Within Sakolomi's consciousness, a rainy silence stretched endlessly.
The sky had no end or color, only the incessant rain falling on a sea of stagnant water reflecting flashes of light without source.
Each drop seemed heavy, as if the world itself was weeping.
Sakolomi slowly opened his eyes.
His steps splashed the calm surface, creating concentric circles that vanished immediately.
— Where... where am I? he murmured.
A familiar voice echoed through the air, reverberated as if through an ancient echo:
— You are in your consciousness...
He turned his head abruptly.
There, sitting on the waterlogged ground, was Saiko.
His soaked clothes clung to his skin, his brown hair hung down, and his red gaze seemed weighed down by infinite fatigue.
He breathed slowly, almost painfully.
— Saiko! Finally... I've been searching for you for so long. Where had you gone?
Saiko slowly raised his eyes to him, without a word, then pointed with his hand to the horizon on his left.
Sakolomi followed his gesture — and what he saw sent chills down his spine.
Over there, an indistinct shape rippled in the rain.
It was like a glitch, an existence error, something impossible to describe.
Its contours fractured and recomposed, emitting sounds belonging neither to any language nor any world.
A noise of static, distortion, as if reality itself tried to censor it:
— /****/
It was neither a roar nor a scream.
It was... something else.
Sakolomi took a step back, his voice trembling:
— What... what is that thing?
Saiko inhaled deeply, his gaze still fixed on the entity.
— I don't know... but this entity... has always been a part of you.
Sakolomi's eyes widened.
— What? What do you mean, "a part of me"?
Saiko finally looked away from him, his pupils seeming to shine with a dull red under the rain.
— When mother was exiled, the children of Mü Thanatos incarnated among the mortals of the Niyus clan.
We all took refuge in human bodies — you, your brothers, your sister... and me.
But when I tried to anchor myself in you, this thing prevented me.
He placed a hand on his chest, water running down his trembling fingers.
— I was captured. Locked inside your being, prisoner of this entity.
Sakolomi froze, his throat dry.
— You mean... you were a prisoner inside me all this time?
Saiko nodded weakly.
— Yes. It's as if it refused for me to be here.
For years, I was only a shadow stifled in your unconscious.
But when you turned three... something changed.
Strange resonances appeared in reality.
They vibrated around you, gradually pushing this thing back...
until it finally partially released me.
He closed his eyes, the water softly striking his face.
— And since that day, Sakolomi... you have never been alone.
Saiko slowly lowered his head.
His hair flowed down, partially hiding his tired face.
His voice, when it rose, trembled with a deep, almost torn echo.
— To be honest, Sakolomi... I feel that this thing... is you. Or that it has a direct connection with you.
Sakolomi's heart tightened.
— That's impossible... I am me. How could part of me... not manifest?
Saiko gave a faint, sad smile, then let out a weary breath, as if carrying a burden no soul should know.
— I don't know. But it's strange...
As you lived your human life, it seemed to fade, dissolve into the everyday.
But as soon as you touch the mythological life, what you truly are... it stirs.
It tries to regain form.
Like now. It broke all connection between you and me for several days...
Sakolomi felt a shiver run down his spine.
This thing... so formless, so meaningless... was stronger than Saiko, son of Mü Thanatos?
Impossible.
And yet, the fear pounding in his chest did not lie.
— Maybe I'm wrong, Saiko continued, his voice hoarse, but I doubt that it's really you.
It could be... something possessing you.
What troubles me is that you've always contained it.
I can't even resist a tiny fragment of this abomination.
Sakolomi raised his head, eyes wide.
— A fragment? You mean it's only a piece?
Saiko nodded slowly.
— Yes. What you see here is nothing but an infinite fragment... a lost shard of what once captured me.
Those words echoed in Sakolomi's consciousness like a shockwave.
He then remembered.
Ancient words, once whispered by Saiko himself, he did not want to make Sakolomi a full Deviant. There was something within him... too vast. A force that attracts entities."
