The rain came without warning.
Cold. Relentless. Almost sentient, as if Yomi itself had grown weary of the blood it had swallowed and sought to wash it clean. Each drop struck like nails against the broken roof above me, echoing through the hollow carcass of a pagoda.
I woke to its sound. My body felt like ash. My wounds burned like coal left too long in the fire. The floor beneath me was scorched, blackened in a wide circle where the Yomi Flame had erupted from me, etching jagged patterns across the earth like veins — alive, pulsing faintly with blue light.
The maiden was gone.
For a moment, I thought I had imagined her — her voice, the warmth of her hands as she dragged me back from the abyss, the terror in her eyes when the flame nearly devoured us both. But the bloodstains where she had knelt were still there. So was the faint trace of her prayer beads, shattered and scattered across the stones.
The battle was real. The dead were real.
And so was the thing that now lived inside me.
I tried to move. Pain flared sharp and merciless, crawling across every bone. My right arm — the one the flame had claimed — felt heavier than the rest of me, like it was no longer mine. The skin was marked with faint, branching lines that glowed like embers beneath the flesh.
Each pulse of blood came with a whisper.
Feed it.
Let it grow.
Let it burn.
I clenched my jaw and forced myself upright, leaning on my sword like a crutch. The world swayed around me. The rain fell harder, dripping down my hair and into my eyes until everything blurred.
When I staggered outside, the forest had changed.
The fog was thinner now, but not gone. It coiled low, drifting along the ground as though pulled by some hidden breath. The scent of iron lingered, metallic and sour, heavy with the weight of old death.
Then came the sound. Slow, deliberate — steps, too measured to belong to prey. They circled, unhurried, as if whatever stalked me already knew I had nowhere to run.
"Ren Kagemura."
The voice was soft. Not hers.
It came from everywhere and nowhere.
I turned sharply, blade in hand despite the weakness in my arm. "Show yourself."
The mist stirred. From it, a shadow drifted between the trees. This one did not flicker or fade like the others. It walked with intent. Its eyes glowed faint and cold, blue fire that mirrored the mark seared into my own flesh.
"You wear the flame of Yomi," it said. The voice was old, rusted, cracking like a bell that had rung too long. "Do you even know what that means?"
I swallowed, raising my blade higher. "Enough to know it saved my life."
"Saved?" The shadow's laugh was dry, hollow, and cruel. "The dead do not save the living. They claim them."
It stepped closer, drifting rather than walking, and I lunged to meet it. My blade cut through the air — but the strike stopped, caught in its hand like steel against stone.
"You fight," it said coldly, "like a man who still believes he has a soul."
Then it vanished.
Pain tore through my chest. I gasped, staggering back — its blade was already inside me. Not cutting flesh, but slicing through something deeper.
Memory.
Flashes: my brother's smirk in the firelight, the burning temple, the screams of my men as they died choking on smoke.
"Stop!" I gasped, swinging wildly. "Get out of my head!"
The spirit circled unseen, its voice weaving through the rain like thread.
"You sought vengeance. But vengeance is not justice. It is a chain. And now you are bound to it."
The Yomi Flame stirred in answer.
It surged down my arm like a furnace opening its jaws, bursting outward in a spray of violet fire. The spirit reeled, screaming — its form twisted into ribbons of smoke.
I dropped to one knee, panting, the flame flickering across my skin. It burned, but not like pain.
It felt good. Too good.
The agony melted, replaced by something else: a fire so pure, so intoxicating, that I almost laughed at the relief. For the first time since death, I felt alive.
Then her voice cut through it.
"Ren!"
The shrine maiden.
She stumbled from the fog, drenched to her bones, her pale face streaked with mud and tears. Her hands clutched the prayer beads that had not broken, though blood stained her palms where she had forced them to hold.
"Stop!" she cried, eyes wide with fear. "You'll lose yourself!"
Her words struck harder than the spirit's blade.
I turned toward her — and for an instant, I didn't know if she was real, or just another phantom meant to test me.
