The mountain didn't care.

It didn't care that a man had just died. That a shrine had devoured him. That another mask now lay cracked in the dirt like a broken god's tooth.

The wind moved like it always had – slow, wet, full of rot.

Max stood at the threshold of the shrine, one hand braced against the blood-streaked wall. His body ached. Soulfire clung to his veins like frost. He couldn't tell if it was grief or exhaustion that made his knees feel hollow.

Ying limped beside him, her side bound in a rough charm wrap that still bled through. She kept her blade low but ready. Her eyes scanned the forest, the stone steps, the gate beyond.

Hana didn't wait.

She walked ahead, fast and silent, through the first torii gate. Her movements were sharp – too precise to be calm. Each step felt like a blade being driven into the earth.

Max watched her vanish into the red-painted corridor of wood and shadow.

"She's not going to wait," Ying muttered. "Not for us. Not for anything."

"I know."

Max pushed off the wall and followed.

The torii stretched down the slope like ribs of a serpent's spine – a thousand arches curling into mist. The forest pressed in from both sides, thick and too quiet. No birds. No wind. Just the creak of old wood and the scrape of bloodstained boots on stone.

No one spoke. Even the air felt brittle.

Max walked behind Ying, who walked behind Hana. None of them looked back. None of them looked forward too far either. The gates blurred together.

But after the seventh bend, Max felt it.

Pressure.

Wrongness.

Like someone watching from beneath the stairs.

He reached out, slow. "Stop."

Ying halted. Hana didn't.

"Stop," Max said louder.

Hana glanced back – just barely. "What now?"

"We're not alone."

The trees breathed. Shadows swelled.

Then came the sound – too faint to be wind. A whisper between wood. A mask cracking in reverse.

Max lit his palm with Soulfire. It flickered blue-gold.

The light cast long shapes between the gates.

He counted three.

Then five.

Then too many.

Yokai. Masked. Watching from the edges, perched along the crossbeams like carrion.

Silent. Waiting.

Hana stepped back toward them, eyes narrowed. "They're not attacking."

"Yet," Ying said.

Max tightened his grip. "Zagan sent them."

"She's testing," Hana mused. "Watching what we do next."

"I say we give her nothing," Ying growled.

Max nodded.

"We move. Fast. Don't break formation. Don't slow down."

Ying flicked her blade. "We make it to the base of the mountain. Then we run for sanctuary in Kyoto."

"Through the city?" Hana said flatly. "It's a now demon's nest."

"It's still the only path," Max replied.

He looked up the slope one last time. Ferron's ashes were long behind them.

But the mountain still watched.

And so did something deeper.

"Go," Max said.

And they ran – down the bones of a thousand gates, under the eyes of something ancient, toward a city already drowning.

…………………

The mountain hadn't gone still. It had gone silent. Not peace – the pause before a scream.

The three of them moved through the torii-lined path like prey through tall grass. The shrine behind them pulsed faintly, distant now, but Max still felt the heat of Ferron's ashes clinging to his skin. Every gate they passed groaned slightly, as if watching. The stone foxes at the base of each shrine platform leered wider now – some split open at the jaw, tongues carved into knots.

Yokai weren't attacking. But they were there. Max could feel them. Huddled in the dark between trees. Perched above the archways. Slipping between roots and shadows.

Waiting.

Hana walked ahead – fast, tense, not looking back. Not offering help. She didn't speak unless she had to. Her talismans clicked faintly at her waist like teeth waiting to bite.

Ying limped beside Max. Her wound still bled in slow pulses through the charm Hana had given him. She said nothing about the pain. But she leaned just slightly too much into his arm, her jaw clenched tight enough to creak.

"Don't like this," Ying muttered. "They're waiting."

"They know she's with us," Max said. "Her wards are keeping them back."

"For now," Ying replied. "But they're watching her. Same way she watches you."

Max glanced up ahead. Hana hadn't slowed. She walked like she was daring something – anything – to come out and try.

The wind shifted. Leaves rustled. A flicker of movement danced behind a torii up ahead. Max's hand twitched toward his Hellfire. But the moment passed. Just another shadow, this time.

Still, it was getting worse.

And then Hana stopped.

