Part I — The Dream of Ash
Darkness breathed.
It was not the darkness of night but of something vast and unfinished — a silence that moved like water beneath the world. Ren drifted through it weightless, hearing the pulse of a thousand wings that were not wings at all. Somewhere above, eyes opened one by one, each an ember in the void.
You looked into us.Now we look through you.
The voices were many, yet they spoke as one. Each word was carved into the inside of his skull. He tried to answer, but his tongue was ash; his breath scattered.
He saw flashes — Kaito's face under lantern light, laughter turned to shouting, steel flashing wet crimson. Then the Gate. Then the Maiden's prayer burning the air.Kaito's voice came last, stripped of warmth:
"You chose them over me."
The memory twisted. Hands reached through the dark, familiar yet skeletal, pulling him down. In their grip was not hate but sorrow.He wanted to scream I didn't, but the void drank the words.
Something touched his chest — soft, searing, alive. A second heartbeat. A woman's voice, distant but clear:
"Come back. Not yet. You still owe the living."
Light broke.
Part II — Ash and Breath
Ren woke to weight.
His back pressed against scorched earth, lungs dragging in air that smelled of burnt cedar and iron. Ash clung to his lashes. When he blinked, it fell like snow that had forgotten how to melt.
The forest was gone. What remained were black spires, tree-shadows frozen mid-scream. Overhead, dawn struggled to exist — thin gold fighting through smoke.
Beside him knelt the Maiden.
Her white robes were grey with soot, the red threads of her shimenawa half-burned away. She traced sigils in the dirt with trembling fingers; each stroke left a faint trail of blood that shimmered before fading.
He tried to speak. Nothing. His throat felt carved from glass.
She looked up, eyes clouded, irises silver as moonlit water."Don't move," she whispered. "The boundary's still thin."
Her voice cracked like old paper. He obeyed.
Under his palm the soil throbbed faintly — a heartbeat not his own. He pressed harder; it pulsed again, answering the rhythm inside his chest. He realized, with cold clarity, that his pulse matched the earth's.
"Tell me," he rasped. "What did you do?"
The Maiden's gaze flicked toward the horizon where the Gate had stood. "I sealed what I could. The rest…" She shook her head. "It marked you before I could stop it."
Ren sat up slowly. Pain didn't come — only hollowness. Every breath echoed, thin and metallic. "Then why am I here?"
"Because I paid the price."
He turned. Her hands were shaking; small fractures of light ran beneath her skin like veins of molten gold. "You used the kekkai on yourself," he said.
Her smile was fragile. "Better me than the world."
He wanted to argue, to demand why she'd trade herself for him — the one who failed to close the Gate — but her shoulders sagged forward, and he caught her before she fell. Her hair smelled of smoke and sakura.
"Rest," he said. The word tasted foreign on his tongue.
"I can't." She breathed out, and a faint mist left her lips — spirit residue. "If I sleep, I might not wake."
"Then I'll keep watch."
She gave a faint nod, trusting him without hesitation, and leaned against the ruin of a tree. For a long time they said nothing. The wind sounded like prayer.
When she finally spoke, it was a whisper. "Do you hear them?"
He listened. Beneath the crackle of distant fire came a murmur — low, many-voiced, the same that haunted his dream.
You looked into us. We remember you.
Ren clenched his fists. "The Gate's eyes."
"They opened," she murmured. "And something saw you seeing them. That's why you're still alive. They're watching through you now."
He looked down. Across his palms ran faint glowing lines, the sigils from the Gate, winding like roots under skin. "Then I'm not alive," he said softly. "I'm borrowed."
She didn't answer.
The sun climbed a little higher, dull and red. No birds sang. Even the ash seemed to hang waiting for permission to fall.
Ren rose. The world tilted; he steadied himself. The Maiden followed, slow, every motion heavy. "We need to leave this place," he said.
"To where?"
"Anywhere the ground doesn't breathe."
She gave the smallest of smiles, tired but genuine. "Lead, then."
They walked through ruin. Each step sank into soot that whispered beneath their feet. The air shimmered faintly, as if the world itself were a mirage refusing to hold shape.
Time folded strangely — minutes stretched, hours collapsed. Once Ren thought he saw Kaito ahead on the path, half-turned, sword in hand, face unreadable. When he blinked, only smoke remained.
By dusk they reached water — or what pretended to be. A river of black silt moved sluggishly, reflecting neither sky nor self. The Maiden knelt, tracing a finger along its surface; the ripples glowed faintly before dying.
"It shouldn't flow toward the mountains," she murmured. "Yomi's breath changes the current."
Ren stared into the water. His reflection wavered — eyes darker than he remembered, pupils rimmed faint gold. "How far did it spread?"
"Farther than it should have."
The light was fading fast. Mist rolled in from the trees, thick and cold. He heard movement — a rustle without direction. Then silence, deep enough to hurt.
"Someone's here," he said.
The Maiden's hand went to her charms. "Show yourself."
The mist parted.
Across the river stood a woman.
Her hair was white touched with pale rose, long enough to drag through the soot. She wore no kimono, only a drape of silken shadow that breathed though there was no wind. Her eyes caught what little light remained — one gold, one green — and the river stilled as if afraid to ripple her reflection.
Ren forgot to breathe.
She was beautiful, but the beauty felt wrong, like hearing a familiar melody played backward. The air between them bent, heavy with old memory.
The Maiden whispered, "Don't look—"
He couldn't stop.
The woman tilted her head, studying him with quiet amusement. When she spoke, her voice barely crossed the water, yet it found his ear perfectly.
"You survived, Ren."
He stiffened. The way she said his name was intimate — as if she had spoken it before, a thousand times.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
Her lips curved, not into a smile, but into remembrance.
"Once. In a life that isn't finished dying."
The Maiden's wards flared. "She's not from this side," she hissed. "Step back!"
Ren took a half-step forward instead. The woman's gaze deepened; her pupils dilated until they were almost black. The river began to shift toward her feet, current reversing.
"You left something in Yomi," she said softly. "I came to return it."
His chest burned — the sigil under his skin pulsing in answer. The Maiden cried his name and thrust her palms forward; light blazed, striking the water. The river screamed like metal tearing.
When the glare faded, the woman was gone. Only a handful of petals remained, drifting on the dark surface — petals that bled color into the current until it ran faintly red.
Ren staggered. "Who was that?"
The Maiden's voice was hoarse. "A shadow given shape. The Gate sometimes makes memories walk."
"She knew my name."
"Because she's made from it."
He looked at his reflection again. The river no longer mirrored him — it showed her instead, smiling faintly, before dissolving.
That night they camped beneath a dead pine. The fire refused to burn properly; its light clung low to the ground. The Maiden slept uneasily, hand still gripping a charm.
Ren watched the smoke twist upward, thinking of Kaito, of eyes in darkness, of the woman's voice. Every heartbeat felt a little farther away.
When the wind shifted, he heard her again, faint as breath against his ear:
You survived… but you didn't come back alone.
Ren looked toward the river. The surface was still. Only one thing moved — a single pale handprint pressed into a stone on the far bank, glowing faintly like a heartbeat waiting to begin.