The same room. The same darkness. The same deep-seated comfort.
Yet tonight, the chamber felt heavier. The air was dense, almost viscous, and the simple joy that once lingered here had leached away, leaving something colder in its place. The heart of their shared world—the invisible thread that bound them—had shifted. A hairline fracture had appeared, sending a faint, constant tremor through the foundation of their shared space.
A soft ripple of light trembled over the stone floor. Feet touched down—boots black, white, pale blue, golden, and one pair bare. Kirihito landed lightly, his toes curling against the chill of the stone.
They were back in the familiar candlelit room where they had first met their creator. But the familiarity was a thin veneer. The red threads connecting their hearts glowed not with a steady pulse, but with a faint, timid light, as if dimmed by a shared, unseen weight.
Kirihito lifted the delicate strand tied to his little finger, winding it thoughtfully. His pale eyes, wide and questioning, reflected the uncertain candlelight. Around him, Xio, Língxi, Kage Ou, and Lànhuā watched their own heart-threads flutter weakly, sighing with a sadness that wasn't their own.
Even Sozai's usual cheer was strained, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. Yurei's stubborn composure had a brittle edge. Suji exhaled a slow, controlled breath, standing close to Kansai, whose expression was one of quiet confusion. Kuradome's sharp eyes narrowed, his grip on Kyoren's arm firm and grounding, sensing a disturbance deeper than any physical wound.
A tightness settled in Kirihito's small chest—a pressure, insistent and cold. He took a few quiet steps, scanning the shadows. The pain in the air was a palpable thing, pressing down on all of them.
"Is our mom… sad?" he whispered, his voice soft and young, trembling just slightly. "Everything… feels so heavy. Wasn't it warmer last time? Did something… bad happen?" The red thread around his hand pulsed once, a feeble echo.
"I… think so," Xio replied, his voice low and cautious as he glanced around. "It's cold. Strange. Like something's… cracking. Slowly."
Língxi stepped forward, her tone gentle but firm. "I can't quite grasp what it is…"
Kage Ou followed, his gaze fixed on the guttering candles. "Neither can I."
"Is it danger… or just someone's sadness?" Lànhuā asked, her voice so quiet it almost vanished. She wrapped her arms around herself as if feeling the emotional chill.
Xio breathed out, his breath misting in the air despite the room's nominal warmth. "It's sadness. Deep. Older than anything I remember. And… familiar, somehow."
"But… where is Mom?" Kirihito asked, his anxious eyes searching the darkened corners.
Sozai's voice lost its usual bounce. "Something's wrong… why does it feel so hard to breathe?"
"Yeah," Yurei admitted reluctantly, folding his arms tightly across his chest. "Same."
"It's the bond," Suji murmured, more to himself than the others. "When we're tied to one person… we feel what they feel. Just as it should be."
Kuradome hissed a soft breath between his teeth. "It aches… like a phantom pain from an old wound." He glanced down at Kyoren. "You feel it too?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Kyoren replied, his voice a quiet rumble.
"Yes… why wouldn't you," Kuradome echoed, the words almost tender.
Kirihito took another step forward, small and determined against the vast gloom. "Mom… are you there?" His voice, childlike and clear, echoed off the stones. "Weren't we… going to play interview today? Why… does my chest hurt? It… aches. Can you make it stop? You're our mom… only you can."
His plea hung in the air, unanswered, swallowed by the thickening shadows.
"No sign of her," Xio muttered, frustration bleeding into the unease.
"Then how did we even get here?" Sozai pressed, logic fighting the surreal dread.
Kansai spoke softly, confusion lacing his tone. "We only gather here when she is present."
Suji gave a single, slow nod. "It is the rule."
And then—
A voice. Fragile. Dry. Heavy with a grief that seemed to bend the air itself. And then gone.
"My Kurama…"
The air constricted. It became solid in their lungs. Xio swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat. Kuradome's gaze shot around the room, analytical and sharp. But none of them bore that name.
Kirihito's breath hitched. He didn't think—his small feet were already moving, hurrying toward the source of the voice, the threads of light fluttering around him like startled birds. The others moved instinctively in his wake, tethered to him, knowing on a primal level that he was the fragile heart of this place.
"Mom! Where are you? We're here! We're all here! We're cold! Please don't leave us! It's getting darker! Please!" His cries were pure, urgent desperation, bouncing off walls that seemed to drink the sound.
"Wait…" Xio whispered, the realization dawning. "Kirihito… is 'Kurama'?"
"Never heard anyone call him that," Sozai said, voice hushed.
"Maybe… it's a name only she uses," Yurei offered, though he sounded unsure.