At a small landing in the path where three broken steps descended toward another gate. She turned without warning, her expression unreadable – not grief, not rage. Not yet.

Max steadied Ying, then stepped forward to meet her.

"No," Hana said, voice like a blade. "You don't get to speak. Not until I've heard the truth from your mouth."

Max's mouth tightened.

"I need to know the truth," she continued. "Before I risk my life beside you again. Before I walk into more death and lies and corrupted prayers."

Her voice was quiet. But every word landed like it was etched in stone.

She stepped closer. Not slowly. Not cautiously. Like she didn't care what came next.

"You're a Contractor," Hana said.

Max stopped. Then nodded. Once. "Yes."

Ying tensed. "Max—"

He raised a hand to quiet her. "Yes. I am. Ying isn't. None of the others are. But me… yeah." He swallowed. "I didn't know what I was doing. But I tried. So yes, I am."

Hana spat at the dirt between them. Her voice dropped. "Which demon?"

Max flinched. "It's not like that."

"Then what's it like, Contractor?" Her hand drifted toward her charm pouch. "Tell me what makes you special."

"My daughter. Liz. She's in a coma. Possessed. Or something worse. I was desperate. I would've done anything to save her."

"Most Contractors are," Hana said coldly. "So selfish. So desperate. And every one of them ends up the same – enslaved, or devoured. And if they live? They're just puppets. Skins that demons wear."

"No." Max stepped forward. "That's not what happened. I summoned something. A powerful demon named Aamon."

Hana's eyes sharpened. "Aamon is a name whispered in hell-cursed texts. A Lord of chaos."

"Yeah." Max exhaled. "He offered me the power to awaken others. I didn't think it'd work. But if summoning a demon could save Liz, I couldn't let her be the one to do it. So I took the risk. I thought – maybe if I could give people the power they needed, someone could heal her. Someone could find a way."

"Then why not just contract for healing?"

"I didn't know what was wrong with her," Max said. "No doctor could explain it. No healer could touch it. I didn't trust a miracle cure. I just… I thought if I had enough strength around me, someone would figure it out."

Hana's voice was ice now. "And yet you still breathe. So tell me – what happened to Aamon?"

Max's jaw tightened. "Something went wrong. He tried to take me. Devour my soul. But something else inside me woke up – Soul Prison. I didn't even know I had it. I stole his power. I ripped it from him and trapped it in myself."

"You stole from a Demon Lord?"

"I used most of it to empower Liz. To keep her soul fighting. What's left… is the Hellfire. I kept that. And now it burns inside me. That's my penance."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Hana's silence cut deep.

"So you're a Contractor," she said at last. "With no master. With demon fire in your chest. And you claim you can awaken others. Give power without pacts." Her expression twisted. "Are you even human?"

"I don't know," Max admitted. "Not fully. But I'm not a demon either. I don't make Contracts. I don't feed on anyone. I just… help people unlock what's already inside."

Hana stared at him for a long moment. The wind stirred between them – soft, but cold.

Finally, she said, "I see."

She turned her back and started walking.

"You're a dangerous man, Max Jaeger."

She didn't say it like a compliment. Just a warning.

Max exhaled. Thought that might be the end of it.

It wasn't.

Hana stopped at the next gate. Her hand brushed one of the splintered torii beams – bloodstained, hollowed out by rot.

"You chose enough," she said, not even turning. "And the moment you did, this mountain began to rot."

Max caught up, slowly. "This wasn't me. It was Zagan. She's the one turning this place into a crucible."

"And you gave her the excuse." She spun on him. "You think Ferron came here on his own? You think the mountain woke up for no reason?"

"Ferron believed someone had to try. That you could help her. That maybe hope wasn't gone yet."

Hana's jaw clenched. "And he followed you into hell to chase it. You dragged him here."

"No." Max's voice was steel now. "He came because he believed someone had to try. He faced Zagan alone. And he lost. Not because of me – but because she wanted him."

He stepped forward, voice quieter now. "She saw something sacred in him. Something she could twist. A relic. A martyr. A holy corpse."

Hana looked away. Her hands were shaking.

"She wanted him for something sacred," Max said. "And the only way to stop it—"

"—was to kill him."

The words fell like an axe.

Max didn't flinch. "He asked me to. It wasn't justice. It wasn't revenge. It was mercy."

