Moonlight slipped through the broken roof… faint, pale, cold. Outside the abandoned school, someone shouted to someone else, voices echoing across the empty halls. But inside Ren's room—what remained of it—the place was almost unrecognisable.'
The ceiling had collapsed; dust covered everything like a dead snowfall. If someone brushed it aside, they would find slash marks carved deep into concrete—razor-thin lines everywhere—and cracks from blunt impacts layered over them. Every candle, every tool, every scrap of ritual material was gone or destroyed.
But in the centre, where the roof had split open, moonlight fell like a spotlight. Ren's eyes fluttered open; he blinked slowly.
Ren thought, 'Huh? how long has it been??… Everything feels weird…'
He coughed—twice, sharply.
Cough, cough!
His body buzzed, like static running across every nerve. Chills spidered down his spine as he tried to sit up. The sensation was wrong. Too empty. Too light. Too… off.
He forced himself to stand, brushed dust off his face, blinked again—and froze. Just stood there.
"What the fuck just happened?"
Ren muttered it into the cold air.
He looked around… And that's when he spotted Worm. On the floor.
Ren immediately crossed the ruined room, stepping over debris, cracked tiles, and shredded walls. He crouched, grabbed Worm, and noticed the tiny cuts along its body.
The worm wiggled weakly. "Mommy!" it muttered.
Ren stared at it, mind still stuttering.
'What the fuck is going on for real? How did Worm get out of my shadow? Worm isn't brave. He's not like Rika—no deep bond pushing him to protect me… So why did Worm come out? Why now? Why during the ritual? That's… unexpected. He shouldn't act like this in any situation…'
His mind buzzed harder. His thoughts were slow—but weirdly clear…
Ren looked around again. Something on the floor caught his eye.
He sat down carefully. Folded his hands. Worm crawled into his lap and settled there.
Ren closed his eyes.
'Ok, wait… let's take a few steps back. What did happen? How did it happen? First—the threads. They acted more violently than anything I expected. The spider vow was alright, but the moment I started the sword vows… everything went straight outside the fucking wall. But why? Hmm… oh. Wait a second. The first binding vow I made. That's it!'
Ren's eyes snapped open in realisation.
"I used my maximum technique to speed up this ritual… But my first fucking binding vow was literally that I'm splitting my cursed technique in two! And my maximum technique was still active. Of course everything was fucking up."
He exhaled angrily through his nose.
"It's like pulling RAM out of a running computer… No wonder. And then the Spider and Sword vows—those binding vows literally demand I can't use their forms all around my body. But my maximum technique, The Binding of Izanami… that's exactly what it does. The whole concept uses Red Stitch around my whole body. Hah… fuck. No wonder everything was fucked up."
Ren rubbed his forehead.
'In computer words—yeah, I wasn't just pulling out the RAM while the system was still running. I was also messing with its BIOS. Ugh…'
He frowned deeper.
'But why the hell didn't I think about this problem? I wanted to boost the ritual's speed, but I never even considered my maximum technique contradicting every vow I was making. Ugh… Ok, I know exactly where and how I fucked up. Now… what about all the other weirdness? Rika came out—that makes sense. But the reason I didn't stop the ritual or do anything else? I was in fucking pain. I've never felt that much pain before. Every part of my body was being cut… ugh. Just remembering it gives me chills. The threads that didn't cut through were stuck in my skin… I couldn't think straight. I was about to lose consciousness… but then I saw that white—whatever it was.'
Ren breathes in and out slowly…
'Who was that? It asked me a question. "Who am I?" Why? What the fuck? And when it pointed at me, I woke up… regained some sense. Enough to use cursed speech to stop the threads, finally. Something I should've done earlier.'
He flexed his fingers.
'I healed using Divine Writ: Blood Ink Sutra… but with the one-hour limit, the wounds will return. Whatever. Then I completed the binding vows. And… yeah. I made a twelfth one. Just like that. On the spot…'
Ren turned his head and looked at the object he'd noticed earlier.
A perfectly round black sphere on the floor.
He muttered:
"Vow of Continuity".
"I vow that the eleven vows are final.
They cannot break or bend unless I redo the ritual in full.
In return, those eleven vows will stabilise and strengthen within me."
He exhaled sharply.
"It does what it says. Simple vow, made up instantly just to stabilise everything. I didn't even know my maximum technique was the thing screwing everything up… But whatever. I made the vow anyway. Twelve binding vows now. And I almost died too. Fuck…"
Ren leaned closer to the orb.
'But now tell me—what are you? Hmm?'
The sphere was perfectly smooth. Perfectly black.
'Cursed spirit in an orb. This is how Geto tames curses… turns them into storage orbs before swallowing them. Cursed manipulation. And this… yeah, this is the orb I found inside a worm a long time ago. I didn't think much about it; let Worm keep it, but now… Worm somehow came out of my shadow, and he only spat this out? Coincidence? Possible… But looking at Worm, he barely has cuts. Meaning he came out right before I woke up… meaning Worm just happened to leave my shadow during the ritual, just happened to spit the orb out, and right after that I regained consciousness?'
He narrowed his eyes.
'That's not a coincidence. It has to be related to this orb… or something inside it. Maybe the white thing I saw was a curse inside the orb? But how would that work? Ugh… I don't know enough about cursed manipulation. And now that Kenjaku has Geto's body… it's going to be even harder to figure this thing out. It's concerning… But maybe I should look on the bright side? I completed the ritual.'
Ren sighed.
"Worm, keep that orb in you again. Spit it out if it does anything weird. Go back into my shadow… Uh—Rika, are you fine?"
Worm obediently swallowed the orb again, then wriggled back into Ren's shadow.
A larger shadow split open behind Ren, and Rika emerged—barely formed, not fully manifested.
"Ah, my bad. You took so much damage, huh? Sorry. But well—this is actually a good thing, if you think about it. It means my sword can damage even Rika… Hmm… Well, now I should test it out, right? Hehe… ahh… I am so excited to do this! Finally! Yes, yes!"
Ren stood up—but the moment he did, someone kicked the broken door open with a loud crack.
Two people walked in, flashlights raised. Their beams landed right on Ren.
"Don't move! Stay like that!!"
Another voice from the left shouted, "This area is off-limits! We're the police! Put your hands up!"
Ren blinked and turned around looking at the incomers.
There were two cops with their hands hovering near their holsters.
Ren slowly raised his hands.
"Ah, you've got to be fucking with me, right?"
Ren smiled bitterly…
Ren's shirt was ripped, dust was all around him, and he looked totally like a homeless bum…