Ren didn't remember standing up.
One moment he was kneeling in the dirt, Ayaka's arms steadying him, the ghost of Yurei's departure still flickering in the fog…And the next, the world had tilted sideways.
Everything felt wrong.
The air was too heavy.The ground was too soft.His heartbeat—no, their heartbeat—was pounding in a rhythm that didn't belong to him at all.
Ayaka noticed first.
"Ren…?" she whispered.
His skin was cold. Not from fear.
From something awakening.
Hiro jogged toward them from the equipment tent, waving. "Hey! I saw a—whoa, Ren, you look like you just lost a fight with a freezer."
Hiro's attempt at humor fell flat when Ren slowly turned his head toward him—unnaturally slow, as though something else were steering his movements.
Hiro froze. "Um. Ayaka? Why is he looking at me like that?"
Ayaka's grip tightened around Ren's sleeve. "Ren. Look at me, okay? Right here." She tapped her fingers gently against his cheek. "Stay with me."
For a second, the fog in Ren's mind cleared.
"Ayaka…" he breathed.
And then—
—Let me in.Let me speak.Let me rise.
The voice of the sealed god swept through his skull like a tidal surge. The Ninth Seal throbbed violently, a pulse that shook the air itself.
Ren doubled over with a strangled gasp, clutching his chest.
Ayaka caught him before he hit the ground. "Ren! Talk to me—what do you feel? Pain? Pressure?"
He forced words through clenched teeth. "Something's… pushing…"
Kurogane, who had been frantically scribbling notes a few meters away, looked up sharply. "Move him away from the center of the valley! The seal is reacting to the atmosphere!"
Hiro blinked. "The atmosphere? As in… the air? The sky? The everything?"
"Yes!" Kurogane barked. "NOW!"
Ayaka hooked Ren's arm over her shoulders and hauled him toward the shelter of the tents. Hiro ran ahead to clear a path, though he kept glancing back nervously, as if expecting Ren to sprout fangs or wings.
Ren tried to stand on his own, but his legs trembled violently. The seal twisted inside him, not like a force trying to break out—
Like a force trying to take shape.
Ayaka's voice was distant. "Ren, breathe. Focus on my voice. Stay with me. Stay—"
The fog around them pulsed.
Ayaka stopped walking.
Hiro took three steps backward.
Even Kurogane, the man with answers, paled visibly.
Because something was stepping out of the mist behind Ren.
A shape.
No—his shape.
A silhouette as tall as Ren, but wrong. Too long in the limbs. Too many joints bending the wrong way. Its edges frayed into shadow, dripping darkness like ink melting in water. Its eyes glowed an unsettling, soft red—dimmer than moonlight, colder than death.
Kuro-Obake.
Manifested.
And watching Ren with a hunger that felt deeply personal.
Ayaka shoved Ren behind her. "Get back!"
The shadow tilted its head in a disturbingly familiar motion—Ren's own gesture, mirrored with predatory grace.
Hiro whispered, "That thing is copying him…"
"No," Kurogane said hoarsely. "It's more than that. It is born of the god's fragment inside him. It reflects Ren's mind. His fear. His doubt. His weakness."
Ayaka snarled, "He isn't weak."
The creature's head snapped toward her, the shadows wrapping tighter around its body like coiled tendrils.
Ayaka lifted her blade. "I'm not scared of you."
"You should be," Kurogane hissed. "It will attack whatever threatens its ascension."
Ren grabbed Ayaka's arm. "Don't—just don't provoke it."
Ayaka looked back at him. "Ren, it's going to attack regardless."
"I can feel it," he whispered. "It wants me. It wants to replace me."
The creature stepped forward.
Its feet left no prints.
Its shadow stretched too far, reaching toward Ren like a hand plunging from darkness.
Ayaka stepped closer to Ren, shielding him entirely with her body. "Over my dead body."
The creature paused.
It studied Ayaka.Then Ren.Then Ayaka again.