"It should've been me," she said, breath shaking. "His life wasn't yours to end."

Max didn't flinch. "No. But it was his to give."

A silence settled between them. Not peaceful. Just tired.

Finally, Hana turned and walked again – not toward him, but away.

"Just walk," she muttered. "Before I change my mind."

After a few steps, she added, low: "I don't know what you are. But if you turn, even a little… I won't hesitate."

…………………

They moved down the mountain in near silence.

Not peace – never peace. The trees were watching.

Twisted roots clawed at the dirt. Leaves whispered things that didn't come from wind. Tori gates loomed overhead like ribs of some colossal corpse, blackened and warped, slanting at wrong angles. Some were cracked open. Others pulsed faintly, as if breathing.

Max stayed close to Ying. Her breathing was steadier now, but every few steps she winced – blood still seeping where the charm had struck. Behind her eyes was steel, but her body wasn't healing fast enough.

Ahead, Hana walked alone.

She didn't look back. Didn't speak. Just led, fast and sharp, like the mountain owed her answers. Her spine rigid with barely leashed fury.

They reached a landing where the path narrowed again – a break in the slope where three half-toppled tori gates slouched over a shrine marker eaten by moss. The forest thickened on both sides, pressing in. Shadows clustered behind the rocks. Movement shivered in the trees above.

The yokai hadn't left.

They were watching. Waiting. Dozens of eyes. None attacked – not yet. But Max felt them like teeth behind curtains, sniffing for weakness.

Hana stopped.

She turned slightly, not all the way. "Stay here," she muttered.

Max stiffened. "Why?"

"Protection," she said, already reaching into her belt. She pulled out a small bone whistle – old, polished smooth with use.

Then blew.

The sound was piercing – not loud, but sharp enough to cut the fog itself. It rose high into the canopy, echoing like a birdcall in a dead place.

Silence followed.

Max glanced at Ying. "Friend of yours?"

"I don't know," she muttered. "But if it's another shikigami, I'm shooting someone in the head."

Then it came.

A crack. A crash. The earth shook.

From the forest wall behind the farthest tori gate, something huge slammed through the undergrowth like a battering ram. Trees bowed. Stones split.

Then the tori gate exploded.

A blur of motion tore through it – not red, not black. Pale. Like snow wrapped in muscle.

It was a bear. No— not a bear.

A monster.

Albino fur streaked with scarred talismans. Ink-charms sewn into its flesh. Eyes pale gold and too intelligent. It was shaped like a Japanese black bear – but three times the size. Bigger than any polar bear Max had ever seen, maybe even bigger than a truck. Its claws were hooked and filthy. Its breath steamed in the cold, coming in huffs like the engine of a buried god.

It charged through the ruins and stopped only inches from Hana.

Then roared.

The sound made Max's teeth ache. Trees shook. The tori behind them cracked further. Ying half-raised her blade, but winced from the effort.

Hana didn't flinch.

She reached up and rubbed the beast's massive jaw. "Good boy," she whispered, like it was a cat returning from a stroll.

The bear lowered its head, breathing hard. Its flanks rose and fell like collapsing walls. Then it turned.

And stared straight at Max.

The pressure hit him like a wave – not demonic, but primal. Old. The air tensed. Max's Soulfire sparked without him meaning it to, licking faintly up his arms in warning.

The bear took one lumbering step forward. Then another. Then rose.

Up. Up. Up.

Until it stood tall enough to blot out the trees, front paws curling with silent menace. It didn't snarl this time. It just looked.

Max didn't move.

Ying took half a step closer, sword tilted now. "What the hell is that?"

"His name is Kabe," Hana said over her shoulder. She still hadn't turned. "Means 'wall'."

Max blinked. "He's your guardian?"

"The last one who didn't fall," Hana replied. She finally faced him. "He's loyal to me. Fiercely."

She looked at Max. "But he doesn't trust Contractors."

Kabe snorted. Hot steam puffed from his nostrils like warning flares. His stare didn't budge.

Max had seen demons. Fought horrors that wore flesh like costumes. But this? This was nature forged into fury. There was no rot. No corruption. Just an ancient, terrifying purity. Kabe didn't reek of hell – he reeked of judgement.

