I. The Smoke Assembly
In the heart of Mount Ladriv , beneath the ancient mausoleum of the Saika Clan, a dozen figures gathered behind closed doors. There were no escorts. No recordings. Only silence, black incense, and a circular table carved with the symbol of the Twelve Original Families : a root surrounding a human tongue.
The meeting was called under the code name:
The Assembly of Smoke.
Among the attendees were:
Mizuki Inari , wearing a dark red kimono with fox fur trim.Hatsuro Meikō , wearing a bronze mask without holes.Madame Liora , dressed in mourning, with blades on her fingers instead of rings.Nakaruma of the Gure Clan, former ally of the defunct government.And an empty seat reserved for an envoy from the Kurobane Clan .
The figure presiding over the meeting was Iban Tesshō , one of the retired blood judges, considered neutral among the mafias.
"The Wounded One has returned," he said, breaking the silence with a voice as raspy as dry parchment. "And the mark can no longer be ignored."
Mizuki, with the glass of liquor in hand, spoke without fear.
—See ? What I predicted is coming true. The Tree has spoken through flesh. And if we don't control it now... it will become a living legend.
Hatsuro tapped the table gently.
—Legend or not, if the Tree decides that this Akihiko will be its channel, none of us will be able to stop it later. We must decide now.
" What if we recruit him?" Nakaruma suggested . "If the Tree chose him, maybe we can use him to open the other roots."
Liora smiled with soulless lips.
—And if the Wounded One doesn't want to be root or axe...
Will he let us live?
The atmosphere became tense. No one wanted to say it, but everyone was thinking:
"The Wounded Man could be the end of the mafias… or their last chance to rule everything."
Then the empty seat spoke.
A hooded figure appeared, surrounded by black smoke. His voice was firm, masculine, elegant.
—Patriarch Kurobane has a message:
Observe. Do not interfere. Whoever touches the Wounded will be dismembered.
The message remained unsaid. There was no further debate.
Only a tacit agreement:
The Wounded would live… for now.
II. The buried city
Meanwhile, in the south, the Shades of Tartarus descended through the forbidden tunnels toward Seliad , the city that was sealed after the War of the Twelve Tongues. According to the texts of the Lost Tree, the Fourth Fragment of the Ash Scroll was located there .
Seliad wasn't dead.
Just… buried alive .
The walls whispered.
Roots sprouted from within the corpses impaled on collapsed ceilings. Doors didn't open with keys. Only with blood.
Varek , the new leader of the Shadows, led the expedition with a serene gait. His face was covered by a child's bone mask and his body was tattooed with phrases taken from ancient verses.
At every step, he muttered:
"The fourth word will be denial.
The root that hides is not weak. It is the one that listens. It is the one that judges. It is the one that remembers who lied to it."
The followers followed him without question. All of them were mute. Mutilated out of loyalty.
On their backs, they carried urns carved with human fingers: urns to transport the fragment if they found it.
They entered the depths of Seliad. In the center of the buried city, they found the Altar of the Broken Verse : a petrified wooden sphere floating above a crater.
When one of the priests tried to touch it, the sphere reacted. His arm disappeared , not burned, not severed… but forgotten , as if it had never existed.
Varek spoke:
— This fragment is not to be touched. It is to be admitted.
He knelt. He placed his forehead on the earth.
His lips spoke the ancient words, in a language only the Tree recognized.
And the sphere descended.
It split in two.
Inside was the Fourth Fragment.
A human bone, engraved in black sap.
III. Poisoned roots
In his tent, after the meeting on Mount Ladriv, Mizuki Inari opened a document received by spies. It was a map with connected root routes under the entire continent. On it, one of the routes was marked in red:
"The Wounded Root: in motion."
" Is it moving?" he whispered.
One of his advisors, an old philosopher condemned to exile, replied:
—No. It's not that it's moving. It's just... the Wounded One is activating it.
Mizuki remained silent. Then he said:
—It's not a brand anymore.
It's a key .
IV. In the silence of the bones
In an abandoned hut among ruins, Akihiko practiced with his katana.
Each movement was slow, measured, as if seeking not to cut the air… but the memory of the air .
Ikari watched silently. Something about him was changing.
—What do you feel when you get close to a living root?
"Nothing," he replied.
—And when you walk away?
Akihiko looked up. His gaze wasn't the same.
—I feel like something is following me from inside.
V. And the tree continues writing…
In an unknown corner of the world, where trees grow backwards and the ground is covered in white ash, a red-eyed boy reads a book that no one taught him to read.
He found it under a twisted root.
Every page you turn, a part of the world changes.
And when he gets to page 82, he smiles.
"It's already writing itself," he says. "
And the ending isn't even decided yet."
END OF CHAPTER 82