The shrine had never been quieter.
Takashi sat cross-legged before the ancient fox statue, his breath shallow, his heart a slow drum in his chest. Around him, incense drifted in coiling spirals, the scent of cedar and ash clinging to the early morning mist. His third tail flickered faintly behind him—unlike the other two, this one glowed in constant flux, flickering between black fire and gold-tinged light. It wasn't settled. It wasn't loyal.
It was wild.
And it didn't want to stay.
Every few minutes, it would sputter out, only to reignite with violent force. His entire body shook when it happened—like the tail wasn't just spiritual, but tethered directly to his soul. More than once, he felt like vomiting from the strain.
"You need to stop pushing," Hikari said, her voice stern but quiet. She stood beneath the gate, arms folded, eyes dark with worry.
"If I stop now," Takashi replied, "it'll take over."
"Then maybe it's not time for the third yet."
"It's already here."
That was the truth of it. The tail hadn't asked permission. It hadn't waited until he was ready. It had *forced* itself into reality the moment Takashi purified that corrupted yokai last week. Since then, it had been a battle of dominance. His body belonged to him. His fire, maybe. But this tail—this evolution—was something else.
Azazel watched from the roof, one knee bent, arms dangling loosely between them.
"You're handling it better than most would," he said, chewing a toothpick. "But that's not saying much. Most Longinus users who mutate like this die within days."
Takashi turned to him. "That's not helpful."
"Not meant to be," Azazel said, dropping from the roof in a soft landing. "It's just the truth. I promised you truth, not comfort."
Takashi didn't argue. He couldn't. The truth was burning in his back like a brand, his entire nervous system lit with residual fire.
He wasn't dying—but he wasn't surviving either.
He was *transforming.*
And no one could tell him what into.
---
The day passed slowly. Takashi couldn't eat. Couldn't meditate. The shrine's energy was growing erratic around him, almost as if the land itself felt his unease. Hikari spent the afternoon reinforcing seals around the torii gates, muttering old words, her calligraphy brush trembling with tension.
Azazel had disappeared sometime before sunset, saying only, "There's someone I need to speak with."
That worried Takashi more than anything.
Azazel was casual with power, but not careless. If *he* felt the need to step away, something larger was moving.
Takashi didn't ask where he was going.
Instead, as the sun dipped below the horizon, he stepped into the main hall of the shrine alone.
And lit the flame.
---
The interior of the shrine blazed to life—not with light, but with heat. The flame obeyed him now, but only halfway. It spun around him like a dragon waiting to bite, restrained not by control, but by exhaustion. Takashi could feel the walls closing in on him. Not physically—but spiritually.
There was something buried beneath the shrine. He could feel it. Something *reacting* to his fire.
He pressed his palm to the floorboards.
A surge of memory slammed into him.
Blood. Screams. Fire.
Not his fire. Older. Angrier.
A vision—this shrine, long ago, ablaze in black and crimson flame. A girl crying. A man screaming. And at the center of it—a fox, larger than any natural beast, its eyes like suns.
And then the flames consumed it all.
Takashi fell backward, gasping.
"What the hell was that—?"
"You saw it, didn't you?" Hikari stood in the doorway, her expression tight.
"What was that thing? That fox—was that…?"
She nodded. "The original guardian of this shrine. Sealed beneath it after losing control. They called him Homura-no-Kami. The Crimson Fox."
Takashi froze. "That was *me.*"
"Not you," Hikari said. "But… possibly the spirit that's chosen you now."
He looked down at his hands. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because if you knew the full truth, you might try to awaken it. And if you do—this city burns."
Takashi staggered to his feet, the words echoing in his mind like a curse.
"This city burns."
He'd heard it before—in dreams, in fragments, from Infernal Requiem itself. But hearing it from Hikari's mouth made it real. Made it impossible to ignore.
"You think I'm going to become him?" Takashi asked. "That fox. That… god."
"I think," she said slowly, "that something inside you already *is* him. Maybe not all of him, but enough."
He clenched his fists, the fire curling up his arms in restless pulses.
"And you didn't think I deserved to know?"
"I was protecting you."
"No," he snapped. "You were protecting *your shrine.* Your duty. I'm not a sealed beast—I'm *me.*"
"You're *both.*" Her voice cracked. "And if you can't accept that, then you'll lose control."
The silence stretched between them like a blade.
Then the air shattered.
