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Nox didn’t know how long it had been.
Time had a way of loosening its grip in the dream world, stretching and thinning until minutes and hours lost all meaning.
When awareness finally settled back into his body, he realised he had shifted without knowing, his back now pressed to the wall, his right knee drawn up, his left leg tucked beneath his right, his posture folding inward like something protecting a fragile core. His hands rested against that raised knee, knuckles pale with strain, the ring trapped between his right palm and tightly curled fingers while his left hand wrapped over it, sealing it away as if it might vanish if he loosened his grip even slightly.
The familiar pressure grounded him, the shape and weight of the metal anchoring him to the present, reminding him of where he was and what he was doing, even as the echoes of panic still trembled faintly beneath his skin.
Then, it came again.
The sound slid through the cabin low and slow, a guttural growl that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards rather than the air, his stomach dropping at the instant recognition of it.
The Shadow Nightmare.
His head lifted, eyes snapping toward the source as thin lines of darkness began to stretch across the floor in deliberate, creeping paths that converged toward him.
His heart lurched into a frantic rhythm, each beat loud and erratic, undoing everything he’d painstakingly done to steady himself. Before he could stop the reflex, his body turned away, arms folding tightly over his chest as he hunched forward and arched his back, instinctively trying to compress himself into something smaller, something easier to overlook.
He buried his face in the crook of his arms, breath hitching as it sped up again, the grounding gesture still there—hands clenched, ring trapped between his palms—but it felt flimsy now, inadequate against the rising tide of fear that threatened to pull him under all over again. His shoulders trembled, sharp little shudders running through him as if his nerves had been struck raw.
The shadow came closer. He could feel it in the pressure behind his eyes, in the way the air seemed to thicken, the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps growing louder until they stopped just behind him, close enough that the absence of touch felt like its own kind of threat.
“So you were afraid of the darkness?” The voice cut cleanly through the haze, soft and feminine, so unexpected that it sliced straight through his spiralling thoughts.
Nox jolted, looking up and twisting around in one sharp movement, his breath catching painfully in his throat.
Nem stood there in her white gown, unblemished and luminous against the dim cabin, her presence so starkly out of place it almost hurt to look at her, a living echo of the image in his memory from the last time he had seen her.
“Why are you here?” The question slipped out of him before he could stop it, his voice barely more than a whisper, rough and frayed from disuse and strain.
Nem smiled, glancing away as she clasped her hands together, the gesture almost performative in its attempt to soften the oppressive weight hanging over the room.
Her voice was light, bright, infuriatingly warm. It was a sharp contrast to the deep, predatory growl that had haunted him all this time, a sound that had never once offered mercy.
“That’s the worldview of this dream, I guess.” Nemu smiled widely as she answered his question.
He wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself, but the tension in his chest eased just a fraction at her presence, at the simple fact that she had spoken to him instead of tearing into him like everything else in this place. It was a fragile relief, fleeting and almost humiliating in its intensity, but it cut through the endless darkness like a thin blade of light, her voice an unfamiliar kindness in a nightmare that had never offered him such kindness.
Nox turned his head away and pushed himself up, his movements stiff and unsteady, taking a few steps as if distance alone might reassert some control.
His throat burned as he spoke, the words scraped raw by a night spent drowning in his own thoughts.
“Leave me alone.”
It was the gentlest response he could manage.
Nem pouted, the expression almost comically out of place here, yet she didn’t retreat. “The darkness of the sleepless nights you’ve spent afraid of the Nighmares, or, the darkness of the organisation that betrayed you—”
“—Shut up.” The warning came sharp despite the rasp in his voice, laced with a desperation he hoped sounded like a threat.
Nem paused, her expression stilling before she spoke again, her tone flattening into something unnervingly precise. “To you, Darkness is your Nightma—”
“—No!!!”
Nox shouted, raw and stretched thin, every ounce of air forced from his lungs as he turned back toward her, his throat protesting painfully as the sound came out harsher than he intended.
He held her gaze, pouring every fragment of hostility he could muster into his eyes, silently daring her to retreat, to leave him alone with the familiar cruelty of the dark instead of this unbearable exposure.
Nem flinched, shock flashing briefly across her face, but then her expression shifted into something worse. Pity softened her gaze, and the sight of it made his stomach twist violently.
He didn’t want pity. Didn’t need it.
Pity meant weakness, meant being seen as something broken, and that was a truth he refused to accept.
She seemed to realise then that blunt truths would only harden his resistance. Her eyes dropped as she thought, searching for another angle, another way in.
“I can only appear in dreams,” Nem finally said, her voice quieter now, stripped of its earlier cheer. “But, that’s not the case for you.”
