Aira didn't take Rei home.
She took him underground.
Beneath Kurohana Station — past locked tunnels and rusted stairwells — they entered a place that shouldn't have existed.
No lights. No windows.Just walls lined with seals, ancient symbols, and flickering paper charms that glowed with unnatural energy.
Rei's steps echoed louder than they should have. The air was too still. Too quiet.
"Where… are we?"
"A place for people like us," Aira said. "A vault of truths. A graveyard of things too dangerous to remember."
Rei's voice cracked. "Just tell me. What the hell is happening to me?"
Aira stopped walking.
"You're a vessel of the Smiling Shadow," she said. "And that means this world is about to shatter."
They entered a wide chamber — lit by hanging lanterns and a massive, cracked mural carved into stone. On it were seven twisted entities, all coiled and snarling — facing down seven empty, emotionless thrones.
"Long ago, there were others like us," Aira said. "Seven vessels tied to the Primordial Shadows… and seven chosen by something worse."
"The Thrones," Rei said, breathless.
Aira nodded. "They're not monsters. They're removers. Perfect erasers. Cold as the void they serve."
"They don't hunger," she continued. "They don't hate. They just want silence."
Rei stared at the mural.
The Shadows were chaos — eyes, fangs, wings.The Thrones were statues — hollow and still. And yet… they felt heavier.
"So it's a war?" Rei asked. "Seven versus seven?"
"Not a war," Aira replied."A cleansing. One you were never supposed to survive."
Then — the atmosphere shifted.
The murals twitched.The lanterns dimmed.A presence entered the chamber — soundless. Smooth. Wrong.
Rei turned.
A tall figure stepped out from the corridor. Clad in ivory robes, wrapped in salt-colored bandages, their face hidden beneath a porcelain veil.
They stopped a few feet away.
And then, calmly, they pulled back the veil.
Rei's breath left his lungs.
"...Yuri?"
She was older now — but unmistakable.
Yuri Kazuki. His sister.Gone for two years. Missing. Presumed dead.Her eyes were empty. Her smile wasn't cruel — just disconnected.
"You've grown," she said softly.
"You're alive," Rei whispered, voice shaking. "You—why didn't you come back?"
"Because I wasn't supposed to," she said. "I was meant to be forgotten."
Aira stepped in front of Rei, voice tense. "She's a Vessel."
"Yes," Yuri said. "The Throne of Salt. The End of Memory."
The air thickened. Rei's thoughts blurred. Even his name felt far away.
"I loved you once," Yuri said, stepping forward. "But love is a weight. The Throne took that weight away. I don't miss anything now. I don't need to."
"You don't belong here anymore, Rei. Neither of us do."
Rei's hand trembled. "You're going to erase me?"
Yuri nodded slowly. "You're a crack in the surface. A future that isn't allowed. If I don't erase you, others will."
"But I won't be cruel about it. I'll make it painless. Clean."
Her voice almost sounded like an apology.
"You won't even remember this conversation."