It didn't smell like smoke.
Not fire.
Not ruin.
It smelled like dust that used to be time—crushed into particles too fine to hold shape. Something ancient had exhaled, and this was the breath that lingered behind.
The shrine wasn't a structure anymore.
It was a memory mid-collapse—a dream half-remembered by the stone. The edges of the platform curved where they hadn't before, as if space had warped and never fully flattened again. Light bent strangely through the clearing, avoiding certain shadows, as though it knew better than to trespass.
The central platform—where Rakan had stood—was a spiral of blackened stone, etched in glyphs so faint they looked embarrassed to still be visible. Some pulsed weakly, then dimmed, like old scars deciding they'd had enough attention.
A wind passed through.
But it didn't carry sound.
No birds. No insects. No rustling.
Only the soft, deliberate hush of a world pretending nothing had happened.
Then—
Shugoh coughed.
It wasn't dramatic. No burst of flame, no gasping revelation.
Just one soft, dry cough—like the soul reminding the body it was still there.
He lurched upright with a start, limbs tangled beneath him, head whipping side to side like someone waking from a fall that had lasted too long.
"Wh—"
The word caught on his tongue.
His pupils were wide, dilated. Not in fear—in awe. In the aftermath of seeing something toobig to carry back with him.
He blinked several times, dazed, face pale against the flickering Ka'ro glow still suspended in the air like fog.
His jacket was scorched at the edges, torn where the Ka'ro blast had kissed too close. The platform beneath him shimmered faintly—heat without warmth, pressure without pain.
And then he saw it.
His arms.
His skin.
Glyphs.
Thin, pale white lines, almost delicate, almost beautiful, stretching from the backs of his hands up his forearms like a forgotten script.
They pulsed once.
He didn't move. Barely breathed.
They pulsed again.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
He held still.
And then, like shy creatures caught in light—
They vanished.
Gone, as if they'd never been.
Shugoh stared at his hands.
He wasn't smiling now.
"…Okay," he muttered, voice wobbling with something close to disbelief. "That's… new."
Then his eyes locked on the centre of the platform.
Rakan.
Flat on his back.
Dusted in ash.
One arm outstretched, the fingers twitching with a strange, delayed pulse of Ka'ro—stuttering, stalling, restarting.
His chest moved—but shallow. Too shallow.
Yori hovered just above him.
No glow now.
Just stillness.
Not broken.
Not dead.
Just… waiting.
Like a candle that had learned it didn't need flame to be seen.
Shugoh's breath caught.
He crawled forward on hands and knees, heartbeat climbing past panic.
"Rakan?"
No response.
He reached out and pressed his hand to Rakan's shoulder.
A spark jumped between them.
Not painful.
Not even startling.
Just… deep.
Like brushing fingertips with someone mid-prayer.
Like touching a thought someone else hadn't finished thinking.
Shugoh flinched, but didn't pull away.
"Hey. Come on. You good?"
Nothing.
He leaned closer.
Then he heard it—
Not out loud.
Not from the box.
Not from the trees, the sky, or the ground.
From inside him.
A voice.
Worn. Hollow. Purposeful.
Return not completed…
Anchor stabilized…
Witness preserved…
Shugoh went still.
Completely still.
"…That's in my head," he whispered. "That's… in my head. I don't— I don't speak weird ancient box code."
He looked down again.
And for a heartbeat—
The glyphs returned.
Glowing faintly across his skin.
Pulsing with the same rhythm as the air.
Then gone.
His chest felt heavy.
Not in pain.
In pull.
As if something inside him had been hooked—quietly—like a line cast into the deep.
And whatever had grabbed hold?
Wasn't letting go.
He looked back at Rakan.
Looked back at Yori.
Then turned to Rakan again.
"Hey. Don't do this, Ramen," he said, voice cracking just slightly. "Don't go all cryptic-protagonist-sleep-mode on me. I'm not emotionally stable enough to carry the next few chapters alone."
He laughed a little.
It broke on the inhale.
Still no response.
The wind stirred.
And then Yori—
Yori pulsed.
Once.
Dim. Gentle.
A single hum—a lullaby played backwards.
Then, soft and slow and utterly unnerving, it whispered—not with mimicry.
But with something older.
Something remembering.
Echo… sleeping.
Shugoh swallowed.
And realized, for the first time in all his joyful absurdity—
He was afraid.
Not of Yori.
Not of the shrine.
Not even of the power.
But of what would become of Rakan when he woke up.
