"KENTO!!!"
Yuna screamed out loud, her voice completely breaking as she tried to burst forward across the stone floor, her legs driving her straight toward the burning crimson spiral. "Stop it! Stop the ritual right now! Let my baby go!"
But before her feet could even cross into the light, a pair of strong, trembling arms locked tightly around her body. Ayato caught her by the arm, his fingers digging into her skin as he dragged her backward into the dark shadows by force.
"Yuna, no! Don't go to him!" Ayato screamed against her ear, his own voice cracking with a raw, desperate agony as he held her back with everything he had. "You can't cross the line! You can't!"
"LET ME GO!!!" Yuna spun around violently, facing him with a face completely ruined by hot, bitter tears and pure, raging madness.
She struck his chest with her fists, screaming straight into his face. "Why?! Why are you doing this, Ayato?! He is my son! He is our son! I told you I would never let anything bad touch him! Let me go! Kento! KENTO!!!"
She struggled a lot, trying to rip his tight grip away from her wrists, her continuous screams echoing wildly against the dark stone walls.
"Ayato, let go of me! Let me go!" Yuna screamed frantically, her fingers scratching wildly at the fabric of his sleeves as she tried to release herself out of his iron grip.
She slammed her fists against his chest, her voice breaking into a breathless, sobbing scream. "Do something! You're his father—order him to stop! Tell that psycho to step away from our son right now! Ayato, move!!!"
But Ayato remained entirely motionless. His arms only tightened around her waist like stone pillars. He didn't take a single step forward. He didn't utter a word to stop the old man. He just stared ahead with hollow, bleeding defeat, squeezing his eyes shut as he let the ritual continue.
The basement turned into a complete chaos of overlapping chaos. There were three continuous sounds tearing the heavy air apart all at once—His Beautiful Wife screaming the name of their child in pure hatred, His Innocent Son crying loudly in the center of the silver flames, and the Priest heavily chanting that jagged, terrifying tongue.
"...Tenebris... Spirale... Cruor..."[1]
"Vaelis... Serath... Aetharis..."[2]
"Thae Vorthael awakens..."[3]
"By the covenant of Aethelgard and Elysia..."[4]
"By the eternal light of Astraeos..."[5]
"By the will of Luminas, the Guardian of Light..."[6]
"May the Hollowbound rise once more."[7]
"May the Spiral of Elyr carve its sacred path."[8]
"May the Golden Chains bind what must be bound."[9]
"May the bridge between the Abyss and Aeterna endure."[10]
"May the Seventh Cycle be remembered..."[11]
"May the stars bear witness..."[12]
"...THE DAWN IS COMING!!!"[13]
And right there, stuck dead in the center of the brutal crossfire, a sudden, terrifying unease crashed into Ayato's heart.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
His heart began to beat at an impossible, frantic speed, hammering violently against his ribs.
A sharp, heavy knot of physical pain bloomed deep inside his chest, making his breath hitch as his vision blurred.
But it wasn't just the physical strain; a single, deep, tragic voice from the past suddenly began to ring clearly inside his mind, cutting through the loud screams of the room.
It was the voice of his grandmother from when he was just a young boy.
'Ayato, my boy... your uncle died young...' her weathered, serious whisper echoed behind his eyes, recalling the heavy, dark truth she had dropped onto his shoulders years ago.
"The officers called it an accident. But I never believed it, Ayato. People like us carry strange blood. Ever since our ancestors, tragedy has followed this family. Your uncle's mark vanished, but I always felt the heavens had brushed his life with their fingers. Perhaps it was only an old woman's fear… but I never forgot."
The memory sent an absolute, cold shock through his veins. Standing there in the dark, watching his own five-year-old boy get consumed by the glowing spiral mark below the rib, the heavy reality settled deep into his soul.
Was Kento truly safe? Or was he holding a child who belonged to the sky?
But the heavy secrets of the cosmos were slowly buried under the weight of passing decades, hidden away beneath the quiet, normal routines of everyday life.
Sixteen long years melted away like morning mist, washing over the dark stone basement and replacing the echoes of ancient chants with the warm, ordinary sounds of a family kitchen.
The smell of burning oil lamps faded into the fresh aroma of breakfast, and the terrifying silver flames became nothing more than a half-forgotten nightmare, locked deep within the shadows of the past.
Yet, some marks were too deep for time to ever truly erase.
_SEPTEMBER 29th, 2016. TOKYO. 7:09 A.M._
The lighthearted energy of the morning quickly evaporated the moment Shido's footsteps finally disappeared back into the upper hallway. In the sudden quiet, the gentle hum of the refrigerator felt overwhelmingly loud.
Mr. Kamitani turned slowly toward his wife, the playful expression completely vanishing from his face as a sudden, pale concern took over his features.
"Alright, he's gone..." Mr. Kamitani spoke softly, his voice dropping as he stepped closer to her. "What's going on, honey? You looked... scared when I mentioned Kento."
Mrs. Kamitani didn't look up. She stared continuously at the wooden table, her fingers trembling slightly as they traced the faint lines of the wood.
When she finally spoke, her voice was nothing more than a fragile, broken whisper that made Mr. Kamitani's blood run completely cold.
