The stone beneath Hana's knees was cold enough to bite through her skin. But she didn't flinch. Her breath came slow and deliberate as she traced the final sigil in soulglass dust, the powder leaving a faint shimmer across the ancient floor. Everything had been measured – every symbol, every cut, every ounce of pain distilled into precision.

The circle wasn't drawn in chalk. That would've been too crude. This was a rite etched in lineage – one that required blood, salt, breath, and memory.

Fragments of her soul. Fragments of Ferron's.

A final offering.

The pattern gleamed softly in the dark, its arcs and points pulsing faint red, like the beginning of a wound that hadn't yet bled.

Above her, Liz floated in the pod – serene, still, but utterly wrong. A tethered soul, suspended between hunger and hope. Her aura flickered gently beneath the glass, a heartbeat stalled in molasses, whispering promise and threat at once.

Max stood just behind Hana. His jaw clenched. The bandages across his knuckles were stained – not fresh, not dry. Just permanent now. He wasn't breathing heavily, but his chest rose and fell too evenly, like a man forcing rhythm into lungs that didn't want to obey.

"You're sure this will work?" he asked.

His voice wasn't angry. It was scraped raw.

"No," Hana said. She didn't look back. "But it's the only door left."

A silence stretched between them. Not empty. Full – of failure, of fear, of everything they'd already lost.

Then Max spoke again, lower this time. "Then open it."

She dipped her head once.

Kabe lumbered forward from the shadows. The great bear knelt at the threshold of the ritual circle, paws sinking slightly into the stone as his fur shimmered with silver tension. One breath. Two. Then stillness – as if the beast had become a mountain, unmoving, unshakable.

"Guard the gate," Hana whispered.

Kabe did not reply.

He didn't need to.

Hana took a final breath and closed her eyes.

The incantation began.

At first, it was a hum – soft, circular, building like a current winding its way through the stones beneath her palms. Then syllables followed. Not Japanese. Not Latin. Something older. Words whose edges bent the air around them. They did not mean – they unravelled meaning.

As she chanted, the circle flared.

The sapphire dust lit like fireflies. The soulglass cracked softly, its fragments rising into the air like tiny stars reversing gravity. Even the sanctuary groaned – beams above them creaking faintly, as if the room itself was being dragged closer to something it didn't understand.

Chloe stood just outside the circle's edge, eyes wide. Ying didn't move, but one hand hovered over the hilt of her sword.

A candle exploded.

The flame didn't rise. It vanished – swallowed by the shadows flickering across Hana's shoulders.

Then her hands moved – not with elegance, but with purpose.

A cut to her forearm.

A press of blood to her brow.

"魂の門を開け," she said aloud.

Open the gate of souls.

The air inhaled. There was no other word for it – it pulled inward like the whole world had flinched.

And Liz responded.

Her halo, long dormant, blazed – not as a circle but a rotating wheel of crimson light. The pod pulsed once, twice—

Then Hana collapsed.

Max caught her.

Her body fell limp in his arms, head rolling slightly to the side, but her chest still rose and fell – barely. Her eyes were wide and white. No colour. No focus. Her soul was gone.

Max knelt with her at the edge of the circle, silent.

Something shimmered over her skin.

Not sweat. Not heat. But departure.

Her spirit had crossed the threshold.

And inside Elizabeth Jaeger's mind, the door creaked open.

…………………

Light cracked like bone splitting. And Hana landed hard.

Her knees struck a scorched stone path that hadn't existed a moment ago – a path winding through a ruinous cityscape suspended in silence. The air reeked of smoke and static, as if a thunderstorm had just passed through and left the scent of regret behind.

She groaned and pushed herself up.

Around her, buildings twisted at impossible angles. Kyoto Tower loomed, half-dissolved into scaffolding and torii gates fused with veins of bone. The sky bled red, not from any sun, but from something pulsing just beyond the clouds – as though a divine artery had burst and refused to clot.

Then Hana felt it.

Not seen. Not heard. Felt.

Pressure. Coiled heat. A presence vast enough to bend the landscape around it.

She turned.

Floating above the broken avenue stood a figure.

For a heartbeat, Hana couldn't breathe.

The girl hovered inches off the stone, wrapped in flame that wasn't fire – it was soul made visible, raw psychic energy spilling from every fracture in her aura. Her white-blonde hair – once soft, once human – had been forged into something else: braided ropes of red flame, tied back like war banners trailing smoke. The braids swayed in slow arcs, as if they moved through water, not air.

Her armour clung to her form like it had been welded in place. It shimmered with molten edges – not metal, but thought made solid. Not forged, but remembered. And each plate pulsed faintly with veins of red light, as though her heart beat through every inch of it.

Her eyes…

Gods, her eyes.

