Three weeks had passed since the fires of the Echoing Ashes, but their shadows had not faded. The smell of burned flesh still lingered in Gomi's dreams, crawling through his lungs whenever silence fell too long. Even now, as he led Hosogiri and Rinya through the broken paths that wormed through the underbelly of the Pit, the phantom heat of that inferno whispered against his skin.
He had seen mimicry made of ash — things that had spoken in the voices of the dead. He had seen his own reflection burn alive while still laughing at him. And though the Pit seemed quieter now, he knew better. The quiet here was not peace. It was the inhale before another scream.
The trio had walked for days through forgotten tunnels and stone plains that glittered faintly with old minerals. The deeper they went, the more the world began to shift — not into darkness, but into something eerily elegant.
The air changed first. It grew heavy, perfumed with a faint sweetness like crushed lotus petals. The walls turned smooth, almost polished, and veins of silver began to lace through the stone as though the very earth bled light.
And then they saw it.
Atop a ridge of white stone, beneath a roof of faintly glowing mist, sprawled a city — impossibly untouched by the rot of the Pit.
It shimmered like a mirage, its towers stretching toward the cavern ceiling as if yearning for a heaven long forgotten. Roads of pale marble traced delicate curves through the streets, glimmering like bone under moonlight. Every surface gleamed, and every sound was soft — the faint tapping of sandals, the quiet murmurs of markets, the distant hum of chimes swaying in air that should not have moved.
Hosogiri froze beside Gomi. "Is that… real?"
His voice cracked, caught somewhere between awe and fear.
Rinya said nothing, her sharp eyes narrowing. She, too, had learned long ago that beauty in the Pit always came with blood.
Gomi stepped forward, the ridge's dust whispering under his boots. "No city this deep should be alive."
And yet Daiguren — the name carved in silver letters across its gate — was alive.
They descended toward it, each step slower than the last, until the massive gates loomed before them. They were sculpted from white marble veined with crimson — like bone soaked in memory. Etched into the arch were petals of cherry blossoms, their designs so perfect it hurt to look at them.
Two guards awaited them. They wore porcelain masks painted with tranquil expressions, and silk armor dyed in crimson and black — the color of crushed beetles.
Neither spoke. They only bowed.
Then, in a single voice that sounded both male and female, the guards said:
"Welcome. The city sees you."
A tremor crawled up Gomi's spine.
The gates opened without a touch, swinging inward on silent hinges. Beyond lay the city proper — Daiguren, the fabled Marble Haven.
They entered like ghosts.
The streets were alive with gentle order. Vendors sold perfume, calligraphy brushes, glass marbles filled with colored smoke. The people — clean, graceful, draped in gray and black silk — moved like dancers in a ritual. None seemed hurried, none angry, none afraid. Children laughed on marble steps, and scholars painted verses onto the walls with ink that shimmered like silver blood.
It was too perfect.
Hosogiri was the first to smile. "Maybe we finally found somewhere that isn't cursed."
Gomi said nothing. His eyes kept drifting toward the rooftops — watching the shadows that didn't move when they should have, and the smiles that held just a second too long.
He had seen illusions before. But this city felt deeper than illusion. It wanted to be believed.
As night approached, they were summoned to meet the Chancellor — the one said to rule Daiguren.
The hall they entered was immense and cold, lit by floating orbs of pale blue fire. Every column was carved with faceless angels reaching upward, and between them ran channels of liquid silver — veins feeding into the heart of the city.
The Chancellor sat at the far end of a long table. He was not adorned in jewels or armor. He wore simple white robes threaded with silver leaves, and his eyes were sunken yet sharp, like someone who had not slept in a century but remembered how to smile anyway.
"We know who you are," the human said softly. His voice was kind, but wrong — a melody too rehearsed. "You bring echoes of change wherever you walk. Even here, we've heard your names whispered between the breaths of the dying."
Hosogiri shifted uneasily. "We didn't come here to—"
The Chancellor raised a hand. "To destroy? To save? It makes no difference. Change does what it must."
His gaze fixed on Gomi. "But you, Oni-born… you carry a wound the Pit itself still remembers."
Gomi's jaw tightened. "What do you know of me?"
The Chancellor smiled faintly. "Only what our archives reveal."
From a servant's tray, he took a small box of polished obsidian and slid it across the table.
It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Gomi opened it.
Inside lay a shard of a horn — his horn. Broken long ago, yet now clean and whole again, polished until it reflected his face.