It wasn't a dream.
Not in the usual sense.
There was no gravity of sleep here. No drift. No warmth. No breath.
It was too clean.
Too silent.
Too awake.
Rakan stood alone on a plain of endless white—flat and cracked like old porcelain, as if something beneath the surface had been trying to rise for centuries and finally gave up. The air was thick. Not oppressive. Just final. Like a room where last words had been spoken and never cleared out.
Above him, the sky was not sky at all.
Just a soft sheet of colorless light, punctured by drifting glyphs—symbols he didn't recognize, some shaped like roots, others like open mouths. They moved slowly, aimlessly. Like lost memories trying to spell themselves.
He looked down at his hands.
They glowed faintly. Not with Ka'ro. Not with fire.
With recognition.
Like the world was remembering him before he remembered himself.
Far ahead—at the horizon, if it could be called that—stood a mountain of bones. Towering. Bleached. Beautiful, in a terrible kind of way. The bones weren't scattered. They were arranged, stacked like pillars, some with markings carved into them, others fused with stone and symbols and faded cords of Ka'ro thread.
Closer, maybe a dozen steps away, stood something stranger—
A mirror.
It was cracked. Not from impact—but from something deeper. Its frame was gnarled wood woven with glyphs that flickered like fireflies. But the glass—
Reflected nothing.
Rakan walked past it.
Didn't want to know what it might show
He took a single step forward.
The world didn't react.
But his body did.
Something beneath his skin twisted—notpainfully, but with purpose. Like his blood was humming a song it hadn't learned yet. Notes danced up his spine. Words that weren't words stirred at the edge of his throat. Every breath tasted older than it should.
Then—
A shape.
A silhouette.
Far ahead. A figure, standing perfectly still.
Tall. Hooded. Cloaked in layered Ka'ro light that bent around it like water over glass.
Its face was hidden.
But its presence wasn't.
Rakan's pulse jumped.
He stepped forward.
The figure didn't move.
But the world around it pulsed—once—like a great lung inhaling after a long, long silence.
The wind didn't blow.
It withdrew.
And still, he walked.
Because some part of him already had.
Like he was following footsteps that had never faded.
When he got within reach, the figure raised a hand—slow, deliberate. Not in warning. Not in welcome.
Just inevitable.
Rakan stopped.
The silence deepened.
And then—
A voice.
Not from the figure.
Not from behind.
From within him.
But deeper.
Older.
Do not remember.
Do not yet return.
Let the anchor hold.
Rakan's jaw clenched.
His hands trembled.
Something inside him pushed forward—like a name fighting to be spoken, a memory clawing at its cage.
The figure stepped toward him.
And as its hand reached forward—
Rakan blinked.
And the world folded in on itself.
Not shattered.
Folded.
Like a page being turned backward in a book he hadn't written. The bones in the distance curled like smoke. The sky dissolved into flickering symbols. The mirror shattered without a sound.
And Rakan—
Fell.
Through nothing.
Through himself.
Through time.
And then he heard it—
"Rakan."
"Come on, man."
"You're scaring me, Ramen."
His name drifted through the fog.
Not a sound—a tether.
Warm.
Human.
Familiar.
Panicked.
And loud.
"Rakan. Rakan. RAkan. RAKAN—oh good, you twitched! That means you're alive, or about to explode—either way, progress!"
His eyes fluttered open like rusted shutters.
The sky above him was real. Color-smeared and soft, dust still hanging in the air like regret. His lungs pulled in the scent of ash, stone, and something metallic. Cold wind scraped across his skin like memory.
He gasped.
Then sat up too fast—as if yanked upright by something unseen, like a hand buried in his spine.
"WHOA—easy, easy!" Shugoh caught him before he could tip over again. "Okay, you're vertical. That's a win. I thought you were gonna stay spiritually unplugged for, like, a week."
Rakan blinked hard.
Everything hurt.
But not in the normal way. Not like cuts or bruises.
More like… he'd been reassembled wrong.
The world was too sharp, too loud, too awake.
His fingers clawed instinctively into the cracked stone beneath him, grounding himself.
His voice scraped its way out, dry and disoriented. "How long was I…?"
Shugoh shrugged, still supporting him with one arm. "Dunno. Five minutes? Ten? Could've been a year. Time did a thing. You were glowing at one point. And vibrating. Your face did this very concerning twitch."
"I… don't remember."
"You were floating, too. Just a little. Kind of like majestic levitation meets sleep paralysis."
