The light faded slowly.
When Kento opened his eyes, the battlefield no longer roared with fire and silver. Instead, there was only silence. The void had gone dim, its infinite horizon broken by cracks that glowed faintly, like veins of dying starlight.
He staggered forward. His body screamed in protest, every bone feeling heavier than stone. The silver threads that had shielded him now fluttered weakly, dissolving into ash as though their purpose had been spent.
Where the Oathlord had stood, there was no longer a towering figure of flame. Only fragments remained: scorched armor, a sword half-buried in the void's ground, and a lingering haze of black smoke.
But Kento could still feel it. A heartbeat. Weak, fractured, but present.
"…You're still here," he whispered.
The smoke stirred faintly. A voice—broken, raw—echoed from within.
"…Boy… you… bound me…"
Kento crouched beside the fragments, his breath shallow. "Not bound. Connected. I saw what you carried. I won't let it end in chains."
For a long moment, there was no answer. Only the hiss of dying fire. Then the voice returned, softer.
"…Then… carry it. If you truly believe you can."
The words faded, leaving nothing but silence. The haze collapsed inward, seeping into the silver threads that clung to Kento's skin. He gasped as the weight surged into him—not physical, but spiritual. The remnants of the Oathlord's vow had branded themselves onto his soul.
It was heavy. Too heavy. Like standing beneath a collapsing sky.
Kento fell to his knees, clutching his chest. His vision blurred, not from pain, but from the overwhelming flood of memories not his own. Each promise, each betrayal, each scream from the past clawed at him, demanding to be carried.
"…Furi…" he whispered hoarsely. "I swore I'd never fail you. But if I can't bear this weight—how can I protect anything?"
The silence gave no answer.
But then, faintly, one silver thread flickered back to life, coiling gently around his arm. Not bright. Not triumphant. Just steady.
Kento exhaled shakily. His hands still trembled, but he forced himself to rise. The Oathlord's remains had vanished, but the promise lingered, carved into his very being.
The battle was over.
But the war of vows had only just deepened.
---The silence did not last.
The moment Kento staggered to his feet, the cracks in the void around him pulsed faintly—like veins feeding into his soul. His vision swam, the battlefield dissolving into something else entirely.
A hall stretched before him, endless and hollow. Walls of fractured mirrors lined either side, each shard reflecting not his face, but moments. Promises made. Promises broken. Some were his own: the night beneath the stars with Furi, his vow spoken with trembling resolve. Others belonged to strangers, faces he did not recognize, but whose voices cut into him like knives.
"I'll protect you, no matter what."
"Trust me. I won't let go."
"…Forgive me."
Each word echoed through the hall, overlapping until the air itself felt suffocating. Kento pressed his hands to his ears, but the sound did not stop. It came from inside him.
His knees buckled. "This… this is the Oathlord's burden…"
The mirrors trembled, warping. In one shard, he saw the Oathlord kneeling before a village, swearing to guard them with his life. In another, he saw betrayal—his comrades abandoning him, chains of fire latching onto his arms. In yet another, he saw the Oathlord himself burning away his humanity, choosing curse over surrender.
And woven into it all was the same crushing truth: every promise carried weight, and when that weight was broken, it never disappeared. It only shifted.
Kento's chest tightened. Is this what I've taken into myself?
He stumbled forward, each step heavier. Threads of silver unraveled from his skin, floating upward, only to be weighed down by chains of black flame that lashed out from the mirrors. They wrapped his arms, his throat, his heart.
He gasped. The fire didn't burn his flesh—it burned his conviction. Every doubt he had ever buried rose like smoke:
What if you're not strong enough? What if you fail her? What if your vow is just another curse waiting to collapse?
The chains pulled tighter, dragging him to his knees. The hall darkened.
"Kento…"
The voice was soft. Familiar. His head snapped up—
—and in the farthest mirror, he saw her.
Furi.
Not as she was in memory, but standing in the darkness, her gaze steady. Her lips moved, though her voice was faint.
"Do you still believe in what you promised me?"
The chains seared deeper. His breath came ragged. He wanted to answer, but the weight crushed the words in his throat. He reached out, trembling, as if touching that reflection would keep him from collapsing entirely.
"…Yes…" His voice cracked. Then louder, breaking through the suffocating air:
"Yes! Even if I fall, even if I carry this curse, I won't abandon it! I won't abandon you!"
The silver threads flared, brighter than before. They shredded through the chains, sparks raining like meteors. The mirrors cracked violently, fragments shattering into the void.
For a moment, he thought he saw the Oathlord's face again—not monstrous, not burning, but almost human. Watching. Waiting.
Then the vision broke.
Kento collapsed onto the fractured ground of the void battlefield, drenched in sweat. His chest heaved, his arms shaking, but the chains were gone. The silver threads had returned, dim but alive.
He touched his heart, feeling the heavy pulse of both his own vow and the Oathlord's curse entwined.
"…I can carry it. I have to."
The silence that followed was not empty this time. It was waiting.
---Kento's lungs burned as he forced himself upright. The fractured mirrors, the chains, the whispers—they were gone. The void's horizon stretched endlessly, dark but calm, like a wounded ocean waiting for the tide.
The weight of the Oathlord's shattered vow still throbbed inside him. Heavy. Relentless. Yet somehow, it no longer crushed him. It had become part of him, and he had accepted it.
"…I carry it," he murmured, voice trembling. "I carry it… and I won't let it destroy me."
A single thread of silver rose from his hand, coiling gently around his wrist. It pulsed with warmth, not bright or blinding, but steady. A heartbeat.
Kento closed his eyes. Images of the Oathlord, broken and cursed, flashed before him, then Furi, unwavering, reached out across the darkness. The contrast was stark, like shadow against flame. But now, he could see clearly.
The past, the betrayals, the broken vows—they were all part of the world he had chosen to protect. He had inherited not only the burden, but also the lesson: that a vow's worth was not measured in perfection, but in the courage to uphold it even when shattered.
He opened his eyes, silver threads gleaming faintly around him, tracing intricate patterns like constellations in the void.
"Enough," he whispered. "This silence… it's not an ending. It's a beginning."
The black void rippled, not violently, but gently, as if acknowledging his words. Faint sparks of silver scattered across the horizon, like distant stars awakening.
Kento took a deep breath, feeling the heaviness settle into a rhythm. Every heartbeat reminded him of the promise he had made, every pulse resonating with the Oathlord's former vow.
Somewhere deep in the shadows, he thought he heard the faintest whisper of approval—a voice older than time, older than betrayal, yet filled with something like hope.
"…Carry it well, child of the new oath…"
Kento exhaled slowly, letting the void embrace him. He was no longer just a boy fighting alone. He was a bearer of a vow reborn, a thread weaving light into the darkness.
And somewhere, beyond the horizon of shattered black glass and fading fire, the world waited for the next step.
---