HOLLOW — CHAPTER 26
— XAVIER'S POV —
He woke to the sound of nothing.
No humming pipes. No distant creak. Just the weight of his own breath and the stiff ache in his shoulders.
He sat up slow, rubbed at the side of his neck, and stared at the concrete wall for a while. Not thinking. Just… not ready to move yet.
The bunker was colder than usual.
Not temperature-wise. It just felt heavier, like something had settled over it during the night — something that didn't want to be named.
He pushed himself up, bare feet landing soft against the floor. The first few steps were slow. Not because he was tired — just because his body was figuring out where it hurt today.
He walked the perimeter once. Quiet. No drills. No training posts. Just tape markings from yesterday's session and scuff lines where he'd clipped the wall too close.
One of the steel beams had fresh tape on it. He brushed it with his knuckles. It peeled back without resistance.
He frowned.
Didn't say anything — but noted it.
He moved to the center of the floor and dropped to one knee. The mat beneath him gave a little. He sat. Let his arms rest on his legs. Rolled his shoulders back. Closed his eyes.
For a second, there was calm.
Then it returned — that presence under his skin. That thing that never crackled, never flared. Just waited.
It didn't feel alive. It didn't want to be used.
But it responded.
He let it move — not pushed, not summoned. Just… allowed.
When he opened his eyes again, the mat beneath him had warped. Slight dip in the middle. Like the structure couldn't hold itself together anymore.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't react.
But he whispered the word anyway, just to see how it sounded.
"…Sacred."
No echo. No rush. Just truth, sitting in the air beside him like it'd been waiting for him to admit it.
He stood.
Footsteps behind him.
Yuki didn't say anything when she entered. She leaned against the railing near the top steps and tilted her head.
"How long you been up?" she asked.
"Didn't really sleep."
"You never do."
He gave her a look. She grinned a little, but didn't push.
She watched as he moved to the wall — to the bracing joint she'd reinforced last week. He didn't ask. Just pressed his palm to it and focused.
The weld started to split. Clean. Slow.
Yuki whistled low.
"Still not sure if I should be impressed or mildly terrified."
"Bit of both," he muttered.
"Noted."
A few seconds passed. Then:
"What happens if you try that on cursed energy?"
He looked over at her. Thought for a beat.
"Guess we find out."
— VEIL SITE, CITY OUTSKIRTS —
They didn't say much on the way out.
Yuki walked ahead. Xavier trailed her by a few paces, hands in his jacket pockets, hood low. The streets were quiet — too early for traffic, too late for foot patrols. Just empty sky and cracked pavement.
They stopped outside a half-collapsed office building.
"Spirit's nested in the third floor," she said, scanning the windows. "Grade 3. Low threat, but it's been hanging around too long. Shouldn't be this anchored."
Xavier said nothing.
Yuki reached out, fingers slicing a curve into the air. The veil dropped into place — silent, weighty. The cursed hum around them stilled.
"Standard protocol," she said, more habit than explanation.
"I know."
"You good?"
He nodded once. "Let's see what happens."
He stepped through the veil and into the building.
It hit him almost immediately — that flicker of wrongness in the walls, like the spirit wasn't just hiding. It was *waiting*.
Down the hall, the cursed spirit leaned out from a cracked doorway.
It was half-formed. Limbs too long. Face split from scalp to chin. The kind of shape that didn't come from emotion — just leftover damage.
It didn't move.
Neither did he.
He let sacred energy bleed into the room. Not a push — just presence. Like the air around him was being replaced by something heavier.
The curse twitched.
Its outline started to stutter.
It wasn't dying.
It was *coming apart*.
Then it made a sound — low, wet, guttural. A call.
Two more shapes entered fast from above. One crawled along the ceiling, dragging a line of black energy behind it. The other limped on one broken leg.
They didn't flail. They circled.
Xavier clenched his jaw.
"They're coordinating," he said out loud.
Yuki, watching from the veil, nodded to herself.
"That's new."
The first spirit lunged.
Xavier moved with it — no hesitation. His shoulder caught the spirit mid-lunge and sent it spinning. Its body hit the floor, twitched once, then began to unravel — not violently, but with eerie stillness. Like something essential had just… let go.
The crawler struck next. He ducked, spun, and came up inside the lead spirit's guard.
He didn't shout. Didn't power up.
He just pressed his palm flat to the thing's chest and focused.
And the spirit *folded* — not crushed, not erased. It bent inward, ribcage caving like the center of its structure had reached critical.
No light.
No noise.
Just collapse.
Behind the veil, Yuki whispered:
"…There it is."
— YUKI'S POV —
She had seen curses explode.
She'd seen them burn, rot, and disintegrate.
She had never seen one *fold in on itself* like it was giving up.
Xavier wasn't attacking. He wasn't even trying to win.
He was just… undoing.
And the curses could feel it. Even the crawler — it hadn't struck again. It was holding the ceiling like it was weighing its chances.
Yuki exhaled through her nose, arms folded tight.
> "This isn't cursed energy," she thought.
> "This isn't even a technique in the traditional sense."
> "It's failure. Weaponized."
She stepped through the veil and walked to his side.
The air around him felt different. Denser. Not cursed. Not blessed.
Just *final*.
"You alright?" she asked.
Xavier didn't take his eyes off the spirit on the floor. "Yeah."
"You didn't flinch when it folded."
"I didn't do anything."
She raised a brow. "Didn't *look* like nothing."
He shrugged, still watching the way the collapsed spirit's form continued to flicker at the edges, like it was fighting its own expiration.
"…I didn't mean to," he said, softer now.
Yuki didn't answer right away.
Then: "That's what scares me."
— NULL'S RIPPLE —
It happened without warning.
The energy in the room — cursed and sacred alike — stopped moving.
Not suppressed.
Just still.
The air didn't press in. It pulled back — like something *outside* the system had blinked, and the spiritual world around them paused to wait.
Xavier straightened slightly.
Yuki turned her head.
They didn't speak.
But they both felt it.
Far below the city — beneath the soil, the networks, the centuries of exorcisms and silence — *something turned.*
Not alive.
Not awake.
But aware.
And watching.