[I recalled the voice that had entered my mind right before I collapsed. It was the first hint of this new reality.]
[Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare ?????. Prepare for your First Trial]
Dry Water felt something rushing through his entire body as he fell to his knees. His veins felt like they were burning, getting twisted and frozen all at the same time.
'This... Is pain.'
After centuries, Dry Water felt pain again.
Then it stopped. He braced for the aftershock, but nothing came.
[I tried again. I moved slower this time and forced the memory forward with extreme care.]
[TAP.]
[Aspirant. Welcome to the Nightmare ?????-]
It returned instantly, far worse than before.
He would have passed out if he still had the ability to do so, but his body did not allow it.
The sensation slowly faded, leaving Dry Water on his knees, shaking uncontrollably.
***
Over time, Dry Water felt the exhaustion and mental fatigue Ayanokouji had endured. He felt tired, remembered that blood used to be warm, and felt trapped.
When Ayanokouji retraced his footprints back to the well, Dry Water questioned why. Why was he looking down when his memory was so extraordinary? Why was he putting on a fake act?
He felt it as Ayanokouji walked forward and backward for hours.
Dry Water ran from the voidwalkers closing in behind him, the fatigue quietly following close behind.
He had known what Ayanokouji was doing from the start. The pattern was obvious. The water, the safe points, the controlled pace - this was not an escape. However, knowing the plan did not prepare him for what the body would demand as payment.
He jumped into the well without hesitation.
The drop stole the air from his lungs.
The water swallowed him, and he forced himself down, deeper and deeper, until the surface became a distant memory and the noise above faded away.
He reached the bottom.
He found the end.
Finally, he stopped.
He pressed himself into the dark and held his breath.
That was all it took.
The moment stillness arrived, the body remembered everything it had been postponing, feeling close to death.
***
There was a moment where Dry Water endured everything and didn't think for a single second.
It wasn't when the vowalkers chased him, and it wasn't when fatigue started stalking his limbs. It was down inside the well, when Ayanokouji began swimming again and again through the dark.
He moved toward each vowalker like the water didn't exist. The distance was treated like a simple number to erase. Dry Water felt the cold press into the skin, felt the drag against the arms, felt the lungs tighten from held breath that kept being held too long.
Dry Water felt it all exaggerated, as if centuries without sensation had sharpened every nerve into something cruel. And still, during that stretch, he stayed calm. Ayanokouji reached the silt where the organs were.
The hands plunged in. It clung thickly.
Dry Water felt the texture with a clarity, the way it gripped and released, the way the water turned heavier around the wrist as the silt stirred. Then the fingers closed around something. Something that made his mind flinch even though the hand didn't.
Ayanokouji pulled it free, and the body didn't pause to acknowledge what it had touched. He simply tucked it away and swam again, repeating the motion with other Vowalkers.
Even Dry Water had became calm, he endured whatever he was feeling... Just for this moment he didn't do anything. He paid respect to the Vowalkers for protecting everyone for so long.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
Shut up.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
[You have slain a dormant beast, Remorse Eater's Vowalker.]
Dry Water couldn't rest mentally anymore.
***
Every time Dry Water was about to rest... He had simply time skipped past it to the next challange not allowing any peace for Dry Water.
Now Dry Water had reached it, The very ending of the memory.
["Can you see my memory if I play it back?"]
This has been a journey. Even if he is almost dead, he would never forget it. If he could go back in time and someone offered him to relive it, he would always say yes.
He had truly felt that he was still alive, even though it felt as if his own body had digested him because of the hunger. Even though every single body part could no longer move, he truly enjoyed that experience.
["Indeed I can. Even if it takes time, go ahead. I have forgotten the concept of time centuries ago."]
Ayanokouji finally closed his eyes, and Dry Water successfully dove into them. As he tuned into the forming imagery, the cave around them began to dissolve.
The walls thinned first until they became dust, and the glow of the skeleton dimmed into floating specks of light. Every particle vibrated for a moment, then broke apart in complete silence.
Stone, shadow, and stillness crumbled away layer by layer, falling deeper than any lake or abyss could reach. Piece by piece, the entire scene vanished from existence, drawn into a vast and soundless void, until not even the memory of the cave remained.
Now, everything was a void.
***
Dry Water was now falling or floating through the void. He was still inside the body, his arms slack and his legs bent slightly. Hair drifted in a slow motion that made no sense, because there was no current to carry it.
Amidst all this, he was reciting a forgotten poem that goes like:
When all is taken beneath Remorse's hand, he shall come.
He who bears a dark past, sealed behind the heart of white.
O Messiah... let us not linger in living.
For we have endured beyond endurance.
Grant us our final endeavor.
One last stride into the afterlife.
To us who were left behind, carrying the burden of protecting others from Remorse...
Even if thought has withered within us... Struggle.
The end is near.
Dry Water revisited it while floating in a world of darkness.
He tried to swallow, but his throat did not respond. He tried to blink, but his eyelids refused to move, leaving his eyes wide open. The lingering fatigue from the nightmare still clung to his muscles.
