Toki opened his eyes.
Darkness. Mist. And above him, a sky where stars flickered faintly against a blood-red moon. The world around him was silent, muffled—as if submerged beneath thick layers of dreaming. For a moment, he wondered if he was still alive.
"Am I... dreaming?"
He whispered the words, but they felt heavy in his throat. A sharp pain lanced through his shoulder. He winced. No, this wasn't a dream. Pain had a way of cutting through illusion. He had survived—somehow. The battle with that beast—that monstrous thing born from shadow and hatred—was real.
His breathing was slow, cautious. The air here was cold and metallic. He staggered to his feet, the mist curling around his ankles like living silk. Everywhere he looked, there were crimson motes of light—glowing, blood-colored fireflies drifting aimlessly through the void. They lit nothing, but they floated with eerie purpose.
He reached out and caught one between his fingers. It pulsed gently in his palm, casting its red light on his face.
"What is this place?"
He thought of Utsuki. Of Tora. Of the others. Were they safe? Did they even make it? The last thing he remembered was the roar of the beast, a scream, the stench of blood—then nothing.
He walked.
Each step echoed in the mist, though the ground beneath his feet felt neither solid nor unreal. He didn't know how long he wandered, only that the silence never lifted. The lights continued to float beside him, unbothered.
"If I could just... rest," he murmured. "Just for a little while."
The moment the thought left his lips, the ground shook.
With a violent crack, six massive pillars burst from the earth. The tremor nearly knocked him over. The crimson fireflies scattered, spinning in spirals. Toki stared in wide-eyed awe as walls rose around him—walls of stone and silver, pulsing faintly with red veins. A roof unfolded from above like blooming iron petals, and statues of indistinct figures lined the edges.
Within seconds, a palace stood before him.
Not built. Not summoned. Born.
He approached the grand doors—towering slabs of black wood inlaid with streaks of moonlight. He pushed, expecting resistance. Instead, they opened effortlessly, revealing a vast chamber inside.
It was a throne room, but stripped of grandeur. The walls were cloaked in shadowy fog that made them feel infinite. At the center stood a long obsidian table, flanked by twelve chairs. At its far end, a throne—larger, more ornate, carved with celestial symbols.
He stepped in. The silence followed.
Drawn by an unseen force, he walked to the throne and sat. It was cold. Familiar.
The fireflies floated in through the open doors and began to circle the table. They illuminated four objects resting before him: a simple staff, an ink bottle, a quill, and a black book.
The staff was carved from oak and wrapped in silver at the top. He picked it up. It felt light yet firm. The grip fit perfectly in his hand.
He set it down and reached for the quill—ordinary, its bronze tip slightly bent from use. He dipped it briefly in the ink, testing its weight. Then he turned to the book.
Its cover was midnight black, gilded at the edges, with a red lotus at the center. Above the lotus, a star. Between its petals, a crescent moon.
His fingers trembled as he opened it.
Pages and pages filled with strange letters—symbols he couldn't read, yet felt oddly familiar. Neatly written, symmetrical. Between every chapter, a small playing card was pressed like a bookmark.
He counted them.
Twenty-six.
"Half a deck," he muttered.
Each card bore a unique image. A jester. An assassin. A scholar. A ruler. Twelve doors. A palace. Shapes of darkness, beasts unknown, constellations half-remembered.
The language was the same throughout—unknown but oddly resonant, as if he could almost hear the meanings behind the symbols.
He tapped the cards into a single stack and set them down. Leaning back, he stroked his chin, lost in thought.
That's when he saw it.
A flash. A glimmer of something metallic hidden in the fog.
A figure was approaching.
He stood instinctively, hand gripping the staff. The fireflies drifted toward the figure, illuminating it in flickers.
A woman.
Her beauty struck him like lightning—sharp, otherworldly. Her hair, a silvery blue, fell like liquid moonlight over her shoulders, half-hidden by a violet cloak. Her eyes glowed crimson, fixed on him with quiet intensity. A small, unreadable smile curved her lips.
She carried a shovel. That was what had caught the light.
No words. Only silence.
She stepped closer. Her presence weighed on the air, making it heavier with each footfall. Toki felt something tighten in his chest. Fear? Awe?