A sudden pressure hit the shrine like a spiritual earthquake. The very earth trembled. Talismans fluttered off walls. The flame in Takashi's body surged with instinctive alarm.
Hikari's eyes went wide. "Someone breached the outer seal."
Takashi ran for the gate. The world beyond the shrine had changed—twilight now bled with thick, pulsing fog. Shadows slithered through the trees.
He heard screaming.
Not Hikari.
Civilians.
The town.
---
By the time they reached the base of the forest trail, Kyoto's spiritual district was under siege.
Yokai—not the natural kind, but twisted—moved like smoke given claws. These weren't spirits born of nature or belief. They were *forged*.
Corrupted.
Takashi recognized the taint. He'd felt it on the Gatekeeper weeks ago. Someone was opening rifts again—pulling monsters from the Otherworld.
And sending them to him.
"These aren't random attacks," he said aloud. "They're looking for me."
"Then let's not let them find you," Hikari replied, drawing two blessed ofuda from her sleeve.
They split up. Hikari dashed through the alley to lead stragglers out of danger. Takashi leapt to the rooftops, tails glowing in the mist.
He moved fast.
One yokai spotted him and lunged, jaws dripping shadow. He answered with a wave of fire that burst from his palm in a disciplined arc.
"Infernal Requiem—Verse Two."
The flames struck true, purifying the beast midair before it hit the ground.
But the moment the fire touched the enemy, something else happened.
The third tail ignited fully, golden and black, and his vision spun.
He saw flashes.
Hands. Claws. Faces screaming.
An army of flame.
And his own voice, chanting a name.
*Homura… Homura…*
Takashi collapsed to one knee.
His body was burning from the inside.
---
Azazel appeared beside him out of nowhere, wings half-spread, slicing through another corrupted yokai with a spear of dark light.
"You're resonating," he said, pulling Takashi up. "It's too soon."
"I can't stop it."
"Then I'll *help.*"
Azazel pressed a hand to Takashi's back, muttering something in Enochian. The third tail dimmed—slightly—but the damage was done. Takashi's body trembled. His aura leaked fire with every heartbeat.
He looked around them.
Kyoto burned in places. Spiritual fire, yes—but visible to those who believed. The district would recover. But the cost was mounting.
"How many more times can I lose control?" Takashi whispered.
Azazel's voice was grave. "Once. Maybe twice. After that, you're not Takashi anymore."
---
They returned to the shrine long after midnight. Hikari was already there, tending to wounded spirits and redrawing protective wards.
She looked up when Takashi entered. Her face softened, but her eyes remained tired.
"You saved lives," she said.
"No. Azazel did. You did. I almost—"
"Takashi." She walked up to him, hands shaking slightly. "I'm scared too. But I believe in you."
He looked away. "You shouldn't."
She touched his face gently. "I will. Until you give me a reason not to."
The next morning, Kyoto was quiet.
Too quiet.
Takashi sat beneath the camphor tree behind the shrine, holding his breath in intervals, trying to center himself. Azazel had taught him a Grigori method of stabilization—rooting the fire to a memory rather than force. A calm one. One that couldn't be corrupted.
But every time he closed his eyes, he saw flame. Black, gold, red. Memories that weren't his—battlefields that belonged to someone long dead.
"I'm not a reincarnation," he muttered. "I'm my own person."
The third tail flickered, unsure whether to agree.
Azazel walked up, arms behind his back. "Still hearing him, huh?"
Takashi nodded. "Every time the tail fully manifests, I feel like I'm being pulled out of myself."
Azazel crouched beside him. "Homura-no-Kami was a force of nature. A divine weapon created to fight during the war of the gods. The fact that his remnants chose *you* means you're strong—but also unstable."
"Why me?"
"I think," Azazel said slowly, "because in your past life, you died carrying the flames."
Takashi turned to him. "So I *am* a reincarnation?"
"Not exactly. Your soul isn't his. But you might've inherited the *echo* of his curse. Maybe when you died, whatever was left of him latched on."
"Do you know how I died?"
Azazel looked skyward. "No. But someone else might."
---
Later that day, they visited a hidden Grigori site buried beneath the edge of Kyoto.
A sealed library, warded in layers of fallen angel magic.
"I had this place built during the first rift war," Azazel explained. "To house anything we couldn't classify."
Inside, books hovered weightless in the air. Scrolls whispered in forgotten tongues. A circle of crystal orbs spun slowly above a deep stone pit.
Azazel approached the largest orb and placed his palm against it.
