The Ones Left Below
The tomb groaned as the seal broke.
Tsukihana stumbled backward, the black mist pouring from the stone coffin like smoke from a dying star. The air grew heavy. Her breath caught. Her arms burned with glowing purple veins — the Hollow fragment inside her reacting violently.
Renjiro shoved her behind him, blade drawn.
"Stay behind me!" he shouted.
The cloaked figures didn't move. They just stood still — waiting. Watching.
The child-like one, its eyes like blue fire, tilted its head.
"She's waking it up," it said in a voice not its own.
"She doesn't know how… but the Vein remembers."
The stone coffin cracked open wider. A pale hand slid out from within — fingers thin, nails dark and sharp.
Tsukihana's heartbeat thundered in her ears.
"Is that… Akarui?" she whispered.
Renjiro didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the mist. "No. That's what's left of him."
A shadow rose from the coffin.
It didn't walk.
It floated — body half-formed, wrapped in black cloth, with nothing where its face should be except a glowing spiral mark that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Tsukihana could barely stand. Her knees buckled.
"What is that thing?" she breathed.
Renjiro's voice was tight. "We called them Hollow Shades. Not alive. Not dead. They're what's left when the Hollow Vein consumes a soul — but spits out the shell."
The Shade hovered above the tomb, the spiral mark blinking slowly, matching Tsukihana's heartbeat.
Then, it spoked.
But not aloud.
Its voice was inside her head.
"Daughter of the cracked mirror… you should not have came here."
Tsukihana grabbed her head, staggering backward.
"You carry the shard. You carry the wound. You carry me."
Renjiro lunged forward with his blade, slashing through the mist.
"Don't listen to it!"
But the Shade dodged with unnatural speed, and suddenly, the Originals moved.
The child-like one leapt first — not toward Renjiro, but toward Tsukihana.
She raised her arm to block — but her Hollow Veins reacted again.
A burst of violet energy exploded from her palm, hurling the creature into the far wall. The stones cracked. It didn't get up.
Renjiro stared in shock.
"You didn't even copy that technique."
Tsukihana blinked, shaking. "It wasn't a technique."
"No… it was instinct."
Another of the Originals attacked — the floating one with stitched limbs. It let out a hollow shriek and released a wave of sonic pressure.
Renjiro's blade cut through the sound mid-air, but he winced.
"Too many!" he shouted. "Fall back!"
Tsukihana grabbed his arm, dragging him toward the exit tunnel.
But as they ran, the Shade's voice followed them in the dark:
"You are not the first to carry the Hollow… but you may be the last."
They ran for what felt like minutes, their footsteps echoing through the stone halls. Behind them, the chains from the tomb snapped one by one. The air grew colder with each breath.
Finally, they reached the outer door — the one that had been sealed with ancient script.
Renjiro turned and threw a talisman into the tunnel. "Seal it again!"
The paper exploded in light, and the stone door groaned shut, locking the darkness behind.
Silence.
Both of them collapsed to their knees outside in the snow, breathless.
The mountain wind returned.
Tsukihana's hands still shook. "What… what was that thing?"
Renjiro sheathed his sword, face pale. "I told you it was a tomb. But I never told you who it really belonged to."
She looked at him, trembling. "Then tell me now."
He took a breath. "The Hollow Vein didn't start as an energy. It started as a person. A being. Long ago. Before the Five Provinces even existed."
"A person…?"
Renjiro nodded. "A cursed one. Born without a body — just energy. It took hosts. Infected them. Used them. Akarui was its last true vessel. He fought it… but he couldn't destroy it. So he trapped it. With himself."
"And now it's trying to return," Tsukihana said slowly. "Through me."
Renjiro looked at her, eyes grim. "Yes."
She backed away a step. "Then I'm just another host."
"No," he said firmly. "You're something new. You're a Mirror Vein — but with a core. A Hollow fragment that chose you, not infected you. That's why it's unstable."
"But why me?"
He stood. "That's what we're going to find out."
She looked down at her hands. The glowing veins had faded now, but her body still felt hot inside — like something was boiling under her skin.
Then she remembered the Shade's last words.
"You are not the first to carry the Hollow… but you may be the last."
She looked up at Renjiro.
"If this thing gets out," she said, "what happens to the world?"
Renjiro looked at the sealed door one last time.
"It'll tear the provinces apart," he said quietly. "Just like it did before. But this time… it won't stop at the Five."
Elsewhere — Unknown Province
A silver moon hung over a shattered city. A tower burned in the distance, its flames blue and unnatural.
Inside a cold chamber lined with glass tanks, a tall figure in white robes walked between rows of sealed capsules. Inside each one floated a person — sleeping, veins pulsing faintly.
Another figure stepped into the chamber.
"The tomb was disturbed," he said. "They're waking."
The man in white didn't turn around. "Good."
"But the girl escaped."
"I expected she would."
"What now?"
The man finally turned, revealing a face stitched with silver lines — as if sewn back together by energy. His eyes glowed faintly red.
He placed a hand on one of the tanks.
"We prepare the next phase."
The tank hissed open.
Inside, a clone of a young man with glowing silver eyes opened his own.