The moving ruins
Muraku had no heart, but something deep underground pulsed. The Tree's roots, which for centuries had served as nodes of judgment, were no longer still. Some stirred in the stone like poisoned earthworms. Others grew upward like crooked teeth breaking through the concrete. It wasn't life. It was warped spiritual residue , a blind replica of the ancient chant, like a melody hummed by someone who has forgotten the words but not the rhythm.
The danger wasn't just in the landscape. It was in those who still lived there.
Akihiko first saw it while crossing the northern district. In a half-collapsed building, amid the rubble, he found an impossible scene: a woman tied to a root, suspended in the air like an insect caught in a spider's web. Her body didn't move. Her eyes were open, but empty. Fragments of disjointed sentences emerged from her mouth: "...pure... unjust... to flourish... to punish..."
She was alive, but her consciousness had been occupied by the echo of a diseased root . This wasn't possession. It was a failed fusion of soul and vibration. There was no judgment. Only repetition. As if the root were using her body like a broken instrument, playing a dissonant note that no one could fail to hear.
"They call her an Heiress Without Judgment," said a voice behind him.
It was The Silenced One. He had returned, even though no one had called for him.
—Not all of them survive contact. Some are hollowed out and used as speakers. Not to communicate… but to repeat. Like broken temples that continue to pray.
Akihiko said nothing. He couldn't. Because in that hanging woman, in that echo, he heard something he didn't want to accept: that even what had been sacred could become a monstrous parody.
The face of mutation
Later, under acidic rain that didn't touch the ground—it was absorbed by the half-grown roots—Akihiko was guided toward the oldest part of Muraku: a commercial district covered in red ivy, where the buildings seemed to breathe through the cracks.
There lived Maki Tsunemura , former enforcer of the Gure Clan, now a living legend of what it meant to survive the failed trial .
Maki wasn't a man. Not anymore. His body was covered in plates of living bark. His left arm was a hollow root that pulsed with internal light. And on his chest, a mark of judgment still throbbed… but no one, not even the ancient sensors, could read it. It was as if he were trapped in a frequency without a net.
He lived underground, in a subway station flooded with roots. There, the walls breathed. The lights flickered to the rhythm of his pulse. He moved slowly, as if every step hurt. But his eyes, though opaque, were not empty. They watched.
" Why aren't you dead?" Akihiko asked bluntly.
Maki turned her face. It took her a few seconds to respond.
—Because the Tree forgot me, but the root remembers me.
His voice echoed, as if he were speaking from a well.
—The root doesn't judge. It just persists. In me… it didn't grow. It became tangled.
He claimed to have heard the hill in his dreams. He claimed the white root had called to him… and then rejected it.
"Those who are rejected don't die," he said. "They twist into a warning."
III. Combat under the corrupt earth
Then he attacked.
He didn't scream. He didn't emit hatred. He just acted. His root-arm extended with inhuman speed, like a serpentine spear. The first impact broke a column. The second shook the ground. Each blow emitted a ripple that distorted the surroundings: the air trembled, shadows bent, roots stirred as if responding to a forgotten language.
Akihiko dodged without drawing. He studied. Every movement Maki made was a fragment of her story: an attack, a wound, a cry never uttered. He wasn't fighting to kill. He was fighting to be heard.
Akihiko realized it too late. When he finally drew his weapon, the world was already shaking around him. But he didn't cut to kill. He cut to free.
With a precise slash, he severed the root that fed Maki's hollow arm. The impact was brutal: the executioner fell to his knees, gasping, as if the loss of his arm had given him back something more valuable: silence.
Akihiko approached. He placed his hand on Maki's throbbing chest. The mark was still trembling.
"You don't need to keep imitating what rejected you," he said.
And for a moment… the root ceased its song. Maki fell. Not dead. Not redeemed. Just… stopped .
The warning of what is coming
The Silenced One appeared again, emerging from the roots like a shaped shadow. He regarded Maki's unconscious body without judgment or pity. Only recognition.
—You've done something no one here has done: calm a root without judgment. Not with force. With presence.
Akihiko didn't respond. His hand was still trembling from the resonance. He felt as if a part of him had been submerged in a formless spiritual current. Something inside had touched him. Something that didn't come from the Tree… or from the hill.
"This is just the beginning," the Silenced One added.
Then he threw something to the ground. A stone covered in white moss. In its center… a carved mark. Not of judgment. Not of the Tree. It was new. Without echo. Without translation.
"You will soon hear of the city that still sings with broken roots," he said. "And of the men who want to build a new Tree... made of wounds."
Akihiko picked up the stone. Not out of courage. But because something in it called his name.
END OF CHAPTER 105