He saw it then—the desperation beneath her composure, the resolve in her eyes—and knew she meant every word.
“You’re not someone that should be here.”
A small smile touched her lips as she relaxed, as if satisfied that she’d said what needed to be said, and with that she turned and walked toward the door, her presence already beginning to feel like a fading echo.
Nox didn’t understand why her words struck so deeply, only that the tight knot in his chest loosened all at once, his breathing smoothing out before he even noticed, his right hand unclenching to release the ring he hadn’t realised he’d been crushing. The sudden calm felt foreign, like a muscle he hadn’t used in years remembering how to work.
He looked down, his face twitching before he could stop it. A small, hesitant smile breaking through despite himself. The sensation was startling in its simplicity—comfort, consolation—things he hadn’t dared to name in so long that recognising them now felt almost painful.
The sound of shattering glass rang out in the distance, sharp and violent, snapping him back to himself. His head snapped up toward the noise, instincts flaring as he felt it immediately: someone had found one of his Mind Doors. Then came the growl again, low and familiar, curling through the dream like a promise of violence. He brought his hands up to his face, fingers digging in as he tried to steady his breathing, even as another sensation followed close behind.
The unmistakable pressure of an intrusion.
Someone was entering his dream.
He straightened slowly, the fleeting comfort burning away and leaving resolve in its place.
He had to end it.
—————
He swung the Breakam Buster on instinct, the motion sharp and overcommitted, metal cutting through the air toward the source of that crawling pressure at the back of his skull. It was only as the weapon passed through empty space that recognition struck, that the presence wasn’t the Nightmare at all.
The dream folded around them, reshaping itself with a familiar cruelty, and when the motion settled they stood in a narrow alleyway, concrete walls hemming them in on either side, the concrete ground slick and uneven beneath his boots, the same alley where the truth had once hollowed him out, where he had realised—slowly and sickeningly—that he had been discarded.
“Get out of my dream.”
The warning left his mouth steady and cold, exactly as he meant it to sound, even as his body betrayed him, heart hammering hard enough to rattle his ribs, breath coming out too fast, his chest rising and falling as though he’d been running for miles instead of swinging once. The reaction was disproportionate, humiliating, but he forced himself to hold his ground.
Seven had already dodged, crouched low where he’d narrowly avoided the strike. When he straightened, it was unhurried, deliberate, his gaze never leaving Nox.
“I can’t do that.” The words were quiet, final, and they landed with more weight than a threat.
“Eliminate the enemy. That’s my mission.” Seven spoke as he reached for his belt, the movement practiced and familiar.
Nox felt the old reflex surge up through him, his own hand moving to his belt in response, muscle memory overriding thought.
He’d heard this script before. He knew how it ended.
If Seven used that yellow capsem, the odds would tilt sharply out of his favour, and in his current state—mind frayed, body still trembling from the aftermath of panic—he knew exactly how vulnerable he was.
It didn’t matter.
He had to fight anyway.
“But…” The single word stopped him mid-motion, his hand freezing where it hovered, his breath catching as he looked up. “My enemy isn’t you.”
The declaration hit harder than any blow. “I hate the Nightmare, but the Dreamer has done nothing wrong.”
Seven’s eyes were steady, burning with conviction, and there it was again, threading through it all like a blade under the skin.
Pity.
Nox’s jaw tightened. He didn’t know what to do with this, with the sudden, unbearable gentleness of it. He had never truly seen Seven as an enemy; he’d known from the start that the boy was new, untainted by the truth, unaware of CODE’s atrocities. And now that same boy stood before him, offering mercy where none had ever been shown, looking at him like something wounded.
He hated it.
He hated being seen like that.
The sky darkened abruptly, the change violent and unmistakable, shadows bleeding outward as the air itself seemed to recoil, and the presence of the Shadow Nightmare pressed down on him like a suffocating weight.
“You’ll never wake up! I’ll keep you trapped in your dreams for eternity!” The voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere, ricocheting off the alley walls, multiplying and overlapping until it drowned out thought itself.
Nox’s heart spiked painfully in his chest, breath spiralling out of control again as panic clawed its way back up his throat, threatening to swallow him whole.
“Nox!”
Seven’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with urgency, but Nox couldn’t bring himself to meet his gaze, couldn’t risk letting the boy see the fear etched so plainly across his face.
“Everyone has something that they’re afraid of,” Seven said, softer now, and that softness anchored him just enough that Nox slowly turned back, eyes lifting despite himself to meet the face of the boy he’d once taught in that classroom all those years ago. “I had one too.”
He knew.
He remembered.