A memory played across its surface—a burning forest, a figure wielding twin flaming tails tearing through shadows, his face twisted in pain.
"That's not me," Takashi said quietly.
"No," Azazel said. "That's the last known host of Infernal Requiem. A man named Kazuo. He awakened the third tail—and couldn't survive it."
Takashi studied the image.
Kazuo looked older. Taller. But his face was almost identical.
Then the image changed.
A different memory.
One of Takashi's.
Lying in a hospital bed. Alone. Before his death.
He was hooked up to wires. Machines beeping slowly. Rain outside.
"Why… are you showing me this?" Takashi whispered.
"Because this is when the fire found you," Azazel replied. "You weren't chosen for strength. You were chosen because you were empty enough to hold something ancient."
The orb dimmed.
Takashi stepped back. "So I'm just a vessel."
"No," Azazel said. "You're the first vessel fighting to stay yourself. That's what makes you dangerous and important."
That night, Takashi left the shrine without telling Hikari.
The fire in his chest had grown louder. It pulled him east, toward the river.
Toward something hidden.
He followed the path along the banks until he reached a broken bridge—half submerged, long forgotten.
The air was thick with spiritual residue. Someone had died here.
He stepped closer and saw the markings burned into the stone—runic, sacred, but half-erased by time.
"Infernal Requiem," he muttered.
As if in answer, the third tail fully ignited again.
And a figure stepped from the shadows.
Not a yokai.
Not human either.
It was him.
Kazuo.
Or rather, what was left of him—a wraith, a spiritual fragment wrapped in scorched memory.
"You came," the figure said. Its voice was Takashi's, but older. Weary.
"Who are you really?" Takashi asked.
"I was the last. The flame's former vessel. You carry what I couldn't hold."
Takashi stepped forward. "Why did you fail?"
"Because I *tried* to burn away the weakness," Kazuo said. "But it wasn't weakness—it was what made me human."
Takashi swallowed. "What happens if I lose to it?"
"You won't die," the ghost said. "You'll live forever—as flame. Empty. Burning. Forgetting your name."
Takashi clenched his fists. "Then help me."
Kazuo raised a hand—and the two fused in an instant.
Not physically, but spiritually.
A surge of power rushed through Takashi. Visions. Pain. Battles he never fought. Cities turned to ash. Gods screaming.
Then silence.
He collapsed.
When he woke, the riverbank was empty.
And a fourth tail shimmered faintly behind him—dim, incomplete.
Not born yet.
But waiting.
Takashi returned to the shrine just before dawn, clothes torn, blood drying along the side of his face. Hikari saw him from the veranda and ran to his side, panic and fury flashing across her face.
"You're bleeding."
"I'm fine."
"You're *not!* Where did you go?"
He swayed. "I met the last wielder. Or what's left of him."
Hikari froze. "Kazuo?"
He nodded slowly. "He showed me what I could become. What I *will* become if I give in."
She helped him to the inner chamber of the shrine. They didn't speak again until he sat beside the hearth, letting his fire coil gently along the edges of the pit like a sleeping animal.
After some time, Hikari knelt beside him.
"There's something I haven't told you," she said.
Takashi turned. "Now's the time."
She reached into her robes and pulled out a hidden scroll. It bore the mark of the Inari fox—the goddess herself.
"This shrine was never just a holy site," Hikari said. "It was a *vault.* Built to hold the ashes of Homura-no-Kami. His last breath. His death flame."
Takashi leaned in. "Are you saying...?"
"Yes," she whispered. "The flame inside you may not just be his memory. It might *be* his last spark—still burning, waiting to be reborn."
Takashi's breath caught.
"So I'm not just a reincarnation."
"You're a fuse."
---
Later, Azazel joined them.
He listened without interrupting, eyes narrowed as he absorbed every word.
When Hikari finished, Azazel stood and paced slowly.
"That explains the speed of your evolution. Longinus Gears take time, but this… this is more like a spiritual infection. The flame's growing you from the inside out."
"Then what do I do?" Takashi asked.
"You master it. Or you seal it."
"Seal it?"
Azazel nodded. "There's a ritual. An old one. It binds a Sacred Gear inside a spiritual anchor. You'd still have power—but only when permitted."
"Would I lose the tails?"
"Not all. Just the fire."
Takashi looked at his hands. "Would I still be me?"
Azazel said nothing.
And that said everything.
---
That night, Takashi made his decision.
