The cold of the mountain ground was nothing compared to the icy void that engulfed Yuki's heart. He knelt in the clearing where Aoi had vanished, the echo of her terrified scream still ringing in his ears, the ghost of her touch tingling on his outstretched fingers. The scent of ozone and brimstone was a foul perfume in the air.
She was gone. Taken. Pulled into that nightmare landscape. Because of him.
The anchor is cast into the abyss, Kage's voice whispered, devoid of its usual amusement, replaced by a cold, analytical tone. The architect reels it in. A valuable prize. A beacon of light to extinguish in the eternal dark.
Yuki's hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms, drawing blood. The blood was dark, almost black, welling up around the black veins that snaked across his skin. The burns on his arms throbbed with a deep, agonizing heat.
"Shut up!" he roared, the sound raw, tearing from his throat, echoing in the sudden silence of the forest. "SHUT UP!"
He surged to his feet, not with purpose, but with a blind, animalistic fury. He needed to hit something. To destroy. To make the pain stop. To make the guilt stop.
He saw a nearby boulder, weathered and ancient. He lunged at it, his fists hammering against the unyielding stone. Pain exploded in his knuckles, bones grinding, but he didn't stop. He screamed, a sound of pure, impotent rage and despair, as he pummeled the rock, his blood – dark and viscous – splattering the grey surface.
The vessel breaks, Kage observed, the cold voice cutting through Yuki's rage. The cracks widen. The fire consumes the fuel.
Yuki didn't care. He welcomed the pain. The physical pain was a distraction from the soul-crushing agony of loss, of failure. He kept hitting, his blows becoming weaker, his breath coming in ragged sobs. Finally, exhausted, he slumped against the boulder, his hands raw and bleeding, the dark blood mixing with the grit and stone dust.
He looked down at his hands. They were a mess. Torn skin, swollen knuckles, blood welling from the gashes. But it was the blood that held his attention. It wasn't just red. It was dark. Almost black. And as he watched, the black veins around the wounds seemed to pulse, drawing the darkness inwards, the flesh knitting together with unnatural speed. Within seconds, the worst of the gashes had closed, leaving only raw, angry red scars that already looked old, already beginning to darken at the edges.
He stared, horrified. The power wasn't just for destruction. It was for preservation. For sustaining the corrupted vessel. It was healing him, but it was changing him, using his own life force, his own blood, to fuel the corruption.
He looked up from his hands, his gaze falling on the dark, wet patch on the boulder where his blood had splattered. The dark stains weren't just drying. They were moving. Seeping into the pores of the rock, spreading like ink in water. The stone around the stains seemed to darken, to age rapidly, developing fine cracks that hadn't been there before.
A wave of nausea washed over him. His touch was corruption. His blood was poison. Even the rock beneath his hands was defiled.
He pushed himself away from the boulder, stumbling back. He needed to see. Needed to understand the true face of the monster he was becoming.
He looked around frantically, his eyes landing on a small, still pool of meltwater formed in a depression in the rock. He walked towards it, his steps heavy, dread coiling in his gut.
He knelt by the pool. The water was dark, reflecting the grey sky and the skeletal trees. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and looked down.
The reflection stared back.
It was him. But it was also the monster from the stream.
The grey, waxy skin stretched tight over the bones. The dark, bruise-like circles under the eyes. The lips parted slightly, revealing the tips of sharp, yellowed teeth. And the eyes…
They weren't hollow. They weren't burning crimson. They were his eyes. Yuki's eyes. But they were filled with such profound, soul-crushing despair, such utter self-loathing, that they seemed to hold all the darkness of the architect's realm. They were the eyes of someone who had seen Hell, not just in a glimpse, but in the mirror. They were the eyes of someone who had delivered the person he cared about most into that Hell.
This was the true face of the monster. Not the crimson-eyed demon of the stream. Not the corrupted shell the architect had used. It was this. A boy shattered by grief, corrupted by power, consumed by guilt, his humanity hanging by a thread over an abyss of his own making.
This is the cost, Kage's voice whispered, the coldness gone, replaced by a strange, almost resonant tone. This is the price of the fire. This is what remains when the anchor is lost.
Yuki reached out, not to touch the reflection, but to shatter it. He plunged his hand into the cold water. The reflection distorted, ripples spreading. When the water stilled, the image was gone. Only his own face stared back – pale, gaunt, eyes wide with horror, streaked with dirt and tears.
But he knew. He'd seen it. The true face. The monster wasn't just the demon riding him. It wasn't just the power he wielded. It was him. The despair, the guilt, the corruption. It was all Yuki Tanaka.
He pulled his hand from the water, the cold dripping from his fingers. He looked at his healed, scarred hands. At the dark veins snaking up his arms.
He had to get her back.
He had to go into Hell.
He had to face the architect.
He had to do it not as a hero, not as an avenger, but as the monster he was. He had to embrace the darkness, use it, wield it, to tear down the architect's gates and drag Aoi back into the light.
Even if it meant losing himself completely. Even if it meant becoming the true face of the monster forever.
He stood up, the despair still a crushing weight, but beneath it, a new resolve began to smolder. Cold. Hard. Unyielding. It was the resolve of damned.
He turned his face towards the highest peaks, towards the hidden valley where the obsidian sanctum lay. The architect's heart. The gateway to Hell.
He started walking. Each step was heavy, but purposeful. The monster walked towards its final battle.