It had been seven days since the shrine had last been silent.
Akira hadn't slept more than an hour at a time. Hjalgrím's voice now lived in her dreams — rougher than when he spoke through Eiríkur, colder than the frost beneath their feet.
She'd begun hallucinating.
Shadows where none existed. Blood on her fingertips. The sound of a funeral drum pulsing through her spine.
She didn't tell Eiríkur — but he saw.
He always saw.
Meanwhile:
Beneath the 11th Ward, in a facility layered with ghoul flesh and surgical steel, Kanou's first successful Draugr replica awakened.
It stood taller than any man, skin bleached white, with a cage-like kagune surrounding its spine. Unlike Eiríkur, it showed no emotion. Only instinct.
Designation: Draugr-1 / KJ-Husk
Programmed to track irregular RC suppression and frost resonance, its first destination was already locked in:
Okutama Shrine.
That night, after a failed attempt at contact with an old ally, Akira slammed her fist into a shrine beam and whispered:
"Make it stop."
She didn't mean for Eiríkur to hear it.
He approached from behind, silent as snowfall. "He's in you now," he said. "Like a splinter. Like a seed."
She turned, eyes red-rimmed. "I feel like I'm becoming something that isn't… me."
He placed a cold hand on her jaw, just under her ear.
"You are. And you aren't."
Then, her walls cracked.
She kissed him.
Hard. Desperate. Not to seduce, but to claim. To ground. To remind herself she was alive, still herself — not just a tool, not just a vessel.
Eiríkur responded not with heat, but control — holding her still, letting her burn herself against him. It was not love. Not yet. But it was real. And it was enough to quiet the noise.
For both of them.
That night, sleep came fast — but rest did not.
Eiríkur found himself once again in the frozen mindscape. The ashplain.
This time, Hjalgrím stood not in judgment… but waiting.
"You want something," Eiríkur said.
"So do you," Hjalgrím replied.
They walked together through silent snowfall.
"You fight me," Hjalgrím said. "Yet we strike the same enemies. The alchemist. The butchers. The gods who wear lab coats and call it law."
"I don't want your voice in my mouth," Eiríkur growled.
"But you want my strength."
"I want control."
Hjalgrím stopped.
"Then take it. Be more than monster. Be more than martyr. Be myth. With me."
Eiríkur narrowed his eyes. "You'll give up control?"
"I don't want your flesh. I want your rage. Share it with me — and we'll carve a truth into this world so deep it freezes time."
Eiríkur opened his eyes.
And for the first time in days… there was silence.
Not because Hjalgrím was gone.
But because they were now, in agreement.
It came at midnight.
The earth vibrated first. Then the wind froze sideways. Birds vanished.
Akira and Eiríkur stood outside the shrine, side by side.
Then — a shape appeared through the mist.
Nine feet tall.
White-skinned.
No soul behind its eyes.
Draugr-1.