They were green – but not the green of forests or spring. These were storm-churned emeralds, alight from within. They glowed softly, not from power, but from control. From judgement. The kind of stare that stripped away illusion and flesh, down to bone and belief.

Behind her, a red halo spun slowly.

Not a simple ring.

A wheel – layered and burning, each spoke carved with glyphs that Hana recognised from exorcist rites centuries old. A thousand lives. A thousand deaths. And still spinning.

It cast no shadow.

It didn't need to.

The girl's face – Liz's face – was unyielding. Pale, expressionless, ageless. It should've belonged to a girl of seventeen.

But it didn't.

It belonged to something that had been seventeen, once.

Now, it belonged to a survivor.

A weapon.

A soul that had refused.

And when Liz looked at Hana, there was no warmth in her gaze. No hope. No fear.

Only calculation.

Only threat.

Hana didn't move.

Didn't reach for her sword.

Instead, she bowed her head. Just once.

She spoke clearly, evenly. "I am Hana Seineru. I'm here to help you."

Liz's voice followed – low, even, and tired in a way that went beyond years.

"Everyone wants to help when it's too late."

The air warped slightly around her, as if her words distorted gravity itself. Her halo flared once – a single revolution of flame – and the ground beneath Hana's boots hissed.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Hana said softly. "You've held the demon longer than anyone. I came to help you finish what you started."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Liz landed.

Her bare feet touched the ash-slick stone, silent as falling dust.

The fire around her armour dimmed slightly – not gone, but banked, like coals waiting for breath.

Her stance was balanced, but ready.

"I don't need anyone to finish what I started," she said. "I've kept it bound. For months. For an eternity. While you were all out there losing, I kept it from spreading."

Hana nodded slowly. "I know. You've done more than anyone could've asked. But the door can open now. And you're not alone."

Liz's eyes flicked toward the sky, where strange stars glowed behind veils of smoke.

"The door is never open," she murmured. "That's what it wants. That's what it is."

She stepped forward, and the mindscape shifted with her – a ripple of stone and fire reconfiguring the path.

"You came to find me," she said at last. "So, find me."

Hana hesitated. Then followed.

Together, they walked into the deeper layers of Liz's soul.

And somewhere far beneath the surface, something ancient stirred – watching, tasting, waiting.

…………………

The path twisted through collapsed arches and scorched stone. Rooftops leaned sideways like broken teeth. Every surface was covered in grey-white ash, too fine to be natural – like something ground up memory and scattered the powder across the bones of a city.

Hana walked carefully.

She didn't speak. She didn't try to catch up.

Liz walked ahead, barefoot on the dust. Her psychic armour flared and shimmered with every step – plates folding, reshaping, never static. Her aura never dimmed. She burned like a torch trying not to blind herself.

But Hana saw the tension in her gait.

Not fear.

Suspicion.

"You don't trust me," Hana said gently, more observation than accusation.

Liz stopped.

The ash shifted around her feet.

She turned her head slightly. Just enough to show one eye – glowing green, narrowed. "Should I?"

"I don't know," Hana said honestly.

That answer surprised Liz. Just a flicker. But it was there.

"I've had other visitors," Liz said, voice low. "Dreams. Hallucinations. Tricks from the Devourer. Verrine. Then... Moloch. All of them said they came to help."

She faced Hana fully now. Her halo spun slow and deliberate behind her, casting flickers of red across the ash. "They all turned into something else when I let my guard down."

"I'm not a trick," Hana said.

"Prove it."

Hana didn't move. "I can't."

Liz's mouth twisted into something almost like a smile – cold and dry. "Good answer."

The ash on the wind picked up. A slow swirl around them, like the ruins were trying to listen.

Liz crossed her arms. The armour groaned faintly as it adjusted.

"Why are you really here, Hana Seineru? What's the price for helping the demon girl?"

"I'm here because Ferron asked me to be," Hana said.

Liz flinched. Not visibly. Not enough for most to notice.

But Hana wasn't most.

She pressed gently. "He gave his life so Max could reach you. So, we could try. Not win. Not save. Try. I owe him more than words."

Liz looked away.

She whispered, "He was kind to me. I could feel him in the real world. Praying for me. Looking after me. He didn't treat me like a burden. I think… I think that's why it hurt so much when I felt he was gone."

Hana nodded. "He saw you. Even when others didn't, or couldn't."

A pause stretched between them.

Then Liz exhaled, like it hurt to say the next words. "I lied to the demon when I summoned it."

"I know."

"I told it I wanted my mother back."

A pause. Even the sky seemed to recoil from that.

"And do you?" Hana asked gently.

"I wanted to want that. I told myself that if I said it enough, it would become real. That maybe if I just played the part – the desperate daughter, the girl who believes in miracles – something might answer. Even a demon."

The halo behind her dimmed slightly. Her shoulders sank just a little. "But the truth is… I didn't believe it. Not really. I knew she was gone. I knew nothing would bring her back."

