Chapter 19: Chapter 19: Devouring the Last Light.

The accursed forest was now a crucible.

Distorted trees leaned like judges presiding at a trial, black-veined bark and skeletal roots quietly pulsating with the poison that had been locked deep in the earth under Kurohana years before. Here wind never blew—only tension. It hummed in the air, dense as hate, memory, and magical too ancient to utter its name.

And at the heart of all this devastation were two siblings—opposite in light and darkness, but carved from the same shattered stone.

Hikari stood, chain glinting around her hand like a coiled snake ready to strike, divine light playing faintly across her robes. Beads on her throat pulsed not just with power, but with pain. Her respirations were slow, measured, but her eyes brimmed up with tears she hadn't let fall.

Hakari stood in shadows, the earth beneath his boots groaning, a spinning tornado of tendrils twisting at his shoulders. The Immortal Mask pulsed upon his hip—a single eye opened just enough, seeing her, feeding off of him. His fingers trembled, but not with fear. With rage. With the weight of a life unlived.

"You took what belonged to me!" Hakari roared breaking the silence, his voice shattered iron. "The power beads—the right to be heard—they belonged to me!"

"I didn't take them!" Hikari shouted back, her voice slicing, but unraveling at the seams. The words echoed out over the wood that was dead.

There was a silence. Even the damned spirits that flew overhead above the canopy paused, listening.

"I never requested any of it," she continued, much more softly now, the words pouring from her lips like ash. "Please, Hakari… stop this. You can still back away... From any of this."

He laughed. "Back away? To what? To being invisible? To being compliant while they shaped me into a weapon and taught me to smile while they shelved me?"

"No," she replied. "To being free."

"I am free!" he spat.

He lunged forward, dark tendrils whipping like whips of sheer evil. Hikari barely had time to raise her hand before holy light burst from her palm. Her chain caught the first blow half-way through the air and shook away with a blinding shriek—but the impact sent her stumbling back.

"I'm not here to fight you," she snarled. "I'm trying to bring you back."

"You cannot save me, Hikari," Hakari responded. "You cannot even perceive me."

He thrust his hand forward, and the darkness exploded out in every direction, condensing into a wave of black strands, each one incised with sinuous runes.

Hikari jumped, kicking out mid-leap, landing on a shard of shattered shrine stone. Her chain whipped out once again, surrounding her body in a halo of light as she folded the chain into a shield.

"I remember you," She called out. "The boy who lit lanterns for Mom when she was sick. The boy who always show me and Haruka your awesome fire magic. Even though father and other elders hate it. The boy who cried when he saw his precious birds fall from their nests. You cared so much, Hakari."

He stood frozen, for the briefest breath.

"And I remember," she spoke now softly, "when you said you hated the elders because they never treated you as a human being. Just a tool."

His jaw clenched.

"You said you wanted to be chosen, so they'd finally hear you. So they'd finally call you something other than 'potential.'"

He looked up. There was a flash of something in his eyes, something she recognized only because she knew him so well.

The flicker of recognition. Pain. The ghost of the boy she grew up with.

"I remember," she whispered. "I remember saying I'd give it all to you if I could."

"Then why didn't you?" he snarled, his voice rough.

"Because they never let me," she answered. "Because they were too terrified of what you'd be if you had authority."

"And now I do," Hakari asserted, raising his arm again. Shadows curled in serpents. "And look who they send to kill me. The sister who swore to give it all away."

"I came here by myself. Hakari... to remind you of what you once were," she said. "And to finish what you have become."

He laughed, a cracked, bitter laugh. "So now you want to save me with words?"

"No," she said. "But I'll try before I have to resort to something else."

The trees shook in fury of his magic. His tendrils whacked at him again, thicker now—heavier with darkness, each one increasing in speed. Hikari parried, ducked, dodged, her movements fluid. The chain waltzed around her like a living aura, flashing streams of light on each impact.

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They battled like reflections of what was once divine turned into tragedy.

Brother against sister.

Faith against fury.

Hope against hurt.

