The next morning, Kaen didn't speak.
He sat in silence at the edge of the training grounds, back straight, eyes watching the sky. The mark on his chest had dimmed, but it hadn't vanished. It never did. He could feel it under his skin, pulsing like a second heart — quiet, patient, alive.
Riku and the others practiced nearby, shouting breath forms into the wind, blades flashing in the sunless gray. The rhythm of it was familiar now. Steel against steel. Step, twist, strike. Breath, stance, precision. But Kaen wasn't thinking about forms today.
He was thinking about the thing that stood in his room the night before.
It hadn't been a dream. The room had still been cold when the sun rose. The frost hadn't come from the mountains.
It came from whatever that thing was.
A memory. A warning.
The seal is cracking.
Kaen clenched his hand.
How long before they noticed?
Yoru summoned him alone that afternoon.
No Riku. No sparring.
Just a silent hall, lit by a single oil lamp, and Yoru standing behind a low table, hands behind her back.
She gestured for him to sit.
Kaen obeyed.
Her eyes studied him the way a falcon studies a wounded bird — not out of mercy, but calculation.
"I know what you're carrying," she said.
Kaen didn't flinch.
She leaned forward, her voice quiet. "A demon doesn't die without a price. Especially not one that old."
He kept his face still.
"It's inside you," she said. "Not chained. Not silent."
Still, he said nothing.
Yoru didn't look angry. She looked tired. As if she'd seen this before — something like it, maybe. But not quite.
"You should be dead," she said. "But you're not. That's a problem."
Kaen finally spoke. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one ever does."
She sat back, folding her arms.
"You have two paths ahead," she said. "One ends with you in the ground. The other ends with something worse."
Kaen's eyes narrowed. "Then why haven't you killed me?"
"Because there's a third path," she said. "The one you carve yourself."
She tossed something onto the table.
A sheath. Inside it, a real blade. Not training wood.
Kaen looked at it, then at her.
"Steel forged in demon fire," she said. "Not pure. Not safe. But neither are you."
Kaen reached for it.
"Don't draw it unless you're ready," she warned. "It feeds on pain."
Kaen wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
The moment he touched it, the mark on his chest flared.
The blade trembled in its sheath.
Yoru's eyes sharpened. "You're resonating with it."
Kaen stood.
His hand didn't shake.
That night, Kaen didn't sleep.
He walked the stone paths outside the quarters, the blade tied to his back, eyes scanning the darkness. Ash floated on the wind like snowflakes from a funeral.
The demon inside him hadn't spoken since the night before.
But he could feel it. Moving. Coiled in silence.
Waiting.
Something rustled in the trees.
Kaen stopped.
His hand moved to his sword.
The rustling stopped too.
Then came a breath — soft, raspy, not human.
From the shadows, something stepped forward.
But it wasn't like the demon from Miboru. It was smaller. Twisted. Its limbs were wrong, its spine crooked, skin torn and stitched. Its face was stitched shut, but its eyes wept blood.
It sniffed the air.
Kaen slowly unsheathed his blade.
The sound it made — a low shriek — was somewhere between hunger and grief.
Kaen didn't hesitate.
He moved like water. The blade danced.
Steel met flesh.
The creature fell, but didn't die. It clawed toward him, crawling now, limbs dragging. Its mouth split along the stitches with a wet snap.
"Vessel," it croaked.
Kaen froze.
"You… carry it… you… are it…"
He sliced again.
Its head rolled from its shoulders.
Ash settled in the silence that followed.
Kaen wiped the blade clean and stood over the corpse.
Then he heard it.
Laughter.
Not from the corpse.
From somewhere beyond the trees.
Low, taunting.
He turned.
Nothing there.
By morning, three more creatures had been found near the outpost's edge.
Twisted. Wrong. All of them clawing toward the walls. All of them whispering the same thing:
Vessel.
Yoru stood with the other slayers, arms folded.
"The seals are collapsing faster than expected," one muttered.
Another turned to her. "This can't be coincidence."
"It's not," Yoru said.
They looked to Kaen, who stood by himself at the far side of the courtyard, silent.
"He draws them," one said. "He's the bait."
"No," Yoru said. "He's the fuse."
They stared at her.
She stepped away.
Kaen stood at the edge of the cliff again that night.
Yui was asleep.
The blade rested across his knees.
And finally… the voice returned.
"They know what you are now."
Kaen didn't respond.
"They won't trust you much longer."
Still silent.
"You'll have to choose soon."
Kaen opened his eyes.
"I already did."
"No," the voice said. "That wasn't a choice. That was survival."
The air grew colder.
"But when it really matters... when their blades turn on you… when she screams again… what will you do then?"
Kaen stared into the night.
Far off in the forest, something howled.
Not a beast.
Not a demon.
Something in between.
The voice chuckled softly.
"They're coming. And you'll feel it again — the fear, the fire, the helplessness."
Kaen gripped the blade tighter.
"You'll need me."
The moon cracked behind the clouds.
Ash fell harder.
Kaen stood and turned toward the darkness, sword in hand.
And far beneath his feet, something shifted.
Old chains broke.
A door opened.
Not one in the world.
One inside him.