The hidden shrine stood like a forgotten memory, wrapped in creeping vines and quiet menace. Time had bent the stone steps, and the moss-covered torii gate loomed overhead like a warning long ignored. The canopy above filtered the light into dim green patches, casting the area in an eerie calm. No birds chirped. No wind stirred. Just silence—deep and ancient.
Raito stepped forward with calm, deliberate footsteps, every motion precise. In his hand, he held a small charm—one of Kurai's old sigils he had pried from a damaged grimoire she'd once mocked as useless. Now, he wielded it like a key.
"This is it," he muttered, scanning the mossy ground. His sharp gaze landed on the faint trail of magical energy etched in the earth—barely visible even to trained eyes. It pulsed like a dying heartbeat.
Kurai's voice slipped into his mind with a groan. "Seriously? You really came all the way out here? We just climbed a mountain."
Raito ignored her.
"Raito," she said again, more annoyed this time. "You promised you wouldn't touch her prison without cause."
"I said I wouldn't awaken her without cause," Raito corrected coldly. "And I haven't. Not yet."
Kurai's voice went flat. "Don't play word games with me. You know well this shrine is dangerous."
"I've survived worse."
"This is different."
Raito's expression didn't change as he stepped further inside. He stopped in the center of the stone courtyard, gaze scanning across the broken altar, the faded runes. Most of the structure had been worn away by years of rain and wind, but he felt it—the pull, the pressure. There was power here, ancient and dense, buried beneath the surface.
He knelt down and placed his hand against the ground.
Kurai's tone turned from irritated to uneasy. "…Raito. Don't."
Still nothing.
The ground was cold under his palm. Energy spiraled in threads, like roots stretching through soil. He let out a slow breath, closing his eyes, focusing—not on his own thoughts, but hers.
Kurai's.
He opened himself up, just enough to let her instincts surface.
She tried to resist.
He didn't care.
He wasn't trying to talk to her. He was using her.
"Kurai," he said aloud, softly. "You don't have to help me. You just have to be scared."
And with that, he felt it.
A flicker of panic buried under her anger.
It wasn't much—but it was enough.
Raito's eyes snapped open. "Found it."
"No—Raito, stop—"
He stepped away from the altar and made his way to the edge of the shrine, where a half-collapsed statue of a forgotten deity stood. There, beneath a worn slab of stone, he found it.
A seal etched into the dirt with ink older than any contract.
It pulsed faintly, a dull red glow just beneath the earth. The seal wasn't meant to be found. It was meant to be ignored, buried in time and memory.
Raito crouched again, brushing the dirt away until the entire design lay bare. It was complex—layered with old demonic script, human wards, and celestial barriers laced in silver dust.
Kurai's voice was louder now, more frantic. "I mean it, Raito! You don't know what you're doing—"
"Yes," Raito said plainly, eyes locked on the glowing lines. "I do."
He raised his hand and placed it over the seal.
And pressed down.
The reaction was instant.
The seal flared to life beneath his palm—light exploded outward in a circle, the air around him crackling with dark energy. Symbols lit up like fire, spiraling out with a screeching sound that echoed deep into the woods. The ground trembled beneath him.
And then—
A sharp crack split the air.
The seal fractured.
And shattered.
The energy dispersed in a gust of wind, knocking leaves and debris into the sky. The forest held its breath.
Raito rose to his feet, dusting off his coat with no visible expression.
Kurai's voice didn't come right away.
When it did, it was low. Furious.
"…You idiot."
He didn't respond.
He just stood there, watching the broken seal fade into stillness, and said one thing:
"I want to know who I'm really dealing with."
Then he turned to leave.
But the wind behind him had started to change—sharper, heavier, like something breathing for the first time in centuries.
And deep beneath the earth… something stirred.