Panicking, Saa'ir's mind disregarded reason and raced for a strategy, but the shadows were attuned to his thoughts. A thick, sinewy tendril erupted from the ground, lancing toward him in a deadly arc. Saa'ir twisted aside, barely avoiding its tip. But there was no rest; another tendril stabbed for him, then another. He weaved through the onslaught like a dancer in a nightmare.

Then one tendril curled behind him and lashed around his left arm, yanking him off balance. Before he could recover, a second wrapped around his right arm. Three more snaked up to coil around his legs and neck. The tendrils tightened, hoisting him into the air like prey on hooks.

Saa'ir writhed about with his eyes closed, his aura sputtering from exhaustion, but the shadow ropes held him fast. "Damn it!" He shouted as he cracked open an eye and saw both Mumu & Nini, suspended in the same cruel embrace, their limbs bound. They too thrashed around, trying their best to escape. All the while, the assembled Curse of Hatred replicas stood beyond reach, their white-void eyes gleaming as they joined in a dark chorus of laughter.

Below them, in the center of the void, Dama lay curled around Giona, his body a flimsy shield against the shadows. She trembled in his arms, eyes shut tight with terror. Even Dama's fierce golden glow had staggered in the sudden nightmare.

"Dama! Giona!" Saa'ir shouted in desperation his attempts in escaping getting more hectic.

Down below, Dama and Giona was encircled by their adversary's endless reflections, each one mocking their fear—trapped in the Curse of Hatred's merciless domain.

"I trust you understand now..." a dozen ragged echoes of the Curse of Hatred's hollow voice rose in melancholic unison, filling the void like a choir of shadows—tilting their heads in perfect synchronicity. "You are not in Giona's mind anymore. I was waiting for this exact moment for all of you to step out of the light of Giona's soul. You now stand in the Realm of Dreams—my Domain. I command shadows. I shape nightmares. I, and only I, am the darkness in every mortal heart."

With a slow, deliberate step—each replica sinking ankle-deep into the blackness—they advanced, sealing every path they had come from. The walls of shadow rippled and folded, erasing any hint of stone or escape. The Chorus then wove their voices together, "There is no exit—there is no escape. Your fate is in my hands. Here, I am all-powerful."

Dama's arms constricted around Giona as her fresh sobs trembled against his chest. He wept with her, tears blurring the oppressive darkness. His mind scrambled "Why us? Why now?"

He found himself crying out to figures no longer near—Mr. Koul, Granny Tsubasa, even his parents—begging for rescue.

However, his silent pleas fell on no ears. The Curse of Hatred was right, there was no escape.

"Why…" Dama eventually muttered, voice strangled by despair.

A soft, cruel giggle echoed as the multiple voices of the Curse responded, "Now what did I tell you, child? Speak up..."

Dama raised tear-glazed eyes. His voice trembled, cracking like an old house door. "Why… Why are you doing this...? Why are you h-here? What are you...really?" The boy then gritted his teeth in solemn acceptance. "If I'm going to die...a-at least give me that..."

The Chorus of Curses all lowered their heads, smiled wider and answered with somber clarity. "It all started with Giona Evelyn Tamaki. Not only the first witch in history and mother of all witchkind, but also deemed the 'strongest witch' in history. How do you think she became to be known as such?"

The replicas began to circle and slowly close in on the whimpering duo as they continued. Their unified voice and movements creating a dissonance of sorts, causing Dama to see a trail of afterimages as they moved, heightening his terror. "It's simple really, for among the numerous powers she wielded, the most powerful emotion of them all fueled most: Hatred..."

The circle of hatred stopped its advance, with each Curse flexing their left hand toward the ground. Soon after, the shadows right in front of Dama and Giona started to bubble and shift, as if something was surfacing from the abyss itself.

Dama's mind couldn't even finish a single thought before each one was interrupted by another taking its place. He could feel himself spiraling into madness, something that debately scared him the most.

With one big, black bubble of shadows popping, only then could Dama see what was emerging from the abyss. Thankfully, it wasn't what his mind feared, but still confused him to no end.

What was surfacing was the jagged edge of a book, one that looked more and more weird the more it revealed itself from the shadows. The cover of it was bound in jet‐black leather that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Cryptic, blood‐red runes spiraled across the front in a language that felt like knives to Dama's already deteriorating psyche—mainly due to the runes shifting ever so slightly when he blinked.

