The bells of Meigan had faded behind them, swallowed by silence so deep it pressed against the skin like water. Every step Gomi and Hosogiri took carried them further into the Pit, further away from what they once called safety, further into a world that had been waiting... patient and silent, for them to arrive. The air changed as they walked, the heavy scent of ash giving way to something colder, more crystalline, as though the earth itself had begun to weep and crystallize its tears over centuries of sorrow.
Where once there had been dry, cracked dirt, the ground now gleamed faintly, reflecting the fading light from above. Crystalline formations jutted upward like frozen shards of wind, polished and unnatural, some as tall as towers, others like jagged teeth of the earth. The mist clung to their ankles, curling and twisting as it moved with them, whispering secrets that felt both ancient and mournful.
Gomi's steps were measured, heavy, as though each movement carried the weight of a hundred memories, each one a gravestone in a land that itself was a graveyard. Hosogiri walked beside him, quieter than usual, the wind playing with his hair and tugging at the sleeves of his worn coat. He glanced around, awe and unease mingling in his wide eyes.
"Are we still in the Pit?" he asked, voice low, almost swallowed by the wind.
Gomi didn't answer immediately. He didn't look at Hosogiri. His gaze was fixed on the land ahead. Mountains of glittering stone rose like frozen waves, dunes of translucent crystal stretching into the horizon. Fields lay before them where the ash of the long-dead had hardened into pale, luminous sapphire, catching the faint light and refracting it into shards of haunting color. It was both beautiful and terrible, a memorial and a warning, and it made the air feel brittle, like breathing in glass dust.
"The Lands of Lush Pale Gem," Gomi finally said, his voice heavy, weighed down with recognition and history.
Hosogiri blinked. "You… know this place?"
Gomi nodded faintly, his eyes scanning the jagged horizon. "I've heard the stories. A burial ground, they say… where sorrow left by those long dead fused into stone. The grief of the world, collected and crystallized. The deeper the sorrow, the brighter the gem. A land born of loss, yet radiant beyond belief. But it's not forgiving. It doesn't welcome the living. It watches. It waits."
They pressed onward, the landscape whispering beneath their feet as if the earth itself remembered every life that had ended here. The wind caught the edges of the crystalline peaks, and the faint ringing of a thousand glass chimes rose in the distance. It was soft, mournful, beautiful.
Then — a BOOM.
Not the faint clatter of stone. Not the hiss of collapsing crystal. This was louder. Sharper. The sound of power clashing, of raw force meeting raw force, of something breaking in fury and anguish.
Another BOOM — louder. A tremor rolled beneath their boots.
Gomi's eyes narrowed, the faint light reflecting off his sharp horns. "That's not a fight," he said slowly, teeth clenched. "That's a war."
Hosogiri swallowed hard, gripping his sword tighter. The glint of the crystals reflected in his eyes, turning them pale and sharp. "A war…? Against what?"
Gomi didn't answer. He simply turned and began running, his boots sparking against fractured gemstones, his body moving with a certainty born of instinct. Hosogiri followed, panting, his lungs burning. They climbed jagged gem-stairs that twisted upward like frozen spirals of despair, ran across skeletal bridges fused from fossilized bone and hardened marble, leapt over fissures that seemed bottomless, and pressed on, guided only by the roars and explosions ahead.
Finally, they reached the summit of a towering, glittering cliff. The horizon below glimmered with shards of pale sapphire, rivers of crystallized grief flowing into impossible valleys. And there, at the heart of this strange and sorrowful land, they saw him.
Gosho Minagami.
He stood bloodied and bruised, muscles torn and scorched, but his posture was unyielding. His body trembled from exhaustion, but his eyes burned with fierce determination. Horns, sharp and jagged, now protruded from his skull, radiating a dark red flame that seemed alive, as if the grief and rage of the Pit itself had chosen him to embody its wrath.
Before him towered an Oni of darkness and malice, its twisted horns branching like the gnarled limbs of a dead tree. Its skin shimmered black and gold, burned metal reflecting the fractured light of the gems. Sunken, wild eyes fixed on Gosho, burning with an unnatural hunger and rage, as if it had absorbed centuries of hatred and turned it into power.
"You came," Gosho muttered, his voice low and ragged, stomach heaving with effort. His gaze flicked briefly toward them, acknowledgment fleeting. "I didn't… I didn't think you would."
He didn't look long. He couldn't.
"This bastard has been trying to kill me for three days now," he spat blood onto the ground. "Tracked me. Found me. Yasagiri Faraosho. My cousin… the one who ran during our last reunion."
Hosogiri's breath caught in his throat. "Yasagiri…? You mean the one from your story, the one you told after the campfire? The one you only ever spoke about in fragments, like visions of his pain? The one you saw through his own eyes?"
Gosho nodded, a hard, bitter twist to his lips. "The one they never kept. The one they left behind, even when he had everything he could want. The one who now wants to erase the past by erasing me. By killing me. Because he can't accept the shadow of himself that's like me. He refuses to face it."
The battle had begun before the words could settle.
Faraosho's Oni powers were honed and monstrous. Every movement was sharp, deliberate, saturated with hate and history. Black fire wrapped around his claws, each strike intended not to kill but to wound, to humiliate, to leave scars that would last longer than flesh. Gosho, awakened at last, moved with purpose and clarity, red flames spilling from his horns and burning across his arms, his every strike carrying grief, vengeance, and unforgotten sorrow.
Gomi watched, silent and solemn, his body tense. Every blow revealed history. Every scream carried memory. This wasn't a fight over power. It was a confrontation with the past. With pain. With the unspoken grief each had carried alone.
