Midnight cloaked Kyomisu in silence. Lanterns guttered out one by one, leaving only the shimmer of Ryuma dust drifting downriver. Crickets fell quiet as the ground beneath the village gave a faint shudder, almost too subtle to notice.
But within the Shrine of the Old Seals, the air was alive with noise. The chamber's stones thrummed like distant drums, radiating waves that warped the incense smoke into swirling patterns. Orange firelight flickered along carvings that had not illuminated for centuries.
At the altar stood Lady Ai, her ceremonial robes rippling as she pressed both palms against the shrine's floor. Faint blue lines crawled outward from her fingertips—the ancient runes of the Listening Rite. Through them came voices, layered in whispers. They spoke in fragments: names of lost realms, warnings buried in languages older than humanity.
Then, the sound she dreaded.
The ring of shifting locks.
The Seals were waking.
She summoned a glowing paper charm and whispered a soft invocation. The parchment lifted into the air and vanished in a streak of light.
A summons. Straight to Kelivin's home.
The Summoning
Kelivin arrived before the fourth bell—no armor, no visible weapons, only the faint mist that followed him when he moved. He walked through the shrine gates silently as if he'd known before she had called.
"Lady Ai," he greeted, bowing with the quiet respect between old allies. "The ground spoke."
"It did more than speak," Ai replied, rising to meet his gaze. "The Seals sang tonight. Not since the last convergence have they broken their slumber."
Kelivin's eyes moved to the altar. He could feel it too—a deep, rhythmic pulse like a second heartbeat within the earth. The tremor pulled faint wisps from his shadow, making them dance along the walls.
"What caused it?" he asked.
Ai's face was pale in the lantern glow. "Something brushed the barrier from the other side. The language it spoke carried your name."
Kelivin's stillness thinned into edges of dread. "Mine?"
She nodded. "The energy that replied carried shadow and light intertwined. You know what that means."
His silence confirmed it. Only one being in the history of the Seals carried that dual signature.
Maiko.
The Hidden Chamber
Together, they descended into the heart of the shrine, beneath layers of runed gateways unlocked by Ai's charms. The underground air grew heavier, resonant with energy. The corridor walls glowed faintly with inscriptions of the Five Creeds of Balance: Fire awakens, Water remembers, Wind guides, Earth holds, and Shadow witnesses.
At the corridor's end lay the inner chamber, circular and vast. Stone canisters surrounded a center monolith—the Heart Seal, carved with intertwining elemental sigils. In the middle, a fissure pulsated faintly with black light, narrow but growing.
Kelivin approached it slowly. The closer he came, the more his Ryuma vibrated, threatening to spiral out of harmony. The shadow within him recognized the energy—familiar, mournful, unresolved.
He knelt, pressing a palm to the cold surface. The seal responded with a single pulse. A woman's voice echoed softly through the chamber:
"Kelivin…"
He closed his eyes. The whisper cut through decades of discipline.
"Maiko," he murmured.
Lady Ai stepped closer. "So it's true. Her essence survived within the Seal."
"She was always bound to it," Kelivin said. "But if she's stirring now, it means the balance is shifting again. The realms are aligning too soon."
She frowned. "The last alignment nearly destroyed this world. Tell me the truth, old friend. How many of your sons have touched the Market's threshold?"
Kelivin's answer came after long silence. "Not yet," he said softly. "But they will soon. The Market always calls its heirs."
Forbidden Knowledge
Lady Ai moved toward the altar, lighting another ring of candles. "If the unity energy resurfaces through them, the council must be told. Their existence alone violates the elemental laws."
Kelivin's hands tightened into fists. "Tell them, and they'll brand the boys heretics before they take their first step toward balance."
She studied him with weary compassion. "You cannot shield them forever."
"I won't," he said. "But I'll make sure their first lesson isn't fear."
The fissure widened slightly, releasing a shiver that snapped one of the unlit lanterns from its stand. From within, faint laughter echoed—soft, almost kind. Kelivin's gaze sharpened.
"Close the passage," he commanded.
Lady Ai activated her sigils; light filled the room, swallowing the black pulse for a moment. The tremor subsided—but not completely.
The chamber grew still again, but both sensed it: something now lingered awake inside the Seal, watching from below the surface.
The Unspoken Oath
As they climbed back to the shrine's terrace, night began to fade into gray dawn.
"Whatever happens," Ai said quietly, "promise me you'll prepare them. The Market and the Seals—your world and theirs—they are converging again."
Kelivin looked toward the mist‑veiled peaks. The light of early morning glinted faintly off the clouds where the Shinsei Market slumbered unseen.
"I already have," he said. "Every lesson I've taught them was not to fight, but to remember."
"Remember what?" she asked.
He turned slightly, his silhouette half‑lost in shadow. "That power is only a reflection of what we fear to lose."
Then he was gone, leaving only the faint scent of burning incense and the echo of a name carried on the wind—Maiko.