But the most unsettling feature lies on the back cover: a single, stark white crescent moon, perfectly centered against the black leather. It gleamed with an unnatural luminescence, as if reflecting a nonexistent moonlit sky.

"W-Wha-What the...!?" Was all Dama could stammer out in response, breathlessly.

Reacting to Dama's increased trembling, a still sobbing Giona couldn't but to look at whatever made Dama so terrified—something she would regret. The emerging book was almost just like the books the bad men forced Giona to access and read. The similar cryptic runes, the similar jagged edges, but what Giona recognized the most was the faint, yet distinct magical pulses emanating from the book—like a heartbeat.

To Dama, he had no idea what the book was, but to Saa'ir and Giona, who buried her face back into Dama's chest out of fear, they knew what it was all too well. It was a Grimoire: a magical relic that can only be used by those of the Witch Clan and bring out a witch's true potential.

"Just like any other emotion," the chorus of curses intoned as they all flexed their index finger upwards, causing the grimoire to float high above the circle, "the emotion of hatred is a curse. Curses can only be wielded by witches. At their cores, no matter what form a curse may take, they're fueled by emotions, and in some cases—the physical embodiment of one."

Taking all of this in, Dama's mind continued to spiral as it tried, despite Dama unwillingness, to comprehend everything. Giona Evelyn Tamaki. Witches. Curses. Emotions. Hatred.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The Curse of Hatred.

It was then it all clicked in Dama's mind as it stood still for once, as if frozen in time. He looked down at Giona, but his gaze ignored her, his vision growing fuzzier from no focus. His breaths became heavier, shakier, and more frequent as the realization dawned on him on what exactly they were up against.

With a face that grew darker by the second, Dama finally parted his lips in horror. "Y... Y-You... That's impossible... You're Giona Evelyn Tamaki's...!"

Each and every Curse of Hatred tilted their heads mockingly in unison. "Power? Magic? Curse? Hatred? If you were going to say any of the above, you're smarter than I thought, boy. Now do you understand what you're fighting against?"

Dama's teeth began to chatter together as he felt a chill go up his spine—but instead of disappearing like usual, the chill only spread throughout his body, consuming all the warmth from his body. His body now couldn't stop trembling at full capacity. "T-T-That can't... That can't be true...! She died centuries ago!"

The Curse of Hatreds tilted their heads in the opposite direction, the glee from seeing Dama's will slowly being consumed by the shadows obvious in their unified voices as they responded. "Correct, she did. However, death doesn't mean one's emotions will just disappear..." They all cackled out from Dama's naivety, only for them all to look at Saa'ir, still suspended in the air like a puppet. "Isn't that right, Saa'ir?"

Bringing their attention back to Dama and Giona, the chorus continued explaining. "You would be surprised the amount of hatred that was not only generated by Giona herself, but also the entire world she found herself in—one ravaged by the Holy Catalyst War. Millions suffered. Thousands died. Hundreds rose against the conflict, but were never remembered. Only a few had the power to make a change, yet not all made a change for the better."

Each word out of the curse's mouth, while only coming in one ear and out the other for everyone else, strucj a deeper and deeper chord within Saa'ir. Memories of memories—charred lands, mountains of bloodied bodies, explosions of magic lighting up the sky—clawed their way to his mind, using the curse's words as leverage. Each memory making him wince in not only physical pain, but also in a nostalgic, emotional pain too.

"In a period like that, it was no wonder hatred festered in every dark corner. Even when the war was ended by Adam's hands—even when Giona Evelyn Tamaki died—all that hatred wouldn't just disappear. It had to go somewhere," the Curse of Hatreds all looked up at the floating grimoire with their hands outstretched, as if offering something, "me. I was free—free to do anything I wanted, to feed endlessly on the world's hatred, to grant mortalkind's darkest wish: to destroy everything."

"However, it was unfortunate that there was another who came from the same circumstances as me at the time. Eight centuries ago, I was sealed in this realm, unable to touch the waking world. My only hope was a host—one filled with enough hatred to bear my power, to let me walk again. Many suitable witches have come and gone, but none burned with true loathing…" they all pointed at Giona, "until you, Giona."

At the comment, Giona buried her face deeper in Dama's chest, her sobs escalating in a broken cascade. Dama's heart seized as he listened.

