand away from the shelf.

"Still there?" Rumi asked.

"Still here."

"I don’t like the quiet."

Nari glanced at the broken hunting residue beside her boots.

"I’m enjoying it while it lasts."

She rolled her aching shoulder once, stopping when the movement pulled too sharply before settling her feet where she could reach the nearest exposed margins again.

Instead the center of the vault began moving.

A black strip lifted from the far side of the core, followed by another that curved around it like a sleeve with nothing ordinary inside.

Nari stepped back from the nearest wrapped vessel, keeping both claws clear of its cloth as the strips gathered into a tall body across the central stone.

The archive route keeper turned its face toward her.

It blinked once.

A transit mark opened on the floor to its left.

The second blink drew another across the opposite wall, a third mark circling behind the body while a fourth began moving along the lower edge of the core.

At the third blink, all four found different directions.

Nari’s ears flattened.

"Four marks," she called, "one low left, two on the right wall, three behind its shoulder, four under the core’s rim."

She dragged the point of one claw across the floor beside her, scratching the numbers where she could follow their changing positions without turning her back.

The keeper watched the movement.

"Stored lives require a destination."

Its voice sounded dry enough to crack.

The first mark opened toward a dark corridor, a pull reaching from its mouth to the wrapper beside Nari’s foot.

She pinned the exposed edge before the cloth could lift again.

"That isn’t theirs."

The second mark circled higher.

Beyond it, the same downward return notation she had seen in the archive drawings sharpened along a hostile transit margin.

Nari called the shape through the vent, hearing Cessy’s answer from outside after a short pause.

"Underworld return direction."

"Then they’re definitely not going."

She drove her second claw into the exposed turn beside the opposite shelf, sparks showing how close the dark edge had come to its supporting foot.

The two pins held while the other marks continued circling.

Rumi pressed something against the outside stone, a small answering chime reaching Nari through the bedrock.

"I’m here."

"I heard you the first time."

"You can hear me again."

Nari smiled tightly, watching the keeper pull one black ribbon away from the core to expose the wrappers gathered beneath it.

The memory vessels remained closed.

"Vella," she called, "there are wrapped records around the center, I need to know whether anything is inside them with the people."

The spirit’s voice answered from the vent after a moment.

"There’s an exposed recording line beside this opening, keep the vessels clear while I read what returns through it."

Nari shifted her left claw half an inch, drawing the pinned transit edge farther from the nearest wrapper while the keeper’s third mark moved behind its shoulder.

She tracked that turn with her eyes.

Her right leg had begun trembling.

"Mortal memories," Vella said, the words reaching her through the surviving air passage, "encapsulated and uncorrupted, the hostile pull is outside their vessels."

Nari looked at the wrapped records again, remembering the three families waiting for Rumi’s earlier deliveries.

These people had no one standing beside their plates yet.

"Then they can wait here until we ask."

The keeper tilted its head.

"Delay is also a choice."

"So is keeping your hands off them."

It drew the first two marks against her pins, the pressure making both claws ring while the other pair circled closer to the center.

Nari bent her knees, lowering her weight over the sound vault floor instead of letting the pull carry her shoulders forward.

The pain stayed sharp beneath her collarbone.

She could work around sharp.

"Rumi, keep the known roads ready."

"They are."

"No guessing at this room."

"I heard that the first time too."

Nari glanced toward the blocked entrance, a faint patch of dust falling where workers shifted another upper stone outside.

The clearing had become a careful rhythm, lift, pause, set down, voices checking before the next weight moved.

She anchored her feet to the vault floor, the route ribbon brushing her left wrist as she tested the space between the keeper’s four circling marks.

Three mouths opened across the core.

Their exposed edges pointed toward the wrapped records, each beginning a different pull while the fourth transit mark tightened beneath the keeper’s body.

Nari drew a breath, bringing her claws into line with the margins she could actually see.

"Come on, then."