"You should've stayed buried," Faraosho hissed, claws tearing through the crystalline soil as he drove Gosho back. "You should've rotted where you belong."
"I didn't crawl out to die again!" Gosho roared, ribs heaving, flames licking his skin. "You forgot me! And even now, you want to end me because you can't accept the part of yourself that's like me, the part you buried in lies and fear!"
Lightning arced across the gem fields as the cousins collided, each strike shattering crystal and bone, each explosion of heat vaporizing shards of grief into the air. The plateau trembled beneath them, Hosogiri gripping his ribs from a previous strike, his body screaming, but he couldn't look away.
"The sorrow," he whispered, voice cracking. "This land… it's weeping. For them. For the blood. For the history that won't die."
Gomi said nothing. He stepped forward only once, to drag a falling shard of gemstone away from Hosogiri's head. The rest—he left to the cousins. Let them finish this on their own.
Pale Blood Reckoning – Gosho's Final Blow
Gosho's knees buckled under a furious strike, body wracked with pain after days of relentless battle. Blood coated his mouth and chin, burning as he breathed through the metallic taste. His eyes—crimson, glowing—remained fixed on Faraosho.
Yasagiri Faraosho. Cousin. Mirror. Ghost of a childhood that had split apart with the world's cruelty.
"Still standing?" Faraosho spat, claws glinting in the waning, mist-filtered sunlight. "Your soul's already cracked. Time to shatter it completely."
Gosho took a single, deliberate step forward. "Maybe. But cracks let light in."
He charged.
Flames erupted from his horns, scarlet fire twisting and coiling around his fists, born from years of betrayal, grief, and finally, awakened Oni power. Each blow he delivered carried not just strength, but memory, guilt, and the weight of being forgotten. The ground fractured beneath them, gems melting under the heat of their collision.
Hosogiri's hands clenched at his side. "They're going to destroy this entire plateau…"
Gomi's expression remained unreadable. "It's already destroyed. Now we see what comes after."
Their fight was more than physical. Each strike invoked visions—childhood moments lost, promises broken, nights of silent despair, laughter that became echoes of sorrow.
"I was alone! But not fully! Still alone without you!" Gosho screamed, parrying a strike that nearly split his skull. "I kept believing! I waited!"
"I never could!" Faraosho bellowed, voice like rolling thunder. "I tried! I was told I was lucky to live! Lucky to survive the hate the world cast at me! I am filthy! I am cursed! And if I came back, I'd be executed as Oni!"
"And so you let me rot!" Gosho answered, horns blazing as he pushed forward, seizing the moment.
Faraosho faltered. The strike he aimed was misaligned. The opening appeared.
Gosho didn't aim for death. He didn't aim for the heart.
He charged into Faraosho's stomach, arms wrapping around him, horns glowing beside his cheek.
"I never hated you," he whispered. "Even after all this. I never did."
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Faraosho's black flames surged, enveloping them, but they burned outward, sparing Gosho. The Oni's body convulsed, energy ebbing. The plateau seemed to breathe in relief.
He fell to his knees, exhausted, energy spent, horns dimming but still alive.
Eyes once filled with hatred now reflected recognition.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed.
The gems beneath them dulled, the wind softened, and for the first time in a long time, silence fell over the Lands of Lush Pale Gem.
Hosogiri ran to them, breath ragged. "Gosho!"
Gomi followed, slower, expression impassive but approving.
Gosho lifted his cousin, exhausted, battered, alive. "He's alive. Barely. But alive." "Why… why not finish him?" Hosogiri asked, voice trembling. "Because he's the only one who ever knew," Gosho whispered. "The only one who ever felt the loneliness I carried." Gomi nodded. "Then it's over." Above, the mist parted briefly, revealing the gentle glow of the gem fields—soft now, not accusing, like gravestones laid with care. Gosho felt heard. Finally.
Lingered Paths, New Echoes
Faraosho lay unconscious, breaths shallow, tremors running through his body. Hosogiri tore cloth to bandage burns and stabilize fractures. "I vote Gomi does it," he teased lightly. "I saved your life a hundred times," Gomi muttered, kneeling beside Faraosho. "I'm tired."
Despite his protests, his hands moved with careful precision. Helping… feeling… was foreign. Confusing. Wrong and right at the same time. Faraosho stirred. Panic. Recognition. Fear. Then trust. "I lost… didn't I?" he whispered. "You didn't lose," Gosho said. "You woke up."
Tears fell into the pale glow of the gem fields. Hugs were shared. Grief dissipated, tiny as smoke, leaving warmth behind. Gomi rolled his eyes. "Ugh. Enough with the feelings." Hosogiri leaned on him, smirking. "You're not as cold as you pretend." "Shut up," Gomi muttered, but his lips curved slightly. The Pit itself seemed lighter. Less heavy.
Ashes of the Wanderers
Days passed slowly. The crystal fields whispered of the forgotten dead, the winds carried their sighs. The four travelers gathered their belongings. "We're heading east," Gosho said finally. Faraosho, hesitant, followed. Silent understanding: past laid to rest, not ignored, but accepted. "Don't die. Again," Gomi muttered.
"Same to you," Gosho replied. Hosogiri bowed briefly. "We'll meet again."
And with that, they left, dust trailing, horizon swallowing their forms. But in the shadows, a figure watched. A youth with ancient eyes. Violet-blue gem in hand, dark robes flowing. "Soon… I'll test them. Especially you, Gomi Kirā, the one they call filth," he whispered. The shadows swallowed him.
The journey continued.
TO BE CONTINUED…