The city doesn't sleep. It powers down in shifts.
Even now, at 03:17 Bureau Standard Time, Tetsukami still vibrates—low and even, like a beast resting between heartbeats. Neon filters in through the window. Drones cast red lattice shadows across the floor. Somewhere below, someone coughs. Then silence again.
The Gong hasn't stopped humming.
I stand.
The notebook sits open on the desk. The red ink has dried into the shape of a word I didn't write. One I still recognize:
"Home."
---
The Descent Begins
Shirogitsune appears again—this time not in the mirror, but in the hallway. A flicker, a ripple of fur and teeth and candlelight.
"You're going back, aren't you?"
"I have to."
"You could stay. Ignore it. Let the world keep forgetting."
"Then why are you here?"
He doesn't answer. Just flicks his tail once and walks through the apartment wall.
Typical.
---
I leave with the Gong strapped to my back, its cords tightening on their own, like they're glad.
My building is still. The halls reek of old ozone and synthetic pine. Cameras track my movement, but don't alert. Not this time. My file still lists me as dormant. Broken. Contained.
Good.
Let them believe it a little longer.
---
District 7's Border Zone
The walk to the drop shaft takes seventeen minutes. I trace the same route I used as a child—before the lockdowns, before the Bureau turned the underlayers into sealed myth-containment zones.
A rusted vending machine hides the entry panel. I press my palm to it. My fingerprint is still coded into the city's older layers—forgotten by the surface systems, but remembered by the bones.
A door hisses open. Cold air, laced with dust and static.
The descent tunnel greets me like a coffin cracked ajar.
I step inside.
---
Layer 3: Broken Stations
Old infrastructure—abandoned train lines, shattered shrines half-built into walls, Bureau lock seals blinking with outdated sigils. This was a containment layer, once.
But no one maintained it.
There's graffiti here—some new, some so old the paint has dried into the concrete like blood.
One symbol repeats: a stylized eye, split down the middle, weeping black ink.
I pause.
"I've seen this before."
Shirogitsune speaks from behind me. "You wore it once. Before they erased you."
I crouch near the wall. Run my fingers over the symbol.
It pulses.
Not light. Not heat. Something deeper. Recognition.
Something below shifts.
---
A Memory Awakened
I don't remember falling. The floor just wasn't there anymore.
When I land, I land hard—shoulder first, Gong slamming against my spine.
Dust. Concrete. And then… warmth.
Light, from candles. Real wax. Flickering flame.
I look up.
There's an altar. Or what's left of one.
Stone fractured by time. Cloth torn. Offerings petrified.
And bones.
Human. Arranged in a seated pose, facing the wall. No head.
My breath catches. Not from fear—from familiarity.
I step forward. One pace. Two.
And then I hear it:
A voice.
"You returned late, child."
The voice isn't in the room. It's in my blood.
The Gong thrums.
I fall to my knees.
A memory hits:
A shrine burning.
A woman dragging me down stone steps.
A voice saying: "You must seal it with yourself."
I choke. The scent of ash and incense floods me.
Shirogitsune watches from the corner, unmoving.
---
The Offering Room
I crawl toward the altar. My hands move before I command them. The Gong hums in rhythm.
From the center of the bones, something gleams.
Not metal. Not stone.
A fragment of mirror.
I reach for it.
And see my own reflection.
But the eye—my blind eye—is glowing.
And then a flash:
My name, screamed by someone I loved.
A god's eye, staring from behind the stars.
My own voice whispering, "I will carry you."
I collapse.
Shirogitsune steps forward.
"It has begun again."