Echoes Beneath the Fire
The ruins beneath the pit breathed like a dying god.
Every breath of wind carried the stench of ash and oil. Stone corridors glowed faintly from embedded runes, each pulsing like veins beneath the earth's skin. The air was thick with history—too ancient to name, too heavy to bear.
Gomi Kira stood before a cracked obsidian gate, his hands trembling though his eyes burned like coal. The battle with Honō Yakedo had ended in ashes and silence. Minagami stood beside him, blade drawn, her expression unreadable.
She hated him once. Now, she couldn't afford to.
The fires of their fight had died, but something else burned between them—uneasy alliance, mutual scars, and a strange echo neither could name.
"Don't tell me you're tired already," Gomi said, voice rough, bleeding sarcasm to hide the pain.
Minagami's reply was sharp but softer than before. "You talk too much for someone who almost died."
"Almost," Gomi grinned, cracked lips curling, "means I didn't."
Beneath them, the ruins whispered. The stones shifted faintly, runes responding to Gomi's presence—reacting to something buried deep within him.
Minagami noticed. "That's the third time these markings lit up when you got close. Why?"
"I don't know." Gomi frowned, reaching toward one. The rune's glow flared, resonating with a low hum that crawled through his bones. His cursed mark burned in response, his veins briefly glowing black-red beneath his skin.
Minagami stepped back. "That's… not normal."
"When have I ever been?"
The light pulsed again, stronger this time, throwing a flickering shadow across the ruins that twisted like wings.
Somewhere deep below, the Pit responded. Something ancient stirred.
And far from them—Hoguro felt it too.
Hoguro and the Chamber of Names
Hoguro's boots scraped against stone as he ventured deeper into the labyrinth. He had been following the strange energy since he found the Orb of Reincarnation, guided by whispers he couldn't tell were real or memory.
The air was colder here, damp and metallic. The walls bore inscriptions that shimmered faintly in shifting light—names, thousands of them, etched in a language older than Oni. Some had been crossed out, others burned into the wall as if branded by fire.
He trailed a finger over one of the markings. "These are… bloodlines."
When he reached the chamber's center, he froze.
A colossal mural loomed before him—an Oni crowned in fire and shadow, holding two swords crossed over his stomach. Beneath his feet, a spiral of flame encircled symbols that resembled both Gomi's curse mark and Hoguro's family crest.
The same spiral was engraved on Hoguro's blade.
He staggered back. "No… that's not possible."
The mural shifted, the runes igniting as though aware of his presence. The air hummed. A low, whispering voice filled the room, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once:
"Blood remembers what flesh forgets."
Hoguro's vision blurred. The symbols came alive, swirling into a storm of color and light.
He saw flashes—
A battle under a red sky.
An Oni King crowned in smoke.
A warrior with Gomi's eyes standing beside him.
And a betrayal—a blade through the heart of the king by one he called brother.
When the vision ended, Hoguro was on his knees, gasping.
"The First Oni King…" he whispered. "And his brother… his blood… my family?"
He looked at the blade again. The runes along its length pulsed faintly, forming words that hadn't been there before.
'Descendant of the Forgotten Flame.'
It was then he realized—he wasn't just part of this story. He was born from it.
Fire and Glass
Back near the gate, Gomi and Minagami had entered the next chamber—a circular expanse lined with broken statues and half-melted crystal veins. Each statue was identical: an Oni King with one horn broken, his eyes hollowed out.
Gomi stared at them uneasily. "Why do they all look like me?"
Minagami's gaze flicked between the statues and him. "Maybe they were you. Or people like you. Your curse might not be a curse—it could be inheritance."
He laughed dryly. "Inheritance? From who, a corpse?"
But as he spoke, the statues began to move.
Stone cracked. Eyes ignited. The air filled with the grinding wail of awakening.
"Great," Minagami hissed. "You just had to talk."
Gomi smirked and cracked his neck. "Guess we'll find out who my ancestors are the hard way."
The statues lunged.
Gomi met the first head-on, his cursed arm flaring with black flame as he caught a stone fist mid-swing and shattered it.
Minagami danced behind him, her blade cutting precise arcs through necks of burning stone. Sparks showered the floor.
Every strike echoed with memory—every statue that fell released a flash of history: a battle, a face, a name half-remembered.
"Do you see that?" Minagami shouted, slashing through another. "They're not just enemies—they're memories!"
"I'm fighting ghosts now?" Gomi snarled, slamming his fist through another. "Perfect!"
As the last statue crumbled, a ripple of power tore through the room, blasting both of them back. From the dust emerged a figure—taller, heavier, his body wreathed in molten shadow.
It wasn't Yakedo. It was something older.
"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Gomi demanded.
The figure's voice was deep, like magma cracking through stone.
"I am the breath that burned the world before yours. I am your beginning, Oni King."
Gomi's blood froze.
The spirit stepped closer, half-solid, half-ember. His face was eerily familiar—Gomi's own features, aged and cruel.
"My name was Gorash the First Flame. You bear my mark because my blood refused to die."
Minagami raised her blade instinctively. "You're not real. You're an echo."
The spirit's gaze turned toward her, almost pitying. "And yet even echoes have teeth."
He reached toward Gomi, and the cursed mark on Gomi's heart ignited. Pain shot through him like a spear. He screamed, collapsing to one knee.
"You are incomplete," Gorash said. "The curse within you is a seal, not a gift. And the one who broke it walks beside you now."