"I didn't want to say it in front of Shido..." Mrs. Kamitani breathed out, her eyes wide with a lingering terror. "...but I saw it this morning. Something is happening to Kento. Something... that shouldn't be possible."
Mr. Kamitani instantly saw the deep, unsettling unease stretching across his wife's face. The sudden silence that followed her words was heavy and suffocating, filling the space between them.
He noticed that Mrs. Kamitani was staring continuously down into the dark wood of the table, completely motionless, completely refusing to say another word.
Her fingers, usually so confident and sharp, were nervously twitching against the wood, trembling with a frantic, silent panic.
'She is completely lost in her own world... ' Mr. Kamitani thought to himself, a cold, heavy knot tightening deep inside his chest as his legal brain desperately tried to read her posture. 'Something is terribly wrong. She's not alright.'
"Yuna?" he called out softly, his voice dropping into an incredibly gentle, reassuring tone as he watched her face, desperately waiting for any kind of response.
But Mrs. Kamitani didn't move. She just kept staring blindly at the wood, lost inside her own terrifying thoughts.
"Yuna." he called her name a second time, leaning in closer, his pale concern turning into a sharp, pressing anxiety. Still, the silence remained unbroken. Her breath was coming out in shallow, shaky gasps.
Finally, unable to bear the silence, Mr. Kamitani reached across the wooden surface.
He gently placed his large, warm hand directly over her trembling fingers, squeezing softly to pull her back to reality. "Yuna... look at me."
Mrs. Kamitani sharply flinched, her shoulders jumping as if she had just been snapped out of a deep thought. "Yeah—!" her voice came out in a broken, startled gasp, her sentences completely fragmented and messy as her eyes darted here and there, wildly looking around the kitchen.
She blinked rapidly, finally realizing that her husband was staring directly into her watery green eyes with absolute intensity.
A forced, trembling little smile quickly crawled onto her pale lips as she desperately tried to patch up her cracked composure. "Yeah... Ayato? What... what is it, honey?"
"I called your name three times, Yuna." Mr. Kamitani murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly as he refused to let go of her hand.
"You weren't listening to me at all."
Mrs. Kamitani let out a small, breathless chuckle, her broken smile widening slightly as she quickly shook her head in an apologetic hurry.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, honey. I really didn't mean to ignore you, it's... it's just that my mind was somewhere else for a second, and I—"
"It's not just that, Yuna." Mr. Kamitani quickly cut her off, his deep voice carrying a strict, undeniable finality that left no room for legal controversy.
"Stop hiding it from me. What exactly is wrong? You said something about Kento... you said something was happening to him this morning. What happened?"
The moment the word 'Kento' left his lips, Mrs. Kamitani's breath completely caught inside her throat. The heavy, impossible truth pressed against her chest so hard she felt like she was suffocating.
If she spoke it out loud, if she confirmed that the ancient, terrifying curse had finally caught up to her innocent boy after eleven years of safety, her heart would completely snap into pieces.
SMACK!
With a sudden, complete burst of pure adrenaline, she lifted her free arm and sharply slapped his hand away, the heavy sound echoing loudly through the quiet kitchen.
"Ouch! Ow—!" Mr. Kamitani yelped out loud, quickly pulling his hand back and rubbing his stinging knuckles in total, wide-eyed confusion.
----
🖋️ AUTHOR'S NOTE 🌙
The loudest battles don't always end with victory.
Sometimes...
They simply become memories that refuse to fade.
This chapter marks the bridge between the past and the present.
Eleven years have passed...
The ritual is over.
But some fears never truly leave the hearts of parents.
As I was writing this chapter, I kept thinking about one simple question:
Can time really heal everything...
Or does it merely teach us how to hide our scars?
And yes...
Poor Ayato spent the entire chapter trying to save his wife from herself...
Only to get his hand smacked in the end.
Some things never change. (≧▽≦)
Thank you for reading.
I'll see you in the next chapter. 🌙
(｡•́︿•̀｡)
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"Yuna, that's unfair, my schedule this term has been—"
"You didn't ask about it, Ayato."
---
🌙 PAGES FROM FORGOTTEN RECORDS 📖
The hardest part about surviving the past...
Is waking up the next morning
And pretending everything is normal.
(｡•́︿•̀｡)
----
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧
— SakuraShinomiya
[1] Darkness...Spiral ...Blood.
[2] Heaven...Faith...Light.
[3] A long-forgotten destiny has begun to awaken once more.
[4] By the sacred promise made through Aethelgard and Elysia, the first ancestors of Aeterna and the founders of the light-born bloodlines.
[5] By the power of Astraeos, the ancient creator and source of all existence.
[6] By the authority and purpose entrusted to Luminas, the protector chosen to safeguard Aeterna.
[7] May Hollowbound awaken again and continue the purpose for which it was created.
[8] May the flow of Elyr guide destiny along the path it was always meant to follow.
[9] May the burden and duty of the Chosen Ones be fulfilled, and may fate restrain what cannot be allowed to roam free.
[10] May the connection between Earth and Aeterna remain intact.
[11] May this final generation of Chosen Ones never be forgotten.
[12] May the heavens watch and remember what happens here today.
[13] THE LONG-AWAITED MOMENT HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!!!