The air above the broken chamber no longer trembled with the cries of the Severed—but the silence it left behind was heavier than any scream.
Ahri stood still, eyes fixed on the now-dim Spirit Fang in her hand. It felt lighter than before. Less like a weapon, more like a memory.
Jin gently touched her shoulder. "You're shaking."
Ahri hadn't noticed. Her fingers were trembling—not from fear, but from something stranger. Emptiness.
"I think it took something from me," she said quietly. "When I used it."
The Elder joined them, his steps slow and deliberate. "The fang was a shard of an ancient spirit. To wield it is to carry part of its burden. What you gave up... may not return in the form you expect."
Ahri didn't respond. She kept looking at her palm where the fang had pulsed—there was now a faint mark, like a burn, in the shape of a spiral.
As the three turned back toward the exit, a cold breeze swept through the temple. The flames from their talismans flickered blue for a heartbeat. Jin frowned. "That wind… it didn't come from here."
Ahri looked up.
There, high above, past the shattered carvings of fate along the ceiling, something shimmered. For a moment, she thought she saw a figure—tall, draped in threads of darkness—watching them from a gap in the weave itself.
It disappeared the instant she blinked.
"Did you see that?" she whispered.
The Elder's voice was grim. "Yes."
Jin swallowed hard. "Another Severed?"
"No," he said. "Something deeper."
They left the Binding Below and returned to the temple surface, but it no longer felt like a sanctuary.
The temple had always been a crossroads—between spirit and human, memory and truth—but now it felt vulnerable. The threads Ahri saw lingering in the corners of every hallway drooped and twitched, as if disturbed by an unseen presence.
That night, as the wind howled against the roof tiles, Ahri dreamed.
She stood in a vast field of golden thread, stretching beyond the horizon. At the center was a tree—twisted, ancient, and leafless, its branches tangled with frayed lines.
Underneath it stood a figure.
Not the fox spirit.
This was something else entirely.
It wore a mask—white porcelain, cracked like dry bone—and its eyes were empty voids, weeping black thread.
"You've opened the fang."The voice was neither male nor female. It sounded like many people whispering at once."Now the Weave knows you. The forgotten ones remember."
Ahri tried to speak, but no sound came out.
The figure turned, placing a finger to the mask's lips."Shh. You'll wake her."
And then the golden thread beneath her feet snapped.
Ahri woke with a gasp, heart racing, sweat cold on her neck.
Outside her window, the temple's guardian bells were ringing—soft, frantic chimes that only stirred when the wards were crossed.
The three gathered at the inner courtyard, moonlight casting long shadows between the columns. The Elder examined the central ward stone—it had cracked straight down the middle.
"This wasn't a creature," he murmured. "It was a ripple. A pressure from the other side."
Jin's breath clouded in the cold. "The other side of what?"
The Elder hesitated. "The Weave itself."
Ahri clenched her fists. "There's something beyond the threads, isn't there? Something older than fate."
The Elder nodded slowly.
"When the world was still raw, the threads were woven by spirits—but not all spirits agreed with fate. Some believed fate was a prison. They tried to live beyond it. And so, they were cast out—forgotten, buried. They became the Hollowed."
Ahri blinked. "Are they connected to the Severed?"
"More than connected," he said. "The Severed are only the first to hear their whispers."
For a long time, none of them spoke.
Then Jin asked, "If they were banished... how are they returning now?"
The Elder looked at Ahri.
"Because the fang wasn't just a weapon. It was a seal."
Ahri's blood turned to ice.
"Then... I didn't destroy the Severed," she whispered. "I opened a door."
The Elder nodded once.
"And now... something is walking through."
Far away, across the veils of thread and memory, in a ruined archive once hidden from all living eyes, a figure stepped through a frayed gateway. It wore the same cracked mask from Ahri's dream.
Behind it, a sea of still shadows waited—faceless, breathless, patient.
The masked figure looked up at the stars—no, not stars. Threads. Tens of thousands, all shining.
It raised a hand.
One thread turned black.
Then another.
Then another.
And slowly, fate itself began to rot.