Then, small sections of the void began changing colors, shifting together to form a shape. It took a moment for the outline of Ayanokouji to form, and when it did, Dry Water felt something cold settle deep inside him.
He was supposedly inside Ayanokouji's floating body, yet Ayanokouji had just appeared right in front of him. A chair materialized behind Ayanokouji as he sat down, looking down at his own floating body where Dry Water was trapped.
The body began to move. Its eyes opened wider and locked onto Ayanokouji's gaze. Dry Water had not commanded the action, yet he felt the movement happen through his flesh.
If Ayanokouji was standing in front of him, then whose body was he trapped inside?
"Is this also part of your nightmare?"
Dry Water asked, granted just enough control over his throat to speak. In return, Ayanokouji simply stared at him.
Dry Water felt the void shift beneath him while his body maintained eye contact with Ayanokouji. The body plunged downward, and Ayanokouji vanished into the distance.
A section of darkness hardened into a floor, and the body crashed down onto it.
The legs hit first.
Pain tore through the body so sharply that Dry Water's mind nearly went blank, but the scream never left his throat. The sound remained trapped inside him, strangled by the same force keeping his eyelids open. He lay there, twisted, unable to curl up or clutch the injury.
Ayanokouji looked down from above.
"Yes, and this is the part where I fell."
The body's head rose, dragging the broken frame upward.
Dry Water spoke again, his voice shaking with pain he could no longer hide.
"The way you edit your own memories is fascinating. But do you think this illusion is enough to trick me? The one in front of me is an illusion. The real one is still inside this body, imagining everything that is happening."
Then came a genuine question.
"Do you not feel pain?"
Ayanokouji leaned back slightly in the chair as if settling into something comfortable, and the void around them tightened like a noose.
The body moved again. Slowly, its arm lifted until the hand hovered in front of Dry Water's eyes.
One moment the hand was intact, and the next, it separated cleanly at the wrist. The severed hand vanished into the darkness.
Blood pulsed from the stump, spilling in slow ropes that drifted into the void before breaking into dark beads.
The exposed end of the forearm was horrifying. Pale bone, torn muscle fibers, and a wet shine where tendons had snapped and recoiled.
"Nothing like this happened." Ayanokouji kept his eyes locked on the stump and the slow pulse of blood leaving the body. "But when someone remembers everything perfectly, what stops him from adding new imagination to the end of a memory?"
Dry Water forced himself to look up at him.
"Just how high is your pain tolerance? But more importantly... why are you doing this? All I wanted was to help you."
"Let us play a game, Dry Water. I will reveal your hand, and I will ask questions."
The body Dry Water occupied turned completely upside down.
"The longer you take to answer, the worse my memories will become."
Slowly, the hand that had fallen into the void reappeared, stitching itself back onto Dry Water's arm.
"Let us begin, Dry Water.
***
As Ayanokouji spoke, both he and Dry Water broke apart into dark beads, scattering through the void.
Color bled across the darkness, spreading outward until it transformed into a night sky.
The ground split open to reveal a river, and land formed on either side. The area beyond the stream was filled with dead trees and bare dirt, while the land before it was a barren waste of ridges, hills, and sparse patches of grass.
Ayanokouji was about to become the destroyer of this world.
Standing atop the highest hill, Ayanokouji looked directly toward the stream.
Dry Water realized that neither of them was inside a physical body anymore. Ayanokouji was constructing everything in his mind down to the smallest detail.
A voice echoed inside his head.
"It is too late to show you memories again."
The world was suddenly swallowed by darkness, as brief as a blink.
When the darkness lifted, night had fallen. Cratered ruins stretched in every direction. Ayanokouji, his hair soaking wet and hanging over his face, walked through the chaos.
Another blink.
He was resting by the river.
Another blink.
He was fleeing from Vowalkers on the opposite side of the water.
Another blink.
He was talking with villagers.
Finally, Ayanokouji spoke.
"Do you know that two distinct feelings have been shaping my thoughts? I actually put them to the test quite often. When I reasoned through the ability of the Vowalkers at the start, the feeling told me I was correct. But when I was in the village with Perla, Eichiro, and him, and I assumed one of them might have a lie detector, a negative feeling stirred inside me. I noticed it, but I let the assumption stand to see if it was accurate. It turned out to be wrong, proving the feeling was correct once again."
Another blink shifted Ayanokouji back to the past, where he was resting by the river and pressing dirt against his feet.
"Doing this was something a fool would do. Dirt is a terrible medium for movement. It shifts, hardens, and creates an uneven surface. In fact, when he looked at me and laughed, that was a hint about the dirt on my feet."
"So when I gained even a small amount of control over my mind, the contradictions became obvious. I began reliving the entire nightmare inside my head. Every time we rested, I replayed it again and again until the fog cleared, turning the smallest details into evidence. That was how I figured so much out."
Another blink, and Ayanokouji was wearing the skin of the Vowalkers.
