The day arrived like an executioner's breath.
Tuesday.
Wind screamed between the skeletal towers of the City of Rock Solid, carrying whispers of the old dead—voices of kings who had once ruled, now forgotten beneath the weight of their own stories. The city had not slept. No one dared. Every street shimmered faintly with reflected moonlight from the fractured sky above, the moon itself cracked like a dying eye.
At the city's center, the Heart Plaza—a pit-shaped basin carved from glacial obsidian—pulsed with veins of faint red light. The ground breathed like something living. Beneath those stones, ancient bones twitched in uneasy dreams.
And in that trembling silence stood Gomi Kira.
His coat flapped with the biting wind, dust streaking across his face. The faint glow from his Oni markings carved shadows along his jawline. His eyes—those exhausted, storm-grey eyes—stared toward the city's heart where history was about to return in the shape of a nightmare.
He waited.
Somewhere in the darkness above, Hosogiri and Hoguro watched, hidden among the broken spires. They did not move. This was Gomi's fight alone.
Then—
the air split open like torn parchment.
A cyclone of dark mist erupted from the old fountain, twisting into a spire of shadow. The water froze midair, transforming into shards of black glass that hovered before collapsing into a shattering scream.
From within the storm stepped Yukia Yamara.
The Betrayer.
The Cryptid of Sorrow.
The Shadow of the First Oni King.
His robes, once royal, were now a tapestry of ruin—stitched together by symbols that glowed with dying light. His face was pale, his eyes aflame with violet fire that burned not with hatred, but with something far heavier.
Regret.
Gomi's throat felt dry, but he spoke anyway. "Yukia Yamara. You were the First King's shadow. His most loyal protector. Why return to destroy the city you once swore to defend?"
Yukia's voice drifted out—slow, tired, steeped in sorrow that had aged centuries too long.
"Because the city destroyed me first."
The words carried like ash.
"They betrayed me, Gomi. All of them. I was there when the prophecy was first spoken—the prophecy that named you. I stood beside the King when he heard it. And when he died… they blamed me.
They said I corrupted him. Said I was his mistake.
And I—fool that I was—tried to prove them wrong. I wandered the world searching for redemption, but every door shut, every prayer returned to me as silence. They made me into a story—a monster.
So I became what they believed. A beast among the ruins. A curse that would not die."
The wind moaned through the plaza's hollow teeth.
Yukia's eyes burned brighter. "Do you know what it feels like to live forever with only your sins for company, Gomi? To feel your friends rot, your home crumble, and your name spat by every child too young to know the truth?"
He stepped forward.
The stones beneath his feet hissed from the heat of his aura.
"I was the first to believe in peace. The last to lose it. Now all I have left is vengeance.
If the world demands I die a villain, then fine—let me burn the world that buried me."
His scream cracked the air.
Dark fire burst from his body. The plaza shattered.
And so began the Duel Beneath the Cracked Moon.
The Duel Beneath the Cracked Moon
Lightning tore through the clouds.
Two shadows collided in the center of the storm.
Yukia's black fire rippled through the square, searing the marble to molten glass. Gomi countered, wind surging from his Oni pulse, lifting him into the air as stone and dust scattered like broken planets around them.
Every movement left echoes—two forces rewriting the earth beneath their feet.
"If you wanted to protect the Pit," Gomi shouted through the storm, "then fight for it! Not against it!"
Yukia's reply was a roar that broke the fountain apart.
"I did! AND I FAILED!"
Flames lashed out, tongues of violet wrapping around the plaza's pillars, melting the symbols of the old kings.
"I failed to protect them. I failed to protect him.
And now I must watch the lands he loved die—slowly, beautifully, cruelly!
Do you know what eternity tastes like, child?
It tastes like dust and disappointment."
They clashed again—fist to flame, will to curse.
Sparks turned to firestorms.
Hosogiri and Hoguro could barely breathe, pressed flat behind a broken wall, watching history repeat itself in ruin.
The cracked moon reflected above like a broken mirror, shards of white light scattering across their faces. It seemed to mourn them both.
Yukia stepped from the smoke, his voice trembling now. "You carry his blood, don't you? The First Oni King's essence—his heart—his flame."
Gomi didn't deny it. His silence was the answer.
"Then you must feel it," Yukia said, taking another step. "The guilt. The sorrow. The endless remembrance.
I begged to be freed of it. Instead, I was given eternity to drown in it."
He raised his hand. Black fire blossomed from his palm, forming shapes—faces, perhaps—ghosts of the old kingdom, screaming in silence.
"Immortality was never a gift. It was a punishment to make me remember what I destroyed."
Gomi's voice cracked, heavy with fury and sympathy.
"Then let me remember with you. Don't do this."
"You can't," Yukia whispered. "I was born in devotion and buried in shame. You're his rebirth. I'm his echo."
They charged—two halves of one history colliding in soundless agony.
The air itself shattered.
