The creature sensed his approach, whirling to face this new threat. But Arashi was beyond fear now. Words of power flowed from his lips, each syllable sending pulses of silver light along the dagger's blade. The language felt natural on his tongue now, as if he had always known it, had merely forgotten for a time.
The Hollow One lunged, but Arashi was faster, his movements guided by instincts he didn't recognize as his own. He ducked under the creature's reaching arms and drove the dagger upward, the blade piercing what would have been its throat. Silver light exploded outward, temporarily blinding him as the creature dissolved into ash.
As his vision cleared, Arashi turned to Kira. "Are you hurt?" he asked, reaching toward the cut on her cheek.
She shook her head, eyes wide with shock. "Arashi, your eyes..." she whispered, taking a half-step back.
Before he could ask what she meant, pain lanced through his skull, greater than any headache he'd experienced before. A cry escaped him as he clutched his head, the dagger nearly slipping from his grasp. The world tilted sideways as power surged through him, no longer responding to his will but to something deeper, more primal. It felt like someone, something, else was awakening within him, stretching after a long slumber.
"Get... away from me," he managed to say, feeling something building within him that he couldn't control. The pressure behind his eyes had become unbearable, as if his skull could no longer contain what was inside it.
Kira took a step back, then froze as a new horror appeared behind Arashi, the largest Hollow One yet, its body a grotesque fusion of human and something utterly alien. Where the others had been eyeless, this one had a single vertical pupil in the center of its face, surrounded by swirling patterns of crimson energy. Its presence distorted the air, making it shimmer like heat rising from summer stones.
And it spoke.
"Raziel," it said, the word emerging as a hiss of escaping air. Its voice was multi-layered, as if many beings spoke through one throat. "The Keeper of Secrets returns."
The name struck Arashi like a physical blow. Images flooded his mind, not fragments now, but complete memories. A great celestial conflict. A choice made. A fall both terrible and necessary. He saw himself as something else, something greater, a being of pure light and knowledge, with six wings that spanned the heavens. He saw the library again, its crystalline shelves holding secrets that could unmake or remake reality itself. And he saw himself choosing to fall, to hide that dangerous knowledge within mortal flesh.
The pain in his head built to an unbearable crescendo. He felt something tearing within him, as if two beings long separated were violently reuniting. Silver light began to leak from his eyes, thin rivulets running down his cheeks like luminous tears.
"Run," he gasped to Kira, as silver light began to pour from his eyes, his mouth, his very pores. His skin felt too small, too fragile to contain what was awakening within. "Run now!"
Kira stood frozen, torn between flight and loyalty. Her hand still clutched the charm Takuma had given her, her knuckles white with the force of her grip. "Arashi, " she began, her voice breaking.
The intelligent Hollow One reached for him, its clawed hands leaving trails of crimson in the air. The temperature around it dropped sharply, frost forming on the cobblestones where it passed. "The Choir calls you home, Keeper. Your knowledge belongs to us."
"No," Arashi whispered, as the last barriers within him collapsed.
Power exploded outward from his body in a wave of pure argent light. It surged through the village, illuminating every street, every building, every face with its radiance. Where it touched Hollow Ones, they shrieked and dissolved, their substance unmade by the antithetical energy. Where it reached injured villagers, wounds closed and pain eased, the light recognizing them as being under Arashi's protection.
At the epicenter stood Arashi, his body lifted several feet off the ground, suspended by wings of pure energy, not six, but two insubstantial appendages that left trails of silver motes in the air. His clothing rippled as if in a strong wind, and his hair had turned from its usual black to a luminous silver that shifted like liquid metal. The dagger in his hand had transformed as well, elongating into a sword of pure light.
Behind him, Elder Takuma emerged from the Echo Chamber, his face a mask of awe and dread. Blood still trickled from the corner of his mouth, and he leaned heavily on his staff, but his eyes were clear as he witnessed what was unfolding. "It's begun," he murmured. "Heaven help us all."
Kira had fallen to her knees, one hand raised to shield her eyes from the brilliance of Arashi's transformation. Through splayed fingers, she stared at her childhood friend, now something both more and less than human. "Arashi?" she called, her voice barely audible over the rushing sound of power.
The intelligent Hollow One recoiled from the light but didn't flee. It stared at Arashi with its single eye, a malevolent intelligence calculating behind that vertical pupil. Its body seemed to flicker between states, sometimes more human, sometimes more alien, as if struggling to maintain its form in the presence of such purifying energy.
"The Choir will have you," it promised, its multi-layered voice like grinding stones. "This vessel is temporary. Your fall was ordained, your rise foretold." A cold smile stretched its too-wide mouth. "We are patient. We have waited eons. We can wait a while longer."
Then it was gone, vanishing into the shadows as the silver light continued to spread outward from Arashi's suspended form. The crimson energy that had saturated the village began to recede, like a tide pulling back into some unseen ocean.
Within that cocoon of light, Arashi was drowning in memories not his own, or perhaps they had always been his, merely locked away until now. He remembered the great library beyond the stars, filled with knowledge too dangerous for any single being to possess. He remembered the hierarchy of celestial beings, the careful balance of power maintained since the beginning of time itself. He remembered the decision to fall, to hide that knowledge within a mortal form when the Void Choir first made its presence known. And he remembered the Choir itself, ancient enemy of all creation, seeking that knowledge to unmake the very fabric of existence.
Fleeting images passed through his consciousness, of other vessels before this one, other mortal lives lived and lost. Of guardians like Takuma who had recognized what he was and protected him until the time of awakening. Of battles won and lost across millennia. Of a cycle that had repeated since the first Sundering, when the Seraphim had chosen different paths.