"Take these two items. They were left out in the cold for a long time, yet they never lost their heat. Even after I stepped inside the second one, the first remained warm."
...
"It was already obvious that something was wrong with the river because of all the inconsistencies surrounding it. But why was I calling it a river in the first place? It was only seven meters wide. Even the smallest river is wider than that."
With another blink, the river expanded.
"Now, this should be called a river, as it is wide and the water flows rapidly. Yet for unknown reasons, I started calling it a lake. Quite stupid, do you not think?"
The surrounding air began to vibrate, and seven organs emerged, floating freely in the air.
"The stream itself was also seven meters wide."
"And the plan with the group was the worst decision I could have made. Why would I attack them head-on? I possessed sharp information that could have broken them without me ever laying a hand on them. Eichiro and Perla both had pasts I could have weaponized. I could have driven them into paranoia and simply outlasted them."
The blinks accelerated rapidly, jumping back and forth through time.
"I was the only one who knew the condition to clear the nightmare. They were clueless. Even after searching every village, they were still walking blind. If the loop had continued a few more times, their minds would have collapsed. I could have told them about the Vowalkers. I could have planted the truth in their minds and watched it poison them. I could have forced them to starve alongside me. Yet I did none of those things."
The rapid blinking finally stopped at the moment Ayanokouji was chasing Perla.
"Even the fact that I only struck after the seventh village reveals a pattern. Dry Water, I may have grown weak, but I am still myself. I can still spot such obvious patterns. None of this can be a coincidence."
"You told me you followed those who could not be named, and that those who could be named did not know you existed. You named six gods with the assumption that I should understand their meaning, implying there were more. After examining all of this, what if the total number was actually seven?"
Ayanokouji went silent for a brief moment.
"But it did not align. You claimed the ones you followed could not be named, yet the gods had names. The answer was not there, but it did not take long for me to figure it out. The nightmare was built on opposites. Regret given physical form. Eichiro and him were the figures who served as my polar opposites and the closest representations of my own remorse. Perla was opposite in gender, and she was the person this body had attached itself to the most."
He continued.
"If the nightmare was a battle against my opposites, what if the entities you followed were not gods at all? What if they were the regrets of gods? Seven gods, seven opposites."
Unfortunately, Ayanokouji had no way of confirming whether his conclusion was true. He could only make educated assumptions.
"The counterparts to gods are referred to as devils. Are the ones who cannot be named actually seven devils?"
The world returned to darkness, leaving two versions of Ayanokouji facing each other, one still seated in the chair.
"Then I realized something else. It was neither the nightmare nor another consciousness controlling my thoughts. When I first carried out the plan at the well, I had no intention of showing respect. I planned to drown the Vowalkers, harvest enough organs to carry out the second plan, and move on. Yet my body moved on its own to give them peace. Why? I did not care about them. I had no reason to. Yet my body resisted whenever I tried to treat them like objects. I handled them as if they were human. And when I showed you everything again, you did the exact same thing. You paid them respect."
The body rose from the chair and placed its hands over the other body's eyes.
"You even agreed. Severing your hand was not meant to torture you. It was simply to force a confession. You mentioned that something like this never happened in the first nightmare. How could you know that unless you have been watching me from the very beginning? You are quite the actor, are you not?"
The head spun around until a sharp bone crack echoed through the space, leaving the face staring up at Ayanokouji, who looked down coldly.
"What do you need from me that you cannot take by force? Let us not pretend you have limits. If you can influence me to this extent, you could kill me whenever you wish or simply take control of my body. Yet you do neither, choosing instead to endure all this pain."
Dry Water finally spoke, his voice matching Ayanokouji's perfectly.
"You really have figured it all out, have you not?"
"Now answer me, Dry Water. If you can influence my body to this extent, why have you not killed me and taken it for yourself?"
'If he could manipulate the nightmare to follow the number seven, influence my body, and create these contradictions, what was stopping him? It was not a simple matter of lacking the ability.'
"To put it simply, if I take over your body and clear this nightmare, the moment I emerge from the trial, _Pell will recognize what I have done and erase me." He paused briefly. "Ayanokouji, I am not an illusion. I am real."
Ayanokouji's eyes widened slightly.
"This was supposed to be impossible. You cannot enter a nightmare if you have already cleared that specific number. Yet I did, and I am suffering for it. I have been trapped inside this nightmare for decades."
"Then the seven you worship, are they devils? Or am I completely wrong?"
"I cannot answer th-"
Before he could finish, Ayanokouji's body formed from dust in an instant, and the hand was chopped off cleanly at the wrist.
Dry Water let out a muffled scream.
"I really cannot tell you that."
"Why can you not tell me?"
"If I reveal more than I am permitted to, you will become corrupted."
"Tell me more about this corruption."
"There are certain secrets that others should never know. You are already dangerously close to the truth. For your own safety, do not pry into the secrets of the world any further."
"You might uncover more than you should and turn into a monster."
Having heard the explanation Dry Water gave him earlier regarding the nightmare, Ayanokouji did not take the warning as a metaphor, but in a literal sense.
