The city of smoke and obsidian trembled—not from siege, nor a second Lagarakei here for an encore, but from the fury of its queen.
From the great palace of gaunt bone and dark crystal, a scream thundered across the skyline like a tectonic shatter.
The very spires trembled.
The smoke-bricks that made up the streets hissed with unstable light. Every demon, Lilim, and twisted soul in the city froze, then moved as one: they fled.
Ran dropped the tray he had just polished, silver blood and ash splashing his ankles as the quake rolled through the chamber. Statues cracked. Glass walls shimmered and groaned.
High above, Mukoku's voice howled again—not with pain, but defiance.
She was still enraged by what had happened during the council. She had been at the council in the Principality. And the council had chosen wrong.
The Queen of the City of Silence, sovereign of nothingness and silence, had voted no to unleashing the Bound One. Her voice, sharp and ancient, had warned of the cost. Of breaking the laws older than Hell itself.
But they had outvoted her. By claw, wing, and blade—they had signed their souls to the gamble.
Ran hadn't been present for the voting, he only knew it had been established that the unbound one wouldn't be released.
But he suspected that Mukoku's choice aligned with that of Gagara, Queen of Silence, hence her wrath.
But that choice had been outvoted.
And now, the City of Severance bore the wrath of its Queen.
Ran, abandoning his knave chores, turned and took off running.
Not out of the palace—no. There was no safety out there, only open sky and storming debris. He ducked behind a broken wall of vertebrae carved into the window lattice. From there, he slipped into the old servant tunnels—spaces long forgotten, carved by slaves with no names and no hope.
Places even the Queen's wrath might not reach.
"Where are you?" He sent out to Haru, mentally.
"Out in the city. Why? Has the palace come crashing down."
"Not yet, but soon, I believe," Ran said as he found a crooked corner wrapped in darkness thick as wool.
He pressed himself against the stone and covered his ears. "By the Celestial Realm, I can still hear her."
"Hey, don't swear upon the Celestial Realm. Anyway, you have nothing to fear. You should only worry when you start bleeding from the ear."
Ran gasped. "Is that likely to happen?"
"Oh, yes. Usually, whenever she gets like this. Though I don't think you have to fear having your eardrums suddenly burst, not when you now have demonic and divine healing powers."
Ran scoffed. He wasn't willing to even take the risk. "Do you know any way I could get out of here?"
Mukoku's voice splashed thunderously across the city, reaching every corner, thought, underground, and receptive medium.
"THEY WILL DAMN US ALL!" She cried from the heart of her Palace. "FOOLS! THEY WILL TEAR OPEN THE CHAINS OLDER THAN THE FALL! THE BOUND ONE WILL NOT FIGHT THEIR WAR, HE WILL CONSUME THE UNIVERSE WITH IT."
Her voice cracked through reality like thunder striking mirrors.
Ran, from where he was, heard towers outside as they groaned under invisible weight. And then there was a heavy crash.
"By my kin," Haru swore. "One of the towers just collapsed into the Ash Market and crushed all the shrieking fiends beneath it."
"Does she want the City more depopulated than it already is?" Ran asked as he shook and winced as dust rained down around him and the stone against his back vibrated.
The walls of the tunnel lit with strange veins of violet heat. He pressed tighter into the crook of the corner, eyes shut, mouth sealed, as if silence might protect him.
Above, the Queen roared one last time, a cry not of rage—but betrayal.
Then… silence.
The city held its breath.
"Have you had more thoughts of how you're going to get Eirasens?" Haru asked, suddenly.
"I was thinking of buying some."
"No one would sell an Eirasen to you Ran. Perhaps you could earn one by doing a great deed for someone, a deed so great they would feel eternally indebted to you."
Ran sighed and immediately began coughing halfway through as he inhaled some of the dust in the air.
"You think Mukoku might give me the ones I need if I agree to serve her for some extra years?" He asked, after he was fine clearing his throat of the dry particles.
"I don't think she would. You would need to have something she really need for her to agree to that."
Ran not wanting to just abandon his idea just like that, thought hard on how he might be able to gain some Oni no Kane.
It was a minute later, in the bated silence, an idea came to him.
"Is archeology a thing here in Naraku?" He asked.
"You mean like how those scholars from the big cities back home come to our villages and desecrate burial sites."
Ran nodded even though he knew Haru couldn't see it. "Yes, exactly that. They find all sorts of treasures that graverobbers didn't get to first. Including ancient coins."
"So you want to go grave-robbing across Naraku?"
"No, I will be an adventuring archeologist documenting the ancient history of hell."
"While taking choicy picks of the treasures you document. Both graverobbers and archeologists are thieves, Ran. There's no sugarcoating it."
"No, they aren't really. They document history," Ran argued stubbornly.
"While taking treasures with them back to their Western lands of greed. Treasure that should have either been submitted to the rightful owners' descendants, and failing that—the authorities of the lands from which they originated. They. Are. Thieves."
"I still don't think so."
"If you do your archeology to gain an Eirasen it would never be yours and return to the rightful owner. The only way you can overcome that is with a Right of Conquest."
Ran, curious, sat up and removed his hands from his ears—hoping the Queen wouldn't pick up where she left off.
"How does that work?" He asked eagerly.
"You sound way too eager for power, Ran?" His friend questioned in concern.
Ran snorted. "Only a fool in hell would not hunger for power. I have a father to save, and possibly twenty years here to survive. Without power I don't wish to imagine what will happen to me."
"Sensible. Alright. With a Right of Conquest, how it works in Naraku is that anyone you agree, formerly, to battle against in Naraku is placed under Fates Laws with you. Fates Laws covers many things, and one of them is the Right of Conquest—whoever is defeated shall submit all they own, even their freedom and life, to the victor."
Ran who had been so primed with expectation of some good news deflated at the end of his friend's explanation.
"So I'd need to defeat someone so powerful for that to happen because there's no way a lesser demon could own even a single Eirasen."
Haru sent a scoff to his thoughts. "Not likely, no. But you don't necessarily have to fight a powerful being, just find one. Find the treasures of a powerful being who was permanently killed like you killed the Lagarakei, then trace their descendants. If it's a weak descendant then lock them in a Right of Conquest battle, win and take what you want for yourself."
Ran couldn't help the giggle that escaped him. "For a monk in training you are pretty devious, my friend."
Haru sighed. "It is just an idea, even an angel has an evil streak when provoked the right way."
"So my archeology idea isn't unsalvageable?"
"Not if you do it the right way. No, you can still be a graverobber if you want to."
"Archeologist."
"Anyway, if you do this, what are you going to name the artifact you make out of the Eirasens?"
Ran thought about it. He thought back to myths he had grown up on in Kurana, one from the occults stuck with him.
"I will call it, Omamori."