Aoi didn't need to be told twice. She scrambled to her feet, the sigils on her skin burning as she ran. The Hollow Men gave chase, their movements silent, relentless. Yuki followed, a phantom haunting his own footsteps. The sanctum was collapsing around them, chunks of obsidian falling like meteors.
They burst through the grinding doors just as the sanctum imploded, the sound a deafening roar that shook the mountain. Outside, the world was wrong. The sky was a bruised purple, choked with clouds that wept black rain. The forest was grey and skeletal, the trees twisted into agonized shapes. The air tasted of ash and despair.
"They're everywhere," Aoi gasped, pointing. Below them, in the valley, Hollow Men moved like ants, swarming through a small town. Buildings crumbled not from force, but from decay, turning to dust and shadow.
Yuki felt a pull—a faint resonance with the blight. It was the architect's power, and it recognized him. The Hollow Men paused, their featureless faces turning toward him.
The vessel calls to the blight, the architect's voice whispered in his mind. You are still connected, Yuki Tanaka. You cannot escape what you are.
Aoi grabbed his arm—her fingers passed through his translucent form, but she held on, her touch a anchor in the storm. "We have to stop this."
"How?" Yuki's voice was a whisper, barely audible. "I'm empty. The pact is broken."
"Not broken," Aoi said, her eyes burning with determination. "Changed." She held up her hands. The sigils on her skin pulsed with a faint, sickly light. "The architect marked me. I can feel it… the blight, the Hollow Men… I can feel them."
She closed her eyes, focusing. The sigils flared brighter. For a moment, the Hollow Men below froze, their forms flickering.
"You can control them?" Yuki asked, stunned.
"Not control," Aoi gritted her teeth, sweat beading on her forehead. "…distract."
The Hollow Men shook off the effect and resumed their destruction. Aoi swayed, exhausted. "It's too much. The architect's power… it's like poison."
"We need help," Yuki said. "Someone who understands the blight. Who knows how to fight it."
A bitter realization dawned on him. There was one person. One person who'd been fighting the architect's influence all along.
"The exorcist," he said.
Aoi's eyes widened. "But it tried to kill you."
"It tried to kill me," Yuki corrected. "Not the blight. Not the architect. We have the same enemy now."