"Even if the world forgets our names, the Pit remembers what we tried to hide."
Where the Light Cannot Reach
The sound of dripping water was the only heartbeat left in the ruins.
Hoguro walked alone through the tunnels, his torch flickering against damp walls that looked carved by regret rather than time. The deeper he went, the more the world seemed to hold its breath. No birds. No wind. Only the echo of his footsteps, swallowed by endless stone.
He stopped at a fork in the corridor, staring at a door that shouldn't have existed.
It was enormous — not built, but grown from the wall itself. Its surface shimmered faintly, as though alive, veins of dim red pulsing under obsidian. Ancient symbols ran across it, each one etched like a wound that never healed.
The closer he came, the louder his heartbeat grew.
When he reached out to touch the door, something inside it pulsed — not light, not sound, but memory.
And the stone breathed.
Hoguro whispered, "...what are you?"
The answer came in the form of a whisper that filled his skull:
"Blood remembers what time denies."
His torch extinguished. The door opened.
The Memory of Fire
The world collapsed around him, and for a brief, blinding instant, he saw a sky that no longer existed.
Ash fell like snow. Mountains burned red at the edges. The air itself shimmered with heat, and in the distance — towering over a dying city — stood a throne of crystal and bone.
And upon it sat the First Oni King.
He wasn't as Hoguro imagined. Not monstrous. Not divine.
He looked… tired. His eyes flickered with the same flame that burned in Gomi's, but his face carried the exhaustion of a being who'd carried the weight of a thousand broken oaths.
Hoguro fell to his knees, unable to breathe.
The King spoke without moving his lips. His voice felt like thunder beneath the skin.
"You have come far, descendant."
"D-descendant…?" Hoguro's throat tightened. "No. I'm not—"
"You carry my brother's blood."
"And through him, you carry mine."
The words struck harder than any blade.
Hoguro staggered back, clutching his chest.
"My… my brother's blood…?" His voice shook. "Then… Gomi—"
"—is my echo."
"The other half of the crown."
The King's eyes softened — almost human, almost sorrowful.
"Our blood was divided to save this world once."
"But division is a wound that never heals."
The throne cracked. The walls around him dissolved into dust and flame.
"The Pit is not a prison."
"It is a memory of betrayal — the scar of what I could not forgive."
And before Hoguro could ask another question, the fire reached him.
He screamed, his body consumed by visions of war, of two brothers standing beneath a black sun, of a sword piercing one heart and a crown falling into the sea of ash.
When he awoke, the door behind him was gone.
Only the whisper remained, echoing softly in the dark.
"The crown does not forgive."
Above, in the Broken Ruins
The surface sky of the Pit had no stars — only cracks of light that bled through the ceiling like veins.
Gomi, Minagami, and Hosogiri rested beside the dying fire, the air heavy with dust and unease. The ruins around them stretched endlessly — shattered bridges, fallen towers, remnants of something that must once have been holy.
Gomi leaned against a column, staring into the embers. "The air feels different tonight."
Minagami glanced up. "Different how?"
"It's like the Pit's… watching us," he murmured. "Like it's waiting."
Hosogiri laughed dryly. "The Pit's always waiting. It's just not telling us what for."
But Minagami didn't laugh. Her eyes drifted over the ruins, her voice softer than the wind.
"Sometimes I wonder if this place dreams. If the stones remember what they used to be."
Gomi frowned. "You're getting poetic on me now?"
"Maybe," she said, smiling faintly. "But don't act like you don't think the same. You've been quiet all day."
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Because every time he closed his eyes, he heard the same whisper — his name spoken in voices that didn't belong to the living.
Voices that knew him. That loved him. That hated him.
The Pit Speaks
It began with a breeze that came from nowhere.
The fire flickered violently. The ruins groaned as if turning in their sleep.
And then came the whispers — not faint anymore, but sharp, almost desperate.
Names. Dozens of them.
Some ancient, some familiar.
Hosogiri tensed. "You hear that?"
Minagami rose, hand on her sword. "They're saying—"
She froze. Her breath caught. The voice had said her name.
Then Gomi's.
And then, one by one, it began to name them all — not just who they were, but who they had been.
Gomi clutched his head, staggering. "No… stop…!"
The whispers grew louder. A person's voice wept. Another screamed.
The ground split, dust rising like ghosts.
Hosogiri rushed to Gomi's side. "Hey! Hey, breathe, damn it!"
"I can't—It's in my head—"
Minagami grabbed his arm, her voice firm. "Focus on me. Not the Pit. Me!"
And for a moment, the noise dimmed.
Her voice anchored him.
Then—
A sound like thunder, but not from the sky.
Something had awakened.
The Stranger in the Flame
He emerged from the far end of the ruins, walking through fire like it was rain.