Max exhaled slowly. "Well… good to know."

"I'll tell him not to kill you," Hana said. "But if your fire flares wrong, if your soul stinks of lies… he'll know."

Kabe dropped to all fours. The earth shuddered.

"He'll be watching you, Max Jaeger."

Max didn't argue. "Let him."

Ying sighed, half-delirious. "Of course you have a murder bear," she muttered. "Why wouldn't this get weirder."

Then softer, barely audible: "Ferron would've liked him."

Max turned to look, but Ying was already walking.

They moved on. Kabe padded behind Hana, his paws thunderous and silent all at once. The trees shifted aside as he passed.

And Max didn't need warning. He could feel it. In every breath.

The bear wasn't just protection. It was a sentence waiting to fall.

…………………

The mist thinned as they descended, but the silence only thickened.

At the base of Mount Inari, the JSDF outpost had become a grave. Barricades lay broken in heaps of twisted rebar and scorched sandbags. Bullet casings glittered in the ash like old coins. The prayer wards strung across the tori gates had burned to black ribbons.

Max stepped into the clearing first. His boots crunched over cracked concrete and bone. A snapped katana jutted from a shrine post like a gravestone. Beside it, a soldier lay face down, half his body missing, the other half still clenching an empty rifle.

Kabe growled low – a warning, not a threat – and began pacing the perimeter. His massive white form looked ghostly in the grey light, steam rising from his breath.

Ying leaned heavily on her blade, pausing near the edge of a collapsed tent. Blood still soaked her jacket, but she was moving better now. "There should be more," she muttered.

Max looked over. "More?"

She crouched beside a burnt field radio, brushing aside some rubble. "There were at least two hundred people here. Soldiers, evacuees, tourists. Civilians. But this..." Her hand swept the scene. "This isn't all of them."

He glanced around again. She was right. It was bad – but not complete. The carnage had gaps.

"They retreated?" he asked.

"Maybe," she said. "Could've fallen back. Could've regrouped. Or were forced out."

He stepped over a corpse wearing half a tour guide vest. The other half was burned into the concrete. "God," he whispered. "This was a massacre."

Max exhaled. "At least some of them got away."

Hana didn't speak. She stood among the fallen with stillness so sharp it hurt to look at. A faint breeze stirred her hair, but her shoulders never moved.

She bent slowly and picked something from the dirt – a fox mask. Cracked down the middle. Child-sized. She turned it over once, then dropped it without a word.

"These soldiers weren't ready," she said. "They brought rifles to a soul war."

Max didn't respond.

"They didn't just die," Hana continued, her voice low. "They were unmade. Some of them wore masks by the end, didn't they?"

He nodded once. "A few. Ferron tried to stop it."

She flinched. Said nothing.

They moved past the corpses in silence until they reached the last ridge before the city. Kyoto sprawled in broken grey beneath them – fires flickering in the distance, rooftops shattered, yokai shadows slithering between alleys like ash on wind.

"We're headed there," Max said, pointing east. "There's an old nature retreat, just outside the forest belt. We turned it into a safehouse."

"Sanctuary," Ying added. "Stone guardians. Wards. Liz is there. In a pod. Chloe and Victor stayed behind to guard her."

Hana's eyes narrowed. "I know the place."

Max turned to her, surprised.

"Ferron showed it to me. It is known to our clan. We went there together a long time ago. He said it was sacred ground. Pure." She looked away. "Didn't think he'd ever need to use it."

Max's chest tightened. "He kept it safe for her. Even before I knew it."

Hana looked at him then – not with trust, but with something quieter. Recognition, maybe. Or just the shared weight of someone lost.

Kabe grunted and slammed one paw against a nearby signpost, shaking flakes of rust loose. He paced again – agitated.

"We can't go straight through," Hana said. "Main roads are suicide. Zagan's corruption flows through them like blood."

"We can't go under either," Ying added. "The tunnels are a nest now. I saw it. Masked children crawling on the ceilings like insects."

"Side routes," Max said. "Suburbs. Overgrown paths. Ferron marked a few safe trails on the way in."

"They won't be safe anymore," Hana muttered. "But they're better than nothing."

Kabe growled again, this time deeper – not a warning, but a knowing sound. He could smell what waited.

