Victory, Shuya was learning, was a cage made of other people's expectations.
After the match, their rented rooms were no longer just a hiding place. They were a fortress under silent siege. The air itself felt thick with watching eyes and listening spells. Church spies, now blatant in their presence, stood like statues at either end of the corridor. The curious, the fearful, and the ambitious sent missives and gifts that Lyra promptly and politely refused at the door.
Shuya sat in the center of the main room, the adulation and scrutiny a distant hum. He was meditating, but not on the fight. He was meditating on the feel of it. The moment he had channeled the accumulated force back through his finger. It hadn't been a conscious decision. It had been an instinct, a culmination of Lyra's drilling and Yoru's abstract lessons. His power was evolving, becoming more than a simple reflection. It was learning to store, to refine, to strike back.
"You are thinking too hard," Yoru's voice cut through his focus. She was by the window again, a silhouette against the perpetual twilight of the city. "You dissect it like a scholar. It is not a theorem. It is a song. You either know the melody or you do not."
"And what song was I singing today?" Shuya asked, opening his eyes.
"A lullaby," she said, a hint of mockery in her tone. "You put a raging beast to sleep with its own noise. A simple, nursery rhyme. The next verses will require a more complex arrangement."
Lyra entered from an adjoining room, her face grim. She tossed a small, black-feathered arrow onto the table. It was identical to the raven's feathers from the message in Valorhold. "Found embedded in the windowsill. No note. Just that."
"A calling card," Yoru mused, gliding over to examine it. "Or a warning. The Vanguard is reminding you they are watching."
"Kaelen wasn't just watching," Shuya said, remembering the focused intensity in the man's eyes. "He was studying."
"Of course he was," Lyra replied, her arms crossed. "The Church now has combat data on you. They saw that you can control the rebound, that you can store kinetic energy, and that your aura can suppress enchantments like that Berserker's rage. They will not send another like Gorok. The next opponent will be tailored to counter you."
The rest of the day passed in a tense bubble. They reviewed the roster of remaining competitors, Lyra pointing out potential threats: a geomancer who never touched the ground, a psionic who attacked the mind directly, a shadowdancer who was rumored to be untouchable. Each one presented a unique problem for a fighter who relied on physical contact.
As true night finally fell, casting the city of false dawn into an even deeper gloom, a soft, almost imperceptible tap came at the window. Not the sharp strike of an arrow, but the gentle brush of a moth.
Yoru was there in an instant. She cracked the window open, and a small, shimmering creature of condensed moonlight fluttered in, landing on her outstretched palm. It dissolved into a faint, silvery dust that formed words in the air, visible only for a moment before fading.
The Gilded Page. An hour. Come alone. -A Friend of the True Sun
Lyra's face was set in hard lines. "A trap. An obvious one."
"Perhaps," Yoru said, brushing the residual moonlight from her hand. "But the 'True Sun' is not a term the Church would use. They call it the 'Forbidden' Sun. This is different. This is someone who remembers the old stories."
"It could be a dissident," Shuya said, standing. "Someone within the Church itself."
"Or a rival faction using you as a pawn," Lyra countered. "The risk is too great."
Shuya looked from the captain's pragmatic worry to the yokai's keen interest. He was tired of being reacted to. The tournament, the Church, the King—they were all moving him across their boards. This was a chance, however small, to make a move of his own.
"I have to go," he said. "If there is a 'friend' here, we need to know. If it's a trap, I'd rather confront it on my terms than wait for it to spring on yours."
Lyra looked like she wanted to argue, but finally gave a sharp, frustrated nod. "I will shadow you. At a distance. If you are not out within thirty minutes, I am coming in."
Yoru smiled. "I shall ensure the watchful eyes outside remain… distracted."
The Gilded Page was a small, cluttered bookshop tucked away in a forgotten alley, its windows dusty, its sign hanging by a single chain. The air inside smelled of old paper, drying ink, and something else—ozone, the faint scent of old magic.
A single lamp burned on a counter, illuminating a wizened old man with spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He looked up as Shuya entered, his eyes, milky with cataracts, seeming to see right through him.
"You are the Sun-Bearer," the old man said, his voice a dry rustle. It wasn't a question.
"I am Shuya."
"The Bearer is what matters." The man gestured to a back room. "She is waiting."
Shuya moved past shelves groaning with ancient texts, his senses alert. The room in the back was a small study, lit by a single candle. A woman stood with her back to him, her form silhouetted by the feeble flame. She turned, and Shuya froze.
She wore the stark, black-and-silver robes of the Church. But her hood was down, revealing a face that was sharp, intelligent, and etched with a deep, weary sorrow. Her eyes, a startling shade of violet, held no fanaticism, only a desperate intensity.
"You are either very brave or very foolish to come," she said.
"You invoked the 'True Sun,'" Shuya replied, keeping his distance. "Why?"
"Because the stories my grandmother told me were not heresy," she whispered, her gaze darting towards the door as if expecting the walls to hear. "They were history. My name is Elara. I am a Lore Keeper, Third Circle, of the Curia of the Eternal Eclipse."
A high-ranking member of the Church. This was either an incredible opportunity or a devastating trap.
"Why risk this?" Shuya asked.
"Because the Eclipse is not what we preach," she said, her voice gaining a fervent, hushed strength. "It is not a divine blessing. It is a prison. A seal crafted by the first High Inquisitors to contain the Spirit of the World—what you call the Old Sun—which they feared was going mad with power. They did not extinguish it. They buried it alive."
The candle flame flickered, casting dancing shadows that seemed to twist into shapes of chained beasts and screaming faces.
"The Blighted Spire is not just a ruin," Elara continued, stepping closer. "It is the keystone of that prison. The corruption there, the warped phenomena… it is the Spirit's agony and rage leaking through the cracks. The Church's plan is not for you to 'cleanse' it. They want you to go inside. They believe a bearer of the Sun's essence will be a key that can be… consumed. Used to reinforce the seals forever. They are not trying to kill you, Shuya Matsumoto. They are trying to use your soul as mortar for their walls."
The revelation landed like a physical blow. It was far worse than a simple death. It was an eternal, conscious damnation.
"Why tell me this?" Shuya asked, his calm demeanor the only thing holding back a surge of cold dread.
"Because the seals are failing," she said, her violet eyes pleading. "The Spirit's madness is spreading. Reinforcing the prison will only delay the inevitable and make the eventual explosion worse. The only true path is to go into the Spire and… and calm it. Heal it. Or, if that is impossible, to grant it a merciful end. But the Church would rather see the world slowly poisoned than admit their founding sin."
She pressed a small, smooth stone into his hand. It was warm, and a tiny, golden spark seemed to flutter inside it like a trapped firefly.
"A shard of a Sunstone. It will resonate with the truth inside the Spire. It may guide you when all other lights fail." She pulled her hood up, her face disappearing into shadow. "Now go. And know this—you have enemies within the Church who want you dead, like Kaelen. But you also have enemies, like Valerius, who need you alive long enough to be sacrificed. Trust no one."
As Shuya slipped back out into the alley, the weight of the Sunstone in his palm felt heavier than a mountain. Lyra emerged from the shadows, her expression questioning.
"Well?" she asked.
Shuya looked up at the false, eclipsed sky of Dawn's Respite, the words of the Lore Keeper echoing in his mind.
"The game is deeper than we thought," he said, his voice low. "And the price of losing is no longer just my life."
He closed his fingers around the warm stone, the tiny spark within seeming to pulse in time with his own heartbeat. The path to the Spire was no longer just a path to battle, but to a choice that could shatter the world.