"Why do you refuse to leave my mind? Do you enjoy pain?"
"I am showing my sincerity. Even if you subject me to the worst torture imaginable, I will not run away."
The severed hand began to regenerate.
"I have decided to make you my successor."
...
"Are all nightmares supposed to be like this?"
"I have been waiting for you to ask that question."
"I have a theory. Your nightmare is a combination of multiple first trials. The first trial involves killing the Vowalkers using the well, the second is crossing the stream, the third is filling the _Pell, the fourth is granting salvation to the Vowalkers, and the fifth is killing the Remorse Eater."
Ayanokouji processed the information silently for a moment.
"Is this normal?"
"No. First nightmares are never supposed to be this difficult. This is extreme."
"Why me?"
"I do not know the answer to that myself."
"Why do you want me as your successor?"
"You possess the greatest talent I have ever seen. Anyone would kill to have you as their successor."
'There seems to be more to it.'
Dry Water questioned Ayanokouji in return.
"How did you eliminate the movement delay within your body?"
'So he noticed.'
"I will show you, but as soon as I finish, you must help me complete this nightmare."
"I cannot directly interfere. However, I can share one of your memories with you. By analyzing the moments you received your memories, examining the context, and evaluating the _Pell, I can identify the single memory that will help you the most."
"Is that how memories are selected?"
"I wonder."
A cold chill ran down Ayanokouji's spine.
"Before that, I wanted to ask you something. After I analyzed the isolation imposed on me, identified the memory gap between myself and the others, and recognized the restrictions, why did you push me to realize they were illusions instead of offering the simpler explanation of an impostor against the innocent?"
"I cannot tell you that."
Ayanokouji closed his eyes.
"Very well."
Dry Water asked another question.
"But those inconsistencies alone should not have given you absolute proof of my existence. Did you truly stake your life on a mere theory and leap into that river after fleeing from _?"
"There were actually two hints that made me certain of it. The first being my massive blunder by jumping into that well calling it a 90% chance of survival and ten percent of death, while the correct ratio would be somewhat 98% death and 2% survival..
Ayanokouji let out a heavy sigh as the surrounding environment began to shift once more.
"When he lured me through the Vowalkers, what he accomplished should have been impossible. It is impossible to time everything so flawlessly that a village crumbles the exact moment you arrive. Far too many variables can alter the timing, which told me another force was guiding me toward him. I simply traced that force back to the river."
A subtle hint of amusement entered Dry Water's voice.
"So _ engineered the situation to make you aware of my existence while trapping you in the process? A double trap?"
"Indeed."
The body dissolved into dark beads once more, and their vision shifted toward towering trees, right after Ayanokouji had killed Perla.
<<<
After killing Perla, Ayanokouji began walking toward the village to kill Eichiro. He looked back once to where Perla had fallen.
Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.
This is a story about someone who slowly watched everything he cared about get taken away by a demon.
This someone had no memory of who he was, where he had come from, or what he was supposed to do.
Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, he had just one thing left. It was body language and a few forgotten memories of once being loved.
Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.
He froze at the sight of monsters, unable to move.
Yet something within him did.
Something inside him awakened.
Something inside him moved.
He called to that something which moved, but when he called for it, no answer came back.
Step. Step. Step. Step.
Whenever something miraculous happened, he slowly began to understand it. It was him who did it and not the demon. He was the one who did everything. Even though he had felt nervous the first time he ran toward the well, the second time he did not.
Despite being tired, his body still moved, and somewhere within him, he began to think that he must have some...
Hidden potential, man.
Step. Step. Step.
He met people on the other side of the world, but fear followed him. Being scared of others, he did whatever he could. He kidnapped a girl.
"Lingua."
The very first words he heard from his own mouth startled him. He called back into the void, yet no answer came.
Step. Step.
There were three people. One hated him, and he hated the other, yet he could never hate the girl. It was as if she was someone he had known for a long time. And whenever whoever was inside him helped him... he somewhat thought the demon was his friend.
Step.
Now he was desperately trying to hold himself back from following the girl. He was trying to kill her even though he did not want to.
He tried his best to stop.
The body became slower at times.
Delayed at times.
But it did not stop.
He cried for help.
He shouted into the void inside his mind, begging the demon to stop.
...
He killed the only one who accepted him.
Then he walked away like nothing ever happened.
As Ayanokouji walked away from Perla's dead body, there was no delay for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, tears escaped from his eyes, and he fell down to his knees. His hands moved to cover his face, and his tears wet the dirt beneath him.
Everything within his vision was surrounded by darkness.
Inside the darkness of his own head, he saw a silhouette of himself bowed to the ground, refusing to stand. He could hear the crying.
Ayanokouji looked down at the original owner of the body. The man's emotions bled through the mental link, strong enough to force tears into Ayanokouji's eyes. The tears were not his, but they still fell from his face.
Over the time that passed, the man kept on crying, and Ayanokouji never interfered. He watched the ground darken and the man fall into a panic attack.
