Chapter 8: The Awakened One
The silence was heavy. The Guardian stood like a monolith — sword pointed at the floor, head tilted ever so slightly as if it could smell Shiro's weakness.
Shiro's vision swam. His right eye was gone, his lungs burned, and his arms trembled with every breath. Still, he staggered forward, one boot dragging slightly behind the other.
Above, Hamiel hovered silently, watching.
"This is your final test," he repeated. "Prove yourself… or become another forgotten soul in this place."
Shiro tightened his grip on his sword. His blood soaked the leather. The weapon itself was chipped, the tip bent from repeated clashes. Still, he raised it.
"I'm not dying here," Shiro muttered. "I've come too far."
The Guardian moved.
Not with rage — but with purpose. Like a law made flesh. Its blade arced forward in a crushing, diagonal cleave.
CLANG!
Sparks exploded as Shiro blocked — knees buckling beneath the force. He was flung back against the ground like a ragdoll. Pain shot through his spine. But he stood again.
The Guardian advanced — sword slamming, shoulder-checking, boot-stomping. Shiro dodged. Rolled. Parried.
But each movement bled him.
Too slow.
Too much damage.
Too little left.
His strikes were growing wild, desperate. But there was something in his eyes — a red glimmer beneath the pain, the same haunted gleam that once shone the night he first crossed into this world.
The Guardian raised its blade for a crushing downward strike.
Shiro gritted his teeth, screamed, and charged — sword raised high, every muscle in his body pulled tight like a bowstring.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
CLASH!
Shiro's sword met the Guardian's with explosive force — the impact sent out a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath them and shattered distant pillars.
The Guardian staggered back, its weapon knocked aside for the first time.
Shiro gasped, seeing the opening.
He stepped forward — blood leaking from his mouth, from the corner of his good eye, trailing behind his boots.
He swung.
CRACK.
His sword shattered in mid-swing — blade fracturing into a hundred shards of steel and karmic energy.
Shiro's body lurched forward with the momentum, wide open.
Too late to guard.
The Guardian drove its greatsword forward.
Impaled.
The blade burst through his abdomen — steel piercing flesh and bone. Blood sprayed from Shiro's mouth in a violent cough. The impact sent him sailing backward, skewered, until he slammed into the stone wall with a sickening crunch.
His body slid down slowly, leaving a red smear against the stone. The broken hilt of his sword fell from limp fingers.
He collapsed in a seated sprawl against the wall, legs sprawled, barely conscious. Blood streamed from his mouth, his ears, his nose — a ruin of a body. He tried to move but couldn't feel his arms. Couldn't feel his legs.
Breathing was a ragged, wet rattle.
His eye, half-lidded, twitched upward.
The Guardian advanced — each step heavy, merciless. No haste. No emotion.
It was over.
Above, Hamiel's voice echoed with chilling serenity.
"So this is the end… of you."
Shiro's head lolled. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
But beneath that noise… another sound stirred.
And then — a vision.
Not of the future. Not of the present.
Of everything he'd ever lost.
Memories Flashing before him, the Pain, Tourment, Betrayel, The Change, he thought to himself while in a dying state, heh… was this who i was before…? Shiro's Fury began to rupture, he gritted his teeth, …thats pathetic, I WAS SO PATHETIC.. HOW DID I LIVE LIKE THIS
"A thread breaks. A thread binds. A thread remembers."
Shiro's head slumped. Blood poured freely down his chin. His limbs were stone. His heart was thunder.
The Guardian marched forward like a tomb come to life. Its jagged black sword gleamed with echoes of every failed warrior that had stood where Shiro now bled.
And yet…
Something was Stirring up
Not within his body — that was broken. But within his soul.
A thread tugged
It was thin. Barely there. But it pulsed with memory.
With grief.
With truth.
Shiro's eye snapped wide — the one he had left.
In that moment, the world cracked.
Threads surged into his vision — thousands, no — millions of luminous cords dancing in space. They connected everything: the stone, the blood, the Guardian, himself.
And then they dove into his chest — into something broken, sealed.
The Retrospective Knot
A black mass of karmic thread, wrapped in guilt, burned at the center of his soul — pulsing like a bleeding heart.
And in that moment — he remembered.
Not faces. Not names.
But feelings.
Shame. Rage. Longing. The need to fight — to keep moving — even if he didn't know why.
The knot exploded.
A pillar of light erupted from Shiro's body — threads flaring outward, burning with lunar flame and twilight ash. His back arched. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
His right eye reformed — not human, not divine. A radiant silver iris with a gear-shaped pupil and rings of thread rotating like a celestial loom.
