The sky had turned gray—not with clouds, but with ash.
Every step Hizusuki took crackled over dead leaves and brittle earth. The girl had grown quieter since the confrontation with Tetsura, and even the sword at Hizusuki's hip felt heavier. Not in weight, but in presence. As though it knew what lay ahead.
Before them now stood the Gate of Thorns.
It was not a structure built by men. No mortar. No timber. Only two titanic, petrified trees twisted into an arch, their bark covered in thousands of black iron thorns, each said to be the nail from a warrior who had perished in this place. Beneath the arch: an abyssal stairway, descending into darkness.
A shrine stone sat at its base. Cracked. Faded. Its single inscription read:
> "Abandon memory, all who pass below."
The girl trembled. "Hizusuki… we don't have to go. We can find another way."
He didn't answer immediately. His eyes were fixed on the stairwell.
"No," he finally said. "If I don't walk into this place… I'll never leave the shadow of my father."
He stepped forward.
And vanished into the dark.
---
Below the Gate…
The descent twisted. Gravity warped. What should have been a staircase into the earth instead felt like walking down the inside of a spiral dream. Walls flickered with whispers. Shadows flickered with memories.
He saw faces in the stone. His mother. His father. Buddha Mong.
All of them turned away.
When Hizusuki finally reached the bottom, he stood before a vast cavern bathed in crimson glow. Black roots snaked across the ceiling like veins. And in the center of the room: an altar.
Tetsura stood beside it, arms folded.
"You returned quicker than I expected," he said without turning. "Perhaps you truly are your father's son."
"Don't speak his name," Hizusuki growled, stepping forward. "You betrayed him. You stole from him."
"I freed him," Tetsura said calmly. "Your father was dying long before my blade touched him. He carried the fragments—but he never understood their purpose."
Tetsura lifted the dark shard. "There are seven in total. Not six. One was hidden… in the wound of the world."
Hizusuki tensed. "You lie."
"Do I?" Tetsura tossed the fragment into the altar. Instantly, black fire erupted from it—cloaking the cavern in a dome of flickering shadows.
From within the flames, a shape emerged.
Not human. Not yōkai.
But something older.
It had no face. No limbs. Only eyes—dozens of them—blinking slowly across a shifting mass of smoke and bone.
The voice that followed echoed in both their minds.
> "So… the heir arrives. The last of the Line of Ash. The boy who carries grief like a sword."
Hizusuki stepped back, blade drawn. "What are you?!"
Tetsura bowed. "This is the Eclipse Wound. A fragment not bound to the Legacy of Men, but to the First Sin. It does not belong to you, or me. But it hungers for you."
The entity surged forward.
Hizusuki slashed instinctively, his spirit blade glowing white-hot. The force of his swing parted the shadow briefly—but the wound simply reformed.
"You cannot kill what was never alive," the creature whispered. "But you can accept it."
Tetsura smiled. "Join me, Hizusuki. Together, we can rebuild the world. One where no legacy chains the future."
But Hizusuki's answer was steel.
He plunged his sword into the altar, channeling both his shards into it. Light exploded from the impact—raw, unrefined. The red and white flames twisted together, rejecting the blackness.
The Eclipse Wound screamed.
Tetsura shielded his eyes, stumbling back.
And Hizusuki…
Fell.
---
When he awoke…
He was lying in a field of white grass. The sky above him was silver.
A figure sat nearby—dressed in monk's robes, face veiled in light.
"Hizusuki," the figure said.
His heart stopped.
"…Father?"
The man turned, smiling.
"No. But I carry his final memory."
---
To be continued…