Chapter 18: Toward the Mouth of Night
The valley moved.
Not by choice.
Stone cracked as people were dragged across it toward the opened temple doors. Villagers clawed at the ground. Undead bodies skidded like scrap metal. Even loose weapons and broken pillars scraped inward as if gravity itself had changed its mind.
Kyūsei dropped to one knee and slammed both hands onto the stairs.
He still slid.
"KAZUTO!"
Kazuto drove his sword into the stone beside them. Sparks flew.
The blade held.
Barely.
He grabbed Kyūsei's wrist with his free hand.
"Hold!"
"This is holding?!" Kyūsei shouted while being slowly vacuumed into hell.
Below them, Garron had wrapped one arm around a pillar and three villagers around the other.
Rufus was clutching Garron's belt with both hands and screaming continuously.
"I HAVE CONTRIBUTED ENOUGH!"
Mira had somehow anchored herself upside down beneath a staircase support beam, calmly dragging trapped people to safety one by one.
Lena stabbed her rapier through a crack in the stone and braced like a drawn bow.
"Everyone to fixed points!" she shouted.
Helpful advice.
There were very few fixed points left.
At the summit, Ren floated untouched by the pull.
Black shadow spiraled around him like a cloak of smoke.
"This is the first breath," he called over the roar. "The Gate remembers itself."
Kazuto snarled.
"You always did love speeches."
"I loved being heard."
Kyūsei gritted his teeth.
The pull on his chest was worse than the pull on his body.
Something inside him wanted to go forward.
Wanted to answer.
He hated that most of all.
Kazuto saw his expression immediately.
"No."
"I'm not doing anything!"
"Exactly. Keep it that way."
Ren tilted his head.
"He feels it stronger now, doesn't he?"
Kyūsei shouted upward, "What am I?!"
Ren smiled sadly.
"A vessel."
Kazuto barked, "A person."
Ren answered without looking away from Kyūsei.
"Both."
The temple doors widened.
Darkness inside churned like liquid sky.
Shapes moved within it—too large to fully see, too wrong to properly notice.
Kyūsei's mind recoiled from them.
Then villagers began lifting from the ground entirely.
Dragged through the air.
Children.
Old men.
Everyone.
"No!" Rufus yelled.
Lena reacted first.
Silver mana erupted from her blade in branching lines, creating a web of force that caught several villagers midair and redirected them aside.
Mira launched daggers attached to thin wires, hooking two more and yanking them to safety.
Garron simply jumped.
He caught three people at once and landed hard enough to crater the stairs.
Rufus stared upward.
"…I forgot he could jump."
Kyūsei looked at Kazuto.
"We have to stop this."
"Yes."
"How?"
Kazuto glanced at Ren.
"Same way we stop most problems."
"Violence?"
"Targeted violence."
Comforting in a terrible way.
Kazuto ripped his sword free from the stone.
The pull nearly took them both instantly.
Then wind exploded around him.
A cyclone wrapped his body, countering the drag enough for movement.
He pointed at Kyūsei.
"Can you stand?"
"Emotionally no."
"Physically?"
"Probably."
"Good enough."
Kyūsei pushed mana into his legs.
Wind underfoot.
Fire in muscles.
He rose shaking.
Every instinct screamed to flee.
No route available.
Kazuto grinned.
"There's the face I missed."
"What face?"
"Terrified competence."
Then he launched himself at Ren.
Their clash lit the summit blue and black.
Kazuto's blade moved like lightning.
Ren's hands and curved sword intercepted with impossible precision.
Every strike sent shockwaves through the chains above.
Kyūsei sprinted after them, sliding half the distance, scrambling the rest.
He couldn't match either of them.
So he watched.
Ren defended high whenever Kazuto feinted left.
He rotated weight before every shadow burst.
He glanced down at the Gate every few seconds.
Connected.
Dependent?
Kyūsei took a gamble.
He ignored Ren entirely and ran for the open temple doors.
Ren's eyes widened.
"Stop him."
Shadow tendrils burst from the floor.
Kyūsei blasted wind downward, vaulting over the first two. A third wrapped his ankle and slammed him onto the stone.
Pain burst across his ribs.
Kazuto immediately pressed harder, forcing Ren back.
"Good instinct!" he shouted.
"I'm DYING!"
"Still useful!"
Kyūsei tore free with fire.
The tendril burned away screaming like steam.
He reached the threshold.
Cold hit him so hard his teeth ached.
Inside the doorway was not a chamber.
It was depth.
A vertical void lined with ancient rings of stone descending forever.
At the center hung something vast and invisible except by absence.
A shape made of missing reality.
And from it extended black lines…
Into him.
Kyūsei staggered back.
No wonder it called.
It was already touching him.
Ren blasted Kazuto away and landed between Kyūsei and the door.
For the first time, real urgency broke his calm.
"You cannot see that yet."
"I already did!"
"Then you know!"
"I know nothing!"
Ren seized Kyūsei's shoulders.
Kazuto shouted, "DON'T LET HIM TOUCH YOU!"
Too late.
The world inverted.
Kyūsei stood in rain.
Not temple rain.
Earth rain.
Cars passing.
Streetlights reflecting on wet asphalt.
Japan.
A crosswalk.
His own body—older school uniform, trembling hands.
Across the street stood Ren, younger, soaked, eyes hollow.
Beside him—
Hansuke.
Before Kazuto.
Before death.
Three strangers under one storm.
Ren spoke beside him though his mouth did not move.
"We were chosen the same year."
The memory-world continued.
A truck's brakes screamed in the distance.
Kyūsei turned in horror.
No.
Not again.
Hansuke moved first.
Toward Kyūsei.
Toward impact.
Ren grabbed Hansuke's arm—
and let go.
Kyūsei stared.
Ren's voice was ice.
"I wanted to know if fate could be broken."
The truck hit.
The world shattered.
Kyūsei woke back on the summit, screaming.
Kazuto tackled Ren off him instantly.
Both rolled toward the stair edge trading blows.
Kyūsei gasped, shaking violently.
Memory not his.
But real.
Ren had been there.
That day.
He had watched.
He had tested fate with their lives.
Ren kicked Kazuto back and rose, bleeding heavily now.
"I was a coward then," he said quietly.
Black tears ran from his eyes.
"I am not now."
Kyūsei stood.
Rage steadied him better than courage ever had.
"You used us."
Ren nodded once.
"Yes."
"Then everything after this is on you."
For the first time since arriving in this world, the cold power inside Kyūsei did not feel like fear.
It felt like a weapon asking permission.
He raised his hand.
Dark wind gathered around his fingers.
Kazuto looked over, alarmed.
"Kyūsei—don't."
Ren smiled.
"At last."