The light returned to the wastelands like a wound reopening.
For four days, Gomi Kirā and Hosogiri Shirudo had walked through nothing but rot and ruin, guided only by their own stubbornness and the ghosts they refused to name. But now—at last—the fog fractured into threads of gold and ember. It poured through the cracked heavens like dying sunlight bleeding through an old scar.
And what it revealed wasn't the end of their journey.
It was the beginning of something far older.
The Lands of Origins stretched before them—a realm untouched by time yet broken by memory. The air shimmered faintly, alive with whispers. Towering trees grew twisted into impossible shapes, their bark etched with the ancient writing of a language no living throat could pronounce. Rivers flowed in spirals, carrying motes of light instead of water. The ground breathed with the pulse of something vast, sleeping beneath the soil.
Gomi stopped on the ridge, his violet eyes narrowing.
"This place," he said, "feels like it remembers us."
Hosogiri exhaled sharply, his voice unsteady. "Feels like it's waiting for us to make a mistake."
They followed an old, broken road lined with shrines made from bone-white stone. Most had been shattered long ago, their offerings turned to dust. But one—half-collapsed under the weight of moss and grief—still stood.
And someone was kneeling before it.
The figure was motionless. The flicker of candlelight caught the faint red of his haori, torn but still bearing the mark of an old clan. His face was sharp but young—older than Gomi, maybe, yet weathered by years no calendar had counted.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were hollow.
"Don't bother asking," he said softly, voice cracking through the silence. "I'm not here for mercy."
Gomi tilted his head. "Then why?"
The figure's gaze drifted past them, toward the forest where the trees grew closer, darker, whispering names that didn't exist anymore.
"Because they took my brother," he said. "And they live in the ruins of Yagahima."
The Village That Forgot How to Die
They left the shrine behind as the mist thickened again, parting only when it pleased. The ground became softer, littered with brittle masks and bones swallowed by the earth. Hours passed, but the sky didn't change—it stayed orange and dim, like a candle on the edge of burning out.
When the ruins finally appeared, even the air seemed afraid to move.
Yagahima had once been a holy village, Gosho explained. A bridge between humans and the forest spirits. Now, it was neither. Homes leaned against one another like corpses propped upright. Trees grew through rooftops, splitting wood and stone alike. Lanterns hung from the branches, still burning with colorless fire that gave no warmth.
"This isn't haunted," Gosho murmured, eyes dark. "It's cursed."
Hosogiri scratched the back of his neck, trying to laugh. "Cursed, haunted… both sound terrible."
"What happened here?" Gomi asked quietly.
Gosho's hand trembled on his blade. "They fed on their own. When the Great Silence fell and the spirits stopped answering, Yagahima turned inward. They ate what was left. And when there was nothing left… they ate themselves."
A long silence.
Then—a lullaby.
A soft hum drifted through the ruins. A melody too innocent for a place like this. The sound came from a shrine at the heart of the village, its doors half-open, light leaking through the cracks.
Gomi moved first. Gosho followed without hesitation.
Inside, the air was colder. Candles lined the walls, flickering even though there was no wind. And at the center sat a child—barefoot, still, and smiling.
Gosho froze.
It was his brother.
Or what was left of him.
"Brother," the child said, his voice quiet, wrong. His smile didn't blink. "You finally brought them."
Gosho's blade trembled in his hand. "No… no, this isn't real."
The shadows around the shrine began to shift. Roots crawled from the cracks in the floor, slow at first, then violently. The entire temple groaned, its walls crying as if alive.
Gomi pulled Hosogiri back. "Stay ready."
The child stood, eyes blackening like ink poured into water. "You left me, Gosho. You promised."
Gosho's breath hitched. "You told me to run!"
"I told you to stay!" The voice warped—low, deep, ancient. "You left me in the silence. You left me to starve."
The ground erupted.
Roots shot upward, wrapping around Gosho's waist, dragging him off his feet. He screamed, his sword flashing as he cut through one, then another—but more came. Vines lashed like serpents. Blood sprayed as a root pierced his side.
Gomi leapt forward, slashing the tendrils apart. "He's gone, Gosho! That thing isn't your brother anymore!"