The X-shaped scar remained — a mark of what was lost, not forgotten.
Around his arms, sleeves unraveled into floating ribbons of thread — shimmering strands that shifted color with his breath. His broken sword reformed in his hand — now a weaver's blade, stitched together by radiant karmic bindings.
His hair flowed with unseen wind. His cloak formed from the fragments of regret.
A voice rang in the air:
"THREADBEARER — Memory Forger of the Broken Loom."
The Guardian charged — blade raised, rage humming.
Shiro stood tall — body humming with infinite threadlines — and raised his new sword.
"Let's see your sins."
The threads lashed outward — piercing into the Guardian's body, soul, and past.
He began binding memory to pain.
With Each swing of his blade unraveled the Guardian's will — forcing it to relive ancient defeats, to feel every death it ever caused.
The Guardian swung.
Shiro parried with Thread-Binding Seal — locking the attack in a karmic echo, then reversing it. The Guardian's own sword bent toward itself, slicing into its armor.
"This blade doesn't cut steel…" Shiro whispered. "It cuts who you are."
He spun. Slashed. Threads flared.
Fear of Failure
Eternal Loneliness
Duty Over Self
All of these were known as binds, Hamiel says
The Guardian roared, its form unraveling into a storm of dark ash.
Shiro raised his sword one final time. The threads surged like a tidal wave.
In a voice with rage, but also serenity
Loomfire Severence…
He struck.
The Guardian's body shattered — threads bursting from within — and collapsed into silence.
Shiro stood still, breathing hard, silver eye glowing like a dying star.
The battlefield was empty. No blood. No screams. Just thread. Memory. Weight.
Hamiel descended slowly, silent.
"…You surpassed expectation," he finally said. "But at what cost?"
Shiro didn't answer. He simply looked down at his hands — and the scars burned into them.
Then he turned toward the exit.
A trail of thread followed him like a cloak.
From Broken to Woven, A chance for Redemption…
As Shiro contined walking out, when he stepped foot outside of the dungeon he collapsed
In his subconsciousness
Hamiel appeared behind him, wings folded like paper blades.
"You've stepped beyond the veil, Shiro. You've touched the Loom."
Shiro turned, his body still sore, silver eye throbbing with residual light.
"What… did I just do to that thing?"
"I didn't just kill it. Did I? It felt like something more than that"
Hamiel nodded slowly.
"That is the nature of a Bind."
Shiro blinked. "Bind?"
Hamiel raised a pale hand, and between his fingers a golden thread sparked to life — glowing faintly, vibrating with pain.
"Every soul carries weight — a karmic thread spun from memory, emotion, regret."
"When you awakened as a Threadbearer, you gained the power to touch those threads."
The thread began to fray — splitting into thinner fibers, each pulsing with a different memory.
"By using your sword — or your eye — you can Bind your enemy's thread to a moment in their past."
"Not physically… spiritually. Emotionally. Karmically."
"You force them to relive what still haunts them. And in that moment, they falter."
Shiro stared at the threads as they unraveled.
"So I'm not just fighting them. I'm fighting their… trauma?"
Hamiel's expression remained unreadable.
"Precisely. Their doubts, failures, guilt — all become weapons in your hands."
"And those who carry the most pain are the easiest to tear apart."
Hamiel flicked the thread. It snapped. The echo was like a scream.
"Each Bind has a name. A trigger. A memory."
He raised his hand again — threads blossomed around Shiro in all directions.
Bind: Fear of Failure
"They hesitate. You strike."
"Perfect for knights, leaders… those raised to never fail."
Bind: Mirror of Guilt
"Let them taste their own blade — feel the pain they gave others."
"It punishes cruelty without cause."
Bind: Loneliness Eternal
"Tear away their sense of presence."
"They hear nothing. Feel nothing. Fight no one — but themselves."
Bind: Duty Over Self
"For those who live only for purpose, never for love."
"It leaves them hollow. Weak. Exposed."
Hamiel stepped closer.
"You can even turn your own memories into weapons."
The more you suffer, the stronger your Binds become."
Shiro looked down at his hand — threadlight now gently flickering from beneath his skin.
"So… I use my own scars… to exploit theirs?"
Hamiel smiled thinly.
"You don't exploit. You understand. That is what makes you dangerous."
"Because to truly wound someone… you must know who they were."
Hamiel turned away, his wings beginning to fade.
"You are a Memory Forger, Shiro. You don't just fight. You rewrite fate."
"Learn to read the threads. Twist them. Cut them. Bind them."
"And when the time comes… even the gods won't escape the weight of what they've done."