“You think you’re fighting for justice?” Hakari spat, shadows rising again. “You’re just protecting the world that broke us.”

“No,” Hikari snapped. “I’m protecting what could still be saved.”

But her voice cracked. Because even now… even as she fought with everything she had…

She still didn’t want to kill him.

He was still her brother.

He charged forward again, tendrils wrapping around her legs as she sidestepped. She gasped as he yanked her down—into a punch of pure shadow at her chest.

She sidestepped, barely, but the force sent her chain slipping out of her hand. Her knees thudded against the ground.

"I am not listening to sweet lies," Hakari asserted, moving closer. "Father, Rinne… you, too. You are merely one more voice telling me who I have to be... But i already have choose it!"

He raised both hands.

"Let me show you who I am now!"

The shadow trailed behind him, seething with pent energy.

And then he struck.

A single tendril, as sharp and as quick as a darkness-pointed spear, flashed out and plunged into the air.

It struck Hikari squarely in the chest.

It was like thunder.

She flew backward—lifted from the earth as the blast propelled her like a bruised doll—before she smashed into the serrated edge of a rock pillar. The crash cracked the surface, and the ring of impact shook through the clearing.

A silence followed.

Smoke and ash danced about her, and the chain wrapped around her side, blunted.

Hakari stood locked, panting. Waiting.

And then—

A sound.

A breath.

A grunt—painful, pained, but alive.

From the dust, Hikari’s figure stirred. She pushed herself to her knees slowly, hand clutching her chest.

The blow should’ve shattered ribs. Punctured organs. Killed her outright.

But it didn’t.

Because the divine protection of the beads—ancient, unseen—held. Because... She was immortal

A glow shimmered beneath the scorch mark on her chest, soft as morning light. Bruised, battered—but not broken.

Hakari’s eyes widened.

And then she spoke.

Not as a warrior.

Not as a judge.

Just as Hikari... His little sister.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered. Her voice was almost inaudible.

He stepped backward one pace, his eyes hazy with confusion.

"I'm sorry... I-i couldn't save you from this curse… H-Hakari."

Her voice was a crack, a shiver. Her head dropped.

And for a moment… it wasn't the warrior who stood there before him. It wasn't the Kanshisha, the vessel of divine fury from generation to generation.

It was... his little sister.

And Hakari felt something in his chest stir—

Not triumph.

Not hate.

Something else.

Something almost to the edge of grief.

And the mask beside him—

witnessed.

The world around Hakari grew dark. Not in light, but in presence.

The colors of the forest drained into cold tones, the shapes of trees bleeding into smoke. The shadows at his feet, no longer projections of his will, now trembled—eager, hungry. And then he heard it. Not in his ears, but deeper.

A whisper.

"You seek it still… don't you?"

The voice wound into his mind like silk on a blade.

Elegant. Ageless. Awful.

"Immortality."

Hakari's head lifted slightly, eyes narrowing. The battlefield was silent, a suspended breath. Hikari was still crumpled against the rock, quiet, shining faintly with holy light. But the voice drowned out even the sound of her breathing.

"You came so far. Burned your way into the bones of this world. For one truth… That you would not die like the others."

It was not a question.

The voice was like it knew every crack in him. Like it had been there from the moment of his first wound.

"You were born in a cage. Forged as a weapon. Lied to by gods in mortal clothing. You obeyed, and they ignored you. You disobeyed, and they cursed you. And still, they chose her. The quiet one. The one who would never fight back.".

Hakari's fists clenched. The Immortal Mask at his belt pulsed once—slow and low—like a breath being drawn beneath the skin of the world.

"But I see you, Hakari."

The voice wasn't just feminine—it was imperial. Every syllable expressed the grace of something long divine, since forgotten. It didn't beg. It vowed.

"You are an unfettered soul. A heart too large for the body they gave you. You have brushed the hem of godhood and found it wanting. You are not meant to rot like them."

She lingered on the word—rot—as though it disgusted her.

"You were meant to become more. And you can."

The darkness around his feet began to shift again, slowly, like stirring snakes.