When the man finally lowered his hands, Ayanokouji remained where he was. His shadow fell over the man's head, even though the void had no true light.
The man, who was still mentally unstable, looked up with red eyes. Only then did Ayanokouji finally decide to confront him.
"Why did you kill Perla?"
The man jerked, as if the name itself had struck him. His lips parted, and for a moment, he looked like he might deny it. The denial died in his throat before it could become sound.
"I..." he whispered, shaking his head. "I didn't-"
"You did."
The words that left Ayanokouji's mouth had no emotion. The man grabbed the dirt and begged the world to let him speak, yet the simple task had become impossible.
"Didn't you just chase her through the jungle?"
"It wasn't-"
Ayanokouji's gaze sharpened.
"Stop."
The man stopped in fear. Ayanokouji leaned down slightly, and the void behind him felt deeper.
"Stop hiding behind confusion or fear. You did it. Accept it."
Ayanokouji crouched down to the ground.
"Accept it. You killed her. It wasn't me."
The man's jaw trembled. His throat worked. His lips tried to form words, but none of them could survive in the space Ayanokouji had created. His breathing became uneven again.
"Even after you killed her, there wasn't a trace of remorse on your face. You just walked away."
"I tried," he whispered. "I tried to stop."
Ayanokouji's stare did not soften.
"Trying is what you say when you want forgiveness without paying for it."
Those words hit harder than blades ever could.
"Perla trusted you," he said. "She held your hand. She showed you the world. And you repaid her by putting her in the ground."
Ayanokouji didn't give him a single second to catch his breath.
"You don't want to be the one who did it," he said. "But wanting doesn't change what your hands did."
The man's lips trembled, and his voice came out thin.
"It wasn't me."
"Say it again."
The man finally forced the sentence out, shaking.
"It wasn't me."
Ayanokouji's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Then who was it?"
The man's throat tightened. His gaze flickered, desperate, searching for an answer that wouldn't destroy him. His lips parted, and his voice broke as the only surviving thought in his mind escaped.
"It was you."
He tilted his head slightly, and for the first time, his expression changed. His tears still clung to his face.
"You think I killed her," Ayanokouji said quietly. "Say it properly."
The man's throat tightened. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. His eyes flickered.
"You're the demon."
Ayanokouji nodded once, almost approving.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why do you not blame the monsters or the circumstances? Why did you specifically target me?"
The man's face contorted, and he tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go.
"Because... you were there. Because I felt you. Because something kept moving."
Ayanokouji stared down at him.
"She called it forbidden love," Ayanokouji said. "She thought it was some blessing, some miracle meant to keep her alive."
"It worked because Perla liked you," he said. "Not me. You. The ability responded to her and your feelings, and it latched onto your existence like a hook."
The man's eyes widened, horror replacing grief for a moment. Ayanokouji watched the realization crawl across his face.
"It was forbidden because you were always going to kill her. The affection was the fuel, and the murder was the destination."
"No," he whispered. "No, I didn't want that."
"What you want is irrelevant. Your body carried the conclusion."
The man's breath broke into a sob, and he lowered his head again. Ayanokouji didn't stop him. He watched him collapse inward, watched him try to disappear into his own guilt.
"I have knowledge in medicine, and I have knowledge in history. That matters here more than your feelings."
The man looked up slightly. Tears seemed to fall down Ayanokouji's face too because of the mental link, but the other man had no way of knowing it.
"Do you remember the well?"
The man's eyes twitched, and he let out a whisper.
"Yes."
Ayanokouji nodded.
"When you ran toward it, I actually tried to stop you. I was the one who was scared because I realized something. When I grabbed the organ... its weight and shape disturbed me."
The man's face tightened.
"I wanted to stop. I felt it clearly - the impulse to stop." His eyes returned to the man. "But you didn't listen to me and kept walking."
The man's eyes widened, and his mouth opened. His voice came out desperately.
"I didn't know."
Ayanokouji's expression sharpened.
"You didn't want to know. You let the body move, because movement is easier than responsibility."
The man could barely focus his vision.
"That organ weighed about three hundred grams. The average human heart."
The man froze.
The words sank in slowly, and when they landed, they landed like a corpse being dropped at his feet. His eyes widened, and his lips pulled back in a horrified grimace.
"You carried a heart out of a well, and you still kept walking," he said. "Tell me about the Vowalkers."
The man's head lifted slightly. His eyes were swollen, his face pale, and his breathing shallow. He looked like he was being kept alive by the link alone.
"Why were they under the ground before the river, and above the ground after it?"
"Because..." the man whispered, "before the river, they had nowhere to hide. After the river, there was somewhere to hide."
His voice cracked at the end, and he stared at the ground again, ashamed of the answer even while saying it. Ayanokouji watched him for a long moment.
Then he spoke with flat contempt.
"Fool."
Ayanokouji leaned closer.
"Then explain this. Why did they never enter the village? Why did they become enraged whenever it was destroyed?"
The man's mouth opened, but no answer came.
Ayanokouji did not let him recover.