The voices continued, cold, certain, and calculating. "When those you have come love are taken by those who so callously destroy and take from others, your hatred will consume you, unbidden. In that moment, our souls will merge, and together we will unleash vengeance on the world that shattered you. The dawn of shadows will be at hand."

Giona's grip tightened on Dama's sweater until her knuckles whitened. Even through her sobs, her voice rose, cracking with palpable terror. "No… I...I do not want that… Please, Dama… I'm scared…" Her words broke on a ragged inhale, each syllable laced with trembling fear, her cries echoing off the abyss as she pleaded, "No let me go, Dama, please...!"

A spark ignited deep in Dama's chest as Giona's terror washed over him, snapping him out of his own fear-induced spiral. He felt her small body trembling, the sniffs that racked her body, heard the quaver in her plea.

In that moment, a memory burst into his mind: the campfire from last night, flickering orange against the night sky. Specifically, it was around when Koul & Liam had just given him 'the talk' and waited for Dama's response to the whole thing.

With red cheeks and cherry face, Dama processed as he had his chin in his grasp. He thought that now he knew why he had been thinking about girls so much so suddenly, he only had one more question on his mind. "Mr. Koul, Mr. Liam, when will I know I have become a man? A man that girls like, a man that's seen as reliable, a man like you two—like my dad?"

Dama remembered Liam & Koul exchanged looks, grinning at Dama's question, showing his already sensible nature. Liam then did an inviting gesture towards Dama, an invitation Koul eagerly accepted.

Leaning in close to Dama, Koul said words Dama would never forget: "Trust me, lad, ye'll know you're a man," Koul had said, "when fear threatens to swallow you—yet you choose to keep your head tall. When everyone else looks away at something that needs to be done—yet you choose to do it anyway. When something or someone threatens to hurt the ones you love most—yet you choose to stand and protect them, no matter the cost. That is what being a man is all about at its core."

The memory faded, and Dama's fear hardened into resolve. Still with chattering teeth, he raised his head. Tears still tracked down his cheeks, but his voice founded by steel. "No, I-I won't let that happen."

Every replica of the Curse of Hatred froze. Their malformed grins vanished in perfect unison, leaving empty black voids where mouths had been. Then, ever so slowly, those voids curled back into white smiles—small at first, then stretching wider and wider until their grins split their shadowy faces in two. All at once they said in a uncanny, but calm harmony, "Then die."

Hundreds of shadow-tendrils burst from the darkness, streaking toward Dama in a deadly storm of pitch-black malice.

Death was all but inevitable at this point to Dama.

He squeezed Giona tighter, eyes clenched shut as memories cascaded through his mind—her first smile the day they first met, the warmth of her hand in his, her laughter echoing under moonlit skies. Each moment played like a stolen scene from a life he vowed to protect. As the last memory of Giona hugging him before he went off the Briarstone faded, an image of a glowing, golden orb pulsed before his inner eye.

Emotions are powerful tools in this world, you see. They don't just fuel and give life to curses, they help produce the soulura anyone can use, and the most powerful of these emotions is Hatred—and its opposite—Love.

When Dama opened his eyes, they burned bright gold. "I said no!" He roared, voice echoing like thunder, and an immense wave of golden soulura burst from him. The shadow tendrils disintegrated in the radiant blast, and dozens of the Curse of Hatred replicas were sent stumbling backward.

Before the shadows could regroup, Dama's voice rang out, steady and resolute despite his trembling lips. "I don't care who—or what—you are. You will not lay a finger on her!" He glanced at Giona, still trembling in his arms, and continued, voice choked with emotion, "My grandmother said I had a gift—a Soulful Technique—one that could help others! I never understood why…until now. It was given to me for moments like this! To protect those I love!"

He closed his eyes, golden light flaring around them both, bright enough to rival the sun. "I swear—no matter what comes—I will protect you, Giona, until the day my soul passes on!"

In that final declaration, the gold exploded outward in a blinding flash. Time stretched as radiant light engulfed them all. Saa'ir, blinded, winced and turned away as he felt the last of his bonds dissolve in the face of the brilliance.

When the light faded, he blinked against the dawn of something new—the oppressive void they were in was gone. Instead, he stood atop a vast, crystal-clear lake, its surface perfectly still beneath a wide, brilliant blue sky. For a moment, he simply stared, free and amazed by this unexpected turn of events.

-

Next: (Chapter 71) Dama's Mindscape

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