"I hate being back here so much," Haru said, eyeing up the lockers surrounding them in disgust. "This school is cursed."
From where she stood at the front with him, Ran saw Erisa looking around curiously. "What even happened here?" She asked.
Kigana shuddered and shook her. "I don't wish to recall it, neither do I wish to retell it."
"I will agree to that," Haru said, then faced Ran. "Can we just get out of here? Why do we even need this place to enter Naraku? Couldn't we just try contacting Mukoku again?"
Ran raised a brow at his friend. "After she's been visited by the Yōsei no joō and made to give up my service? I very much doubt your sister would want anything to do with me."
Haru lowered his head. "She's your sister too," he muttered.
Ran pretended not to hear him. "People claim this village is the gate of the abyss and even some Assarians stay away from it. Well, this school is the heart of that gate, but most people don't know because kin is nullified here except for truly powerful Assarians who source theirs from outside of nature."
"And you can do that?" Erisa asked.
Ran nodded. "I have the option of using energy straight from limbo as a spiritual force like the Feys do. I also have a Lagarakei inside me, giving me access to eldritch forces."
"Do you even know how to create a portal?" Haru asked, looking at him in amused suspicion.
Ran grinned. "The smallest of kin act can pull off the mightiest of feats with just the right application of power," he said, quoting his brother who had once told him that. "If there is something I have a lot then it's power. With it I believe I can make any transportation kin act I know take us anywhere I want. With this place being the Heart of Hell's Gate, it's going to be thousands of times easier, but our destination is going to be fixed."
"Why?" Kigana asked, stepping towards him. "Didn't you just say that with power you can go anywhere you want to?"
"I can?" He said. "But the rules are not the same in places like this. They are known as Chasmic Roads. Every realm has at least one and their destination is always fixed regardless of the method you used to cross them."
"So, how will we be crossing? To my knowledge, the only transportation kin act you know is via brimstone hearth but I don't think that could pierce through the barrier between Kurana and Naraku," Haru said.
Ran shook his head. "I know some Fey kin acts." His brother taught him some things even though he never had the time to teach much. He waved for his friends to come closer. "Gather round."
"So you speak Feyling?" Kigana asked, ever scholarly interested in anything beyond the natural.
"Bits and pieces. Fluency in Feyling is the ability to understand the language. Interpretational clarity. True speech comes with spiritual growth, which I haven't had. But the few words I know will get me by for now," he explained then closed his eyes.
Apprehension filled him as he delved into his spirit and reached out to his cores. Before that apprehension would be from the black parasitical core of the Lagarakei, but now it was from the essence that gently ruffled his spirit, sickeningly warm and comforting.
His mother was watching.
He bypassed everything and continued reaching deeper. He sought his nature, his true nature. The white brilliance of his primal core and essence.
When he finally had it within his grasp, he inhaled deeply and let the serenity it brought him wash over him. He let it suffuse him internally.
He let out a sigh, feeling his Fey essence thumping through his veins and soaking into his tissue.
Embracing it mentally, he let it guide his voice. First he spoke the Fey word of command: "Sǣliġ."
Then he gave the direction, pouring as much of his primal essence as he could into it–
"Pàeth zu Nàeraea."
Shadows crept up on them at once, causing Kigana to gasp and look around frantically. Haru stepped closer to Ran as the light around them dimmed until they were all swallowed up by a void.
They could not see, they could not feel, they could not hear, they could not speak. This wasn't the state of nothingness, it was the void inbetween existences.
Ran could barely think and did not know for how long they remained there, but the next moment—just as it had crept up on them, the void peeled back.
They had tumbled out of the void, feeling weightless, more than one of them screamed when they saw where they were.
Their screams echoed off the darkness. They were falling, falling, falling into their doom, a swirling vortex of crimson and black before them, and they were plummeting towards it.
The air grew thick with an otherworldly heat, and the stench of brimstone and decay filled their nostrils.
The group, Ran, Kigana, Haru, and Erisa, clung to each other in desperation as they fell, their fingers intertwined like lifelines.
But it was no use; at that moment they couldn't help feeling helpless against the void's merciless pull.
The abyss yawned open beneath them, a chasm of screaming souls and jagged rock. Flames licked the walls, casting flickering shadows that seemed to writhe like living things. The air was heavy with the stench of suffering, and the friends' hearts pounded in terror.
It was huge, that was all Ran could think of. Big enough to make him feel like he was falling into space. It made the Atlantic Ocean look like a pond, it was a cosmic ocean of infernal heat and kin fire.
Kigana's eyes were wide with fear as she clutched his hand. "We're going to die!" she screamed, her voice barely audible over the cacophony of wails and screams.
Haru's face was pale, his eyes fixed on the abyss below. "We can't stop!" He cried, voice trembling. "We're going to fall forever!"
Ran's grip on Kigana's hand tightened. "We'll hit the ground soon," he shouted, but his voice was laced with doubt.
As they plummeted deeper, the heat grew more intense, and the friends felt their skin burning. Ran's eyes met Erisa's, and he saw his own epiphany reflected back. They were not entirely powerless to change their fate.
The abyss seemed to stretch on forever, a seemingly endless expanse of suffering and despair. Their screams merged with the wails of the damned, their voices lost in the void.
In the face of such terror, they could only cling to each other, their fingers intertwined in a desperate bid for comfort. As the ground rushed up to meet them, they closed their eyes, bracing for the impact that would shatter their bodies and souls.
Their descent was a blur of heat, pain, and fear, their minds consumed by the certainty of their own mortality.
In the darkness, they waited for the inevitable, their hearts heavy with the knowledge that they were about to face an eternity of torment.