"You don't know. You walked through it all, and you still don't know."
The man slowly shook and looked up, terrified.
"The world before the river was a graveyard. The world after the lake was the world of the living. Before the river, they were dead. That's why nothing came out."
Ayanokouji's voice turned colder.
"It was all peaceful until you decided to walk over their graves."
The man's lips trembled.
"You awakened them. You dragged your existence across their burial, and you pulled them back into motion. I was the one who mustered strength. I was the one who carried the skull and the water. I was the one who threw it into the ground to avoid them."
Ayanokouji's eyes narrowed.
"And you killed them anyway."
The man's breath caught. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but nothing came out. He looked like he wanted to scream and couldn't.
"The village... they never entered it because they used to live there."
"They were human once. They were tied to that place. They didn't want it destroyed. They wanted to protect what remained of it."
The man's face contorted, and a low sound escaped him, half sob and half nausea. His eyes squeezed shut.
"STOP," the man begged.
"They became monsters because of a vow, or because someone made them into ones. The details don't matter yet."
He leaned down again, bringing his face closer to the man's.
"What matters is that you slaughtered them. You slaughtered people who didn't even know how to die properly."
The man's entire body shook. His breathing turned frantic, and he tried to crawl backward. His arms pushed against the ground, but his limbs barely obeyed him.
Ayanokouji did not follow.
"You want to blame me. You want me to be the demon, because demons are easier than mirrors."
The man sobbed, shaking his head.
"YOU ARE LYING"
Ayanokouji's eyes remained empty.
"You killed Perla. You killed the Vowalkers. You killed the people in the well. You killed thousands."
The man's mouth opened, and he let out a broken cry. His hands rose, trembling, and pressed against his own head.
"Stop," he continued to beg. "Please stop."
Ayanokouji didn't stop.
"You don't even know their names. You don't know their histories. You don't know their lives. You only know the feeling of moving forward."
The man's sobbing turned into choking.
Ayanokouji's voice stayed calm.
"You want forgiveness? Then carry the weight properly."
"It was you," he whispered again. "It was you."
The words sounded weaker this time.
Ayanokouji stared at him.
"I am you, so it was you."
The man's eyes widened, and the last thing in him tried to resist.
His body began to crumble.
Turning into dust, grain by grain, starting at the edges, starting at the hands pressed into the dirt. The man stared down in horror, watching himself disappear.
Ayanokouji did not move.
He watched until there was nothing left.
The last particles scattered into the darkness of the mind, and the space where the man had been became empty. The link snapped without sound, and the silence that followed was clean.
Ayanokouji stood alone inside the body.
The delay was gone.
And for the first time in a long time, the body moved like it belonged to him.
"Fool. Didn't even let me talk about how desperately he wanted to eat the Vowalker."
>>>
As the memory ended, Ayanokouji and Dry Water appeared in the void again, as dark beads gathered and gave them form.
Dry Water stayed quiet for a while.
He had many thoughts, and he was genuinely frightened of Ayanokouji.
"Perhaps the sixth Nightmare was to overcome yourself?"
"Then what's the seventh Nightmare?"
"Dry Water, are you the seventh Nightmare?"
"I don't think so."
Ayanokouji sighed out loud.
"So you were going to show me a memory that can help me?"
Ayanokouji didn't have much time left. He could see how weak his body had become.
Dry Water answered soon after.
"Before that, are you not curious about how the Vowalkers came to be?"
Ayanokouji went silent again. He was curious, truly curious... but he didn't have enough time.
It was either he chose himself and cleared the Nightmare in time, or he chose curiosity and struggled to clear it before his body gave up.
He remembered a certain quote.
Curiosity killed the cat.
But that wasn't the whole quote. The whole quote was...
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
"Very well."
Dry Water asked something.
"Now I want you to trust me and give me enough power here to show you the truth."
Ayanokouji reviewed their meeting. Dry Water could have killed him at any moment, yet he hadn't.
Ayanokouji hesitated for a moment, but in the end, he gave him con
trol, and the void changed shape once again.
***
Slowly, a village formed around them. It was medium in size, but filled with life. Signs of artistic style were everywhere, looking as if every piece had been crafted with pride.
Ayanokouji's eyes narrowed as he recognized the scenario in front of them. This was the third ruined village.
People moved normally. Children held the hands of their parents while older folks talked peacefully among themselves. Then, the first scream came from the edge of the village.
Ayanokouji turned and saw people from other villages rushing in. Their faces were blank and their eyes uneven, completely under someone else's control.
Confusion rapidly spread across the villagers, who wondered if it was a raid or perhaps a misunderstanding. By the time they lifted their weapons, the streets were already red.
Dry Water's voice echoed through the air without a clear direction.
"This is how it began, if my memory is not playing tricks on me. Under the control of the Remorse Eater, they attacked this village."
Ayanokouji watched a man try to shield a child with his own body. He watched a woman swing a farming tool like a soldier, her arms trembling from terror. He watched blood soak into stone that had once been painted with patterns.
