Night fell too quickly.
Ren hated that he felt it—the shift in the air, as if the darkness itself leaned closer to listen. By the time the excavation camp settled into uneasy quiet, he could already sense the seal stirring beneath his ribs like something waking hungry.
Ayaka had refused to leave his side.
Hiro had tried joking about it.Kurogane had quietly approved of it.Ren didn't know how to feel about it.
But he needed her nearby, and the thought scared him nearly as much as the whispers did.
They retreated to Ren's tent—two cots, a lantern, Ayaka's medical kit, and the soft rustle of canvas fluttering against a cold night wind. Ayaka busied herself sharpening her utility blade. Ren suspected it wasn't because she needed to sharpen it.
"You don't have to stay here," he said.
Ayaka didn't look up. "I'm not leaving."
"This could get dangerous."
"That's why I'm not leaving."
Ren ran a hand through his hair. She made everything sound simple, but nothing about his situation was simple.
He lowered himself onto one cot. The faint lanternlight made Ayaka's face glow warm despite the cold. She glanced over at him, reading his exhaustion as easily as she read a battlefield wound.
"Try to sleep," she said softly. "I'll keep watch."
He opened his mouth to protest—but fatigue swallowed the attempt.
He lay back, the canvas pillow stiff against his head. Ayaka sat near the lantern, sharpening her blade in steady strokes. A quiet rhythm. A human rhythm.
That rhythm alone helped push back the unnatural pulse in his chest.
For a while.
Until the light flickered.
And the world dissolved.
Dream or Not a Dream
Ren opened his eyes into a wide, moonlit clearing he had never seen before. Silver grass swayed around him in a wind that carried no sound. Above, the moon hung impossibly full—brighter than any lantern, colder than any star.
"Ren."
Her voice was silk.
He turned.
Yurei Kisaragi stood a few paces away, bathed in pale light—barefoot on the grass, robes drifting as though underwater. Her eyes glowed with soft silver warmth, utterly unlike the harsh shadows that had haunted him earlier.
She smiled with impossible tenderness.
"You found your way back to me."
Ren instinctively stepped back. "I don't even know you."
Her expression dimmed. "You don't remember. Not yet. But your soul does."
Ren's heart lurched—his heartbeat syncing with hers, with the moonlight, with the seal.
—She is familiar.—She is ours.
"No," Ren whispered, pressing a hand to his chest. "Stop talking to me."
Yurei tilted her head. "Not to you. To it. To the fragment inside you. We're all connected, Ren."
She stepped closer. Ren tried to move, but the dream—if it was a dream—felt thick, heavy, binding.
"I have waited lifetimes," she murmured, lifting a hand toward his cheek. "When the god shattered, a part of him fell into you. That part… loved me."
Ren stiffened. "I'm not him."
Her hand hovered inches from his skin. "You are him and not him. A reincarnation, a successor, a vessel—call it what you like. But our stories are intertwined."
He felt her energy brushing against him—soft, seductive, drawing him into calm he did not ask for.
Ayaka's voice flickered in his memory.
"I'm not letting you go."
Ren pulled back. "Stay away."
Yurei's smile faltered. The moonlight dimmed.
"You're afraid," she whispered. "That's all right. You always feared your own power."
"I'm afraid because something keeps pushing into my head."
"That is the seal," Yurei said gently. "You don't need to fight it. You'll only hurt yourself."
"And why should I trust you?"
Her eyes softened with a sorrow so deep Ren felt it echo through the seal.
"Because I never betrayed you," she whispered. "Not in the last life. And I won't in this one."
Something shifted behind her words. A memory not his own quivered at the edge of awareness—soft hands, moonlight, a kiss filled with devotion and ruin.
Ren staggered.
Yurei reached out as if to catch him. "Let me help you. I can teach you to control the Ninth Seal. I can quiet the whispers."
He hesitated.If she could really quiet them…
But no.
Something inside him recoiled.
Ayaka.Her voice.Her warmth.Her defiance against something she didn't even understand.
"No," Ren said. "You're twisting something. You're… manipulating me."
Yurei's expression darkened—not angry, but wounded. Genuinely wounded.
"I don't want to manipulate you," she said quietly. "I want you to remember me."
Ren forced a breath. "I'm not him."
"Yes," she said softly. "You are. And when you accept that, everything will stop hurting."
The grass beneath her feet shifted into shadows. The moon brightened.
She stepped close enough for Ren to feel the coolness of her presence.
"Choose me, Ren. Come to me. Before the seal consumes you."
Ren closed his eyes.
And in the darkness behind his eyelids, a single voice rose—not Yurei, not the sealed god.
Ayaka.
Her voice called him back without words.
When Ren opened his eyes, he pushed Yurei's hand away.
Her expression froze—hurt, then regret, then a glint of something dangerous beneath the sorrow.
"Your human anchor," she whispered. "Ayaka Mori."
Ren's blood ran cold. "Don't go near her."
Yurei's smile returned—not kind this time.Sad. Sweet. Fatal.
"I see. She's the one who steadies you."
"Leave her alone," he said more firmly.
"I have no wish to harm her," Yurei said. "But she stands between us. And in time, the seal will choose."
She touched her fingers to his heart—not physically, but spiritually.
"Come find me, Ren. Before your humanity shatters."
The world cracked like glass.
Moonlight shattered.
The dream imploded.
Awakening
Ren lunged upright in his cot, gasping, drenched in cold sweat. The tent flickered back into clarity—the lantern burning low, Ayaka sitting with her blade across her lap, eyes snapping toward him instantly.
"Ren!" She moved to his side in an instant. "What happened? Talk to me."
Ren pressed trembling hands to his face.
"She was here."
Ayaka froze. "Yurei?"
Ren nodded. "She pulled me into a dream. Or a spirit realm. Something between."
Ayaka clenched her jaw. "Did she hurt you?"
"No," he said. "She… talked. She says she knew me. In another life."
Ayaka's eyes sharpened. "That's absurd."
Ren swallowed hard. "She claims she can quiet the seal."
Ayaka's grip on his arm tightened. "Ren. Look at me. That woman wants the god resurrected. She wants the seal to overtake you."
"She didn't say that."
"She didn't need to."
Ren felt torn—deeply, painfully torn. Yurei's presence had been soothing… too soothing. As if it fit into the cracks inside him like it belonged there.
Ayaka cupped his face, forcing his gaze to hers.
"Ren. I'm real. I'm here. Whatever she showed you wasn't truth. It was bait."
His breath shook.
Ayaka wasn't moonlight, wasn't ethereal, wasn't soft-spoken devotion.She was grit and warmth and unwavering will.
And her touch pushed the god's whisper back more effectively than Yurei's moonlit voice.
Ren closed his eyes into her palms.
"Don't let me fall," he whispered.
"Not a chance," Ayaka breathed.
Outside the tent, the wind rose.
And somewhere in the distance, a woman's soft voice drifted across the valley—heard not by the ears, but by the seal itself.
—Beloved… don't fight me forever.
Ren flinched.
Ayaka steadied him again.
But the darkness inside him stirred, caught between two pulls:
Moonlight. And the anchor who refused to let go.