Kaizetsu's breath caught in his throat as the wind shifted.
It was subtle—like the city had whispered something just beyond the reach of language. Not a voice. Not even a thought. Just a pull. A sensation brushing against the edge of his mind.
Kazuki moved beside him, but Kaizetsu didn't turn. His gaze remained fixed on the ruins ahead—where the skyline shimmered unnaturally, like light refracting off memory instead of heat.
Something in the distance called to him.
Not with words.
With presence.
With truth.
The ground beneath their feet felt unchanged, yet Kaizetsu could feel it vibrating faintly—like the heartbeat of something vast buried deep below.
He spoke without looking. "I need to go closer."
Kazuki hesitated. "You sure? You've barely slept since we got here, and now this weird pressure starts creeping in—maybe we should fall back."
Kaizetsu didn't respond. He took a slow step forward, past the crumbled stone archway and into the edge of the forgotten city.
And as he did, the air changed again.
Sharper now. More focused.
Like whatever was watching him... had noticed.
This is different, he thought. The shrine… it's alive now. The ritual changed everything.
He didn't know what "Echo of the Soul" truly meant. He didn't know what had happened here. Didn't know about rituals or secrets carved into stone. But something had shifted. Not just in the city…
Not around him.
Within him.
.
Beneath the surface, where the last echoes of the ritual still pulsed like aftershocks, the chamber had gone still.
The light no longer flared, yet the shrine glowed with a quiet intensity—like something watching from behind the veil. It wasn't just energy anymore. It was a presence. A current that ran not through stone, but through the soul.
The members of the Secret Hand stood motionless, eyes fixed on the shrine. The silence between them was no longer reverent—it was anticipatory. Like a held breath before the scream.
Then it began.
A sound—small at first. A sharp inhale. Then a stagger.
One of the younger disciples swayed, clutching his chest.
"It's happening," the leader said quietly.
The boy gasped again, knees buckling as if something invisible had gripped him by the spine. His eyes rolled back—not in pain, but in collapse. As though his mind had been yanked inward.
Several cultists rushed to steady him, but the leader raised a hand. "No."
They stopped instantly.
"He's been chosen."
The chamber's light dimmed around the boy. Shadows clung to him like oil. His body trembled—not from fear, but from being torn between two realities.
"He is entering the mental realm."
No one moved.
Because they all knew—
This was only the beginning.
___
He opened his eyes to silence.
But not the peaceful kind.
It was the silence of suffocation. Of a place that remembered death too vividly to speak.
No sound. No breath. No wind.
Just darkness—dense and absolute.
Then, slowly, something revealed itself through the black.
Bones.
Piles upon piles, scattered like fallen prayers. Skulls grinned up at him from the stone, their empty sockets staring through time. Ribs jutted from the walls like broken wings, frozen mid-scream. The air was thick with something unseen, yet felt—grief soaked into the very ground.
And at the center… the shrine.
Twisted. Blackened. Alive.
The same as the one he'd seen in the real world—but wrong. This version had bled into the realm like a wound that never healed. Shadows slithered along the walls, merging with ancient fractures. A throne of fused bones loomed beside the altar—empty, yet oppressive.
Then—a heartbeat.
Thump.
His own.
Loud. Dissonant. Echoing like a drumbeat through a tomb.
Thump.
The darkness rippled.
Then came the voices.
Faint at first. Then cruel.
"You never deserved to be chosen."
"You watched them die."
"You ran when it mattered most."
He turned—desperate, searching—but there were no people. Just flickering lights around him. Shattered fragments of memory, floating in the shadows like broken glass suspended midair.
He saw a village—engulfed in flames.
His younger self—kneeling in blood-soaked dirt.
His brother—lifeless in his arms.
"No…" he whispered. "I tried—I tried to save him—"
But the memory ignored him.
It played again.
Slower. Clearer. More brutal.
Each loop scraped deeper into his mind.
The bones on the floor began to twitch, subtly. Some turned toward him. Others cracked, as if remembering their own pain.
He dropped to his knees, gripping his skull.
The whispers curled around him like smoke, coiling through his thoughts.
"This is the mental realm," said a voice—not from above, not from around… from within.
A figure stepped out of the shadows.
It wore his face.
But not his eyes.
They were empty. Cold. Dead.
"You don't belong here," the figure said. "You wear a mask of devotion… but your soul reeks of fear."
He lunged—rage filling his chest.
But his hands passed through the figure like mist.
"You can't fight what you refuse to face."
The shrine pulsed.
Bones trembled.
The floor beneath him cracked, and then—
He fell.
Not through space.
Through memory. Through grief.
Through every lie he'd ever told himself.
The shrine above shrank into the distance as he descended deeper, swallowed by guilt, swallowed by truth.
This was no place of enlightenment.
This was the trial.
.
And he survived it.
He didn't claw his way out.
He didn't conquer it.
He endured it.
Fell through it—with it—until the weight of his guilt no longer crushed him, but defined him.
Until the grief stopped echoing… and became his voice.
The fall slowed.
And in the stillness beneath it all, he stood again—changed.
A pulse surged through his body—not physical, not spiritual.
A resonance.
His fear did not vanish.
His past was not erased.
But from that pain… something awakened.
Shadows curled around his hand like smoke answering a call. His heartbeat slowed, then steadied—stronger than before.
He looked up.
The shrine no longer towered above him.
It bowed.
And in its silence… it acknowledged him.
The mental realm had accepted his truth.
And as the darkness folded around him—
He emerged with it.
Not broken.
Reforged
___
Above ground.
Kaizetsu froze.
Something rippled through the ruins—not visible, not physical, but deep.
A resonance that hummed in the bones of the city.
He turned instinctively, eyes narrowing as a wave of pressure passed through him—not crushing, but awakening. Like an ancient current had brushed his soul and marked him.
Kazuki looked up too. "Did you feel that again?"
Kaizetsu nodded slowly.
But he didn't answer.
Because what he felt wasn't just energy.
It was a change.
Something had stirred below. A power had been born, forged from truth and suffering. And somehow, it had echoed outward—like the realm itself was expanding... hungering.
His pulse quickened.
Not from fear.
From knowing.
The mental realm is real.
And it's waiting.
He stared into the depths of the ruined city, where the air still shimmered faintly.
Something was calling to him.
Stronger now.
Closer.
Soon.