Before he could speak, she sat beside him at the long table, her gaze drifting to the book he had opened.
He swallowed.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
The fireflies hovered like stars above them.
The woman traced a finger across the surface of the table. Then, finally, her voice came—soft, melodic, and layered with something ancient.
"Do you know the weight of choice, little wanderer?"
Toki blinked. "What do you mean?"
She looked at him, eyes gleaming like bloodied rubies.
"You opened the book. You sat on the throne. You called this place into being with a single wish. Rest."
He glanced around.
"I didn't mean to. I just wanted... peace."
She smiled again, but this time it was colder.
"Peace is never free."
She picked up the deck of cards, shuffled it expertly, then drew one.
"The Jester," she said, showing him the card. "The fool who dances at the edge of endings."
She placed it on the table.
"Each card is a story. Each story a thread. You, little thread, are being woven whether you will it or not."
Toki felt his skin crawl.
"Is this real?"
"What is real to someone who walks between dying timelines? You have spilled blood in worlds that never knew you existed."
She drew another card.
"The Lotus. That one's yours."
It depicted a closed flower with bleeding petals.
"I don't understand," he said.
"You will."
She leaned closer, her voice now a whisper.
"But the question is: will you endure the price?"
Toki swallowed the dry air, still gripping the staff.
The woman didn't move. Her fingers danced idly across the surface of the table, tracing patterns in the fine dust that hadn't been there moments ago.
"Who are you?" he asked again, softer this time, as if fearing the answer might unravel something within him.
She tilted her head, studying him with eyes that knew too much.
"If I had to answer," she said slowly, her voice a tide pulling against time, "I'd say I am half of you."
Toki blinked.
"Half… of me?"
A silence bloomed between them, not empty, but dense—pregnant with meanings he couldn't yet decipher.
"Then where are we?" he murmured.
Her gaze lifted from the table. She looked up—beyond the invisible ceiling, toward the distant blood-red moon that still pulsed faintly beyond the fog.
"We are above the Abyss," she said. "And yet also inside you."
He felt it then—a strange resonance in his chest, as if a hidden string had been plucked. The walls, the pillars, the table, even the throne… had all felt familiar. Like memories from a dream he never had, or ruins he had once passed through in another life.
"That doesn't make sense," he said.
She smiled—not cruelly, but like someone watching a child take their first step.
"No. Not yet."
He frowned. "Then tell me. What is this place? Why does it feel… alive?"
The woman ran a hand down the shaft of the shovel she carried. It gleamed under the fireflies' dim glow.
"All of this," she said, "was born the moment you wished for rest. You didn't build it. You didn't summon it. You simply needed it."
"But I didn't want—"
"You did," she interrupted gently. "Even a whisper of desire, in a place like this, becomes architecture."
She leaned closer.
"This is a meeting place. A sanctum between dying timelines. A surface above the ocean of chaos."
Her words struck something in him. Toki leaned back in the throne. The black book on the table still pulsed faintly, as if breathing with him.
"And the cards?"
She flicked one across the table. It spun lazily and landed face-up: a door, etched with symbols that changed when he tried to focus.
"They're invitations. Pathways. You can use them to call people here."
"What people?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her gaze shifted, distant, like she was listening to something far away.
"Those connected to you. Threads that still hum in your presence. Your enemies. Your allies. The ones you've failed. The ones who've failed you."
Toki shivered.
"Why does it sound like you're talking about ghosts?"
She finally met his eyes again.
"In this place, everything is a ghost. Even you."
His mouth went dry.
"Then who are you, really?"
The woman chuckled softly, setting the deck down again.
"I told you. I'm half of you. Or perhaps…" She raised a finger. "I'm Death itself."
She lifted the edge of her cloak. Beneath it, her stomach was bare. Across her abdomen glowed a shimmering seal—similar in shape to the ones that burned across his own .
"Recognize it?" she asked, tapping the glowing glyph.
He felt his heart lurch.
"That's a Seal ."
"Indeed. One of seven," she said. "You don't remember absorbing it… but you did. Somewhere in the fog of death, you tore open a path and let it in."
Toki stood abruptly, chair scraping the mist-veiled floor.
"This is madness."
"Isn't it?" she said softly. "Yet here you are."