Max glanced at the wreckage behind them. "We keep surviving. But the world keeps shrinking."

Ying gave him a long look. "One more stop," she said. "Then we see if finding her was worth it."

Hana didn't reply. She just pulled her cloak tighter, adjusted her charm pouch, and started walking.

And this time, no one stopped her.

…………………

The lair beneath Kyoto pulsed like a buried heart.

It wasn't stone anymore. Not entirely. The walls had softened – or bloomed – into pale, membranous folds, veined with silver and thin as flesh. Votive charms hung in the air like wilted petals, suspended by nothing. A thousand torii gates stood half-formed and fused into the ceiling, their red lacquer melted down into dripping glyphs that spelled no prayer ever uttered in this world.

In the centre of the chamber, she knelt.

Zagan.

She looked like a girl – if you could ignore the way light recoiled from her. If you could ignore the way the floor wept blood beneath her bare feet.

Her body was delicate. Too perfect. Not in a divine sense, but like something crafted to look human. Slender limbs, smooth skin the colour of moonlit pearl, a neck too long, a back too straight. Her white hair hung loose to her waist, barely touching the pair of bone-white fox ears that twitched as she hummed softly – tuneless and wrong.

Her face was the worst part.

Not because it was monstrous.

Because it was beautiful.

A girl's face, porcelain-smooth, eyes wide and gold – but empty. Not blank, not lost. Empty. As if whatever soul once filled her had been scraped out to make space for something else.

Something sacred.

Something evil.

White fur trailed down her spine, ending in seven tails that curled around her like a curtain of snow. Each one moved independently – twitching, tasting the air, weaving complex shapes in the dark.

Before her, a shrine took shape.

Not built – grown. Its pillars writhed like nerves, made from compressed bones and braided hair. Mask fragments jutted from its base like blooming flowers. In the centre, Ferron's blood – still fresh – floated in a glassy sphere, suspended above a slowly forming altar of flesh.

She sang to it.

Soft, sweet. Like a nursery rhyme with no words.

The masked children gathered at the edges of the room didn't breathe. They simply watched, eyes black and lips stitched shut. Some clutched pieces of porcelain. Some clutched human limbs. One of them was trying to reassemble a dead bird, as if Zagan's presence might reanimate it by proximity.

She touched the altar. The blood shimmered.

Zagan smiled.

"I've never met a Contractor like him," she whispered. Her voice was melodic. And cold.

"His soul is raw. Burnt. Still burning. But also… shaped." She tilted her head. "Most try to steal power. But he gave it away. How strange."

A tail flicked. The shrine let out a low groan.

"He's not clean," she said. "But he's not quite mine either."

She dipped her fingers into the blood sphere.

It responded – twitching like it remembered being inside a living man.

Zagan's expression changed. Just for a moment.

From delight… to hunger.

Then—

A presence brushed her mind.

Zagan froze.

All seven tails stilled. Her breath hitched. The air around her dropped several degrees.

Then she smiled.

She fell to her knees. Not in fear. In reverence.

"Lord Moloch," she whispered.

The shrine flickered. The masked children bowed.

Zagan spoke into the silence – not with sound, but soul. A telepathic link forged long ago.

"I tried," she said. "He was supposed to become my saint. I even used the boy. Ferron. But Max Jaeger… surprised me."

The answer came.

A voice made of static and memory. Beautiful and incomprehensible. A god's breath run through fire.

"You will try again."

Zagan bowed her head.

"Yes, my lord."

"Bring him to me. Unbroken. But not untouched."

She didn't ask why.

She never did.

"Yes," she said softly. "I'll wear down his hope. I'll skin his resistance. I'll make him understand."

She lifted her face to the blood, eyes alight.

"And when I break him… he'll think it was his idea to kneel."

The sphere pulsed once.

"He thinks he's escaping," Zagan said, her voice lilting. "But every step he takes… is toward me."

Zagan rose, tails flaring like wings.

Then, smiling through a face too perfect to be real, she whispered: "Let them witness transfiguration – not into light, but into the final shape of ruin."

The chamber exhaled.

And somewhere above, far beyond the shrine, every mask on Mount Inari turned toward the city.

Waiting.

Hunting.

Awake.

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