The next morning, Kyoto lay under a veil of soft mist. The narrow streets were hushed, and the old city's quiet pulse echoed louder in the fog. Takashi walked alone, his hands buried deep in his jacket pockets. The warmth did little to stop the cold sweat dripping down his spine.
He had dreamed again. Not of battlefields this time, but of the shrine. Except it was whole. Its statues gleamed, its torii stood bright red and freshly painted, and the kitsune spirits had watched him—not as an outsider, but something more.
He walked the path leading back up to the shrine. This time, the fox statues seemed closer together. Watching.
When he stepped beneath the torii, he felt it immediately. The same pull in his chest, like a string tied to his heart. A hum beneath the ground.
He wasn't alone.
"You came back."
The voice belonged to a girl standing near the top of the stairs. She wore a shrine maiden's uniform—white haori, red hakama—and her black hair was tied behind her in a neat ribbon. Her face was calm, but her eyes were sharp.
"I had to," Takashi said. "This place… it's calling me."
"It's not calling. It's warning."
He frowned. "You work here?"
She nodded. "My name's Hikari. I'm a miko. My family tends the old shrines. This one is off-limits."
"I'm not trying to cause trouble," he said. "I just... I don't know what else to do."
Hikari studied him for a moment. "You're not fully human, are you?"
His breath caught. "You can tell?"
"Your aura's wrong. Chaotic. Like two things fighting inside you."
"I think I'm part yokai. Kitsune, maybe."
"That would explain the fire," she said.
Takashi blinked. "You've seen it?"
"I've seen worse. You're lucky it hasn't burned you alive."
He turned away, embarrassed. "It's not something I can control."
"Not yet," she said. "But maybe you can learn. If the shrine accepts you."
They sat on the stone steps, watching the mist twist through the trees. Hikari explained the shrine's history—how it had once been a sacred site for yokai and spirits before it was sealed.
"It closed after a boy with cursed flames burned half the mountainside a century ago," she said. "Some say he had a Sacred Gear too."
Takashi tensed. "Mine is called Infernal Requiem."
Her head turned sharply. "That name... it's one of the forbidden ones."
"I didn't choose it."
She was silent for a moment. "Be careful. Sacred Gears like that don't protect. They consume."
That night, the flames returned.
They came during sleep, when his body was still but his soul aflame. He found himself in a different place—a battlefield lit by black fire. All around him, figures fell. Angels, devils, humans. A sword made of flame grew from his palm.
But something was wrong.
This time, the fire turned toward him. His own flame.
It spoke in a voice made of screams.
"You are not its master. You are its vessel."
He woke drenched in sweat, a mark burned into the skin of his chest. A fox's eye surrounded by flames.
The first sign of awakening.
His reflection in the mirror shimmered. Two golden eyes. A faint outline of tails swaying behind him.
He wasn't human anymore.