The first thing I felt was not pain.
It was silence.
Not the silence of peace, but the silence after slaughter — when every scream has already been spent, when even the wind is too heavy to move.
I opened my eyes to ash falling from the sky like snow.
The forest was gone. The shrine was gone.
All that remained was a single tree, black as coal, its blossoms scattered across the ground like spilled blood.
The Black Sakura.
I forced myself upright, though every muscle screamed in protest. The wound in my side burned, but it was no longer mortal — not anymore. My blood pulsed slower, heavier, as if something else flowed with it.
The Yomi Flame.
It lingered beneath my skin like a second heartbeat, whispering at the edge of thought.
The shrine maiden stood at the base of the tree. Her white sleeves, once untouchable, were stained with mud and ash. Her hair clung damp to her face, and her lantern flickered weakly in her grasp. She didn't turn as I staggered toward her.
"You shouldn't be alive," she whispered.
Her voice was soft as always — measured, precise — but tonight it carried a fracture, as though something inside her had cracked.
"I've heard that before," I rasped, my throat raw. "Yet here I stand."
At last, she turned. Her eyes were wet, her face pale. But it wasn't relief I saw. It was sorrow.
"You stand," she said, "but not as the man you once were."
Her gaze fell to my arm.
The black veins of the flame's mark had crawled higher, reaching my shoulder. The glow pulsed faintly even in the dark, like a star trapped beneath the skin.
I clenched my fist, shame burning hotter than the wound. "Then tell me — what am I now?"
The silence stretched. Ash fell heavier, until the night itself seemed to turn white. Finally, she answered.
"A vessel," she said softly. "A vessel for Yomi's will."
The words cut deeper than any blade.
I wanted to deny it. But even now, I could feel the flame whispering beneath my ribs. It had saved me once. It had nearly destroyed me after. It was not mine. I was its.
"I won't be a puppet," I growled.
Her expression softened — pity, perhaps fear. "That's what they all say."
The wind shifted.
The fallen blossoms began to rise, drifting not with the breeze, but against it.
And then I realized they were not petals at all.
They were eyes.
Dozens at first. Then hundreds. Pale and white, floating like lanterns. Watching. Blinking.
The shrine maiden stiffened. "The Gate…" she breathed.
I followed her gaze. At the far edge of the clearing, where the fog hung thickest, the eyes began to gather — not scattered now, but woven together, swirling into shape.
Thousands of pale lights twisted, forming an arch that reached impossibly high into the void.
A gate of eyes. A gate that saw everything.
My breath caught. Every instinct screamed at me to turn away, but I couldn't. The air itself pulled me forward, dragging me like a tide.
"What is it?" I rasped.
"The Thousand-Eyed Gate," she whispered. "The veil between realms. It only opens when Yomi chooses."
"And why now?"
Her hands tightened around her beads. She did not answer.
The flame in my arm surged violently.
I dropped to my knees as visions slammed into me.
Fire. Steel. Screams.
My village burning again. My brother's face in the smoke, his blade dripping with blood. His eyes locked on mine with that same merciless calm.
And beyond him — a world I did not know.
Stone towers shattered. Temples desecrated. Streets littered with corpses.
The mortal realm.
Ningenkai.
The images came faster. Fields drowned in crimson. Yokai feasting on the living. Banners of war rising where peace once stood.
The Yomi Flame inside me throbbed like a drum, forcing the visions deeper. I saw my clan's faces, twisted by pain, screaming my name as they were devoured by fire.
I saw children trampled under soldiers' feet. I saw rivers running black with ash. I saw the Black Sakura blooming across Ningenkai, roots tearing through temples and homes alike, its blossoms staring with eyes that never closed.
Then silence.
I gasped, trembling, drenched in cold sweat.
The shrine maiden seized my shoulders. "What did you see?"
"The world," I croaked. "My world. Burning."
Her face paled further. For the first time since I had met her, I saw true fear in her eyes.
"Then it has begun," she whispered.
"What has?"
She parted her lips to answer — but the Gate trembled.
The eyes blinked in unison, and a moan rolled across the clearing — the sound of countless voices breathing at once.
The ground cracked beneath us. The Black Sakura shuddered, its blossoms turning to ash midair.
Through the Gate, shadows stirred.
Figures emerged.
Tall. Skeletal. Draped in armor not forged by mortal hands. Their faces were hollow masks, their hands clutching spears that bled light.
Not revenants. Not yokai. Something older. Something worse.
The maiden's grip on me tightened. "We must leave. Now."
I staggered to my feet, every step a battle. Behind us, the Gate groaned as the creatures advanced, their eyes glowing like dying stars.
The maiden's voice rose into a chant, her beads burning bright, casting a fragile barrier of light across the clearing. The air hissed against it, cracking like glass.
"They're breaking through," she gasped.
I raised my blade. The flame flickered eagerly, hungry for blood.
"No," she snapped, grabbing my wrist. "If you unleash it now, it will consume you."
"Then what choice do I have?"
Her gaze locked on mine. For the first time, there was no pity. Only resolve.
"You don't," she said. "Not yet. That's why you must survive."
Before I could speak, she shoved me back, hard.
I stumbled into the roots of the Black Sakura.
The barrier shattered. The creatures poured through, their bodies moving like shadows given form. Their spears rattled against the earth, eyes burning holes in the night.
The maiden stepped forward.
Her voice rose — no longer soft, but thunderous. A prayer turned to a scream.
Blood streamed from her palms as she drew sigils on the ground. Crimson light spread outward in a circle, each stroke burning the earth raw.
"By my blood, by my breath, by my soul — I bind the Ghost to the living world!"
The Gate's eyes turned toward her. Thousands of them. Watching. Judging.
The ground cracked. The tree groaned. The air itself split apart.
Her lantern shattered. Light bled from her body in threads, winding around the sigils she had carved. Her skin grew pale, her breath shallow. Still, she smiled — not with joy, but with sorrow.
"Live, Ren," she whispered.
The earth split beneath me.
Darkness surged upward, swallowing me whole.
I screamed, but no sound came.
I fell.
Endlessly.
The sky above shattered like glass, and in each fragment I saw a memory.
Haruto's laughter turning to a scream. Kiyoshi's wide, terrified eyes. Aya's voice breaking in song as the fire consumed her. My brother's smirk in the temple's glow.
The maiden's bloodied hands pressed to the earth.
And then — the fragments broke.
Ahead, in the void, the Thousand-Eyed Gate loomed once more.
Not behind me this time. Before me. Waiting.
Through it, I glimpsed Ningenkai.
Cities in ruin. Yokai feasting on the living. Banners of war rising over endless corpses.
But also — faintly — the sound of children crying. The clatter of steel as men still fought to defend what remained. The glimmer of lanterns in windows unbroken, small flames of defiance.
The Yomi Flame pulsed within my chest, burning, whispering.
This is your world now. Claim it… or be claimed.
The last thing I saw was the Maiden's face — her lips forming words I could no longer hear — before the Gate swallowed me whole.