He recoiled. "Where did you get this?"
"The city keeps what it finds," the Chancellor said. "And Daiguren finds everything. We know the tales — of the Oni King, of the child cast aside by blood and blade, of the rebellion that devoured its own. We know that the horns of kings do not die — they are reborn."
He leaned forward. "You are not who you think you are, Gomi."
The hall fell silent. The fires dimmed.
Gomi closed the box and stood without another word.
That night, Daiguren slept beneath a false moon.
The twin orbs in the ceiling above — carved from reflective crystal — bathed the city in a soft silver light. No stars burned here; only the illusion of them, painted on the domed ceiling by hands desperate to remember the sky.
Gomi walked alone.
The streets were too still. No wind. No sound but the faint trickle of fountains. Every door was shut, every lantern dimmed. He wandered until his feet carried him to a great library near the city's heart — a place said to house books from the world that had died.
Inside, the air was colder than it should have been.
Thousands of tomes sat in glass cases, their spines pristine. Scrolls lined entire walls, some older than any empire. At the center of the room stood an obsidian pillar etched with runes that flickered like candlelight trapped under ice.
Someone stood beside it.
A child — small, pale, and ghostly thin. His eyes were faded blue, his hair white as ash.
"You don't belong here," the child said without turning.
"Neither do you," Gomi answered.
The child smiled faintly. "I was born here. But the city never wanted me."
Gomi approached slowly. "What do they call you?"
"They don't." The kids voice wavered. "I'm just the Witness."
"The Witness of what?"
The child placed his hand against the pillar. The runes pulsed brighter.
"This city isn't real," he whispered. "It's built on bones. Real ones. The marble? Ground from skulls. The silver veins? Melted blood. Every perfect face you've seen, every child laughing — they're born from this."
The pillar flashed.
Images flickered across its surface — men and women screaming as they were lowered into molten stone, their faces preserved mid-agony. Children stitched into walls as living ornaments. Guards dragging citizens into pits beneath the marble streets.
Gomi's stomach twisted.
The Witness didn't flinch. "Daiguren survives by forgetting. The Pit remembers, but Daiguren doesn't. Every time a voice questions, it's silenced. Every drop of rebellion becomes the polish that keeps the towers white."
Gomi clenched his fists. "Why show me this?"
"Because you don't forget," the child said, eyes glinting. "You still hear the screams."
The pillar went dark.
The Witness turned to leave but paused at the doorway. "Tomorrow, they'll offer you a gift. Maybe a crown. Maybe peace. Whatever it is — say no. If you say yes, the city will swallow you whole."
Then he was gone, leaving only the echo of his bare feet on marble.
The next morning, the Chancellor's chamber gleamed brighter than ever.
"Gomi," the person said warmly, "the city has chosen."
Before him sat a new box, white and gold this time. Inside, nestled on black silk, was a crown — forged of marble and obsidian, inlaid with two perfect replicas of oni horns.
"You could stay here," the Chancellor said. "Rule beside me. Be protector and symbol. We can make you whole again. No more wandering. No more pain."
Hosogiri's eyes widened. "Gomi… maybe—"
But Gomi's stare silenced him.
He closed the box gently and pushed it back. "I don't want to rule. I want to remember."
The Chancellor's eyes hardened. For the first time, the mask cracked. "Then you will remember what it costs to refuse."
The air thickened.
Every wall around them pulsed faintly, as if the city itself had drawn breath. Faces shimmered within the marble, mouths opening in soundless screams. The floor beneath them trembled — faintly, but enough for Gomi to understand.
This city was alive. And it was hungry.
"Let's go," Gomi said quietly.
They left at dusk. The gates opened for them as before, the guards bowing without emotion. The people lined the streets, waving. But none smiled. Their eyes — blank, hollow — followed the trio until they vanished into the mist.
Behind them, Daiguren shimmered one last time. Then the lights dimmed, as if the city itself had exhaled and gone still.
Gomi did not look back.
They walked in silence for hours until Daiguren was a pale ghost behind them.
Hosogiri finally spoke, voice trembling. "Do you think it was ever real?"
Gomi didn't answer right away. "Maybe it was. Before it decided perfection was worth the bones of the living."
The ground beneath them changed as they descended deeper — marble gave way to cracked stone, then to blackened gravel. The air grew heavy with dust and rust, and the light of Daiguren faded completely.