Rakan closed his eyes. Tried to breathe.
His Ka'ro buzzed beneath his skin like static caught between heartbeats.
Unstable.
Shifting.
Changed.
He opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Then finally said, quietly, "…I saw—"
A pause.
Something flickered behind his eyes.
"—Nothing."
Shugoh stared at him.
"'Nothing?' Really?" His voice climbed an octave. "That was a very dramatic 'nothing.' You practically turned into a myth. There were glyphs floating in your hair."
Rakan gave a small, crooked smile.
"I'm fine."
"You're a liar," Shugoh said, flopping onto his back beside him. "But you're breathing, and not on fire. So I'll take it."
They both sat in silence for a moment.
Rakan still couldn't feel his legs properly. They felt like they were made of borrowed time.
Shugoh kicked one foot against a bit of rubble.
"By the way," he muttered, "you owe me five soups, one apology, and possibly a new jacket. I think this one got haunted."
"You're the one who brought me here."
"Which I now deeply regret. I should've taken you to get dumplings like a normal person."
A chuckle escaped Rakan—dry, involuntary, real.
Then—
They both looked up.
Yori hovered a few feet away.
It had changed again.
Not its shape, or size. Not even its glyphs.
Its presence.
Where once it had hovered like a curious child or an arrogant cat, it now floated like a guardian. Still. Watchful. Quiet.
Its glow was soft. Steady.
Alive.
Rakan met its gaze.
And somehow—he could feel it looking back.
Then—
Yori shifted.
Just slightly.
Not toward Rakan.
But toward Shugoh.
Like a bow.
Like a thank-you.
Like… affection.
Protective.
Rakan narrowed his eyes.
Shugoh blinked. "…Did she just nod at me?"
"I think so."
"That's not supposed to be comforting."
"Does it ever do anything that's supposed to be comforting?"
"I suppose you're right."
Rakan pushed himself upright, legs trembling like new branches in the wind.
Yori drifted to his side like it belonged there.
Shugoh stood too, brushing ash off his chest. "So. Uh. Just checking—do you remember anything? Or did your brain reboot with factory settings?"
Rakan hesitated.
Tried to find words that didn't exist.
He shook his head.
But Yori—
Yori answered for him.
A whisper.
Not in Rakan's voice.
Not in Shugoh's.
Just a sound between thoughts.
Anchor holds.
The words brushed the air like silk dragged through blood.
Rakan stiffened.
Shugoh turned slowly. "Was that… for me? Or for you?"
Neither of them answered.
Not because they didn't know.
But because—deep down—they both felt it might have been for both.
And far in the distance, the wind shifted again.
Not like weather.
Like a warning.
Mazanka and Terumo reached the ridge in silence— both moving fast but with very different energy.
Teruko moved like a strike waiting for release. Every breath tight, every step ready. She had her hand on her blade before the clearing even came into view.
Mazanka walked slower. Not from fatigue, but calculation.
He could feel it already—the wrongness in the air.
The pressure.
Not heat. Not Ka'ro.
Something older. Heavier.
Like the world had been holding its breath—and wasn't sure whether to exhale or scream.
Then they saw it.
The shrine—or what was left of it.
Cracked stone. Burned glyphs. Debris still floating midair in places, as if the laws of motion had taken a smoke break.
A spiral of dirt and light circled the central platform, humming low and dissonant.
And in the centre—
Rakan.
Standing.
Stiff. Breathing hard. Ash clinging to his shoulders.
Beside him: Yori, hovering like a watchful spirit. Dim. Unreadable.
And near them—
Shugoh, sitting against a toppled slab of stone, rubbing his head with one hand and staring at his other palm like it might start talking.
Teruko froze.
Her hand instinctively tightened around her sword. She took a step forward, sharp and fast, eyes scanning Rakan, Yori, the ground, the sky, everything.
"Are they alive?" she snapped. "Rakan—what the hell did you—Shugoh, are you okay? What happened here?"
Shugoh blinked up at her. His smile was crooked. His pupils were still dilated.
"I think I… glitched a little," he said. "But I'm okay. Mostly. Probably."
She opened her mouth again.
But then Mazanka stepped forward.
His pace was slow. Deliberate. The kind of slow that meant control, not calm.
His eyes never left Rakan.
"Kid," he said softly, voice carrying more weight than usual. "What the hell did you wake up?"
Rakan didn't answer right away.
He met Mazanka's gaze, jaw clenched, posture stiff.
