From the memories and experience of his Kagami-hankyos, Ran knew that hell had been plagued with Lagarakei attacks for the last five years.
No one knew what to do about it still. There had been a motion to free HIM to help them fight a war against the living dreads, and the motion got a majority vote.
But it seemed like no one was in a hurry to free him.
Ran could understand that. Everything went to hell, in the literal sense, since he fell.
Still, as he ran, gasping and flinching at every earthshaking boom as buildings fell around him in sparks and showers of embers.
The bell continued tolling in a resounding call for retreat.
The City was already empty—Ran himself stood upon a lonely hill miles away.
The Lagarakei was so big that he had no trouble seeing it—demons upon its back fighting to not fall while using every power within them to attack the beast with the vigour of bustling ants.
Ran looked around at the spirits who stood with him, their curiosity getting the best of them as they all stood as a group of hundreds to watch a nightmare claim yet another city in five years.
The others had long since escaped to different corners of hell.
Ran knew they would all be gathered back by the Prince of Souls should he manage to drive off the Lagarakei.
Together, they watched in silence as demonic powers clashed against eldritch power.
And with every roar of the Lagarakei, with every crushing wave that followed the path of its lashing tentacles—Ran began to feel something stir within him.
At first it was not just like a heartburn, then he could feel his chest tighten.
Now his chest was on fire.
A glance down showed him that not only was all of his skin now metallic flesh, but he was growing bigger.
Not the type of growth he'd experienced after the Blaze, that one had felt naturally, like it had happened over five years. And in a way it had.
This—
This was happening too quickly. He added six feet, seven, eight, nine and kept growing, still his heart was yet to beat.
Every spirit stepped away from him in concern.
Every spirit, that was, except the man who had claimed to be in hell for fornicating with his daughter.
The man stepped closer to him as he increased in height and proportion.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
Ran heard the fear and worry in his voice. He was frightened yet concerned.
He shook his head. He wasn't okay, he was anything but okay.
His body shook, vibrating right from the core of his soul as something within him struggled to the fore, as if to answer the call of the Lagarakei that continued to unleash ruin upon the city afar.
"It's coming out," he said, his voice so low and scared that it was almost a whisper.
"What's coming out?" The man asked, taking a wary step forward even as Ran continued to grow. Now he was as big as a standing elephant, even his head was becoming malformed—extending and doubling like a hydra's.
Lifting his boulder-sized hands, the limb shaking from the force of the beast struggling within him, Ran pointed at the Lagarakei.
"He lives in me!"
The man turned to look. Looked at the creature with thousands of Demons upon its back then he looked back at Ran, confusion clear on his face.
But that confusion became horror when he ran his eyes over Ran's body and took in the metallic flesh. He turned towards the city again to compare it to that of the Lagarakei.
Ran felt his heart almost fail him when he heard the man gasp.
It was one thing for him to know, he could deceive himself by thinking that it was just a lie, but a secondary confirmation from someone else was heart wrenching.
As he fought to repress the beast and smother it with his soul, he felt an aura encompass the entire landscape, increasing the heat tenfold.
Even as he struggled with the demon within him, his head becoming five then ten, he managed to look up and saw Mukoku and a demon as black as sin rise up to the sky.
His vision was so good that, through his twenty eyes— now twenty two as another head sprouted from his tub-sized neck —he could see the demon nod to Mukoku.
His aura dwarfed hers, made hers seem insignificant.
Mukoku soared high into the sky, and once again, she unleashed her might in a wave of devouring silence.
All sounds died.
And within him, Ran felt the beast pause—even it sought to bear witness to this moment.
Mukoku gathered her power and pushed it down towards the beast like a storm. A storm that made absolutely no sound.
All demons upon the back of the creature scattered like grains falling off spread fingers.
Around the Lagarakei space was sundered, and for the second time in his existence, Ran bore witness to a creature of dread trapped in an endless void.
With the beast trapped, the demon moved.
He moved so fast he made a lightning bolt seem slow, and yet Ran, or perhaps the creature within him, could follow his movement perfectly.
With the growing number of eyes upon his heads, Ran saw that the Prince held a box.
A box with thousands of seals upon it. A jet-black cube of obsidian bone that was constantly oozing thin red light from its seams.
Etchings on each face represented one of the seven cardinal sins, carved by the dying screams of the trapped souls. The box bled embers which floated but never cooled.
Seeing the box, Ran wondered—
"Could it be?" He whispered.
He remembered Mukoku's story of the shaman who died and his soul possessed pure hellfire, transforming him into a vengeful force of devastation.
A sentient inferno that turned its rage against the Demon of Souls, a being who ruled over a realm of 13 trillion souls. In desperation, the demon sacrificed all his subjects, binding their souls together into a singular, indestructible cube—an artefact forged from agony and eternity.
Within this cube, the demon imprisoned the sentient hellfire, sealing it away and almost damning his own domain to oblivion if not for the eternity of death.
This was the cursed origin of the Hakokage, a box that radiates whispering heat and scorches the air with its mere presence.
A presence Ran and all around him could feel as the demon held up with box with his both hands
"What is that?" The sinful father beside him asked. "
"A power of hellfire. The hellfire inside that box is not only aware—it hates all existence and whispers infernal truths to those who touch the box," he said, the creature within him providing him more knowledge of the box in a form of flooding memories.
"Is he going to unleash that?" The man asked.
"The only way to open the box is through hara-kiri upon its surface. The spilled lifeblood acts as a key," he said. "He needs someone to die."
"And then?" The man asked, his voice trembling as though he feared the response to his question.
"When opened, the box erupts with flame that ignores the laws of nature, consumes souls, and burns memory and reality alike," Ran said, speaking from several dozen heads, his voice guttural and terrifying in sync. "To lock it again, seven mages must willingly die, allowing their souls to possess the fire and contain it from within. Their consciousness is erased in the process—a one-way trip into eternal torment."
As he said the words, memories not his or his Kagami-hankyos' overwhelmed him and he saw—he walked the ancients past.
Drowning in the vision, he spoke as the demon beckoned one of its Knave's forward and presented her with a ritual knife.
Ran's voices reached every ear in the crowd. "And in accordance with the Prophecy of the Apocalypse. Just as foretold by the legends."
Everyone turned towards him to pay heed, fear for what he was becoming sti evident upon them.
"The fire shall escape and burn the universe to ash."