The situation changed like the weather. It wasn't about some untold mission, or who would catch and kill the spatial-grade beast. It was something far deeper. At least, that was what all of them understood.
Kirihito was frozen in place for several seconds. Dark Voice was calling him, but he didn't reply. It was as if he'd been trapped in an illusion—or a memory. He looked like he couldn't look at Mò Qīn, yet couldn't look away.
Sounds faded. The temperature dropped inside his body completely. A terrified, strangled sound escaped his lips when Mò Qīn lunged toward him. It faded, but his jaw stayed slack, mouth hanging open. His eyes were still crimson red, but now tears were forming there—as if what he had forgotten was what his changed body now remembered.
But the tears weren't tears. They were blood, rolling down his pale cheeks. His chest felt like it was breaking from the inside. He couldn't see what was happening around him—he was seeing something else, reacting in two places at once. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, fixed on something unknown that felt closer than home.
He saw a child. A boy. Crying, begging to a woman who seemed heartless.
Dark Voice saw it too. He stopped. He tried to break the sudden vision. "Kid… wake up. Or—" He couldn't finish. The child's cry ripped through him, transmitted through Kirihito's trembling body.
"Mom, I'm sorry!! Don't leave me in here! It's dark—full of big insects!!"
The boy cried nonstop, clinging to the woman's robes.
But she sharply pushed him away and locked him inside the room. The door was slammed violently from the inside by the boy's small fists.
"I won't steal again, Mom!! I was just hungry… p-please let me out!! Those insects are biting me!!"
His cries grew higher, more desperate. Each sob told of cruel insects hurting him in the dark.
But the door didn't open. The woman laughed through her own tears, leaning closer to the wood, and hissed:
"I wish I never had you. I've lost everything since the day you were born. Your father and you—both of you are jarks. I'm a woman because of you!! A symbol of betrayal!!"
Kirihito's breath grew ragged. His lungs burned. His heart felt torn open.
Why was he feeling this? Who was this child? Who was this woman? What was she saying? What did she mean by becoming a woman? Why was she torturing her own son? Out of rage? Or something else? Was she even in her right mind?
But all he could focus on was the crying inside the room.
His body was still paralyzed, but he forced himself forward. Toward the door. Not to kill, not to play, not to feed. To see if the boy was okay. To try to remove those very insects he feared himself. It was against his own nature—against everything a being like him was meant to be: a hater of humans, a killer of women and children for stability.
His footsteps felt like walking on broken glass. His body, which usually healed instantly when wounded, was not helping here. It only increased the pain.
"W… Wèi…" he choked out, moving forward.
Everything froze. The dust. The woman holding her head. His bloody tears floated in the air, refusing to touch the ground.
"Wèi will… save you."
The words were thick, his throat clogged with sobs he didn't know how to release. A desperate promise. His hands trembled as he raised them toward the door.
"Kirihito—!" Dark Voice hissed, his own tone tight, trembling with a warning he was trying to hide. He couldn't control Kirihito right now. Kirihito was moving on his own. He was ignoring Dark Voice completely.
"Wèi will save you…" Kirihito said again, his voice suddenly thin, as if all energy had drained from him.
"Wèi… will… hates… insects too… they… dirty… bite… eat… flesh…"
He mumbled in a lower tone. The words had no head or tail. He just knew he was saying something—anything—to stop the boy from crying.
When he gripped the door lock, gravity seemed to ease a little. Movement became slightly easier.
But when he opened the door—
There was nobody. Only darkness. And a sound—so loud, a hissing and skittering of tiny feet—that felt like blades slicing through his ears.
He clutched his ears and looked around, searching for the boy or another way out. But the moment he stepped inside, the door vanished.
He was trapped. Four dark, tall wooden walls surrounded him. They didn't break under his powerful kicks, his sharp pinches, his living hair-snakes—which had now gone still, normal, too afraid to help.
The skittering grew louder with his desperation.
"X… Xio…" he whispered, voice low, shaky, scared. His red eyes were wide, black in the darkness. His face was buried in his hands. Then suddenly, he screamed:
"WHERE ARE YOU?!"
The echo screamed back.
He remembered the red ribbon wrapped around Xio's thumb. He decided to follow it, trying to keep his desperation in check.
"Red ribbon…" he whispered, as if speaking too loud would summon something that should not hear.
He realized he wasn't wearing the robe Xio had given him. He was back in the old one—the Japanese-style spider lily robe. Old. One layer. Barely covering one thigh and his chest—the one he wore before Xio ever showed up. He touched the fabric shakily and remembered being called cheap for wearing it, for showing so much. And then he remembered Xio saying: Expensive things are meant to be veiled.
"Wèi… is not expensive… as Wèi shows…"
His voice was small. He felt tired. Trapped. He couldn't tell if this was real or a trap. Everything felt too real.
He flinched when something crawled over his bare feet.
He saw it clearly—his pale skin, and on it, tall black bugs with thousands of legs, moving slowly. He panicked. His breath hitched. He shook his leg violently, stumbled back against the wooden wall. His breath came ragged again. His mouth filled with bitterness—his most hated feeling.
He pressed a hand tightly over his mouth, holding back whatever was trying to rise. He shut his eyes tight, struggling against the tears and the acid rising in his throat. His shoulders shook with muffled coughs.
Then his chest tightened into a gag when he saw not one or two—but thousands of the same insects crawling closer. He could hear them walking. And talking. Because he was half-beast, he understood their language—a creepy, clicking chatter.
"A new body to eat…"
"The scent feels familiar. Have we eaten him before?"
"I don't remember any body I eat. All I know is… earth-made mortals become earth again when they die."
Kirihito's eyes widened.
They were coming to eat Wèi?
Lots… of… insects…
Disgusting…
Wèi can't hold back much longer…
The distance between him and the insects shrank like sand in an hourglass.
He lost it.
With a violent gag, he vomited. His nose, throat, mouth—everything burned. He coughed as everything came out. He knelt down, clutching his heart and his hair. But it wasn't food.
It was broken pieces of bone. Blood. Human hair.
It was so disgusting he dared not look—or he'd vomit again. His breath stopped when he remembered the insects. Slowly, he turned toward the sound.
They were watching him. Silently. All of them. Thousands of tiny, cruel eyes fixed on him.
"Done…?"
The insects spoke as one, as if they had been waiting for him to finish so they could begin their work.
He shut his eyes tight again, hand pressed to his mouth, and forced himself to stand.
"Wèi… can't die here… Wèi will… go back with… butterfly… butterfly is Wèi's only friend…"
He said it loud enough for himself to hear, trying to soothe the tremble in his soul.
"Wèi will be the main attention… not side character…"
This time, his voice mixed with Dark Voice's tone—a double layered echo in the dark.
And then, a new voice—soft, calm, almost kind:
"Don't cry, little child… All you have to do is trust me… Will you…?"
The walls faded.
Light seeped in.
And a figure stood before him—dressed in old golden-red robes, a bamboo hat with a thin veil.
A smile on his face.
Kirihito stood trembling, blood drying on his cheeks, insects still crawling at his feet, and wondered if this was salvation—
Or just another kind of trap.