"Fear doesn't feed curses. Memory does. Especially the ones you try to bury."
—Forbidden Spiral Scripture, Page 37
Spiral Vault – Level Three, Under Shibuya
7:59 PM, October 19th
Akashi's scream wasn't even close to human. It was like hearing a bloodline snap in real time. Maki caught him before he faceplanted, and Panda threw himself in front of them as the tunnel just exploded with cursed wind—glyphs peeling off the walls, raw energy getting yanked out of the stone. The Vault did not like this.
Akashi jerked, once, twice. Then his eyes snapped open. And, yeah, they weren't his anymore. Spiral-shaped pupils, glyphs pulsing around the iris like angry, glowing veins.
"I saw him," he croaked, voice all torn up. "He wears my glyphs. He bleeds what I bleed."
Flashback to the past– Spiral Revenant's Vision
He'd seen the cursed thing, standing on a pile of flesh, monk's robes shredded and soaked with blood. Same ten-finger glyph Akashi had found, but this guy's marks spun outward, alive, actually breathing in the cursed air. Akashi's own glyphs looked dead by comparison.
"You buried me to be forgotten," the Revenant said. Not with words—just with that suffocating presence.
And then he laughed. God, that laugh. Low, bitter, like it'd been echoing forever.
"But the Spiral never ends, little Heir."
Now
Akashi pulled himself up, a little wobbly and His cursed energy felt...wrong. Or maybe just different. Twisting inside him, mutating.
"He touched me," Akashi mumbled, like he couldn't believe it. "Left a Spiral inside my domain."
Maki shot him a look. "You mean he marked you?"
Panda's fur bristled. "Like a Domain Parasite?"
Akashi just nodded, weirdly calm. Like he was already somewhere else. "I can feel his technique. His name's the Blood Spiral Monk. He's been waiting for someone like me to open this place."
While he talked, glyphs on his back started moving—twisting over each other, making this fractal mess that shouldn't even be possible. His cursed energy shot up—not wild, but sharper, more focused.
Maki and Panda both stepped back, cautious. Around Akashi, energy shimmered and bled into a dragon shape—black scales, spiraling horns, eyes that lit up like tiny, angry suns.
The Vault recognized him. Or maybe it just remembered what it was built for.
"The Dragon Tongue isn't just some trick as we thought," Akashi said, voice booming, echoing around the room. "It's a birthright and My body's built for this."
It wasn't just his spirit shifting, either. Flesh followed. Glyphs flowed down his arms, pooling into ink-black scales. Fingers stretched into claws, all spiraled with runes. Horns curled back from his temples—not fully dragon, but definitely not human anymore.
So, yeah. The slum kid was gone. In his place? Something else. Something in between.
"This is my balance," Akashi rumbled, voice deeper now. "Between man and curse. Between vengeance and purpose."
Upstairs: Yuji's Crew Gets Swarmed
Meanwhile, the surface was a total circus. Three Grade 1 curses smashed through, gunning for Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara.
"They're coming in waves," Megumi muttered, dropping Max Elephant.
"They're here for him," Nobara snapped. "For Akashi."
Yuji cracked a curse across the jaw—sent it flying into a train car like it owed him money.
"Then we buy him time," he grunted. "Spiral's not getting what it wants tonight."
Spiral Vault: Descent
Maki found a hatch under a fossilized hand. It led to a chamber swirling with cursed liquid it looked like black mercury The Chains hung everywhere, spiraled tight like DNA. Akashi walked in, and the chains parted for him. All very Moses-meets-nightmare.
The Revenant waited inside—tall, regal, covered in blood like it was cologne. No blindfold, no mask. His eyes were empty, just endless ink spirals. When he spoke, Akashi's mark flared in perfect sync.
"Welcome home... brother."
Final Page: The Real Inheritance
The Spiral Monk dropped to his knees, hands out. Each finger lit up with a glyph.
"You carry the Dragon Tongue. I made it, long before your ancestors tried to name it."
Akashi stared him down. "Why me?"
"Because you suffered. Because you remembered. Because you hate in circles, like all heirs do."
The Monk reached out, palm up. "Let me show you what this technique was meant to be."
Akashi didn't back up.
He took a step forward.