The spirit writhed on the ground, its fragments whispering. I raised my hand, the flame ready to consume it whole.
"Ren!" she screamed again, running forward. "Enough!"
Her hand closed around my wrist. The same wrist I had once used to pull her back from death.
The flame hissed, flared — then recoiled, shrinking back into me. I stood trembling, half-conscious, staring as the spirit dissolved into mist and rain.
Only silence remained.
She didn't let go for a long time. When she finally did, I realized my hand was shaking.
"You could have destroyed yourself," she said softly, her voice breaking with exhaustion. "The flame isn't a weapon. It's a hunger."
I looked down at my arm. The marks were brighter now, glowing with every beat of my heart. Faster. Louder. Like it was listening.
"I can control it," I said, though the words felt hollow.
Her gaze softened, but it was not comfort. It was pity.
"No one controls Yomi, Ren. They only delay the moment it consumes them."
We sheltered that night under the broken gate at the forest's edge. The maiden tended to my wounds in silence, her touch steady though her face was pale with fatigue. I could tell she was angry — not with me, but with whatever had bound us together in this place.
"Who was that spirit?" I finally asked, breaking the quiet.
She paused, tightening the bandage around my arm. "A fragment," she said at last. "Of what you were meant to become."
"I don't understand."
"Few who enter Yomi do," she murmured. "That was no enemy. That was a warning. The flame reacts to what you fear most. If you let it, it will turn fear into strength. But each time you draw upon it, it takes something from you."
My chest tightened. "What does it take?"
Her hands stilled. She met my eyes, and for the first time, her voice faltered.
"Memories. Emotion. Humanity. The more you burn, the less of Ren Kagemura remains."
I turned away, watching the rain drip from the gate's ruined frame. My voice was low.
"Then maybe that's what I want."
Her expression hardened, shadows flickering in her gaze. "Be careful what you wish for, ghost."
The word stung more than the wound. Ghost.
Not warrior. Not man.
Just a remnant.
When night fell, the fog returned, thicker than before. The sound of the forest changed — from rain to whispers. Shapes moved in the distance, faint, half-formed, like echoes of lives I could not name.
The maiden slept by the embers of our dying fire. Her face was drawn with exhaustion, lips parted as if in prayer even in her dreams. I watched her for a long time, wondering if she dreamed of freedom — or if she, too, was trapped by chains she had never chosen.
The flame pulsed again, faint but insistent beneath my skin. I raised my hand. Blue fire flickered to life in my palm — gentle, steady this time. Almost beautiful. Almost comforting.
Then something moved at the edge of the mist.
I stood, blade drawn, heart hammering. "Who's there?"
No answer. Only the faint glimmer of red eyes watching me from the trees.
A whisper brushed my ear.
You're not the only one who's returned, Ren.
I froze.
That voice — it was impossible.
It belonged to my brother.
The mist parted.
He stepped into view exactly as I remembered him: armor blackened by soot, blade resting on his shoulder, and that same calm, traitorous smile.
"Still chasing ghosts, brother?" His voice was almost gentle. "Or have you finally become one?"
My grip tightened on my sword. "You're dead."
"So are you." He stepped closer. "But death means little here. You of all people should know that."
The Yomi Flame rippled violently inside me, responding to him like a beast straining against its leash. It urged me — Strike him. End it.
But something in his eyes froze me. There was no malice there. Only recognition. And beneath it — sorrow.
"What do you want?" I asked.
He tilted his head. "To see what my sin has made of you."
The air thickened. The forest itself seemed to lean in, listening.
And then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone — leaving only the echo of his voice.
"Be careful, Ren. The flame may burn your enemies… but it will burn you first."
When the fog swallowed him, I stood alone.
Not from fear.
But from the truth in his words.
Behind me, the maiden stirred, murmuring in her sleep.
"Ren?" she whispered faintly. "What's wrong?"
I turned toward her, the mark on my arm glowing faint and alive.
"Nothing," I lied.
But in the silence that followed, the flame pulsed once. A slow, knowing heartbeat.
And in that moment, I understood — the forest wasn't done with me yet