"Yes," Kirihito admitted quietly, a faint blush coloring his pale cheeks. He looked down at his thread. "And I… I already knew it. Even if I don't know why. It just… feels like mine."
Língxi stepped closer, her voice firm. "Call her again. She responds to you. Otherwise… the connection is wrong. It won't hold."
"Maybe that will work," Lànhuā agreed softly.
"Do it," Xio said, his own breathing ragged now. He watched as the boy's gaze locked onto a point in the middle distance.
Without another word, Kirihito ran toward it.
"H-hey! Where are you going?!" Xio shouted, breaking into a run after him.
"Xian, be careful!" Lànhuā called, rushing to follow.
"Everyone, stay close!" Língxi warned, the air growing heavier with each hurried step.
"The shadows… they're moving like a live battlefield," Kage Ou muttered, eyes narrowing at the shifting darkness.
"Kuradome-sama?" Sozai's voice cut through the growing tension.
Kuradome raised a hand, squinting one eye as if against a bitter wind. "Yes… heavy. Negative energy. It's saturating the air."
Kyoren nodded, his jaw tight. "It's thick. Almost burns to breathe."
"Stay alert," Kuradome ordered, his tone leaving no room for debate.
"I am," Kyoren affirmed.
A slight shiver ran through Kansai. "S… Suji?"
"I know," Suji reassured him, taking his arm. "I'm right here. Just keep moving."
The room itself seemed to rebel. The candlelight didn't just flicker; it dimmed, as if the darkness was a substance swallowing the light. The walls seemed to stretch, the ceiling to recede. The comfortable chamber was transforming into something else—a sealed, cursed space, colder and more endless by the second.
Xio skidded to a halt. Before them, the path branched into three identical corridors, each darker than the last, each exhaling a breath of stale, cold air. His chest heaved. The thread connecting him to Kirihito thinned to a near-invisible strand. If the boy—their core, their tether—disappeared into that gloom, the thread would snap. And if that connection broke, what would hold any of them here?
Yet Kirihito ran on, a small, pale figure driven by an innocent conviction, the red thread a fragile beacon in the swelling dark.
The wrongness deepened. The air no longer felt empty; it felt occupied. It carried the damp, still quality of a tomb, and through it ran a current of whispers. Not one voice, but thousands—a susurrus of desperate, overlapping pleas that grated against the mind and hurt the ears with their psychic static.
"Ah, my ears… make it stop," Yurei whispered through a tightly clenched jaw, his hands pressing down over his sensitive fox ears.
"Same," Sozai grimaced, his own ears flattening.
"Those whispers… I'd like to find the owners and silence them. Permanently," Kyoren growled low in his throat. Kuradome's grip on his shoulder tightened, the fox demon's eyes squeezed shut against the auditory assault.
Kansai paused, his brow furrowed in genuine distress. The whispers seemed to scrape at his sense of self. "I… I can't remember. This time… who was I? Besides knowing you," he said, looking at Suji with a confusion that was more frightening than any monster.
Suji's usual calm wavered. "I was… I was what? I just know you're my annoying teammate…"
Língxi hugged herself. "Exactly. The details… they're fog."
Kage Ou's hand rested on the hilt of a sword that wasn't there. "It makes a grim sense. We remember each other. The bonds. But our own stories… our roles… they're just outlines."
Xio ran a hand through his hair, panic simmering beneath his skin. "Wh–what do we do? Time feels… thin. We can barely stand this. The cold, the dark… and Kirihito's gone in alone."
Sozai, forcing his mind to work through the discomfort, pieced it together aloud. "It might mean we have to figure it out ourselves. Who are the core pillars? The ones holding this 'System Tearstone' universe together. Not just anyone gets pulled into a place like this."
Yurei blinked, struggling to focus. "Aren't we all cores? We're all here."
"Just think," Sozai pressed, voice strained. "If we all were essential cores, where are Saimei? Ennagiri? The others? They're not in this room."
Kuradome opened his eyes, the glow within them sharp. "Sozai is right. After that 'snake' incident she wrote… the rules changed. The core group solidified. It's not everyone. Maybe four. Maybe five of us here are central. The rest…"
Suji looked around at their gathered faces, the reality settling in. "Then why are so many of us here? If only a few are true pillars?"
Sozai met his gaze, the answer seeming obvious and heavy. "Because to her, we all matter. The cores sustain the world. But the rest of us… we are the world. We're what makes it worth sustaining."
The truth of it hung in the corrupted air. They were all connected, all feeling the creator's sorrow, but they were not all equal parts of the foundation. Some were load-bearing walls; others were the lived-in spaces between. And right now, the entire structure was groaning under a weight they didn't understand, searching in the dark for the heart of their own story, and for the mother whose silent grief threatened to unravel it all.