He walked alone to the top of the shrine.
There, under the stars, he let the fire rise—fully.
All three tails blazed behind him.
The fourth waited.
"Infernal Requiem," he whispered. "Show me who I really am."
The fire spiraled around him. His body lifted. The world fell away.
And for the first time—
He *remembered everything.*
The past life. The death. The vow to never burn again.
And the one who broke that vow.
---
The fire receded.
Takashi collapsed to his knees on the shrine's highest rooftop, sweat pouring down his neck, eyes wild with revelation. His body ached. His soul trembled.
But his mind was clear.
He remembered his death. Not just in the hospital bed—but lifetimes ago, when he was Homura-no-Kami, standing at the gates of Kyoto in the age of myth. His flames had consumed an army of gods—but also the city he'd sworn to protect.
And in the final moment, filled with shame and clarity, he had sealed himself—ashes bound beneath this very shrine.
*Until now.*
He wasn't just carrying Homura's fire.
He was carrying his **guilt**.
---
The next morning, he spoke to Hikari and Azazel.
"I saw everything," he told them. "I was him. I made the choice to burn it all. And now I've been reborn to make it right."
Azazel nodded grimly. "Then you understand what's at stake."
"I do."
Hikari looked uncertain. "What will you do?"
Takashi turned toward the horizon, where the city stirred in quiet innocence.
"I'll stay."
"You're not running?" she asked.
"No," he said. "Because this time, I won't lose to the fire."
He turned to them, his expression calm—but resolved.
"If it tries to burn the city again…"
He reached into his chest, summoned Infernal Requiem's core, and wrapped his own flame around it.
"…then I'll burn *myself* first."
---
That evening, something dark moved in the east.
A gate—massive, black, lined with corrupted sigils—tore open over the outer ward of Kyoto. Screams erupted as malformed spirits poured through, more organized than before.
At their center was a yokai general—twisted by magic, draped in stolen divine armor, and wielding a black lance of void flame.
Azazel stood beside Takashi on the shrine steps.
"They're not testing you anymore," he said. "They're trying to *claim* you."
Takashi nodded, three tails alight. The fourth pulsed faintly—still waiting.
"This time," he said, "we finish it."
---
The battle was chaos.
Hikari led the shrine's wards from afar, purging minor spirits with sacred light. Azazel carved through the sky with spears of darkness, shielding the civilians being evacuated from the spirit district.
And Takashi—
Takashi *burned.*
He didn't hold back.
Verse after verse of the Infernal Requiem poured from him. Each chant echoed with divine resonance, the melody of the world before the world.
Verse Four. Verse Five. Verse Six.
The shrine pulsed beneath him. The flames rose like wings.
Then the general stepped forward—massive, armored, power humming in waves.
"You carry a god's flame," it snarled. "Then burn as he did!"
It struck.
Takashi met the blow—and was thrown through three buildings.
His ribs cracked. Blood filled his mouth.
The general followed, lance raised.
Takashi whispered through bloodied lips:
"Verse Seven."
A spear of black fire surged upward, striking true.
The yokai screamed—its armor melted, its form twisting—but it didn't fall.
Not yet.
---
Takashi stood again, barely.
His fourth tail flickered behind him.
Azazel shouted from above. "Don't use it! You'll lose yourself!"
But the fire inside Takashi answered for him.
Not rage.
Not pride.
Purpose.
He stepped forward. The fourth tail ignited.
And he chanted:
**"Final Verse—Infernal Requiem!"**
The world stopped.
A dome of black and gold fire encased the battlefield.
Within it, time and sound fell silent.
Takashi walked forward, each step echoing like a bell toll.
The yokai screamed.
The fire didn't just burn—it *undid*.
Memories. Power. Form.
The creature vanished in a burst of searing light.
---
When the fire faded, the city was silent.
The shrine remained.
Hikari rushed to the center of the field.
Takashi stood there, smoking slightly, swaying.
He turned to her, smiling faintly.
"I did it," he said. "I stopped it."
Then he fell forward.
And didn't rise.
---
Azazel arrived moments later, face grim.
Hikari knelt beside Takashi, shaking.
"He's breathing," she said. "Barely."
Azazel placed a hand over the boy's chest.
"No," he said softly. "That was the final verse. He gave everything."
A faint shimmer of fire drifted from Takashi's body—and disappeared into the wind.
The tails were gone.
The fire was gone.
Only the boy remained.
Still.
Peaceful.
Gone.