The Ka'ro around him was still uneven—like something in him hadn't finished settling.
Behind his eyes, something flickered.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
But for what—Mazanka didn't know.
"I didn't wake anything," Rakan finally said, voice low.
Mazanka arched a brow.
"Kid."
Rakan swallowed. "It was already awake."
Yori pulsed beside him. Once. Subtle.
Mazanka's expression darkened—not angry. Not shocked. But wary.
He looked at the hovering box.
Then at Shugoh.
Then at Teruko, who was now standing closer to Rakan than she realized, sword still half-drawn.
Mazanka exhaled.
And said, "Start from the beginning. Now."
Shugoh stood—still a little off balance, still rubbing his temple.
"I threw Ka'ro at a ghost box and time collapsed. It was mostly my idea."
Teruko whirled on him. "Are you an idiot?!"
Shugoh nodded brightly. "Absolutely. But a well-intentioned one."
Teruko turned back to Rakan, her expression harder now.
"Why didn't you stop it?"
Rakan didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Not without telling them what he'd seen.
What he'd felt.
The Ka'ro still buzzed in his bones, singing old songs he didn't recognize but could almost hum.
Teruko noticed the tension in his hands.
The silence.
She lowered her sword—but didn't relax.
"Did it hurt you?"
Rakan met her eyes. "No."
"Did it change you?"
"…I don't know."
Mazanka looked around again. Felt the stillness.
Then looked up at the trees above.
Something in the jungle had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
He frowned.
"Whatever this was," he said, "it didn't end here."
Yori floated between them all.
Still. Silent.
Waiting.
Silence fell again.
Not the peaceful kind.
Not the kind that lets the wind breathe or the dust settle.
This silence clung—tight and invisible, the kind that slips behind your ribs and presses against your lungs like the air forgot how to carry sound. It was the silence that comes after a scream no one heard.
Yori floated at the center of it.
Still.
Small.
Its glow had faded to a ghost of gold, dimmer than candlelight. Gentle. Not dying—but done. The edges of its form were soft now, like it was trying not to be noticed. Like it didn't want to take up space anymore.
Not grief.
Not fear.
Just… farewell.
Mazanka stared at it.
For a long time.
Too long.
His Ka'ro flickered faintly around one hand, though he hadn't raised it. Not yet.
Behind Rakan, Shugoh stood stiff as stone. His shoulders hunched, his hands limp at his sides. His gaze locked on the box like he was watching someone he loved cough blood and smile through it. He didn't blink.
He didn't breathe.
He just watched.
Teruko shifted uneasily beside them, her fingers still near her sword—not out of threat, but instinct. The Ka'ro in the air was wrong. Not chaotic. Not violent. But frayed—like someone had rewound a song too many times and the tape was starting to wear through.
She glanced from Mazanka, to the box, to Rakan's unmoving profile.
And she felt it.
Not fear.
But a pressure.
A funeral without a body.
A tragedy that had already happened, but no one had told them yet.
Finally, Mazanka spoke.
His voice was low.
Not harsh.
Not cruel.
Just… tired.
Like someone delivering a eulogy no one asked for.
"…It's hollow."
The word didn't echo, but it landed—hard.
Like a stone in a bowl that had never held anything but water.
Teruko blinked. "Hollow?"
Mazanka stepped forward, slow and quiet, like he didn't want to startle anything. His Ka'ro traced soft lines around his fingers, flickering pale and restrained. Not a weapon—yet.
"The core's missing," he said. "Whatever gave it structure—consciousness, balance, will—it's gone."
A beat.
"Maybe it never had one to begin with."
Shugoh flinched. "No."
His voice cracked with urgency.
"She's still here. It's—she's just tired. Look at her, she's not hurting anyone, she's just—"
"It's unraveling," Mazanka said softly.
He didn't raise his tone.
He didn't need to.
"That feeling in the air? That tug behind your Ka'ro? That's not resonance. That's collapse. A coreless construct that's trying to remember itself becomes a parasite. Not because it wants to hurt anything—because it doesn't know how else to survive."
Shugoh's jaw clenched.
Mazanka turned to Rakan.
Eyes heavy.
Unblinking.
"Without an anchor, it'll turn inward. Keep digging. Keep cycling. Until it breaks itself… or breaks everything around it looking for what it lost."
Rakan's lips parted.
His voice came out thin.
"It's not hostile."
Mazanka nodded.
"No. That's what makes it worse."
The words settled like ash.
