Centuries passed for Kurayami.
Everything looked blurry, as if the fog of time had covered his soul with a veil of oblivion. Time did not flow—it crawled, heavy, viscous, merciless. For him, every second was a frozen eternity, an echo trapped within the bones of the universe.
In truth, a thousand years had passed since his body was sealed in stone.
The world had changed, yet the forest where he lay remained the same: ancient, vast, eternal.
The trees, witnesses to the passage of ages, still stood tall—giant and silent, shrouded in lichen and shadow.
The wind whispered through their branches songs that no one remembered—melodies from a time when gods still walked among men.
The statue that imprisoned Kurayami was covered in moss, roots, and vines. It was a forgotten monument from civilizations long vanished, a nameless face in the middle of an endless forest.
And yet… the world had not completely forgotten him. Something deep within the earth still pulsed.
A promise.
A punishment.
A waiting.
Until one dawn unlike any other brought something new.
A faint tremor, barely perceptible, ran through the stone.
The first cracks appeared on his left arm. Then, on his chest.
A timid, distant birdsong announced the beginning of a new day.
One that Kurayami was destined to live… again.
Crack… crack…
The cracks spread like veins of light.
Inside, darkness twisted, pushing, yearning to break the seal.
Move… move… move! he screamed within his mind again and again. He didn't know if he was dreaming, remembering, or if his consciousness had awakened before his body.
Then, his fingers began to move. Slowly. Clumsily.
The stone fell away in chunks. Beneath it, flesh emerged—skin, muscle… life.
His feet, his torso, his neck… and finally, his face.
Kurayami opened his eyes. The light burned his pupils.
He closed them with a groan of pain, then opened them once more.
The fresh morning air slid into his nose like an icy dagger, filling his lungs for the first time in centuries.
"I'm… alive," he whispered, barely audible, as if he didn't believe his own words.
He looked at his trembling hands. Blue veins glimmered beneath pale skin. He fell to his knees, collapsing forward, embracing the wet earth—digging his fingers into the mud, feeling the grass against his face. He stayed like that for several minutes, breathing deeply, letting the world reclaim him.
The ground smelled of life.
And of death.
The entire forest seemed to be watching him.
When he finally stood, his body trembled. He walked aimlessly. His steps were heavy, as though the weight of a thousand years still clung to his soul.
The forest felt foreign, even though its trees were the same—tall, motionless, wrapped in shadow and roots that slithered like sleeping creatures beneath the earth.
"Where the hell am I…? How long has it been?" he murmured, his voice broken.
He touched the trunk of a tree, seeking answers that would never come. The cold, rough bark gave him only silence. He kept moving.
He found an old stone path, covered in dry leaves. He followed it without thinking.
"Maybe… if I follow this… I'll find a village… or something…"
His bare feet bled with each step. The ground was harsh, cruel. He was thirsty. Hungry. Cold.
And there was an emptiness in his chest that a thousand years of slumber hadn't been able to fill.
Night fell without warning.
The air grew denser, and the insects' song died suddenly, as if the forest itself held its breath. Kurayami could barely stand.
His body begged for rest, but his mind… his mind feared sleep.
Then he saw it.
A cave.
Dark. Silent.
At its entrance lay something strange: a bag thrown to the ground, beside a short sword and a mask shaped like a crow's face.
Black clothing, boots, gloves… everything looked abandoned in the rush of someone who never returned.
Kurayami approached.
He touched the mask.
And then he felt it.
A memory.
A whisper in his mind.
A cursed presence that should not still exist.
"Kurayami…" the voice was sweet and cruel at once. "Why don't you find something to eat? Your hunger is consuming you. You may be immortal… but not invincible."
That voice.
Her voice.
The woman who had tortured him centuries ago.
"Shut up! Leave me alone!" he roared, striking his head with both hands.
"Peace?" she laughed, her echo filling the cave with shadows. "Hahaha… you never had peace. I am part of you, Kurayami. I always will be."
Kurayami fell to his knees, gasping, the sword in his hand.
His eyes burned; his mind fractured into a thousand shards.
The voice took control of his body, moving him like a puppet.
It guided his hand toward the other.
And with a sharp cry… he cut off his own hand.
The limb fell to the ground, dripping blood.
The pain was instant, brutal. But it wasn't the pain that broke him—it was the hunger.
Saliva dripped from his lips.
Desperation overtook him.
Without control, he grabbed the severed hand and devoured it.
The flesh.
The hot blood.
The metallic taste of his own existence…
He knew it all too well.
"I had no choice!" he screamed through tears. "I didn't have one!"
"Hahahaha… of course not, monster," whispered the voice inside him. "You only did what you'll always do."
Kurayami wept.
He wept as he hadn't done in a thousand years.
His cries echoed through the cave like the laments of the damned.
"I'm… a monster. I really am…" he murmured between sobs.
And as he cried, his body began to regenerate the hand.
Flesh pulsed and grew.
Veins spread like new roots.
Bones formed beneath the skin.
Within minutes, his hand was whole again.
As if nothing had happened.
As if hell itself were part of his nature.
Still trembling, he removed the filthy remnants of his clothing. His body was covered in cracks, ancient and fresh scars. Dried blood mixed with the mud of the forest.
In silence, he dressed himself in the clothes he had found: black pants, leather boots, dark gloves, and a hooded cloak.
Each garment seemed made for him, as if it had been waiting all these centuries.
At the bottom of the bag, he found the crow mask.
He lifted it slowly, tracing its edges.
The black beak. The hollow eyes. The worn markings on the rim.
Kurayami stared at it for a long while.
That mask was a symbol.
A new face for a soul that no longer wanted to remember itself.
"If the world doesn't remember me…" he whispered, "then I shouldn't remember who I was, either."
He pulled up the hood.
Then, the mask.
The silence of the forest enveloped him once more.
And thus, Kurayami stepped back into the world.
Without direction. Without name. Without past.
He didn't know his body was cursed.
He didn't know that when he was turned to stone, a god had visited him.
That being, invisible to mortals, had placed a seal upon the rock that bound him—not just to imprison him… but to watch him.
When the stone broke, the seal awakened with him.
And the world trembled.
The sky darkened for an instant.
The birds fell silent.
The wind changed direction.
It was as if something—an ancient, slumbering force—had just opened its eyes.
The god who had sealed him smiled from his distant realm.
Kurayami's awakening was no accident.
It was the beginning of something far greater.
From that moment on, a new shadow began to spread across the land.
The mountains quivered.
The rivers turned murky.
Animals stared northward with unease, as though something unseen were watching them.
And amid it all, Kurayami walked—unaware, carrying the curse now alive within him.
An invisible mark burned beneath his skin: a rune made of pure darkness.
The curse would not kill him.
It would condemn him to something far worse:
To be tortured in a realm beyond this world—where he would feel pain, yet time would not move.
A world made only for him and his growing madness.
Kurayami kept walking through the mist.
The forest opened before him, and dawn painted the trunks red, as though the earth itself bled.
The wind carried a distant, soft, impossible voice:
"Awaken, Kurayami… the world needs you."
But he did not hear.
Or perhaps he chose not to.
The weight of a thousand years of sleep crushed him, and the promise of a new hell loomed over his shadow.
Thus began his new journey.
A man who had been stone.
A monster who wept for what he devoured.
A broken god walking among the living, unaware that the universe itself had just bowed to his return.
And the world, silent, watched him awaken.