She swallowed hard. Her voice dropped. "I wanted a thousand things. But I didn't summon that demon to bring her back. I summoned it to see if anything cared. It didn't."

Hana took a slow step forward.

"And instead of being eaten," she said softly, "you became the cage."

Liz's eyes gleamed, but she didn't cry. "I didn't mean to survive. I didn't mean to become this."

"But you did."

Liz stared at her – not fiercely now, but warily, like someone trying to remember how to hope.

"Why are you saying this?" she asked. "Why does it matter?"

Hana tilted her head slightly. "Because truth matters. Because choices matter. And because Ferron died for this moment. For you."

She stepped closer. Her own aura flickered faintly now – less fire, more reflection.

"Your survival wasn't an accident. Your flame didn't just come from your father. It came from you. And if you want to burn it all down… fine. But do it knowing the truth of what you are."

Liz didn't speak.

But the fire around her dimmed just enough to let the silence in.

And that, Hana knew, was the first crack in the wall.

…………………

The ground rumbled beneath their feet.

It wasn't violent. Not yet. Just a slow grinding – like the world had decided to change direction. The ash parted as if inhaled by something vast beneath, and the ruins rearranged themselves. Shattered walls folded inward. Broken temples collapsed into themselves. Statues melted to slag.

And from the centre of the wreckage, a spiral staircase emerged.

Not built. Exhumed.

It twisted downward into darkness that pulsed red and black – like a wound in the fabric of Liz's soul. Each step flickered with symbols Hana didn't recognise, but all of them bled meaning. Rage. Shame. Isolation.

Liz didn't hesitate.

She stepped onto the first stair, armour crackling faintly as her bare feet touched the stone.

Hana hesitated. Just long enough to notice the shift in air – thicker now, harder to breathe. Not like smoke. Like memory. Too many layers pressing in.

Then she followed.

The descent wasn't fast. But it was constant. Each step echoed unnaturally, like the sound was being played back a second after it was made. The space around them narrowed and widened at random – sometimes cavernous, sometimes claustrophobic – like the mindscape couldn't decide if it wanted to contain them or consume them.

The deeper they went, the more the mindscape began to resist. Not with noise – but stillness.

Hana's breath slowed without meaning to. The air pressed in close, not heavy, but muffled. Like sound had been turned down just for them.

"It knows," Liz murmured. "It always knows when I get this far."

Something in the walls creaked – not stone, but thought folding inward.

After the sixth turn, Hana spoke.

"You're tired."

It wasn't a question.

Liz didn't answer immediately. The halo behind her spun slower now, and her gait was less steady. Her red armour flickered – momentary fractures spiderwebbing the plating before sealing again.

"I've been tired," Liz said finally, voice distant. "For a long time. Since before I made the deal."

Hana nodded, keeping pace. "And yet you fought it. Bound it. How?"

Liz's hands flexed. "I don't know. I just… refused. It kept whispering, promising, showing me things. I stopped trying to resist its power. Started treating it like a parasite. If I fed it false belief, it got weaker. If I called it by name, it got louder. So, I called it nothing."

The walls pulsed. The air shivered.

Hana frowned. "Most people break. Or become something else."

Liz gave a brittle laugh. "I broke too. I just broke inward. Built walls. Put it behind them. Gave it a prison it couldn't chew through."

They walked another few steps.

Then Liz faltered.

She grabbed the stair rail – if it could be called that – a curved line of bone and rust, slick with something that pulsed faintly beneath her fingers.

Hana stepped forward, but didn't touch her.

"You alright?"

Liz didn't answer right away. Her voice, when it came, was low. "I thought I was. But now that I'm close… I can feel it again. Not its thoughts – mine. All the ones I shoved into the dark corners so I could stay alive."

Her shoulders trembled. "I don't know if I can kill it."

"You said you bound it."

"I did. But killing it… feels like killing a part of myself."

Hana studied her. Not just the armour, the aura, the weaponised shape Liz had become.

But the weight behind her eyes.

She exhaled, soft. "You've lasted longer than anyone I've ever heard of. Possession burns through souls like dry leaves. A month is rare. Two is a miracle. A year and a half? That's…"

Her voice trailed off. Then firmed.

"You have an iron will, Elizabeth. You deserve to be free."

Liz's head dipped slightly. Her eyes gleamed brighter – not power. Wetness.

"I don't feel strong," she said.

"I know," Hana replied. "That's why I pity you too."

Liz cracked, just a little. Her shoulders hunched. The red fire around her flickered, uncertain.

"I'm just tired," she whispered.

They reached the final stair.

A round platform waited at the base – hovering above an abyss of writhing dark, chains of light coiled around it like an abandoned ritual site. In the centre stood a cage – not of metal, but of mirrored glass and pulsating thread. A prison woven from Liz's soul and sealed with her pain.

