Darkness.
It wasn't just the absence of light. It was heavier like being buried under a thousand broken promises, like the silence between thunderclaps.
Ishimaru's eyes fluttered open, breath fogging in the frigid air. Frost clung to the inside of the cavern walls, sparkling like diamonds but sharp like broken glass. He was no longer in the burning ruins of Yurei Temple.
This was someplace else deeper.
Underground.
Dead?
No.
Reborn?
Not yet.
He sat up slowly, the stone floor beneath him unnaturally cold, like it was draining him of life itself. The blue glow pulsed softly from ancient runes carved into the ice, forming a path that spiraled downward into the unknown.
His breath hitched.
In the silence, he heard it again.
A whisper.
It wasn't coming from the walls it was inside his mind.
"Descendant of Fire, why do you still shiver in fear?"
He jerked his head around. "Who's there?!"
No answer. Only the hum of power resonating beneath his skin.
Ishimaru rose to his feet. His robe was torn, but still intact. His hands shaking were bandaged in frostbitten gauze. Yet, as he stepped forward, he noticed something odd: the cold didn't burn anymore.
It welcomed him.
Like he belonged here.
Each rune pulsed brighter as he passed, illuminating forgotten murals etched into the cavern walls battles between gods and mortals, dragons and phoenixes, birth and rebirth. He paused at one in particular: a warrior with red eyes and silver veins stood atop a mountain of ash, holding a blade forged from two clashing elements ice and flame.
The face carved into the stone
Was his.
Or his past self.
Or his future?
"What if time is not a line, but a loop?" the voice whispered again.
He blinked rapidly. "What the hell are you?"
"I am the root of your rebirth, Ishimaru. I am the trial you must endure to reclaim your truth."
Suddenly, the floor cracked beneath him. A tremor ran up his spine as the icy path gave way, and he fell spiraling through frozen air, weightless and screaming into oblivion.
But just before he hit the ground
Time froze.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Shards of air hovered in place. Frost blooms halted mid-sprout.
And from the stillness stepped a woman barefoot, cloaked in black robes laced with stardust. Her eyes were pure white. No pupils. No irises. Just glowing orbs of judgment.
"So you are the one he chose," she said.
He tried to move but couldn't.
She knelt beside him, placing a cold hand on his chest.
"I've seen thousands like you. Reborn. Rewritten. Restored. But none of them had your scent."
"My… scent?"
"You smell like guilt. Like a soul still anchored to regret."
"Who are you?" Ishimaru rasped.
"The Gatekeeper," she replied. "And if you wish to live again you must walk through pain."
Then she vanished.
The ice shattered.
And Ishimaru screamed as ancient memories not his own flooded into him wars fought centuries ago, lovers lost to betrayal, a child drowned beneath a frozen lake His body convulsed as lifetimes of anguish etched into his soul like calligraphy written in blood.
He was no longer just Ishimaru.
He was everyone he had ever been.
And everyone he could become.
When he awoke again, his eyes glowed faintly. One silver. One red.
The mark of the Soulbound.
And the Gate had opened.
Ishimaru didn't remember collapsing. He only remembered the fire swallowing the temple and then the cold.
Now he was here.
Somewhere between realms.
Somewhere beneath death.
The air was breathless. Not just cold dead. It wrapped around him like the embrace of a long-forgotten god, smothering warmth, memories, and fear all at once. A flicker of movement caught his eye. Frost. Not settling on the walls, but growing from them, blooming like veins of sorrow through the ancient stone.
He sat up slowly, groaning. His vision was blurred by a fine mist that never settled, and his robes were damp with something between water and memory. It clung to him. Heavy. Intentional.
He stood on instinct alone.
The floor beneath him hummed with dormant power icy runes pulsing a cold cerulean light with each step. They etched themselves deeper with his every breath, like the ice was reacting to his soulprint. Reading him. Judging him.
A whisper slipped through the cavern, too soft for words. A vibration in the soul more than the ears.
"You came too early."
Ishimaru froze.
That voice it didn't speak in a language he recognized, yet he understood every syllable. It was like the words skipped his mind and went straight to his marrow.
"Or perhaps you died too late."
He spun around. Nothing.
Just the glowing symbols, the dripping stalactites above, and the eerie echo of his own heartbeat.
He moved forward. Slowly. One step at a time. With each footfall, fragments of ice shifted underfoot, reflecting glimpses of faces his mother, the monk who raised him, the girl he failed to save. But they were distorted. Crying blood. Screaming his name through the walls.
"Stop," he whispered. "Stop it. They're dead."
The cavern seemed to sigh. Ice cracked. Somewhere deep below, something stirred.
Then he saw it.
A massive mural carved into the wall of frozen quartz.
It was a timeline but not one made of years. Each panel was a moment in a soul's journey. His soul. He saw himself reborn over and over once as a warlord with a crimson helm, once as a blind healer, once as a woman with burning wings each of them dying in agony.
Over and over.
The final carving showed this version of Ishimaru on his knees before a twin bladed figure with a crown of ice and fire.
"Your rebirth is not a gift," the whisper said, "It's a sentence."
Suddenly, the cavern trembled.
A jagged crack sliced through the mural, and the floor collapsed beneath his feet.
He didn't scream this time. He fell in silence.
Through void. Through shadow. Through memories not his own.
And then everything stopped.
He floated.
Suspended in an underwater realm of frozen time, where snowflakes never landed and blood from old wounds flowed upward. Here, space curved, and silence rang louder than bells.
A figure emerged from the whiteness.
She wore a robe of black mist and shards of mirror. Her skin shimmered like opal, her hair billowed like smoke, and her eyes there were no eyes. Just endless white space.
"So you are the shard that broke free," she said.
He tried to speak, but nothing escaped.
"I am the memory beneath the world. The Gatekeeper. The Ice Oracle. The Voice That Waits."
He floated closer to her. Or perhaps she floated to him. He could no longer tell what direction meant.
"You carry regret," she said, circling him, "And guilt. And the taste of unfinished fate."
She reached out and pressed a finger to his chest. Frost bloomed instantly across his heart.
"But beneath all that," she whispered, "You carry potential."
Suddenly, her hand plunged into his chest.
He gasped sound returned.
She didn't pierce his flesh. She pierced his soul.
Flashes exploded in his mind:
A battlefield drowning in black fire.
A woman with golden horns screaming his name.
A beast with no eyes feeding on worlds.
A child. A boy. His son? Buried in snow, clutching a broken blade.
His body seized as the memories of a thousand lifetimes surged through him, rewriting his blood, recoding his bones.
And when he opened his eyes again he was no longer alone inside his body.
"You are now Soulbound," she said. "You have touched the ice beneath the fire. You are no longer Ishimaru alone."
She raised her hand.
A door appeared in the frost.
Not a door made of wood or metal but of mist, memory, and molten ice.
"Walk through. But be warned every truth you uncover from here will try to unmake you."
He hesitated.
The runes flared around him.
The door creaked open.
And he stepped forward.