The room didn't move.
Time didn't move.
Only the shadows did.
They danced slowly around Hitachi's trembling form, curling and coiling like predators waiting for permission to strike—or protect. He couldn't tell which. The cold in the room had gone beyond cold. It was something else now. A stillness that made the air feel thick, like trying to breathe underwater.
His lips had parted.
But no sound came out.
The demon—the voice above all—was silent now too, waiting. Not pressuring him. Not pushing. Just… there. Present. Heavy. Patient.
Hitachi's chest rose and fell in shallow, stuttering breaths. The black smoke was so close now it clung to his skin, slipping across his cheeks like fingers brushing a crying child's face.
"I… I don't know what's right anymore," he whispered to the darkness. His voice cracked. "I don't know if this is me, or if I'm just… gone."
Still no answer.
The demon wasn't like the others. It didn't scream. It didn't beg. It waited like it knew the ending. Like it had seen the ending.
Hitachi dug his nails into his palms. Blood pricked beneath the skin.
He could feel it, now more than ever—the chaos was quiet, but it wasn't gone. The storm of voices had simply stepped back. He knew they were still watching, listening, ready to scream again if he refused.
He wanted to scream himself. But all that came out was a broken breath.
"This isn't fair," he muttered. "I never asked for this. I never wanted this."
The smoke responded—not with words, but with warmth. Just a flicker. A whisper of heat against his chest, where the cold had lived for so long. It was almost… human.
And then the voice came again. Quiet. Near. No longer like thunder from the heavens, but like someone kneeling beside him.
"I know."
That was it.
Just two words.
But it made Hitachi's whole body shake.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, though the tears hadn't stopped. "Will it hurt?"
Another pause.
Then: "Yes. But it will be a pain with purpose. Not the kind that breaks you."
He looked up. There was no figure. No monster. No demon standing before him. Only the smoke.
And yet—he felt it.
The demon was here. Not in the way humans existed. Not in the way memories did. But in the way gravity existed—felt, not seen. Something too big, too ancient, too real to take a form.
"What… are you?" Hitachi asked, voice barely more than a breath.
"I am the gatekeeper of the voices," the demon replied softly. "The first that came when the deal was struck. The one who stood in silence as the others screamed. I do not want your soul. I do not want control. I want survival. Yours. Mine. Ours."
The words settled over him like ash.
He didn't understand everything—but he didn't have to. Some truths weren't meant for understanding. Only surviving.
And he was so tired of surviving alone.
The silence in the room seemed to lean forward, holding its breath.
Hitachi looked at his shaking hands. Black smoke danced around his wrists like it already belonged to him. Like it had always belonged to him.
"I don't want to lose myself," he said again. "Please… I'm not strong. I'm not brave. I'm just a kid."
The voice answered gently.
"You are not weak. You are breaking. But together, we will bend."
He closed his eyes.
One last time, he tried to remember his life before the sickness. Before the shadows. Before the fear. A time when his world was just school, his grandfather's warm smile, and the quiet sound of old music playing in the kitchen.
That world felt so far away now.
But maybe, just maybe, saying yes wouldn't destroy it.
Maybe it was the only way to reach it again.
He took a breath.
A deep, shivering, final breath.
And with his voice cracked, hoarse, and barely human, he whispered—
"…Yes."
The room exploded.
Not in fire. Not in light. But in presence.
The black smoke rushed forward—not like a monster attacking, but like a wave pulling a drowning boy into air. It surged around him, through him, into him. He gasped and arched backward, his spine lifting off the floor. The cold left his body all at once, replaced by heat so intense it felt like it was burning him from the inside out.
But it didn't hurt.
It changed.
His veins lit up beneath his skin, glowing with a faint purple hue. The voices didn't return—but he could feel them now, like distant thunder trapped behind a wall.
And standing between them and his mind—was the demon.
The first.
The voice that now lived inside him.
Hitachi collapsed back onto the floor, panting, sweat pouring down his face. His fingers were stained black up to the knuckles. His heartbeat pounded like war drums in his ears.
But he was alive.
And for the first time in days, truly—he was alone.
He breathed again.
Just one breath. Quiet. Soft. His own.
Then, inside his head, the voice spoke again.
"Welcome, Hitachi. You have done what few ever could."
He blinked. "Is it over?"
"No," said the voice. "It has only just begun."
And then something shifted inside him. Not pain. Not fear. Just… power. Raw. Deep. As if something ancient had curled up behind his heart and closed its eyes.
The chains had formed.
The gate had locked.
And for the first time, Hitachi wasn't the prisoner.
He was the warden.
And the darkness, now, was his to command.