He just watched, without letting anything get under his skin.
A new scene replaced it. This village was massive and beautiful, built with the confidence of a civilization that believed it would last forever. Towers rose over wide streets, and banners hung from balconies.
Ayanokouji recognized it again. This was the one that had looked less like a village and more like a fallen capital when he had walked through it, the seventh ruined village.
A ruler stood on a high platform wearing armor, his voice loud enough to cut through fear. Around him were soldiers, messengers, and citizens forced into the shape of an army.
"The worst day has come. Prepare for war. Burn what isn't necessary, and carry what you need to survive." His gaze hardened. "And dump the dead beyond the river. The ground there is open. We do not have time for graves."
Ayanokouji's eyes shifted to the river in the distance, which was wide and moved calmly. Beyond it was a large, open stretch of land.
That was the river he had crossed.
Bodies were dragged and carried, sometimes by soldiers, and sometimes by families who had no one left to mourn them properly. They crossed the river and laid the dead down one after another, leaving a few meters between each corpse.
Those bodies were denied even a proper burial.
Over time, as villages fought one another, the open ground on the other side turned into a graveyard without graves. It was watched by nothing but the wind, yet the living kept bringing more.
After relentless war, it seemed the villages had won. The people looked up at the towers with pride as their leaders climbed them, only to grow confused when they saw their expressions.
The faces of the leaders were filled with sorrow. They could not even look down at their own people.
Soon after, a vow was prepared.
Everyone chanted the vow together, crying in each other's arms. Slowly, their skin began to tighten and their eyes lost their bright light.
The living became Vowalkers. Tens of thousands, then more, until the numbers felt obscene. The village that had once stood tall turned into a factory of monsters created by desperation.
Before the final change fully took him, the ruler of the largest village raised his head. His voice did not tremble, and his eyes were wet, but not with fear.
"When all is taken beneath Remorse's hand, he shall come. He who bears a dark past, sealed behind the heart of white."
His voice cracked slightly, then steadied again.
"O Messiah, let us not linger in living. For we have endured beyond endurance. Grant us our final endeavor, one last stride into the afterlife."
The people listened without moving. Some cried silently, some bowed their heads, and some looked relieved, as if the idea of death had finally become a mercy.
"To us who were left behind, carrying the burden of protecting others from Remorse," the ruler continued, "even if thought has withered within us, struggle."
His eyes lifted to the river, to the open graveyard, and to the sky that had watched everything.
"The end is near."
The vow was sealed.
Dry Water said while looking toward Ayanokouji, "That is why I am willing to take any torture you send my way. Just end this nightmare."
Ayanokouji remained silent. He had been called many things, but Messiah felt weird.
The Vowalkers dwindled from hundreds of thousands to only a few thousand. Some tried to cross the river when the stench of bodies became too strong, drawn by something that resembled memory. The water trapped them, and they crystallized, frozen mid-step.
And that was how the river became a stream.
Another blink came, but this one felt different. The memory tried to shift again, and Ayanokouji sensed resistance.
Dry Water's voice returned.
"You shouldn't see what comes next, for your own good."
Ayanokouji looked at him sharply.
Dry Water did not show why.
The scene still moved, but Ayanokouji neither heard nor saw any of it.
What Dry Water had hidden was a second prophecy.
One that sounded like it was written by someone who had already accepted damnation.
"A demon will come."
"With each step he takes, the land will be decimated."
"Every landscape he looks upon will burn under his gaze."
"Wherever he goes, destruction will follow."
"And the world will bear the weight of his existence."
"But he will walk on, as though he did not destroy everything."
If Dry Water could, he would laugh uncontrollably right now.
***
They appeared back in the void as Ayanokouji closed his eyes and began to review everything that had just happened.
"How did the rulers know of the Remorse Eater's existence?"
It didn't make sense for them to know what making a vow would cause.
"They saw all the remorse those wars had gathered. They saw the remorse take shape, and they understood what it was raising."
"What exactly did they see?"
Dry Water's answer came without hesitation.
"They saw a god given form. Something born from their own remorse. Something that would destroy everything if they did not submit."
The void around them trembled, and Ayanokouji felt the world itself resist those words.
"The Vowalkers are not killing humans because they wish to. They are killing humans because they are trying to save this world. They kill so none of the remorse slips through."
"The god has awakened once again, but he is weak. He lost his powers. The rulers foresaw it. The vow was their solution, their last attempt to seal the world by force."
His voice lowered.
"They decided the safest world was an empty world."
Ayanokouji had no response ready. The logic was twisted, but it was still logic, and that was what made it unbearable.
Dry Water spoke again.
"Nothing is black and white in this world. Those people lost themselves, but they still held the world dear enough to refuse letting it die easily. So they suffered for centuries and became villains in someone else's story."
Dry Water's voice softened, but the words did not.
"You gave them salvation, Ayanokouji Kiyotaka. Now end this nightmare and kill the Remorse Eater."
Ayanokouji's eyes narrowed slightly.
Dry Water's form began to crack.