The stranger from before — the figure who had spoken of fate and death, whose mask cracked in the last battle. His cloak shimmered with heat, and his eyes glowed faintly like burning coals.
Gomi stood, trembling with both rage and fear. "You again."
The figure smiled faintly. "Did you think I'd leave before the story ended?"
Minagami raised her sword. "You've got a strange way of showing gratitude. Care to explain why you keep trying to kill him?"
The being looked at Gomi for a long moment. "Because I've already seen what happens when he remembers who he is."
Hosogiri frowned. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
The persons tone softened, though it trembled with bitterness.
"It means the world burns. It means the Pit wakes. It means I die again."
Gomi's hands curled into fists. "You talk like you know me."
The figure chuckled — a hollow, exhausted sound.
"I am you," he said. "Or rather, what's left of you — the part the crown cast away."
The fire dimmed. For a heartbeat, the only sound was their breathing.
Then Gomi whispered, "You're lying."
"Am I?" the person murmured. "Why do you think the Pit calls your name like an old lover? Why do the walls bleed when you bleed?"
He stepped closer, his eyes dark with sorrow.
"Because you're not the heir of the Oni King."
He paused. The silence between heartbeats stretched thin as glass.
"You are the King."
The Shattering
It was like time forgot to exist for a moment.
Gomi didn't move. Didn't blink. His thoughts folded in on themselves until only the echo of those words remained.
Minagami shook her head. "No… no, that's impossible."
But the person only looked at her with pity.
"Is it? His power, his rage, the way the Pit bends around him — did you think that was luck?"
Hosogiri stepped forward, hand on his blade. "If he's the King, then what the hell are you?"
"His failure," the person whispered. "The shadow left behind when he fell."
Gomi's chest burned — literally. His mark flared beneath his armor, glowing like molten metal. He screamed, dropping to his knees.
Minagami reached for him, but the person thrust out a hand, stopping her.
"Touch him now, and you'll burn with him."
The ruins began to tremble. The sky above cracked further, rays of cursed light spilling down like blood. The whispers returned — hundreds of voices calling one name.
"King of Ashes."
Gomi gasped, eyes wide. He saw flashes — cities turning to dust, armies kneeling before him, Hosogiri's face twisted in grief, Minagami's tears falling into the flames.
The person knelt beside him. "This is the truth you feared, isn't it? That every time you fought, every time you raged, it wasn't courage — it was memory."
Gomi whispered, "Why… why are you showing me this?"
"Because I've lived through your rebirths," he said quietly. "And every time, it ends the same — you kill them all."
The Thread of Mercy
The fire died suddenly.
The ruin fell silent again.
Gomi slumped forward, panting, smoke rising faintly from his skin. His eyes no longer glowed. He looked… small. Human.
Minagami knelt beside him carefully, ignoring the heat. "You're still you," she whispered. "You're still Gomi."
Hosogiri nodded, voice low. "Even if you were the King, even if you did terrible things — that's not who you are now."
The person looked at them both — at the way they shielded him, even from his own power — and for the first time, his expression softened.
"Strange," he murmured. "Even in every life, you find the same people to love you."
He turned toward the pit's edge. "But love won't stop what's coming."
Minagami rose. "Then tell us what will."
The figure hesitated. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"The crown is waking. It was never meant to choose a ruler — only to remember the one it lost."
He looked back at Gomi one last time.
"When it remembers everything… so will you."
And with that, he vanished into the dark.
Beneath the Crown
Far below them, Hoguro's torch burned blue.
He stood before a mural depicting two brothers — one in flame, one in shadow. Between them hung a crown, suspended by chains of light.
As he touched the mural, images flooded his mind:
A betrayal. A sword. A promise never kept.
And then — a face.
Gomi's.
Hoguro staggered back, whispering, "No… this can't be…"
But the mural changed as he watched. The face of the second brother shifted — into his own.
"The crown is divided. One remembers love. The other remembers loss."
The voice came from the mural itself.
And then, faintly, the sound of Gomi's scream echoed down the corridor, reaching him even here.
Hoguro closed his eyes.
Tears slid down his cheeks, burning like ash.
"I know now," he whispered. "We were never enemies."
He looked up at the mural — at the two brothers doomed to repeat the same fate.
"Maybe this time," he said, "we can end it differently."
The Crown Awakens
In the ruins above, the fire reignited on its own. The air shimmered.
And somewhere deep within the Pit — past bone and stone and memory — a sound began to rise.
A heartbeat.
Ancient. Endless.
And beneath that pulse, a single voice spoke — soft, reverent, and cruel all at once:
"The King remembers."
Gomi opened his eyes.
And for the first time, the fire didn't frighten him.
TO BE CONTINUED...