He paced, the staff tapping against the floor with each frustrated step. He looked up again, hoping for stars—but the sky was obscured now, like a lid had been sealed over this strange palace.
"I'm not ready for this," he muttered.
"No one ever is."
"You speak like you know everything."
"Only what you already suspect."
He stopped, turning to her. "Then explain this Seal. Why is it you and not… I don't know, a monster? A memory?"
Her expression became unreadable.
"The Abyss responds to meaning. When you took in the core, you didn't devour its power. You took in its echo. Its soul. I became that echo. I took this form because you were thinking of her."
Toki blinked.
"…Utsuki."
The woman nodded slowly.
"She was branded as a witch, wasn't she? Cast out. Mocked for the fire in her blood. You thought of her when you saw the seal, didn't you?"
Toki lowered his eyes.
"She was always strong," he said quietly. "Even when she broke."
The woman watched him.
"I am not her. But I am something adjacent. I carry the shape of her. The guilt you carry for her. The awe. The fear. And the way you keep imagining her standing beside you in places like this."
Toki gritted his teeth.
"I didn't ask for this."
"No," she said gently, "you only needed it."
"I am the one who hides behind the dark side of the moon and digs the graves of others. Until you came here I had no form through which to materialize. I am before you because I am within you. I am one with the abyss and thrive in chaos."
Silence again. This time, it stretched longer.
Finally, she sat down again and gestured toward the table.
"Come. Sit. I'll show you something."
He hesitated—then obeyed, heart thudding.
She picked up the cards again and spread them in a fan between them.
"Each one of these," she said, "is a story that hasn't happened yet. Or maybe has, in some loop. You stand at the edge of a deck that doesn't follow time."
Toki picked one at random.
The image was that of a twisted tree with coins growing from its branches, each coin cracked down the center.
"What's this one?"
"The Betrayer," she said. "A fate avoided. Or postponed."
He flipped another.
A burning mirror. His own reflection inside, screaming.
"The Flame of Remorse."
Another.
An empty swing under a stormy sky.
"The Forgotten Choice."
He pushed the cards back with a trembling hand.
"I don't want to see more."
"You already have," she replied.
"The books will change according to your needs and actions,"
Toki leaned forward, his voice hoarse.
"What is this deck for?"
She tapped the table lightly.
"This palace is yours to maintain. The deck is the key. You can use it to call people here. Speak to echoes. Rewrite bonds. Open doors."
"Doors to where?"
"Anywhere. But the cost…" Her voice dipped.
"Peace is never free," Toki said, echoing her earlier words.
She nodded.
"Good. You're starting to listen."
He slumped back in the throne, overwhelmed.
"You said something else earlier. About the the Abyss?"
She stared at the black book.
"The one who built this place did so to escape fate. . the bishop who followed him wrote that book and crafted the deck from stars to remember."
Toki's mouth went dry.
"And now… it's mine."
The woman stood once more.
"If you choose to use it."
"And if I don't?"
"Then this place will fall apart. The threads will snap. The ocean of chaos will swallow you, like all who've failed to weave a path forward."
He looked at his hands.
"I never wanted to be a weaver of fate."
"No," she said again, softly. "But you wished for rest. And that is a far more dangerous desire."
"Everything you know about the gods is only a small part of the true story, you will find out along the way, until then take care of yourself my dear."
She turned away, heading back into the fog, her shovel resting against her shoulder.
"Wait," Toki called out.
She stopped.
"Will I ever see you again?"
She half-turned, offering a smile that shimmered like a dying star.
"You always do."
And with that, she stepped into the mist and vanished.
The fireflies slowly returned to the table. Toki sat in silence, the weight of the book before him, the staff at his side, and the deck of stories—silent, waiting.
The palace pulsed faintly around him, alive with breath and memory.
Above the Abyss.
Within himself.
And beyond the eyes of gods.
He turned the book with the door that was placed face up. Immediately the fog swallowed him completely. A ray of light illuminated him in the form of eyelids, he was waking up.
Utsuki and the others were sitting by his bed waiting for him to wake up, his wounds were healed
He looked at them and smiled hugging them all, Yuki protested but gave in under the force of his embrace.
"I finally woke up from a nightmare that seemed to never end,,