"It's not what you carry that curses you. It's what you leave behind."
---
Kyoto was quiet again.
No battles. No flames. No distant cries of yokai spilling from the rift.
And no Sacred Gear.
Takashi sat at the shrine gate, watching morning dew roll off the old stone. He reached into himself and found… nothing. No embers, no heat, not even the faint memory of the fire that once made him more than human.
It was gone. And yet, something still itched beneath his skin. Not power—but weight.
Like the ashes of a god hadn't left… they'd just settled deeper.
---
Azazel visited only once that week. Long enough to check Takashi's pulse and say something cryptic like:
"You'll hear footsteps before the storm, kid. Stay alert."
Then he vanished into the Grigori underground again.
Hikari, on the other hand, never left.
She cooked. She cleaned. She practiced her ofuda and renewed the shrine wards with unspoken urgency. Every day she said nothing about the fire. Every night she sat near Takashi until he slept.
And each night, Takashi dreamed of **a bell.**
Faint. Distant. Always ringing from the east.
---
The first sign came in the form of **a letter.**
Delivered by a white feathered dove—dead on arrival, its body singed.
The seal on the scroll was unmistakable: a flaming cross surrounded by seven rings.
**Heaven's Burial Division.**
Takashi broke the seal, unfolded the scroll, and read aloud:
"*To the one who once held the fire: we come not to judge but to retrieve what was left behind. Kyoto's peace masks a deeper rot. We have been sent to cleanse it—regardless of your consent.*"
Signed with a single name:
**Irina Shidou.**
---
Hikari's reaction was instant.
"They'll want to dissect you."
Takashi raised an eyebrow. "Charming."
She crossed her arms. "I mean it. The Heaven's Burial Division doesn't *help* people. They bury cursed artifacts. They wipe out vessels. If they think any trace of the Infernal Requiem remains in you…"
He understood.
They'd put him down.
---
They arrived the next night.
Three cloaked exorcists bearing glowing blades and silver prayer-tattoos. And at their head, dressed in modern clothes and smiling like the world was full of good tea and easy problems—
**Irina Shidou.**
She stood on the shrine steps and bowed deeply.
"Sorry for the sudden visit. We didn't want to startle anyone."
Takashi stepped forward. "You already did."
She studied him. Her eyes weren't cold. Just tired.
"You're the boy who burned a gate closed with a Forbidden Verse, right?"
Takashi hesitated. "That was before."
Her smile faded. "And now?"
"I'm just a boy."
She didn't reply right away.
Then: "We'll see."
---
They stayed for three days.
Her team swept the ley lines beneath the shrine. Ran diagnostics. Purified the walls with light spells and Holy Water.
Hikari glared at them the whole time.
Irina, to her credit, tried to make conversation.
"So," she said one morning, sitting beside Takashi near the camphor tree, "what's it like waking up after dying?"
He gave her a sideways glance. "Painful."
She nodded, watching the wind move the grass. "I've died once too. Short time. Just long enough to hear angels singing the wrong pitch."
"You're not what I expected," he admitted.
"I get that a lot."
---
That evening, the readings came in.
One of Irina's men approached her with a serious face and whispered something.
She didn't look at Takashi—but he knew.
There was something still inside him.
Hikari intercepted Irina before she could speak.
"You're not touching him."
Irina raised a hand. "We're not here to hurt him."
"You're here to remove what's left."
"Because what's left is still dangerous," Irina said gently. "He burned out a god's spirit—but it didn't leave *clean.* There's residue. Maybe even *sentience.*"
Takashi stepped between them.
"Then talk to *me,* not her."
---
Irina met his gaze. "What do you feel when you close your eyes?"
"Nothing."
"Not true," she said. "You've been dreaming of bells."
He stiffened.
"You don't remember?" she asked.
"I didn't tell anyone about that."
Irina's face was solemn. "We've seen this before. A bell heard only in dreams—it means part of the Sacred Gear is still active, hidden deep, trying to regrow."
Takashi's stomach turned.
"I destroyed it."
"You destroyed the *flame,*" she said. "Not the *gear.*"
---
The next night, the bells rang in reality.
It began at dusk—low, melodic tones from beneath the city.
Then came the fog.
Thick. Golden. Tasting of ash.
Irina's team went on high alert. Hikari began reinforcing wards.
Takashi stood still, heart pounding.
The fire was gone. He was defenseless.
But still…
He felt the pull.
A pulse beneath the earth.
And a voice.
**"You forgot your name."**
---
Irina and Takashi descended into the city's spiritual underlayer—an old, sealed shrine built beneath Kyoto Station, where the boundary between worlds had once been paper-thin.
They found it shattered.
A gate had reformed.
Not a rift—but a mirror. A passage made of *memory.*
And in its center stood a familiar silhouette.
**Kazuo.**
No longer a ghost.
Now whole.
Alive.
Wielding a fragment of the Infernal Requiem's shell, wrapped in cursed black fire.
"Takashi," he said, smiling faintly. "I brought you your name."
---
Irina raised her sword instantly. "Get back. That's not human."
Takashi shook his head. "No. He *was* me. Or a future I burned away."
Kazuo stepped forward. "You tried to seal me. You thought self-destruction would make you pure. But you left the *core.*"
"What do you want?"
"To finish what I started," Kazuo said. "To *become* the fire again."
Irina's magic blade lit. "Not while I breathe."
Kazuo smiled. "Then stop breathing."
---
The fight was brutal.
Kazuo moved like a phantom—faster, stronger, anchored by Takashi's old soul echoes.
Irina fought with precision—wings flaring, light magic bursting from her blade in waves.
Takashi watched, powerless.
Until the bells rang *inside* him.
And the fire answered—not as power.
But as **a choice.**
---
He stepped into the path of a cursed strike meant for Irina.
It slashed across his chest—tearing flesh, exposing something that should've been gone.
A glowing ember.
Small.
But alive.
Kazuo's eyes widened. "So you kept it after all."
Takashi coughed blood. "No. You did. I just *carried* it."
He reached inside.
And pulled it free.
A single flame.
Pure. Golden.
And he whispered:
**"No more verses. No more gods. Just me."**
---
He cast the flame forward.
Not as a weapon.
But as *acceptance.*
It hit Kazuo like a prayer.
And burned him *clean.*
No screams.
Just silence.
And then—
Ash.
---
Later, Takashi awoke in a Grigori tent.
Irina sat nearby, reading quietly.
"You didn't kill him," she said. "You forgave him."
"He was me," Takashi whispered.
"You could've taken the power back."
"I don't want it."
She nodded. "Good."
Then she added: "But it still wants *you.*"
He closed his eyes.
And heard no bells.