He looked past Gomi—toward Minagami.
Her eyes widened. "What—what do you mean by that?"
But the spirit only smiled. "Bloodlines weave strange stories, child. You and he are not enemies. You are corrections. Two halves of a forgotten whole."
Then, like smoke, he vanished.
Hoguro's Revelation
In the lower ruins, Hoguro had found something more terrifying.
A doorway, shaped like a burning sun, marked with both his family crest and the sigil of the Oni King. As he stepped through, a vision overtook him—
He was no longer himself.
He stood upon a battlefield. Fire tore the sky apart. Two brothers fought amidst the ruins of an empire: one crowned in gold and flame, the other shrouded in ash.
"You betrayed me," the crowned one roared.
"No," said the other. "I freed us."
Their blades met, and the world cracked.
Hoguro awoke trembling, realizing what he had seen wasn't metaphor. The Oni King had been betrayed—by his own blood. And that blood had survived, splintered across generations, carried in secret by two lineages: Gomi's… and his own.
He stumbled against the wall, gripping his sword. "That means… Gomi and I…"
The truth burned behind his teeth, too heavy to say aloud.
Cousins. Descendants of the First Flame. Bound by a betrayal that still echoed in the pit's foundation.
But he couldn't tell him. Not yet. Not when Gomi was still fighting to remember who he truly was.
The ruins pulsed again, as if listening. A whisper crawled through the darkness:
"The blood will remember. The fire will rise. And betrayal… will repeat."
The Return of Yakedo
Back above, the air shifted—pressure building, heat suffocating.
Yakedo had survived. His laughter echoed through the halls like thunder cracking through bone.
"You thought you'd buried me, little flames?" he bellowed, stepping through molten debris. "The fire doesn't die—it waits!"
Minagami moved first, standing between him and Gomi. "He's not ready for another fight."
"Oh?" Yakedo smirked, flexing his burning hands. "Then maybe I'll make him ready."
Flames coiled into serpents around his arms. He lunged.
Minagami countered, her blade slicing through one serpent's head, but the impact sent her flying. Gomi staggered to his feet, body still shaking from the spirit's words.
"Why?" Gomi shouted over the roar of fire. "Why are you doing this? Why me?"
Yakedo's grin faltered. His tone darkened. "You think this is about you? You think I came here just for a fight?"
He slammed his palm into the ground. The ruins flared alive with the same markings that had reacted to Gomi earlier.
"I came here to stop you!" Yakedo shouted. "You and that blade your friend carries! I heard the stories from the surface—about the cursed child born beneath the stars, the one whose blood would awaken the First Flame again! You're not destiny, Gomi—you're a mistake! A prophecy that should've stayed buried!"
The realization hit Gomi like a blow. "You're afraid."
Yakedo's eyes flared. "I'm not afraid—I'm preventing the end!"
He pointed toward the cracks spreading through the chamber floor. "These ruins hold your truth—and if that truth wakes, everything burns again! Your blood, your friend's blood… it all leads back to the same betrayal that destroyed the First Kingdom! And I won't let history repeat itself!"
Gomi's breath trembled. "So that's it… you're not a demon. You're a guard dog. Sent here to keep the truth buried."
"Call it what you want," Yakedo snarled. "But I've killed kings before—and I'll kill one reborn."
The Clash of Fates
The room erupted in violence.
Gomi surged forward, shadow flame igniting around his fists. Minagami joined him, her blade streaking silver arcs through the inferno. Together, they met Yakedo in a whirlwind of power.
The floor melted beneath them; pillars shattered like glass. Every punch, every swing was poetry written in pain and desperation.
Yakedo caught Gomi's fist mid-swing, crushing it with brute strength. "You can't kill what was never alive!" he roared.
Gomi twisted free, eyes blazing. "Then I'll bury you instead!"
Their cursed flames collided—black and crimson versus molten red. The explosion turned the air into liquid fire.
Minagami barely escaped the blast, her body bruised but spirit unbroken. Watching them fight, she saw it clearly: Yakedo wasn't trying to win. He was trying to delay. Every move, every attack, was to buy time—for something deeper in the ruins to awaken or collapse.
Then it hit her. "He's not fighting us… he's stalling us!"
Yakedo's laughter confirmed it. "You're clever. Too bad it won't matter."
Gomi's fist met his gut again, this time cracking the molten armor. "You talk too much."
Yakedo stumbled, coughed blood mixed with flame—and smiled. "So do you, King."
He drove his burning fist into the ground. The ruins screamed. Runes blazed. And then—he vanished into the fire, leaving only the echo of his final words:
"When you learn the truth, you'll wish I'd killed you."
The Unraveling
Silence fell.
Gomi dropped to one knee, coughing blood. Minagami caught him, shaking her head. "He's gone. For now."
He nodded weakly. "Yeah… but not finished."
She hesitated before speaking. "That thing he said—about prophecy, bloodlines, betrayal… you believe him?"
Gomi looked at the glowing runes on the floor, still pulsing faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat. "I don't know. But the pit… it remembers things I don't. And that scares me."
Far below, Hoguro reached the same chamber from another passage. He saw the glow through the cracks in the ceiling—and the silhouette of Gomi standing in the light.
He didn't call out. Didn't move. Just watched.
Because he knew.
He finally knew why the pit had led them here. Why fate had tied their paths together.
And why the fire had chosen Gomi.
It wasn't just destiny. It was blood.
Family.
The forgotten flame… reborn.
TO BE CONTINUED…