I. The symbol that does not exist
The stone wasn't heavy. It had no strange texture. But when Akihiko held it, it felt as if it were holding him. It emitted no light. It didn't vibrate. Yet something at its center, in the mark carved with imperfect lines, seemed throbbing. It wasn't language, but it wanted to be. It was a shape that longed to become a symbol, a seed of judgment without system.
For days, Akihiko walked with the stone wrapped in his coat. In the villages he passed, the Tree's roots didn't grow. The temples were sealed. People spoke little, but all looked to the sky with a mixture of anxiety and empty faith. There were rumors of a new city growing not in the earth, but beneath it. A city where the roots weren't sacred, but they weren't dead either.
"A city without judgment, but with purpose," an old man told her at an abandoned station. "They call it Kagebara . They say its inhabitants plant roots with pain… so they may bloom with rage."
II. Arrival at Kagebara
Kagebara wasn't shown on the maps, but it had paths. The forest surrounding it was sick: the trees leaned in impossible directions, the leaves fell in perfect circles, and the ground vibrated with an unnatural rhythm. The entrance was a crack in the earth, a wide tunnel held together by petrified roots. At the far end, red lights could be seen.
Akihiko descended without speaking. The air was thick, heavy with old sap and smoke. It didn't smell of decay. It smelled of forced healing. Of spiritual surgery. Of a place where the world tried to mend itself from broken pieces.
Kagebara was built in tiers. At the base lived the "Scarbearers": individuals whose marks had been burned away, and whose bodies now served as catalysts for new forms of power. Their abilities didn't come from judgment or the web. They came from raw pain. From traumas transformed into spiritual energy.
The middle level was inhabited by artisans of suffering: they created weapons from the remains of dead roots, carved inverted prayers, and made tattoos that transmitted emotions as if they were poison.
And at the very top of the core was the Heart , a leafless black tree whose trunk looked like it was made of petrified human skin. It wasn't a real Tree. It was a monument. A threat. A wish for replacement.
III. The Children of the Scream
In Kagebara, Akihiko met the Children of the Scream , a faction of spirit warriors who used their own pain as a weapon. Each had a spiral scar across their throat. Their leader, Rekka , was a woman with a pupilless gaze and a broken voice. They said that her soul had been split into three fragments by a failed trial, and that she now spoke to each one in turn.
"You don't belong here," Rekka told him the first time she saw him. "You still carry hope in the way you walk."
"I'm not here to convert," Akihiko replied. "I'm here because the world is splitting again."
Rekka nodded slowly.
—And you want to see if this side deserves to exist?
IV. The Dark Root Test
Akihiko was led to Kagebara's deepest sanctuary: a chamber where followers confronted a dark root. This root didn't grow. It absorbed. It didn't teach. It devoured. It was said that whoever managed to touch it and remain standing gained access to the secrets of the Heart.
Akihiko agreed. When he placed his palm on the root, he felt no physical pain. He felt old guilt : all the people he hadn't saved, all the times he had doubted, all the decisions he made out of fear. The root wasn't attacking him. It was just showing. And that was worse.
But Akihiko didn't fall. He kept his gaze steady. And the root… retreated. Not out of submission. Out of respect.
V. The Garden of Wounds
As a reward, he was allowed to visit the Garden of Wounds: an underground forest where new artificial roots were growing. They were thin and fragile, but some were already emitting vibrations of their own. The scientists and renegade monks who cultivated them said that, within five years, they could replace the Tree entirely.
"Every root was planted with pain," one of them said. "Every cut, every cry, every loss… was turned into seed. The world will be redrawn from the wound."
Akihiko knelt before one of them. He didn't pray. He just listened. The root whispered:
"We are what was left when no one else wanted to decide."
And for the first time, Akihiko felt fear. Not of the place. Not of the power. But of the possibility that this era could prevail without judgment… and without compassion.
END OF CHAPTER 106