And there it was. This "thing," this glitch, was the reason.
But Sakolomi refused to believe it.
He did not recognize himself in this incoherent form.
For him, it was an anomaly, a cosmic parasite lodged inside him before birth.
— No... This is not me. It cannot be... he murmured.
Saiko raised his trembling hand toward him.
His fingers seemed almost to dissolve under the inner rain.
— Listen to me, Sakolomi.
You absolutely must find mother again.
This thing... it seeks to exist more and more.
I have held it back for years, but this fragment here is already... too strong for me.
Saiko finally raised his head. His red gaze shone with desperate intensity.
— Look at my condition. I can't take it anymore.
If you do nothing... this thing will take form. And when it does...
He stopped, his voice breaking.
— ...I'm not sure that your world, or any other, will be able to endure it.
Sakolomi, still disturbed by what he had just experienced, let his shoulders fall:
— I think I'm almost done with the imaginary world of Oniyurei... I was fighting a creature, and... I was convinced I was dead.
Saiko, pale and staggering, raised a trembling finger toward the formless thing rippling beside them.
— Sakolomi... start by making that disappear.
The tone of his voice carried unusual anxiety. The thing he pointed to had no fixed form — a kind of living glitch, a pulsing incoherence in the void, made of impossible angles and colors that should not exist.
Sakolomi frowned, disoriented:
— How do you expect me to make that disappear?
Saiko briefly looked away, breathing hard:
— I don't know... but it was always you who held it back. From the beginning, you've contained it without knowing. So, you can also make it silent.
Sakolomi remained still for a moment, then stepped toward the Thing. His heart pounded heavily in his chest.
The mass of errors rippled with every pulse of his mind, as if responding to his fear.
He swallowed, clenched his fists, and closed his eyes.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Myophoric creature — now free — had told everything to Shylty, Kai, and Salomi.
Her vibrant, almost broken voice revealed the truth:
"It's Saiko... he detached me from my Abyfage Source. He wanted to force Sakolomi to enter his own center... to face what he hides."
A heavy silence fell. Shylty put a hand over her mouth, incredulous.
Even Kai, usually so calm, looked away.
— An inner conflict... so violent that it contaminated the entire imaginary world of Oniyurei... murmured Shylty.
Salomi, pale, immediately understood the implication:
— If Sakolomi's inner conflict can destabilize a world... it could also externalize.
What followed exceeded their understanding.
The Sakolomi who had fought the Myophoric creature was no longer the same — a distorted, abnormal version, so strange that even Saiko seemed afraid of him.
It took the intervention of Hikari-no-Mukidō.
And that disturbed Shylty more than anything.
The original gods never intervene in lower plane conflicts.
Never... except when a threat can disturb the Laws of Meta-Reality.
So, why now?
Why would Hikari-no-Mukidō appear to seal this battle?
Was it Sakolomi himself the danger?
Or... something that had taken his place?
Shylty gazed at Sakolomi's unconscious body, lying on the ground.
The calm around them seemed false, artificial, like a suspended dream.
She thought of what Son of God had told her:
"If he wakes up, watch him. He's closer to the edge than he knows."
Maybe the situation was settled, yes...
But maybe it was only a respite.
She sighed, then turned to Kai and Salomi:
— You will soon continue your ascent in the Inverted Tower. But for Sakolomi... it's over. He must be taken to Mü Thanatos.
Salomi's eyes widened, her voice trembling:
— Mü Thanatos? Really?
Shylty shrugged slightly, her gaze lost in the void:
— Not her directly. But something... of her. Mü Thanatos has withdrawn from the story fields long ago. Yet, a fragment of her remains, something we never could erase. Maybe this vestige can serve as a link.
Salomi clenched her fists, worried:
— I hope nothing happens to my brother...
Shylty placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder:
— We will do everything so nothing happens to him. But remember, Salomi... sometimes, what frightens us most is not what comes from outside.
She looked again at Sakolomi, his face peaceful despite everything.
— ...It is what has slept within us since the beginning.