"When the fire dies, the soul remembers what it truly is."
---
Silence.
No wind. No flame. No pain. No heartbeat.
Just a blank, infinite sky of shifting silver. Not white. Not black. It looked like clouds that had forgotten how to form. Like a memory that didn't belong to anyone anymore.
Takashi floated in the air.
He wasn't breathing. He wasn't falling. He wasn't even standing.
He simply *was.*
The first thing he realized was that the fire was gone. Not dormant. Not sealed. Gone.
No warmth. No humming in his blood. No flickering sense of danger.
It was like someone had finally shut the furnace off inside his soul—and left the silence behind.
"Am I dead?" he asked aloud.
The voice that answered wasn't his.
**"You are between."**
Takashi turned slowly. There was no horizon, no floor, no real depth to anything, yet somehow a figure stood behind him. No face. No limbs. Just an outline. A silhouette of ash.
"You are the fox who tried to be a boy," the figure said.
Takashi narrowed his eyes. "You're not Homura. I burned him away."
**"No. You burned away his echo. But not his choice."**
Takashi frowned. "Then who are you?"
**"I am what's left when gods die. I am what you become when you reject your purpose."**
That made something in his chest twist.
"You're me."
The figure didn't answer. It simply walked—if one could call it that—toward the endless silver above them. Takashi followed. The movement was strange. Like walking on a thought. Every step made a noise only his memory could hear.
"You said I was between," he said. "Between what?"
**"Between fire and nothing. Between who you were, and who you will choose to be next."**
"So this is the afterlife?"
**"No. This is the place before. The last breath. The moment where souls weigh themselves."**
---
Takashi stopped walking. He looked around.
It was still empty.
But now, in the distance, there was a shape.
A *door.*
Old. Wooden. Carved with strange symbols.
It looked like the torii gate at the shrine—but with cracks that pulsed faintly with golden light.
"Is that… where I go?"
The figure tilted its head. **"If you wish to leave yourself behind."**
"And if I don't?"
**"Then you go back. Without the fire. Without the tails. Just a boy with too much memory."**
Takashi felt a shiver.
No fire. No Sacred Gear. No strength.
Just him.
"Can I even do anything without it?"
**"You burned for others. You died for others. That is more than most gods have done."**
The words weren't comforting. They were heavy.
He thought of Hikari. Of Azazel. Of Kyoto, glowing in that final moment as his last Verse erased the yokai general from existence.
Had it worked?
Was the city safe?
Was Hikari alive?
---
Suddenly, the sky rippled.
He was no longer standing in the silver.
He was in a corridor.
Long. Endless. Lined with mirrors.
Each one showed a *different Takashi.*
One as a full kitsune, nine-tailed, sitting atop a mountain of bones.
One as a priest, robes glowing, leading a group of orphaned spirits across a river.
One as a wandering boy, smiling in a world that didn't need saving.
A hundred futures.
A thousand choices.
A million paths.
"Are these… what I could be?"
**"No,"** said the voice behind him. **"They are what you *might have* been, had you chosen differently at each step. But now, you stand at the final branch. This is your last shape."**
"Then show me," Takashi said. "What comes next."
---
A mirror at the end lit up.
But it didn't show Takashi.
It showed **Hikari.**
She was kneeling in front of his body, tears slipping down her cheeks, her hands glowing faintly as she tried to preserve what little was left.
Azazel stood behind her, silent, his wings drooping.
"They miss me," Takashi whispered.
The voice didn't answer.
He watched the scene play out.
Hikari pressed a charm to his chest. It sparked.
Nothing happened.
Then, quietly, she took something from her sleeve.
A fragment of *his flame.*
She must've caught it in that final moment.
She held it to her heart.
"I'll carry it," she whispered. "If you can't. I'll carry it."
And the scene vanished.
---
Takashi staggered.
"No," he breathed. "She can't."
She was human. Mostly. Barely trained. The flame would destroy her.
He turned toward the figure.
"Send me back."
**"You gave your soul to the final Verse. You are not whole anymore."**
"Then take what's left."
**"There is a cost."**
"I don't care."
The figure tilted its head again. Then, for the first time, it smiled. Not warmly. Not cruelly. But knowingly.
**"Very well."**
---
The silver faded.
The mirrors vanished.
The door opened.
And Takashi fell—
---
—into fire.
But not *his.*
Not divine. Not yokai.
Just warmth.
Crackling, hearth-like, filled with the smell of rice and old wood.
He opened his eyes.
And saw Hikari.
She gasped, dropping the scroll she'd been reading.
"You're awake!"
He blinked slowly. His body ached. His chest felt hollow.
He looked around.
The shrine.
No flames.
No tails.
No Sacred Gear.
Just him.
Alive.
Barely.
---
He spent the next two weeks in recovery.
Every movement was exhausting. His soul felt like it had been sanded down to nothing. Azazel came and went, keeping the Grigori off his back. Apparently, Takashi's sacrifice had sent ripple effects through the supernatural world.
Most believed him dead.
Some feared he'd return stronger.
No one knew he'd come back… *weaker.*
Except Hikari.
She told him the truth in bits.
The yokai threat had retreated—for now.
The flame had never tried to rise again.
The Infernal Requiem was gone. Destroyed by its own final chant.
He was free.
He should have felt relieved.
But all he felt was empty.
---
One day, Azazel found him staring at the shrine's main gate.
"You still feel it, don't you?"
Takashi nodded. "A little. Like something under my skin."
"You're not possessed anymore," Azazel said. "But you're not normal either."
"Will I ever be?"
Azazel shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You saved lives. You made a choice gods couldn't make."
Takashi looked at his hands.
No flame. Just skin.
"How long do I have?"
Azazel frowned. "Before the world drags you back in?"
Takashi nodded.
Azazel smiled, sadly. "If we're lucky? A few months."
---
That night, Takashi sat with Hikari by the fire.
He didn't speak.
Neither did she.
But when he looked into her eyes, he didn't see guilt or sorrow.
He saw *hope.*
"I'm scared," he admitted.
"So am I," she said.
"But I want to live."
"Then let's start there."
---
The fire in the hearth crackled.
No tails danced in the shadows.
No sacred power whispered.
Just two people.
Just peace.
For now.