There was no ground.
No sky.
No air.
Ren floated in a place that didn't feel like a place at all—more like a half-formed memory, a dream he didn't remember having yet somehow knew too well. Darkness wrapped around him, not cold or warm, just… there. Heavy. Watching.
He tried to inhale, but breath meant nothing here.
He tried to move, but his body didn't exist in a normal way.
Only his heartbeat echoed.
One heartbeat.
Then two.
Then none.
Then both again, crashing together until Ren couldn't tell which one belonged to him.
—You should not resist. You were made to return.
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't shout. It simply slid around him like thick oil, soaking into every corner of his mind.
Ren forced the words out anyway. "I'm not yours."
—You were mine before you were born. Before you were Ren Arashida.
Something shifted ahead of him—shadows folding into a shape. A tall figure stepped out, its outline flickering between human and monstrous. At first Ren thought it was Kuro-Obake again… but this shape felt older. Heavier. Clearer.
A silhouette of a god whose body had been shattered.
It stepped closer, and the darkness around it trembled like it was trying to bow.
Ren wanted to run.
But he had no legs to run with. No ground to flee to.
—The Ninth Fragment awakens, the voice murmured.—Our final piece. You were chosen. You always were.
Ren shook his head. "Chosen? I didn't choose anything."
—Your blood chose. Your soul chose.
"I'm not part of your resurrection."
The figure paused, tilting its head in a way that felt too familiar—like how Ren tilted his own head when confused.
—You deny yourself.
"I deny YOU."
Something like laughter rolled through the darkness.Not warm. Not cruel. Just ancient.
Ren felt something tug inside his chest—like someone pulling a thread tied to his heart.
He gasped. "Stop—!"
—You struggle as if your fate is not already written. Soon, the merging will complete. The vessel and the god will become one.
"No," Ren growled. "Not happening."
The seal pulsed hard enough to stun him.
And suddenly the darkness tore open.
Ren dropped—actually fell—onto something solid. His hands hit stone. His knees scraped against rough ground. Air rushed back into his lungs like he'd been underwater for hours.
He coughed hard, trying to get his bearings.
He was standing in a ruined temple.
Moonlight poured through a shattered ceiling. The stone pillars were cracked, covered in creeping vines and broken sigils glowing faintly blue.
He recognized none of it.
Yet it all felt familiar.
A whisper curled beside him.
—This was ours. In the last life.
Ren jerked around. "Stop putting memories in my head!"
But the memories weren't fully forming—just fragments, like photographs torn in half.
A hand in moonlight.Silver hair brushing his cheek.A voice saying his name with too much softness.
He shook his head hard. "Get out of my head. Just get out."
The temple flickered.
Moonlight rippled like disturbed water.
And suddenly… Yurei stood in front of him.
Barefoot. Calm. Beautiful in that impossible, too-perfect way she always was.
Except she didn't look like the Yurei from the real world.
She looked younger. Softer. Sadder.
Like she had stepped out of one of the half-formed memories.
Ren backed up. "No… no, you can't be here."
Yurei tilted her head. "I'm not. This is your mind. Your seal. I'm only a memory echo."
Ren swallowed hard. "Then go away. I don't want you in here."
The memory-Yurei blinked slowly, like the idea physically hurt her. "If you banish me, the seal will fill my space. Is that better?"
Ren hesitated.
And he hated himself for hesitating.
Yurei stepped closer, her voice gentle. "I'm not here to harm you. I never wanted to hurt you. I only came when you called."
"I never called you," Ren said weakly.
Her eyes softened. "Your soul did."
"No—stop saying that."
She raised a hand—not touching him, but close enough that he felt the familiar tug of the seal reacting.
"The merging scares you," she whispered. "But it's not death. It's… remembering. Becoming who you were."
"I'm not who I was," Ren snapped. "I don't want to be that person."
Her expression crumpled at the edges. "Then why does the seal respond to me more than anyone else?"
"Because you're part of the god," Ren said. "Not because you're part of me."
Her breath hitched.
For a moment the ruin around them shivered.
And Ren realized something:
This memory-Yurei wasn't a dream.She wasn't just a hallucination.The seal was using her image to push him.
He stepped back. "You're not real."
Her eyes flickered, like candlelight in wind. "Does that make what I feel less real?"
"Yes," Ren said. "It does."
The ruin trembled again, cracks spreading across the floor.
Yurei's form flickered—moonlight struggling to hold shape.
"Ren," she whispered, "your fear will break you. Let me help. Let me carry the part you can't."
"No," he said. "Ayaka—Ayaka helps me."
At that name, memory-Yurei flinched.
Her glow dimmed.
"You trust her more than me?"
"Yes."
"And you choose her over me?"
"Yes."
Her form wavered more violently, as if the seal itself hated hearing his answer.
The darkness split open around them again.
A distorted version of Yurei's voice—more like the god's—echoed harshly:
—If you reject what you were… you will suffer what you become.
The world shattered.
Stone exploded into dust.Moonlight crashed like breaking glass.Ren was yanked backward—falling, falling—
Then—
A different voice cut through the darkness.
"REN!"
Ayaka.
Ren gasped as her voice sliced straight through the seal's suffocating grip. The darkness cracked. Light hit him square in the chest.
"Ren, OPEN YOUR EYES!"
His real body jolted hard—painful, but honest, grounding. He sucked in a lungful of cold night air.
Ayaka was holding him.
Her hands were on his shoulders, shaking him, her face pale with fear.
"Come on—come on—stay with me—please—"
Ren blinked, vision swimming back into focus. "Ayaka…?"
She let out a breath that collapsed her whole body. "Thank god. You stopped responding. I thought—"
Ren sat up slowly, holding his chest. "I saw… something. Something inside the seal."
Ayaka steadied him. "Tell me."
"There was… a temple. And memories that weren't mine. And Yurei was there but not really her. It was the seal using her."
Ayaka's jaw tightened. "Of course it was. It knows she gets inside your head."
Ren shook his head. "No. It wasn't just that. The seal is trying to merge with me. That guardian's attack… it sped everything up."
Hiro let out a shaky sigh. "Awesome. Perfect. Great. Love that journey for you."
Kurogane dropped to a crouch beside Ren. "Did you speak to the god fragment?"
Ren nodded once.
Kurogane lowered his head. "Then the Merging has already begun."
Ayaka's grip tightened. "There has to be a way to stop it."
"There is," Kurogane said quietly.
Ren looked up sharply. "What is it?"
Kurogane hesitated.
Ayaka stiffened. "Professor. Say it."
"The only way to halt the Merging…"Kurogane looked Ren directly in the eyes, sorrow heavy in his expression.
"...is for Ren to confront the god inside him directly."
Ren's skin went cold. "Confront? You mean… fight it?"
"No," Kurogane said. "You can't fight something that lives in your soul."
Ayaka swallowed hard. "Then what does he do?"
Kurogane exhaled. "He must choose who he is. Fully. Cleanly. Without hesitation."
Ren blinked. "I already know who I am."
Kurogane shook his head. "Not enough. The god knows your fears better than you do. If you doubt even for a heartbeat, it will overtake you."
Ayaka moved closer, almost touching his forehead with hers again.Her voice dropped to a whisper:
"Then we'll make sure you don't doubt."
Ren wanted to believe that.
He really did.
But in the corners of his mind…the ruins were still there.the shadow silhouette still whispered.and Yurei's soft voice trembled like a fading echo—
—You'll remember. You always remember me first.
Ren closed his eyes.
The Merging had begun.
And he wasn't sure he was strong enough to face it.