The floating void began to tremble with light. Threads of gold, silver, and black swirled around Hamiel's outstretched hand like reverent spirits.
A flash.
And then — a massive, ancient book appeared, hovering between them.
Its leather binding was etched with threadlike runes that pulsed in rhythm with Shiro's heartbeat. The pages were thick, glowing faintly. A shimmering seal, in the shape of a closed eye, flickered on its cover.
Hamiel floated the book toward Shiro, who caught it with both hands. It was warm — like holding something alive.
"This is the Codex of Loomwoven Truths," Hamiel said calmly. "A compendium of basic knowledge — both of this world… and the karmic forces that govern it."
Hamiel raised a single hand, and the air rippled — like reality itself bent around his palm. Threads of golden light spiraled upward, braiding together into the shape of a large tome. It pulsed with quiet power as it formed, hovering above Shiro's hands.
The cover was wrapped in weathered leather, inked with delicate runes that shimmered like starlight. At its center was a seal — a closed eye sewn shut by a single silver thread.
"This," Hamiel said, voice soft but absolute, "is the Codex of Loomwoven Truths. It contains knowledge meant for those who walk between fate and memory. For you."
Shiro held it carefully. The weight wasn't physical — it was spiritual, as though he held the history of an entire world stitched between its pages. As he opened the book, the letters shifted and reformed in real time, adapting to his understanding. It was reading him as much as he was reading it.
The first pages were calm — a recounting of Elserune, the realm he now wandered. Kingdoms risen and fallen. Wars fought over divine principles long forgotten. Spirits and beasts, mortals and monsters, all bound by one unseen force: karma.
Here, karma wasn't just cause and effect. It was threadwork — a tangible force woven through every living soul. Every action, every decision, every lie and truth tightened or loosened a thread that pulled you toward destiny — or tore you from it.
He read of those who used this power. Wyrdspeakers who could command fate through karmic incantations. Sinweavers who carved strength from their own transgressions. Blessborn, rare souls marked by divine favor, able to tip the scales of karma itself with a single breath. And then… there were the Threadbearers.
Unlike the others, Threadbearers were rare beyond reason. Only seven were known in recorded history — and even then, only fragments of their stories remained. They weren't warriors or priests. They were readers of the Loom. Benders of legacy. Binders of truth. And in some cases… forgers of memory itself.
And now, Shiro was the eighth.
The page turned on its own, glowing ink crawling across parchment like breath made visible.
A new section formed, one he knew hadn't existed moments ago.
It bore his name.
Shiro Hoshigaki. His true name — written in ink formed from ash and light. Beneath it, his path was inscribed: Memory Forger of the Broken Loom.
The entry described him with eerie precision. A soul displaced. Memories severed, but not destroyed. Guilt buried like coal beneath skin, waiting to be reignited.
His primary ability was marked as the Retrospective Knot — a karmic core of his forgotten self, burned into existence by pain. Although Shiro could not recall the memories fueling it, the power remained, like a phantom limb of the soul. These fragments were his sword — fuel for Binds that could twist the psyches of others and turn their regret into tangible punishment.
The text continued, chronicling the Thread-Binding Seal, an evolved trait that let him tether an enemy's soul to their own suppressed past. Through it, he could manifest weakness, fear, despair — not by wounding flesh, but by cutting into what defined a person. Every scar. Every wrong. Every secret shame. A battlefield of truth.
But what stunned Shiro most was the final revelation: his ultimate potential. The book claimed he could become a true Memory Forger — a being capable of rewriting karmic identities. Not merely exposing past pain, but creating new ones. Healing what was broken, or breaking what once stood tall. It warned him, though — that every thread he forged in others… would twist his own in turn.
He stared at that page for a long while.
When he looked up, Hamiel was watching quietly, his wings folded tight like a judgment passed in silence.
"You made this entry," Shiro muttered. "Didn't you?"
Hamiel gave the smallest nod. "I recorded what was necessary. You are not like the others. You are not native to this loom. Your thread was torn from its origin and repurposed. That makes you dangerous."
Shiro exhaled slowly, hand still resting on the open book. "So, what now?"
Hamiel's eyes gleamed like distant stars. "Now, you learn. You bind. You forge. You carry your past — even the parts you cannot remember. And eventually, Shiro…" he gestured toward the infinite darkness beyond, where threads of color danced like constellations, "you will decide whether to mend this world… or unravel it."
The Codex closed with a quiet thud — a sound like finality.
And in that silence, Shiro knew something had changed.
Not just in him.
But in everything.
hidden in a side chapter.