Inside… something moved.

A voice slithered through the gloom, not spoken, just felt.

"Closer."

Hana's sword flickered into her hand.

Liz's aura surged back to life, but her posture was coiled tight – like every step forward required her to choose again.

The Devourer was waking.

And the descent… was done.

…………………

The stairs ended without warning.

One moment, they were descending through memory-veined ruin – the next, they stood before a chamber suspended in unreality.

The floor vanished into a reflection. Not glass, but something worse – obsidian made of memory, rippling with every breath they took. The ceiling mirrored it, warping the sky above into an echo. The walls pulsed with faint illumination, each pane flickering with images that changed too fast to catch. Faces. Screams. Flame. Silence.

At the centre of it all hung the cage.

No supports. No anchors. Just a mass of warped, vein-ridden bars hovering midair like a tumour in a void. Sigils scrawled in broken languages clung to the metal like barnacles – reversed, frayed, bleeding rust. Every bar seemed to twitch faintly with breath, as if the cage itself inhaled Liz's presence.

Hana stepped forward, breath catching. "This place… this isn't a prison. It's a wound."

Liz didn't reply. Her eyes were locked ahead, green and unblinking.

Inside the cage, something stirred.

It flickered – once, twice – then took shape.

April.

She stood barefoot in the dark, her white-blonde hair braided like Liz's, eyes soft with sorrow. Her hands were outstretched. Blood smeared her fingers like ink.

"Lizzy," she whispered. "You found me."

Liz staggered back a step.

For one breathless moment, the flame around her dimmed. Her halo slowed. Her fingers twitched like she might reach out.

"Mama...?"

But no. The posture was too straight. The voice too calm. And the blood – April never bled like that.

Liz's face hardened. Her halo flared again.

"No," she said.

Liz's throat tightened. Her armour sparked. Then April dissolved.

In her place, Max appeared – skin blackened, eyes hollowed by Hellfire scars, voice scorched. "You did this," he rasped. "You let her in. You left us both."

Another flicker. Ferron. Bleeding from the mouth, one hand clutching his broken kusarigama. He knelt. Whispered. "I died for you."

Then the cage shuddered, and the figures melted together – a kaleidoscope of guilt, each form more wrong than the last. The Devourer didn't choose one face. It wore them all. A mouth of mouths. A voice of many.

"You wanted your mother back," it said. "That was the deal."

Liz's jaw tightened. "That wasn't the deal. You tricked me."

The Devourer's voice curled through the glass like smoke. "You begged. I listened. She was so close. You remember her warmth. Her scent. I still have it. I still can."

Hana stepped forward sharply, hand on her sword. "No demon can raise the dead. Not now, not ever."

The Devourer shifted. A new face – April again, this time crying. The voice cracked. "She wanted to come back. I only helped."

Hana drew her blade in a flash of silver-blue. "Enough lies."

She slashed through the air – but when the katana struck the cage, it passed through with no resistance. No clash. No sound. Just cold.

The Devourer laughed – not loud, but sickly. A knowing sound.

"Steel cannot sever what was never real," it hissed. "She let me in. You all let something in."

Liz didn't speak. She stepped forward – slowly. Her aura flared, halo pulsing behind her head like a crimson wheel of judgment.

"I bound you," she said. "And I kept you here. Every time you scraped at the walls, I rebuilt them."

"Because you love me," the Devourer said sweetly, wearing Liz's face now – hollow-eyed, crying.

"No," Liz said. "Because I hate you."

The thing inside the cage hissed, the illusion peeling back slightly. Beneath the false skin – no body. Just hunger with a shape. Malice given anatomy.

"Yet here you are," it said. "Still listening. Still afraid."

Liz trembled.

Hana looked at her. "You mustn't let it speak. That's how it feeds. That's how it spreads."

Liz didn't move.

The cage pulsed once, the bars exhaling a sound like cracking ice.

"You want to know the truth?" the Devourer asked. "You're not a jailer. You're a door."

Liz's eyes widened.

The cage flickered. The demon's form began to solidify – not into a person, but something long and sinuous, its limbs jointless, its head smooth and mouthless. Yet it grinned.

Liz took a step back.

Hana raised her blade again – but didn't swing.

"Don't listen," she said firmly.

Liz nodded. Her voice came low, tight. "I'm done hearing it."

She turned away.

Didn't look back.

Hana followed.

Behind them, the Devourer's grin widened, splitting impossibly wide. Its flickering slowed. Its shape firmed.

It was waiting. And it was no longer afraid.

Its fingers curled – not at them, but toward the very shape of the cage itself.

"You built this place from pain," it whispered, more to the walls than the girls. "You think that makes it yours."

The chamber didn't shake.

But somewhere deep in the mirrors… a single crack formed.

Just one.

But enough.

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