When the dust cleared, Gomi stood over Yukia, both of them bleeding, breathing smoke. Their faces only inches apart, reflections of ruin in one another's eyes.
Yukia smiled—a trembling, pitiful thing.
"…You've grown strong," he whispered. "Stronger than he ever was… stronger than me."
Gomi's heart ached. "You were never the villain, Yukia. You were just forgotten."
The words broke him.
Yukia exhaled a final breath, violet fire leaking from his eyes like tears.
"I waited… centuries… just to hear that."
He smiled—soft, human—and his body dissolved into mist, dispersing with the night wind.
Only silence remained.
Only the cracked moon watched as another ghost left the world.
A Warrior Not Forgotten
The following morning, under the fractured light of dawn, they buried Yukia Yamara.
No ceremony. No words.
Only a grave carved into the moonstone arches of the city he once swore to protect.
On his tomb, Gomi etched a single line:
"A warrior not forgotten.
A protector misunderstood."
Hosogiri stood beside him, head bowed. "He loved this place. Even when it hated him."
Gomi's hands trembled. "He just wanted to belong."
He didn't cry. But grief doesn't always need tears—it lives quietly, like frost beneath the heart. He could still see the look in Yukia's eyes just before the end: peace, finally earned through pain.
That moment burned itself into him.
When he turned away from the grave, he felt something leave him—a weight he hadn't realized he was carrying.
And yet, what replaced it was heavier.
Responsibility.
As they walked from the city, the wind followed like a spirit. The cracked moon still loomed overhead, pale and bleeding light through the mist. The streets whispered Yukia's name for the first time in hundreds of years—not in fear, but reverence.
The Hollow Remains
By the next dusk, the three travelers reached the edge of the known world.
Beyond the final walls of the City of Rock Solid stretched a wasteland of bone-white stone and drifting shadows. It was silent here—too silent. No birds, no wind, only the faint hum of buried memory.
The air shimmered faintly with runes etched into the canyon walls—symbols of old vows. Some pulsed weakly, as if still alive.
Hosogiri's voice broke the silence. "Where are we?"
Gomi's eyes were hollow. "Where kings come to die."
Hoguro grunted. "Or to rise again."
They walked for hours—maybe days. Time had no meaning here. Occasionally, the stones underfoot would flicker, showing glimpses of battles that had once scarred the land: Oni Kings dueling over flames, armies crumbling into dust, lovers embracing as the sky burned.
Hosogiri whispered, "Why does it feel like the ground remembers us?"
"Because it does," Gomi said, brushing his fingers along the glowing script of an ancient wall. "These places aren't ruins—they're memories. The Pit doesn't forget."
When his hand touched one symbol—a circle with three slashes—his vision flooded with an image:
A battlefield of glass.
A throne cracked down the middle.
And at its base—
a crown, glowing faintly blue, half-buried in ash.
Then came the voice.
"He who bears the Oni Crown, tread carefully.
For beyond here, only truth remains.
And truth burns."
The air vibrated.
The ground split.
And before them appeared an entrance—a gate of stone veined with red and gold. Words carved across it glowed faintly with heat:
"To wield the burden, you must carry the ashes of those before."
Gomi stepped through first. Hosogiri and Hoguro followed, their torches flickering against the vast black beyond.
Inside, the air was thick with centuries. The walls pulsed faintly like veins. At the chamber's center stood a dais—and upon it, resting like an old wound, a fragment of an Oni Crown.
Gomi approached. His reflection shimmered in the metal's faint glow.
But before he could touch it, a voice spoke—a low, ragged sound, cracked from disuse.
"So… the bloodline still walks."
From the darkness stepped a figure.
It wasn't a ghost. It wasn't human. It was something in between—an Oni King half-consumed by time itself. His armor was fused into his flesh. His horns were broken. His face—a ruin of what once was majestic.
"Do you know my name?" the figure asked.
Gomi shook his head.
"You should," the figure rasped. "You carry it in your blood."
The realization crawled up Gomi's spine like ice.
"You're—"
"I was," the creature interrupted, "the First."
The Shattered Throne
The air screamed as the chamber awoke.
Every rune lit up at once, and the ground trembled with the force of old gods.
Hosogiri and Hoguro were thrown back by the shockwave, crashing into the walls, but Gomi stood his ground. The ancient king—his ancestor—took a step forward. His very presence bent the air, warping the stones around him. Way weaker than in his prime but he was matching Gomi's strength ten fold. Ready to test his limits even if he was just a reanimated corps of his prime. In more weaker ways than one, but still pretty powerful as much as Gomi at that.
"You wear my name," the First Oni King intoned, his voice echoing like thunder rolling through a tomb of fire. "But tell me… do you deserve it?"
His eyes burned with the memory of ages—molten gold beneath a crown of ash. The air trembled as his presence bled through the mist, every word carrying the weight of the infernal past.
"I may not be the original," he continued, his tone shifting between sorrow and wrath, "but I am his mind, his memories—his will—forged into something meant to test you when your time came."