The lightning. The sound of it splitting the sky, the flash of light outside the cram school when Baku was only thirteen, the scream of pain and terror that followed, and the way the boy’s face had twisted as the world changed him forever.
And how he had been there.
How it had been his fault.
A flicker of something unguarded crossed Nox’s face—grief, regret, something dangerously close to sorrow—before it vanished as quickly as it came, buried deep where the Nightmare couldn’t reach it.
“But…” Seven continued, lifting the yellow capsem in his hand, its glow cutting through the dark.“Someday the light will shine, and dawn will break.”
The words settled into Nox slowly and painfully. Against his will, a strange warmth bloomed in his chest. Pride. Quiet and aching. His former student, standing in the dark and reminding him of the first, simplest truth of lucid dreaming, one he had forgotten after drowning in darkness for so long.
No matter how endless the darkness seemed, it could not last forever.
The night always ended.
And when it did, dawn would come, and light would reach him once more.
—————
Nox watched as Zeztz drove himself into the Shadow Nightmare with speed and precision, each strike carried on crackling arcs of lightning that tore through the dark like exposed nerves, the light forcing the creature into visibility again and again, stripping away its advantage until its writhing form had nowhere left to hide. The Nightmare recoiled under that illumination, its shadows thinning, its power faltering, and the sight of that made something twist sharply in Nox’s chest.
Zeztz moved through the fight as if it were routine, as if this were just another Nightmare to be defeated, another mission to be completed, and Nox couldn’t look away. Why was it so easy for him? Why could he stand there, meet the darkness head-on, and dismantle it piece by piece, when Nox himself had been crushed under its weight for so long? The thought crept in uninvited, sour and insidious.
Was it because he had been too afraid to truly face it?
The question barely had time to settle before Zeztz’s form flickered, the yellow light around him stuttering and thinning, a telltale sign of the capsem nearing its limit, just like before. The Nightmare sensed it instantly. With a shriek of displaced air and a surge of black smoke, it lunged past Zeztz and straight toward Nox, its intent singular and ravenous.
Nox’s body reacted before his mind did. His belt was already in his hands, fingers tightening around it, ready to transform at the first sign of impact. But the blow never came.
A translucent green barrier snapped into place around him, the Nightmare’s attack rebounding off it in a violent spray of shadow. Nox recognised the energy at once. Barrier. The realisation sat uneasily with the relief that followed, and even as his shoulders loosened by a fraction, his pride bristled.
“I don’t remember asking for your help!” The words came out sharp, reflexive, a shield as much as an accusation.
A low grunt answered him as Zeztz scanned the area, eyes already searching for the Nightmare’s next move. He didn’t bother sugarcoating his response. “It was to keep you from escaping.”
Nox stiffened. The tone hit too close to the truth. He almost clicked his tongue in irritation before stopping himself, jaw tightening instead. Being seen through—especially now—was one of the worst failures an agent like him could suffer from.
His gaze drifted despite himself, catching on the unfamiliar capsem mounted in Zeztz’s belt, the Booster capsem, its presence unmistakable.
Progress. Proof that Zero was moving pieces on the board faster than Nox had anticipated. He didn’t understand how Seven had been entrusted with it while actively defying CODE’s direct orders. But none of that mattered, not compared to the possibility now unfolding in front of him.
Because Zeztz wasn’t just fighting the Nightmare.
He was winning.
And if Seven could truly defeat it—if this nightmare could finally be ended—then maybe, just maybe, Nox could wake up.
His heartbeat spiked again, sharp and sudden. Instinct pulled him into his grounding motion, fingers brushing the ring on his right hand, spinning it once, twice. But this time the panic didn’t take hold. His breath didn’t spiral. The tightness in his chest felt different, electric rather than suffocating. This wasn’t fear.
It was hope.
The Shadow Nightmare gave one last, fractured scream as Zeztz’s lightning tore through it, the darkness collapsing in on itself before dissolving entirely, leaving behind a silence so complete it rang. It was over. Truly over.
Seven detransformed moments later, the glow fading as he approached, stopping a few steps in front of Nox, his posture looser now, a trace of his old cheer creeping back into his voice.
“Just tell me this one thing,” he said. “Why have you been constantly giving me warnings all this time?”
Nox didn’t turn away. He didn’t retreat into silence. He stayed where he was, listening to the boy who had just pulled him out of a hell he’d thought eternal.
“You could’ve eliminated me if you wanted to.”
Nox lowered his gaze, weighing his words carefully, searching for something that wouldn’t expose too much, wouldn’t fracture the armour he’d worn for so long. Seven’s earlier words echoed in his mind, unbidden.