The void around him started to peel away in fragments, and the darkness behind him looked deeper than it had before.
Dry Water kept speaking while he disappeared.
"He is still a kid. He will try to show you your closest regrets. He will try to squeeze remorse out of you. Do not let him."
Dry Water's world crumbled further.
His face blurred at the edges, and for the first time, Ayanokouji realized how much he had relied on him. Dry Water had become a mentor in the only way Ayanokouji could accept, by giving him information without warmth.
"When you wake up in the cave, destroy the skull of that skeleton," he said. "Then mutter the name of your memory."
Before leaving, he gave Ayanokouji one warning.
"But remember, that memory shouldn't exist. It's the memory of a ruler. Only use it if it's really necessary."
Then Dry Water's voice disappeared.
The void collapsed, and the last thing Ayanokouji felt was the sensation of falling through a place that was not supposed to exist.
Then his eyes opened.
He woke up in the cave.
***
Slowly, vision returned to Ayanokouji's eyes, and he saw the ceiling of the cave. He was no longer in as much pain, but he was still exhausted.
Ayanokouji tried to stand up but almost lost his balance. The cave was spinning, and he had a headache, though it was not as vicious as what _Pell had done to him.
His body folded forward, and he retched until his throat burned. Something scraped up from deep inside him, but there was nothing to give. Only saliva spilled onto the cave floor, stringing from his lips before dropping in thin strands.
He stared at it for a second, breathing through his mouth.
Slowly, he began to move.
Carefully, through the exhaustion, he crawled toward the skeleton. Raising his head, he brought it close to the skull and then slammed it down.
The skull shattered onto the ground in pieces. A memory of a memory came to his mind, bringing the knowledge of how to use it despite never having done so before.
His headache worsened, but he managed to speak.
"Vow of Life & Death."
It was a peculiar memory, one that required a chant and a promise. For reasons he could not explain, Ayanokouji knew exactly what it was.
He began to recall the vow he already knew.
O you who accepted sacrifice as law...
Take my hearing.
Take my scent.
Take my taste.
Take my touch.
Strip the world from me, layer by layer, until nothing remains but sight.
But do not take my gaze.
Do not take the last thread of who I am.
In return, grant me power.
"I... make the vow to end this nightmare today."
The moment those words left Ayanokouji's mouth, his entire being was enveloped in pain. Beginning with his lips, they began to tremble and melt within themselves while his jaw changed shape until he no longer had a mouth.
He tried to speak to see if he still had a mouth, trying to scream just a little.
He had no mouth, yet he tried to scream, and nothing came out.
His ears then fell to the ground, and blood escaped from where they detached before the skin slowly sealed itself shut. He lost the sense of sound.
His nose crumbled and dissolved into his face. He lost the sense of smell. Agony covered his body until it vanished, taking his sense of touch and pain with it.
He slammed his palm against a nearby rock, wishing to hear the impact. He heard no sound, nor did he feel the force or pain it should have caused.
Without a nose or mouth, he still lived without knowing how. He couldn't even taste his own blood, as that sensation was gone too.
...
Ayanokouji felt the back wall become blurry, which should have been impossible since he hadn't turned his head. The back wall blurred before coming into clear view, then the side wall, then all the walls at once.
All over Ayanokouji's body, countless eyes opened. They were luminous, glowing in various shades of color. They all began moving frantically, tears forming within them, until they suddenly stopped.
Ayanokouji tried to take a step forward, but the world moved in slow motion. The nausea had disappeared.
This memory took away four of his senses and amplified just one.
The vow had taken effect.
It took Ayanokouji a few minutes to adapt to his new vision.
He learned how to shut the eyes.
One by one, he closed the eyes scattered across his body until only the ones on his face remained open.
He took a step forward.
The cave moved in slow motion.
Dust drifting through the air looked almost frozen. The faint sway of his body took too long. His own movements felt normal, but everything around him lagged behind.
Ayanokouji had been bestowed unimaginable speed and sight.
Ayanokouji turned toward the mouth of the cave. Outside, the water was still pressing upward, the river trapped in an unnatural surge. Even the water looked delayed.
Ayanokouji stepped into the current. The water slammed into him and should have crushed him back into the cave. Instead, he pushed through and let the force carry him, using it like a path.
He swam up.
When he emerged, the river lost its pressure almost immediately. The wide flow collapsed, shrinking down until it became a stream again.
Originally, this river had become a stream in the past because thousands of Vowalkers absorbed the water.
A shadow fell over him.
Ayanokouji looked up.
A tree stood there, massive and unnatural, rising from a mound of bodies. Its trunk was straight, like a pillar made from dead wood and dried blood. There were no branches or leaves, only a flat surface at the top.
On top of the tree, the last piece of _Pell stood, looking directly down at Ayanokouji's state with detached eyes.
His gaze moved over Ayanokouji's sealed face, the blood, the wet skin, and the eyes that looked too awake.
Ayanokouji looked at the tree again.
Running far faster than his original speed, he reached the humongous tree remarkably quick.