Part 3: The Bloom and the Rot
Yuji stood before the scar in the bone.
It wasn't just a wound.
It was an opening.
A doorway the world hadn't meant to make.
He could feel it—pulling not his mana, but his purpose. Like it understood what he was before he did. Like it knew how to shape him into something worse.
Or something more.
Siora's voice was tight. "If that energy spreads, it'll anchor into the leylines. It'll infect them."
"Can we sever it?" Sylvia asked.
"No," Siora said. "It's rooted in the godbone. You can't cut that without cutting the world."
Yuji knelt at the edge of the scar.
He pressed one hand to the marrow.
And let Fertility surge.
Not a weapon.
Not a bloom.
Just pure, undiluted life-force.
Sunlight in raw form. The divine seed Priapus had planted in him—unleashed.
It poured into the marrow—
And met the rot.
It didn't burn it.
Didn't cleanse it.
The two forces wrapped around each other.
Twisted.
Climbed.
Entangled.
Sylvia shouted, "Yuji, stop!"
Siora pulled at his shoulder.
Too late.
The air exploded in light—green and black, swirling in violent spiral, a storm of roots and ruin.
Yuji gasped, falling backward—
And something grew.
Right in the center of the scar.
A glyph.
Not written.
Not drawn.
Alive.
It pulsed.
It breathed.
It didn't belong to any school of magic Siora knew. Nor any god Amelia had ever tasted.
It was made of both Fertility and Decay.
And it was watching.
Part 4: The Whispering Crown
The glyph pulsed once—
Then fractured open.
From it rose something small.
Delicate.
Wrong.
A crown.
Not of gold.
Not of thorns.
But of living crystal and bone, spiraling outward like a blooming flower made from ivory and decay. Vines wrapped its base. Petals of sharpened marrow flared upward. At the center, a hollow—like a socket for a soul.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Sacha exhaled, "That's not magic."
Siora whispered, "It's not supposed to exist."
Sylvia's ears twitched. "It's watching us."
Amelia took a slow step forward, her parasol dragging shadows behind her.
"It's listening."
Yuji stared at the thing.
And heard it.
Not a voice.
Not language.
A rhythm.
A whisper in bloom-pattern. It throbbed in his bones like a heartbeat laid over his own.
"Take me."
"Name me."
"Finish what they began."
Yuji didn't move.
Didn't answer.
He didn't even breathe for a moment.
But the crown pulsed again—just once.
Like a seed waiting for sun.
He turned away.
"I'm not yours."
No answer came.
But the crown stayed.
And it waited.