But Gosho didn't stop. He fought harder, each swing more desperate, tears mixing with blood.
"Why didn't you come back?" the spirit roared. "Why didn't you save me?"
Gosho's ribs cracked under the impact of another strike. He fell to one knee, coughing red into the dirt. His vision blurred. The child—his brother—towered above him, face flickering between human and monstrous.
"Because I never stopped loving you," Gosho whispered.
He dropped his sword.
And pulled the spirit into an embrace.
The forest stopped moving.
The roots froze mid-air, trembling. The spirit's body convulsed, light spilling from the cracks in its skin. And in the center of it all, for one breathless second, the child's true face reappeared.
"I never hated you," the kid whispered. "I just didn't want to die alone."
Then, like mist, he vanished.
Gosho collapsed in the ruins, surrounded by the stillness of an ending that wasn't peace.
The Roots of Vengeance
They carried him outside. The sky had gone red again, the clouds split like torn flesh.
Gosho sat on a broken stone, clutching his side, breathing through the pain. Gomi knelt beside him, wordless. Hosogiri stared into the dark forest, his face pale.
"You think it's over?" Hosogiri muttered.
"No," Gosho said, his voice brittle. "The dead don't forgive. They only sleep."
He lifted his eyes to the ruined village around them. "You want to know what really happened here?"
They listened.
"Before the surface built its towers and forgot the old gods, Yagahima was alive. We sang to the forest. We gave offerings—blood, songs, lives—to the spirits, and they gave us bounty in return. But humans are greedy. We wanted control. So when a person came from the cities with scrolls of gold and lies of immortality, we believed him."
Gosho's eyes darkened. "The ritual bound the spirits. Shackled them. Turned them from protectors into prisoners. The moment it ended, the sky screamed. The forest withered. The spirits mourned. The curse began."
He coughed, spitting blood.
"My brother was the first to die. I was the first to run."
The silence afterward was heavy enough to crush the air.
Hosogiri lowered his head. "So the curse started here. Because you… because they—"
"Because we betrayed them," Gosho said. "Because we thought we could own grace."
Thunder rolled in the distance. A storm gathering behind the mountains.
Yagahima wasn't finished with them.
Blood Ties Beneath the Surface
They didn't sleep that night. None of them could.
By dawn, the forest was whispering again—names, memories, cries. And in between the voices, a new sound joined: footsteps. Too light to be beasts. Too deliberate to be ghosts.
When they turned, a young child stood in the clearing.
Fifteen, maybe sixteen. His armor was torn but elegant, built for movement. Two violet horns twisted back from his skull like burning crescents. His eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, and his smile—crooked, trembling—was pure venom.
Gomi's blade lifted an inch.
"Another one," he muttered.
But Gosho froze.
The child tilted his head. "You've grown."
"…Yasagiri?" Gosho's voice was barely a whisper.
The child laughed softly. "You do remember."
The forest pulsed as if breathing in time with their words.
"My cousin," Gosho murmured to the others. "We share the same blood. Same curse. I thought he died during the Great Silence."
"I did," Yasagiri said. "And then I didn't."
He vanished.
The next moment, Gosho's body jerked backward as a fist collided with his chest. Bone cracked. Blood splattered the dirt.
Hosogiri shouted, drawing his blade, but Gomi stepped in front of him. "Stay back."
Yasagiri's voice quivered between laughter and tears. "You left me, Gosho. You got to live with the humans. I got to rot with the monsters."
"You were the one they called unholy!" Gosho gasped. "I couldn't save you!"
"You didn't try!"
The ground split open. Roots surged upward like claws, blackened and sharp. They coiled around Gosho's legs, dragging him toward the earth. He screamed as they tightened, crushing bone.
Gomi tore through the vines, fire sparking from his horns. "Enough!"
But Yasagiri didn't stop. He moved with speed born from madness. Every strike came with years of betrayal. Every blow screamed, You forgot me.
"You called yourself human," Yasagiri snarled, stabbing forward with a root-shaped blade. "You let them love you. And you left me to die."
Gosho caught the blade with both hands, blood spilling between his fingers. "I loved you too, damn it."
