Chapter 20: What Refused to Let Go
The chain of bodies strained over the abyss.
Kyūsei at the front.
Black bindings wrapped around his chest, waist, and arms, dragging him inch by inch toward the Gate's mouth. His boots carved grooves in the stone. Sparks burst where his heels scraped.
Kazuto had both hands locked around Kyūsei's forearms.
Lena braced behind Kazuto, feet planted, silver mana reinforcing the ground beneath them.
Mira had looped a temple chain around her waist and around Lena's shoulder, anchoring herself to a cracked pillar while somehow still insulting everyone with her eyes.
Garron held the entire line like an angry mountain.
Rufus clung to Garron's back.
"I contribute emotionally!" he yelled.
"You weigh little," Garron replied.
"Thank you?"
The pull intensified.
Stone cracked under all of them.
Kyūsei couldn't breathe.
It felt as if hooks were lodged behind his ribs, tugging from inside.
Not dragging his body.
Dragging something deeper.
"Kazuto—!"
"I know!"
Kazuto's arms trembled violently.
Blood dripped from reopened wounds.
Still he did not let go.
Inside the Gate, shapes moved.
Not forms exactly.
Suggestions of colossal limbs.
Eyes that appeared only when looked away from.
Mouths shaped like doors.
The human mind tried to categorize them and failed angrily.
Kyūsei's vision blurred.
Voices poured into him from the abyss.
Return.
Complete.
Open.
Home.
He wanted to scream.
Instead he laughed once in disbelief.
"Even hell is clingy."
Kazuto barked a short laugh despite everything.
"There he is."
Kyūsei looked at him through tears and strain.
"I'm scared."
Kazuto's grip tightened.
"Good. Means you're still you."
The sky above the crater tore open with black lightning.
Ancient towers around the valley continued rising.
The dead below began reforming faster than before.
Lena glanced over her shoulder once.
"We have minutes."
"Luxury," Mira said.
Rufus looked around wildly.
"Can someone explain what happens if he gets pulled in?"
No one answered.
That answer was answer enough.
Kyūsei's chest burned.
The dark bindings were no longer outside him alone.
Lines of black light spread across his skin from where they touched.
Climbing his neck.
Threading into his veins.
The abyss inside him responded like a sleeping beast hearing its name.
He felt that power again.
Ready.
Easy.
One surrender away.
Use me.
Break everything and be free.
His hands began to darken.
Kazuto saw it immediately.
"No."
"I'm trying!"
"Try louder!"
"I don't know how!"
Then Kazuto did something absurd.
He headbutted him.
Kyūsei's vision flashed white.
"What was that for?!"
"Focus reset."
"It hurt!"
"Then be present."
Even Lena muttered, "Reasonable."
Kyūsei forced breath into his lungs.
Pain.
Weight.
Hands gripping him.
Friends cursing nearby.
These were real.
The whispers were not.
He looked past Kazuto at the others.
Lena, expression hard but eyes worried.
Mira pretending not to care while bleeding from three cuts.
Garron silent, immovable, veins bulging.
Rufus terrified and still staying.
People choosing to hold on.
For him.
No one had ever done that in his first life.
Something in his chest broke open.
Not darkness.
Gratitude.
"I don't want to go," he said.
The Gate answered by pulling harder.
Rude.
Kazuto shouted over the roar.
"Then choose here!"
"How?!"
"Same as before!"
No ancient wisdom.
No sacred technique.
Just stubbornness.
Kyūsei almost laughed again.
He reached inward—not to the abyss, but around it.
There had always been something else there.
Small.
Warm.
Ignored.
The place where fire sparked.
Where wind moved.
Where every lesson, every bruise, every earned improvement lived.
His own core.
Tiny beside the void.
But his.
He seized it.
Mana surged through him in wild streams.
Fire raced down one arm.
Wind down the other.
The black bindings hissed where they touched.
The Gate howled.
Kyūsei screamed back.
He slammed both glowing hands onto the chains wrapped around his chest.
"GET OFF!"
Flame and wind merged explosively.
Not elegant.
Not controlled.
Not recommended.
The bindings shattered.
A shockwave blasted outward from his body.
Everyone was thrown backward.
The Gate recoiled.
Actually recoiled.
The abyss did not understand being refused.
Kyūsei hit the stone hard and rolled.
Alive.
Unbound.
Kazuto landed nearby and immediately shouted:
"YOU COULD HAVE WARNED US!"
"I DIDN'T KNOW IT WOULD WORK!"
"NEITHER DID I!"
"THEN WHY DID YOU TELL ME?!"
"STYLE!"
Mira stood from rubble, dusting herself off.
"Idiots."
Lena rose slower, checking injuries.
"Later. Problem now."
She pointed.
The Gate had changed.
It was no longer pulling inward.
It was opening outward.
A vast black hand, larger than the temple itself, began emerging from the darkness below.
Each finger was made of fractured night.
The air around it cracked like glass.
Rufus made a small sound.
"I resign."
Garron lifted his shield.
"No."
Rufus looked offended.
"You can't reject that for me."
Kyūsei stared at the rising hand.
"That came out of me?"
Kazuto shook his head sharply.
"No."
"It came out because it lost you."
The implication was worse.
The thing below had wanted him as a key.
Now it would settle for force.
The hand gripped the temple edge.
Stone crumbled beneath impossible pressure.
More of the entity began to rise.
A head? A crown? A hole where both should be?
Ren's final words echoed.
The one below already has.
Kazuto stepped beside Kyūsei.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Smiling anyway.
"Well."
"Well what?"
"You wanted adventure."
Kyūsei stared at the nightmare crawling out of the abyss.
"I hate your timing."
Lena drew her rapier.
Mira spun fresh daggers into reverse grip.
Garron planted his shield.
Rufus hyperventilated professionally.
Kazuto raised his sword.
Then looked at Kyūsei.
"Ready, brother?"
Kyūsei stood on shaking legs.
Fire in one hand.
Wind in the other.
Fear everywhere.
"Absolutely not."
Kazuto grinned.
"Close enough."
The hand finished climbing out.
And behind it, something with a thousand unopened eyes began to smile.