I wasn't always like this.
I know what you think. That I'm just the shadow. The leftover. The curse that couldn't let go.
But I remember things, too.
I remember what it felt like to breathe.
---
The world before I was unmade wasn't beautiful. It was chaos dressed in silence.
Blades gleamed in starlight. Flames devoured cities without names. Blood soaked prayers. And every time I screamed, the world called it justice.
The Sacred Gear — *Infernal Requiem* — didn't whisper to me.
It *sang.*
A lullaby of endings. The melody of things falling apart. The rhythm of collapsing truths.
And I listened. I let it shape me. Not because I wanted power.
Because I had *nothing else.*
---
I think my name was Kazuo.
It doesn't feel right anymore. Like wearing a coat that belonged to someone else. But I hold onto it anyway.
Because he did.
The other me.
The one who chose differently.
---
I watched him from the moment he woke in that forest. Confused. Weak. Lost.
I hated him.
He was everything I wasn't.
Gentle.
Afraid.
Hopeful.
He reached for people instead of pushing them away. He knelt at the shrine instead of burning it down. He mourned the dead instead of blaming them.
I wanted to scream at him.
*"That path will break you!"*
But he kept walking.
And I watched.
Every. Step.
---
When the spirits whispered, he listened.
When the flame called, he resisted.
And when the Gear began to awaken in him, he did something I never could.
He said no.
He said *no.*
---
You don't understand what that did to me.
I was born from that flame. Molded in its hatred. I was the vengeance. The wrath. The final weapon.
And he made me unnecessary.
He made me... obsolete.
But I couldn't disappear.
So I grew.
In the cracks of his fear.
In the pain he swallowed.
In the pieces of his soul he never forgave.
I became what he buried.
---
I thought I'd rise again.
I thought when the balance broke in Kyoto, I would take the stage, cloak myself in fire, and finally end the lie of peace.
But then he did it.
He faced me.
Not with blades.
Not with power.
But with *acceptance.*
---
He knelt.
And I shattered.
---
I don't know where I am now.
Not truly.
I think I drift.
A memory with teeth. A dream left unfinished.
Sometimes I see flickers — petals falling, the shrine glowing at sunset, Hikari folding paper charms with hands that once touched mine.
And sometimes I wonder:
*If I had one more chance... would I have chosen his path?*
No fire.
No vengeance.
Just... peace.
---
But I'm not Takashi.
I'm the part that couldn't let go.
I'm the ghost of what could've burned the world.
And that's why I stay buried.
Because some embers?
They aren't meant to rise.
---