"Then why didn't you come back?"
The blade pushed deeper, piercing his ribs.
A sickening crack.
Still, Gosho didn't fall. He forced a smile through blood and agony.
"Because I was too afraid you'd hate me."
And then—he reached for him.
Pulled him into a trembling embrace, blood soaking both their clothes.
For a heartbeat, Yasagiri froze. The fury in his eyes flickered. The roots paused.
"I never hated you," Gosho whispered. "I just didn't want to believe you'd become like me."
Then the light in Yasagiri's eyes dimmed. His voice, when it came, was a whisper carved from tears.
"Then you should've come sooner."
And just like that, he dissolved—into dust, into mist, into the roots of the forest itself.
Gosho fell to his knees.
Hosogiri caught him before he hit the ground. Gomi stood over them both, jaw tight, eyes burning faintly. He said nothing—because there was nothing left to say.
The forest had taken its due.
The Forsaken Child — Yasagiri's Tale
The wind changed, carrying with it the memory of the kid they'd lost.
Before the curses, before the silence, before the forest became a grave, Yasagiri had been just a child.
The villagers called him the horned freak. His horns grew too early, his voice too deep, his eyes too bright. The elders whispered that he carried the mark of old sins—the blood of the Oni. His mother tried to protect him. His father begged for mercy. But mercy was never free in Yagahima.
They dragged him from his home, bound him to a post, and left him in the forest "to be cleansed."
Gosho watched. He screamed. But he was dragged away by a wandering monk before he could reach his cousin.
Three days later, Yasagiri was still tied to that post. His lips cracked. His voice gone.
He whispered one word into the darkness.
"Gosho…"
No one answered.
When a merchant finally found him, the person didn't see a child—he saw a prize. Oni horns sold for fortunes. He untied Yasagiri only to bind him again with chains.
That night, the forest answered instead.
The merchant's scream split the air. When dawn came, only blood remained—and Yasagiri stood alone, his eyes glowing like twin embers.
The years that followed were merciless. He was hunted, starved, burned, branded. Every kindness turned to cruelty. Every prayer turned to ash.
Until one night, under the crimson moon, he found an old tablet buried beneath the roots. On it was written a promise in the Oni tongue:
The forsaken shall inherit the wrath of the forest.
He trained for years beneath that moonlight—until his tears dried into rage.
When he returned to Yagahima, there was nothing left but ghosts. And in his loneliness, he became one.
The Path Beyond Origins
By the time the storm passed, the Lands of Origins were quiet again.
The mist had thinned. The trees no longer whispered. Even the curse seemed to sleep, at least for now.
Gomi and Hosogiri stood by the old shrine where Gosho sat, his ribs bound tight, his gaze distant. The fight had ended—but nothing inside him had.
"You two," he said, voice hoarse but calm, "don't look back when you leave here. The forest doesn't forgive second chances."
Hosogiri frowned. "You're staying?"
"I have to," Gosho said. "There's something left here—something deeper than curses. The Oni bloodline didn't start with hate. I need to find what twisted it."
Gomi adjusted his sword strap. "Then find it. And if the forest tries to eat you again, make it choke."
That earned the faintest smirk from Gosho. "You're worse at encouragement than you think."
Hosogiri stepped forward and hugged him tightly, nearly knocking the wind from his bruised chest. "You better still be alive when we come back."
"I'll be alive," Gosho whispered. "Just… not the same."
As the two travelers turned to leave, Gosho's voice followed them like a prayer.
"Thank you… for letting me remember what it felt like to fight for something that mattered."
Gomi didn't reply. He simply raised one hand in a silent farewell.
The mist swallowed them slowly. Their silhouettes faded into the horizon where the wasteland began again, endless and red.
Behind them, Gosho remained at the edge of the ruins, the wind carrying faint whispers of old names. Somewhere deep in the forest, the ground stirred—the roots remembering.
He looked to the sky and whispered:
"Yasagiri… wait for me. I'll find the truth beneath this curse. I swear it."
And far beyond the trees, thunder rumbled—not from the clouds, but from the ground itself.
The forest was waking again.
The Yagahima Arc had only begun.
TO BE CONTINUED...