He took a step forward, the earth beneath his feet cracking and glowing with the heat of the pits energy resonating with his own. "I have seen your future, the threads of fate you walk upon. But tell me, successor—are you truly ready to bear the name of King? Or are you just another fool… pretending to rule the ashes of a kingdom you do not yet understand?"
His gaze hardened, piercing through Gomi's soul. "What stands before you is no mere phantom. I am a corpse—reanimated by the ideals of the original, bound by the echo of his purpose. Flesh long dead, mind long scattered, drawn together once more to judge the one who dares calls himself my heir."
The wind roared, and the First Oni King raised his hands, his fingers edge's dripping molten light. "In the end, I am nothing but a husk of history—a shadow given form and fury. But even a shadow can strike, and I have returned to challenge you… tenfold."
He raised a hand. Power, pure and undiluted, struck like thunder. Gomi barely had time to cross his arms before he was thrown across the dais, blood spilling from his mouth.
Still, he rose. Slowly. Defiantly.
"I don't want your throne, relic," Gomi spat, blood slicking his lip as he wiped it away with the back of his hand. "I never cared for your words—until I saw what you really were. You told me yourself: you're nothing but a corpse wearing a king's name. That admission woke me. It made me look. And what I see is weakness. Not the strength of legend, but the frailty of a husk pretending to rule a body far out of his reach nowadays because… you're not in your prime anymore are you I can tell. Which will make this victory from my gathered strength, from my journey all the more easier."
He stepped closer, boots crunching over cinders. "You helped me see it—so thank you. Because now I know how to use it. I will not lose to a reanimated memory that boasts of former glory while falling apart in the present. You claim the mantle of the First Oni King and swagger like an heir, yet you are weaker than the very successor you mock for testing his strengths. I will exploit that. I will grind that pretense into dust, no matter the cost."
Gomi's voice cooled, steadier now than the fight had any right to allow. "Once, I had no cause. I was a rotting thing in a pit of ruin, aching only for revenge. I thought the world should rot beneath my rage—and at one time that seemed the only honest path. But this journey taught me something brutal and beautiful: purpose can be chosen. Watching the wretched struggle, seeing scraps of humanity care for each other even here… it shifted something inside me. Even in the Pit—this hollow wound of the world—people rise. They share warmth. They survive. And that broke something in me and rebuilt it anew."
He laughed once, rough and broken. "I used to think I had the worst fate imaginable. Now I see I am not so different from anyone else. Trash, filth, royalty—labels do not change the spark that survives in us all. So no—if you intend to stop me, step forward. But know this: I have a purpose now. I will not give it up. I choose to break the cycle of Rich and Filth. I choose to smash the system that creates hatred and the hollow society it rots into existence. Hosogiri, Hoguro, whatever names they wear—those 2 pillars will fall with me, and we will die trying if so be it. As the 2 allys they are to me."
Gomi drew himself up, eyes like embers. "I will forge meaning from ruin and ash with my own hands. I will burn the old order so something truer can grow from its ashes. That is my promise. That is my destiny. Try to stop me—if you can."
"The cycle is the throne," the King growled. "Without pain, there is no rule. Without memory, no future. You think you can break what the world was built upon?"
Gomi's response was a punch that cracked the King's jawbone. The chamber shook.
"Then I'll rebuild it from ash and silk alone."
The ancient Oni laughed, voice like grinding stone.
The battle tore the chamber apart. Pillars collapsed, roots of glowing crystal exploded, dust filled the air. Every impact echoed like a heartbeat in the bones of the Pit itself.
Gomi's arms bled from blocking strikes that could split mountains. His eyes blazed with a fury not born of rage, but sorrow.
He was fighting not his ancestor—
but the reflection of what he might become.
Finally, Gomi drove his fist through the old king's stomach.
The impact sent waves of energy through the room. The old Oni staggered, smiling even as blood—black and thick—spilled down his armor.
"You've learned, child," he whispered. "Not strength. Not wrath. But choice."
The old king knelt, the light in his eyes dimming.
"You carry what I could not.
You'll bear the burden differently.
And for that… I am finally free."
He crumbled into dust.
Silence fell.
The crown fragment lifted from the dais, its glow brightening until it filled the chamber with soft, white-blue fire. It floated to Gomi—then, gently, settled onto his head.
No explosion. No divine revelation.
Only quiet acceptance.
Hosogiri staggered to his feet, breath trembling. "Gomi… are you okay?"
Gomi looked down at his bloodstained hands. "No. But I will be."
The floor split again, revealing a descending staircase, lit by pale veins of fire.
Hosogiri and Hoguro stepped beside him.
"Then this is it," Hoguro said. "The last descent."
Gomi turned once, glancing back toward the fading chamber—the tomb of kings, the echo of Yukia's regret, the ruins of everything before him.
"Let's finish it," he whispered.
And together, they descended—
into the final darkness.
Toward truth.
Toward the end.
Toward what remained of the Oni world.
TO BE CONTINUED…