“I maybe hate the organisation,” Nox said at last, voice even, controlled, “but the agent hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“—for the sake of protecting Seven?” Nem’s voice slipped in from the side, light and teasing.
Nox swore silently, exhaling through his nose before turning away, falling back into the familiar rhythm of deflection. “I was merely aghast at this foolish, ignorant agent.”
He didn’t wait for a response. As he walked past them, he heard Seven’s voice behind him, declaring that they were even now, and Nox let the words fade into the background as his attention dropped to his hand.
The ring sat on his finger, dull and unremarkable, the anchor he’d relied on for so long to keep himself from being swallowed whole by fear. He slowed, then slipped it off, the metal cool against his skin, before letting it fall to the ground behind him with a soft, final clink.
He didn’t look back.
Ahead, light spilled through the end of the tunnel, warm and unmistakable, cutting cleanly through the darkness that had ruled his world for so long. He walked toward it without hesitation.
He didn’t need the ring anymore.
Dawn had broken.
The night—his night—was finally over.
—————
When Nox opened his eyes, the world did not ease him in.
Light struck first, unfiltered sunlight pouring through the window and burning across his vision until he had to squeeze his eyes shut again, the brightness painful in a way dreams never were. Heat followed, heavy and oppressive against his skin, the sun warming his face with an insistence that felt almost aggressive, and beneath it all came the sound: the slow, rhythmic drip of an IV beside him, each drop striking with a hollow insistence that anchored the moment in something unmistakably real.
For a breathless second, he wasn’t sure if this was another layer of the dream. He waited for the red moon to shine, for the air to thin, for the world to bend at the edges the way it always did. Nothing shifted. The light remained harsh. The heat stayed. The drip continued.
He had woken up.
He was back.
Nox didn’t move right away. He lay there and drew in a deep breath, then another, filling his lungs with air that felt heavier, thicker, seemingly carrying the faint sterile tang of antiseptic and something earthy beneath it. It was a scent he couldn’t quite name, but he knew that it did not belong to the Dream World. He let it sit in his chest, let the reality of it press down on him, afraid that if he moved too quickly the moment would tear and reveal itself as a lie.
Thoughts surfaced slowly, disjointed but insistent, and with them came purpose. He needed to see The Lady again, head to her Garden of Butterflies, needed to confirm that she existed too. She had never been able to follow him into the dream world, and the silence between them over the past year had been a constant, gnawing absence. At the very least, she had kept his body alive, fed, tethered to this world while his mind had been lost elsewhere.
He finally pushed himself up off the bed and the world punished him for it.
Blood rushed violently to his head, the sudden shift sending a wash of dizziness through his neck and spine, his vision darkening at the edges as his muscles failed to respond the way he expected them to. He swayed, nearly collapsing back onto the bed, catching himself with an arm that trembled under his weight. Instinct flared, sharp and immediate, and for a split second he tried to fold space the way he always had, reaching for that familiar pull of teleportation—
Nothing happened.
The disconnect was jarring enough to make his breath hitch. He tried again without thinking, the reflex automatic, desperate. Still nothing. The room remained stubbornly fixed, solid in a way dreams never were.
When he swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand, his body simply gave out. His knees buckled and he hit the floor hard, the impact ripping a sharp, breath-stealing pain through his side and shoulders, the sound of the thud far too loud in the quiet room. Pain bloomed immediately, bright and unforgiving, and he froze there for a moment, stunned by how real it felt.
He tore the IV from his arm with a sharp hiss, the sting making him flinch, and flung the blood-stained bandage aside without looking. Clutching the edge of the bed, he forced himself upright again, slower this time, every movement deliberate, gravity dragging blood back into his limbs with an almost cruel insistence.
His muscles ached as if they’d been wrung dry, pain radiating everywhere at once, deep and pervasive, nothing like the dulled sensations of the Dream World where injuries faded and exhaustion was a suggestion rather than a sentence. This pain stayed. It demanded to be acknowledged.
It hurt, and that was the point.
The ache grounded him more effectively than anything else could have, a brutal reminder that he was no longer suspended in a nightmare where the body was optional and consequences could be rewritten. He had survived. He had woken up. The darkness that had held him for so long had finally been pierced, broken apart by light he hadn’t believed in anymore.
Seven.
Nem.
The thought of them settled something deep in his chest, and for the first time since opening his eyes, Nox allowed himself to believe it. The dream was over. The night had ended.
And no matter how much his instincts still reached for a world that bent to his will, no matter how his mind lagged behind his body, trying to rewrite reality the way it once had—this pain, this weight, this fragile, aching existence—it was real.