Shugoh opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
He looked at Yori—at the soft flicker still glowing in its center. And for just a second, it pulsed brighter. As if hearing his protest.
As if accepting it anyway.
Yori didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't defend itself.
It just watched.
Like it had known.
Like it had always known this would be its fate.
And it was… okay with that.
Not happy.
Not afraid.
Just… ready.
Mazanka stepped forward, and the Ka'ro around his hand bloomed into glyph-light—small sigils of closure and silence, not pain.
"I'll be gentle," he said.
Yori tilted slightly.
Almost like a bow.
Almost like… a thank you.
Silence fell again.
Not the kind that waits.
The kind that knows.
Mazanka exhaled slowly, his Ka'ro flaring around his fingers—bright white, surgical in its precision. Not raw power. Not fury. This was the kind of Ka'ro one used to close a wound you didn't want to make.
Light laced his palm like silk being pulled from memory.
He lifted his hand and formed a spiral in the air—a seal, clean and ancient. Glyphs unfurled around his arm in thin, ink-black trails, curling through the sky like threads of fate unravelling backwards.
Yori hovered before him.
Still. Small.
Silent.
Mazanka looked at it.
His face didn't harden.
It softened.
"You held on longer than you should've," he said. The words barely left his throat. "That deserves peace."
Yori pulsed once.
Just once.
Like a nod. Or a sigh. Or a farewell it had prepared lifetimes ago.
It didn't flinch.
It didn't plead.
It only waited.
Mazanka released the strike.
Not a blast.
Not a roar.
A breath.
Sharp and still—like a memory pulled from the spine of the world.
The seal collapsed inward. A single line of light sliced silently through the center of Yori's shell.
No shockwave. No collapse.
Just—
A pause.
A tremble in the air.
And then—
Unraveling.
Yori's shape folded inward.
Its light curled into itself like a dying star returning home. The glyphs along its surface peeled away like soft flakes of snow, drifting and dissolving midair. One by one, its fragments blinked out of existence—not scattered. Not broken.
Released.
There was no sound.
No scream.
No violence.
Just absence.
And then—
Nothing.
Yori was gone.
For a moment—
For a long moment—
No one moved.
Rakan exhaled suddenly—like he'd been hit without warning.
His body jerked, his breath catching sharp.
He didn't collapse.
But his knees bent. His spine curved forward. Like gravity had quietly remembered him again.
He clutched his sleeves—not out of grief, not consciously—but as if some part of him was trying to hold something in place. Something deep, and lost, and aching.
And then—
Tears.
Falling.
No sobbing. No gasps. No words.
Just silent rivers down his face, salt on ash-dusted cheeks.
And he didn't know why.
He didn't understand the grief.
Didn't recognize the shape of it.
But it was there—undeniable. His Ka'ro trembled around him, whispering echoes of a name he'd never learned.
He blinked.
And more tears fell.
Behind him, Shugoh didn't move.
Didn't breathe, at first.
He stared at the empty space where Yori had hovered, eyes wide, hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.
His mouth was open slightly, as if he had started to say something—maybe a joke, maybe a word—and forgot.
The glyphs that had burned across his skin days earlier flickered back to life, faint and silver-blue, just for a second—before vanishing again like they'd never existed.
He didn't cry.
But his silence was heavier than any scream could've been.
He looked like someone who had just watched their house burn from the inside out—and remembered it happening before.
A weight sat behind his eyes.
One he couldn't explain.
Teruko stepped forward.
Stopped mid-step.
Her fingers twitched toward her blade—out of habit. Out of instinct. Out of helplessness.
But she didn't draw it.
She couldn't.
Because something in the air had changed.
Not Ka'ro.
Not pressure.
Something older.
The grief hanging off Rakan and Shugoh wasn't theirs.
It was echoed. Ancient. Deep-rooted. Like the world itself was remembering something terrible and couldn't quite say what.
A grief without language.
And it clung to them like a second skin.
She turned slowly to Mazanka, her voice low.
"You feel that?"
Mazanka stood still, hand still faintly aglow from the strike.
His eyes hadn't left Rakan.
He looked years older all of a sudden.
"…Yeah," he said softly. "I feel it."
He looked down at his palm, then back at the empty air where Yori had disappeared.
His Ka'ro, which was usually sharp and self-contained, now buzzed faintly in his wrist, like a bell tolling from far beneath the surface of a lake.
And something inside him—not power, not memory, but instinct—whispered:
You didn't destroy it.
You buried it.
And it remembers.