"She bears the divine gift. You see it—don't you? You felt it when your tendril touched her. That resistance. That light. That pulse of something limitless."

Hakari's breath caught.

Yes.

He had felt it. That sear beneath her flesh that would not yield. He struck her with force enough to crush bone, and she survived it. Not by chance.

By power.

"That immortality was never for her."

The voice hurt now—into his spine, into the hollow beneath his ribs.

"You bled for it. You lost yourself for it. And yet she possesses it. Guards it. Wears it as armor instead of ascension."

The darkness began to draw back, curling up slowly like fingers reaching towards the heavens.

"But it can be taken, Hakari."

"The divine is not a gift—it is a resource. It can be consumed. Bent. Broken. Claimed.".

Her voice was thick now—like honey with poison stirred in.

"Take it from her."

"Claim it. Not like a thief—but like an heir."

"This world owes you more than memories and apologies."

"Take her immortality—and rise."

"Just look at your mask..." She teased. As the mask eyes. Both eyes glowing. "Its demand you... To use it. It is really your belongings. You are the perfect vessel. For the real immortality. And every fake immortality. The mask. Take it."

And then her final whisper—soft as breath, sharp as bone:

"You are not her brother anymore. You are her replacement."

The shadows roared.

And Hakari’s hand began to reach forward, the Immortal Mask in his grasp, its eye now wide

"No, Hakari… don't."

Her voice cut through the storm of darkness like a sorrow-blessed sword.

Soft—not yelled out, not hysterical. Not a command.

A plea. The whisper of death and love in the lungs of a sister who could do nothing but stand by.

But for Hakari, too late.

Or perhaps, too late even then. When it was most needed.

The Hollow Queen's breath still lingered in the marrow of his bones, a crown of silk and venom wrapping his mind.

The Immortal Mask pulsed—no longer still. Its eye, once wide and feral, now fully open, glowed with a white not light.

It devoured light.

And when he bound it to his face—

The world screamed.

The air itself tore apart, folding in around him as if the heavens themselves were consuming.

Hikari watched in terror as the tendrils that wrapped around Hakari did not simply grow—they broke. The ground beneath him split open, veins of shadow-tipped energy bursting up from the shrine's long-dormant heart. The seal that once repelled ancient terrors, that once silenced the Hollow Queen's true form, now turned around.

And it fed him.

He smirk. In enthusiasm

The divine aura off her person—the gift, the curse, the thing which always had belonged to her—shuddered. She could feel it being pulled. Her breath caught. Beads on her neck constricted like a strangler's knot, fighting against it.

Her knees gave way. Her light leaked into the whirlpool that was building around Hakari.

He drifted now, the blackness below him churning into a whirlpool of devastation. Trees shattered at the base. Boulders were ripped from the earth. The forest's corrupt spirits screamed and burnt themselves up, not in fire, but in emptiness—destroyed by the energy of convergence.

Energy poured into him.

Holy. Accursed. Earthly. Celestial.

All went into him.

The world tilted. The sky spilled like oil over water. Time staggered, as if time itself could not find its footing. A second lasted years. A heartbeat an eternity.

And yet Hikari crawled to him, her fingers digging into the shaking ground.

"No…," she panted, her eyes clouding. "No, no, no…"

The chain on her wrist snapped open, bits of light splintering like glass.

And Hakari—

He was no longer upright.

He was becoming.

The shape of his body stretched and shattered and rebuilt itself—shadow encased in gold, eyes burning from beneath the mask now a part of his face. His arms thrashed as though forsaking their human shape.

Not ascension.

Transformation.

He opened his lips—and the Hollow Queen's voice came forth from him, a voice that echoed from beneath the mountain, from broken graves and broken prayers.

The earth could not hold her voice.

The heavens were rent apart.

And the light

The holy light Hikari had carried her whole life—

The thing that kept her safe so long, judged her, and made her believe she was special—

Was ripped from her body in one, silent moment.

She gasped.

Fell.

And the last thing she knew—

Is. Fading.

As the world—

blacked out.