And a low, distorted exhale echoed through the mist, like the creature was imitating Ren's breath.
Hiro swallowed hard. "This is fine. Totally fine. Just a humanoid nightmare doing yoga stretches toward us."
Ayaka snapped, "Hiro—!"
But the warning came too late.
The creature lunged.
Its shadow-elongated arm whipped forward, slicing through the air toward Ren—
Ayaka shoved him aside, blade flashing.
Steel met shadow.
The clash should have made sound—but it didn't. The blade simply sliced through the creature's arm, which dissolved like smoke before reforming instantly.
Ayaka's eyes widened. "It… healed?"
"No," Kurogane corrected. "It is not flesh. It is a projection of the seal. It cannot be wounded. Only destabilized."
"HOW?!" Hiro yelped.
Kurogane didn't answer.
Because at that moment, the creature turned its full attention onto Ayaka.
Its head twitched.Its gaze sharpened.Its jaw unhinged slowly into a wide, unnatural shape.
A shape of hunger.
Ren felt the Ninth Seal crush against his ribs like a vice.It wanted the creature to feed.It wanted Ayaka removed.
Ren staggered forward. "Stop! Don't touch her!"
The creature froze.
Then, as though responding to his command, it tilted its head again and stepped backward… two slow, almost obedient paces.
Ayaka blinked. "It listened to you?"
Ren was shaking. "I… think so."
Kurogane inhaled sharply. "Of course. It is bound to the seal. And the seal is bound to him."
"But why back off?" Hiro asked.
"Because," Kurogane said darkly, "Ren's command holds higher priority than its instinct."
Ayaka sheathed her blade, though her stance remained defensive. "Ren, try telling it to leave."
Ren swallowed the terror in his throat.
He stepped forward.
The creature mirrored him instantly—lifting its foot the exact same way, same angle, same hesitation. A distorted reflection of a reflection.
Ren whispered, "Go."
The creature did not move.
He tried again, louder. "Leave. Go away."
The creature's shadow stretched along the ground, reaching toward him.
Ayaka grabbed Ren's sleeve. "It's not listening."
"No," Kurogane murmured. "It hears him… but it refuses. It has grown too strong to obey without resistance."
Hiro whispered, "So what now?"
Ren clenched his fists.
The creature mirrored the motion perfectly.
Ren inhaled slowly—focusing on the way Ayaka's hand steadied him. On how her warmth muted the whisper of the seal. On the memory of Yurei's dream and the pull he had barely escaped.
Ayaka's voice anchored him.
"Ren. You're stronger than this."
He whispered, "Stop."
The creature froze.
Ren stepped forward, trembling.
"Stop," he repeated. "That's an order."
The creature tilted its head in a jerky, unnatural motion—half obedience, half defiance.
Then it slowly—agonizingly slowly—began to sink into the fog, melting like a shadow swallowed by deeper shadow.
Within seconds, it was gone.
The valley went silent.
Ayaka dropped her blade and pulled Ren into a fierce embrace. "You scared me," she whispered fiercely into his shoulder. "Don't ever do that again."
Ren's breath shuddered. "I didn't do anything."
"You did," she insisted. "You controlled it. Even if just barely."
Kurogane approached cautiously, still scanning the mist. "It will return. That was merely its first manifestation. The more the seal destabilizes, the more frequently it will appear."
Hiro exhaled shakily. "Fantastic. Love that for us."
Ren pulled away slightly, meeting Ayaka's eyes.
"I could feel it," he whispered. "It knew me. It was me."
Ayaka touched his cheek gently. "No. It's the seal. Not you."
But Ren wasn't convinced.
And as the valley settled into uneasy stillness, he sensed another presence lingering at the edge of awareness—
A soft laugh carried through moonlight memory.
—You cannot run from what you are, beloved.
Yurei.
Even from afar, she was watching.
Waiting.
And the seal inside him stirred—caught between shadow hunger and moonlit longing.