Soon they found the remnants of another settlement — one burned to ruin.
Half-collapsed shelters, rusted carts overturned, banners torn apart. The corpses were gone, but their shapes were preserved in ash outlines across the walls.
A wooden sign lay shattered near the gate, its letters burned but still legible:
"Welcome to Natsugane. Once Free. Now Forgotten."
They searched in silence. A shrine sat at the town's center, its bell swaying faintly in a wind that shouldn't have existed. Inside, hundreds of names were carved into the floorboards — jagged, frantic scratches from desperate hands.
"Survivors?" Hosogiri asked softly.
Gomi shook his head. "No. Testaments."
Before either could speak again, a sound rippled through the ruins — a low, wet growl.
They froze.
From the shadows beyond the shrine, something crawled into view. A mass of sinew and grief, humanoid yet twisted, its limbs too long, its face melted into an expression of endless mourning. Its eyes were twin wells of tar.
It didn't attack. It wailed — a scream so drenched in sorrow that even Hosogiri fell to his knees, covering his ears.
The sound tore through the air, and from every ruin, others answered. Wraiths. Echoes of those whose memories had been devoured by Daiguren's hunger.
Gomi grabbed Hosogiri's arm. "Run."
They ran.
Through the ruins, through the screams, through a storm of dust and bone fragments. The wraiths followed, crawling over each other in heaps of agony. Faces split open in silent despair. Hands reached from the walls.
They reached the edge of the village — a jagged fissure splitting the ground. Without thinking, Gomi leapt, dragging Hosogiri with him. They fell into a crevice, landing hard against stone.
The sounds faded above.
Only their ragged breathing remained.
Hosogiri let out a trembling laugh. "That… was hell."
Gomi didn't reply. His eyes were fixed on the darkness ahead — a tunnel leading even deeper. He could feel something there. A pulse. A presence.
"We follow it," he said.
Hosogiri groaned. "Of course we do."
And so, they vanished again into the black.
The tunnel twisted for hours, until it widened into a cavern so vast it swallowed their torchlight. In its center lay a lake, dark as ink, and spanning it — the ribcage of some colossal beast turned into a bridge.
They crossed carefully.
Halfway through, the water rippled.
An eye opened beneath them — huge, golden, and filled with hate.
Then came the roar.
The lake exploded upward, revealing a serpent of blood and bone. Its body coiled around the cavern walls, its teeth as long as spears. The bridge shattered.
Hosogiri screamed as he fell — but Gomi caught his arm mid-descent, pulling him onto a ledge.
The serpent lunged again. Gomi unleashed his oni strength, a burst of red energy searing the air, enough to blind the beast. Together they scrambled to the far side.
The creature pursued — until it reached a chamber filled with mirrors. Hundreds of them, cracked and glowing.
The serpent froze.
Each reflection showed it a different form — not a monster, but the human faces it had devoured to survive. Children. Women. Warriors. The beast shrieked, twisting upon itself.
Then it dissolved into black vapor, leaving only silence.
Hosogiri slumped to the floor. "Even monsters can't bear their own truth."
Gomi looked into one mirror — and saw not his reflection, but Daiguren's towers burning. The marble screaming.
He turned away. "Let's move."
They walked until light appeared again — gold, soft, and pulsing through cracks in the stone.
They stepped out into another city. Smaller. Older. Half-ruined but alive. Its walls gleamed faintly with veins of amber light, and moss draped the towers like green silk.
A plaque above the gate read:
"Welcome to Shukigan — The City of Sealed Power."
They entered cautiously. The air here hummed with warmth — not false peace, but balance. The people were quiet but alive, their smiles weary yet real. No masks. No illusions. Only the raw coexistence of decay and beauty.
A merchant greeted them, offering water. His hands were scarred. "Perfection," he said, "isn't about being unbroken. It's about surviving your cracks."
Gomi finally smiled — small, but real.
For once, the world didn't seem to lie.
That night, as they slept in clean beds for the first time in weeks, Gomi dreamed of Daiguren collapsing — its marble bleeding red, its perfection devoured by the truth it buried.
And beneath Shukigan's golden streets, deep below the seal that kept the earth trembling, something stirred.
A heartbeat.
Slow. Ancient. Awakening.
The ground cracked softly beneath their beds.
And somewhere in the dark, the voice of the Witness whispered one last time:
"Perfection always hungers."
TO BE CONTINUED…