Snow hissed softly against the rocks around their camp.
They had set up beneath a jagged ridge east of the dead riverbed, hidden by a natural fold in the earth. There were no shrine ruins or old territorial markers here. Just raw land, silent and still under the gray sky.
Chi sat on a flat rock, sharpening her blade in slow, steady strokes. The scraping of metal on stone cut through the quiet.
Hinata crouched near their small fire, flipping through a scorched bundle of papers. She had kept them wrapped in oilcloth since the Bloodbinder explosion at the village.
Chi hadn't asked about those papers before.
Now she did.
"Where did you get that?"
Hinata didn't look up from the yellowed pages. "Off the Bloodbinder at the village. I grabbed it from his back right before he went boom."
Chi's sharpening slowed to a stop.
"You never mentioned it."
"You never asked."
The pages looked brittle and old. About half were written in Bloodbinder script—violent, cramped writing that curved in circles, designed to look like scars. The other pages were crude maps, sketched in what looked like soot and dried blood.
But one page was different.
It had a mark on it.
A symbol: three teeth inside a ring.
Chi went completely still.
Hinata noticed her reaction. "You know this symbol."
"It's old."
"Queen's mark perhaps?"
Chi shook her head slowly. "No…Older than her."
Hinata flipped the page over, squinting at the faded writing. "Says something here about a 'Buried Flame' and a 'Second Pulse' sealed somewhere in the earth. The coordinates match our direction. Want to tell me what we're walking into?"
Chi stood from her rock.
Her blade slid back into its sheath with a soft click.
She didn't give Hinata an answer.
Instead, she started walking east.
They followed the map's directions.
The journey wasn't long—just two hours of trudging through wind and scattered stones. Eventually, they reached a cliff face clearly carved by hands, not nature. Snow wouldn't stick to its surface, and the air around it shimmered faintly. Chi realized there was Pulse energy here, buried deep underground but still present.
At the base of the cliff, hidden beneath a layer of fresh snow, they found what they were looking for.
A stone door marked with red symbols that seemed to glow in the dim light.
Chi placed her hand against the cold surface.
The carved runes flared to life—dim at first, then brighter as they responded to the Netherpulse flowing under her skin.
Hinata tensed behind her. "Chi—"
"It's okay."
"Define okay."
Chi didn't reply.
The heavy door cracked open with a deep grinding sound.
Inside was darkness.
Not an empty kind, but a sleeping kind.
The tunnel walls glowed with a faint red light, veins of dormant Pulse energy running through the black stone like a slow heartbeat.
The air was thick and wet, as if something was breathing just behind the walls.
Chi walked down the tunnel first.
Hinata followed, her own Pulse energy reacting to the strange atmosphere—coiled tight and defensive, ready for trouble.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
"Memories," Chi said quietly. "Buried the wrong way."
They reached the main chamber at the bottom of the tunnel.
It was wide and circular, with walls lined with old shackles, rusted torture tools, and flat obsidian slabs covered in ancient demon writing that hurt to look at.
In the center of the room stood a raised platform.
And floating above it—
A crystal.
Chi froze.
Inside the crystal, suspended as if underwater, was a girl.
Red hair spilled around her shoulders.
Black horns jutted from her forehead.
Her face was completely relaxed in sleep.
It was Chi's face.
Exactly Chi's face.
Hinata's mouth fell open. No words came out.
Chi stepped forward slowly, like she was walking through a dream.
"I remember now," she whispered.
She reached out and touched the edge of the platform.
Memory flooded back into her mind like a dam bursting.
This chamber wasn't just a tomb or a prison.
It was a backup plan.
A vessel designed to hold the Pulse energy the Queen had tried to brand into Chi's soul—a last-resort way to forge a new identity if the original plan failed.
When Chi escaped from Kurohama, she had severed the Queen's mental bond.
But the Queen had already carved a piece of Chi's soul away and hidden it here.
This girl in the crystal wasn't a copy or a clone.
She was a kept version of Chi—the version that would have existed if the Queen's branding had worked.
A waiting echo of what could have been.
The crystal began to pulse with brighter light.
The girl's red eyes snapped open.
She landed softly on the stone platform without a sound.
Same red eyes as Chi.
Same scars across her skin.
But her gaze was wrong.
Too still.
Too aware.
Too empty of doubt.
"Chi," the girl said in a voice exactly like hers.
Chi took a step back.
Hinata raised both her blades. "Chi, what the hell is this thing?!"
Chi didn't blink or look away from the girl. "It's what I could have become."
The girl moved fast.
Too fast for a normal person.
Chi barely managed to block the first strike with Red Crescent.
The blade sang as it met the girl's weapon—a sword that looked exactly like Red Crescent but felt colder.
The girl attacked again—same fighting form, same weight, but twisted somehow, like she wasn't bound by the same rules.
Their swords clashed in a storm of sparks and rippling Pulse energy.
Hinata tried to help but couldn't move—she was trapped inside a barrier field of raw memory that leaked from the walls.
Chi had to fight alone.
But the girl—the false Chi—wasn't trying to kill her.
She was trying to break her will.
"Submit," the girl hissed between sword strikes. "You were made to kneel before her power."
Chi growled through gritted teeth. "Then why am I still standing?"
The girl smiled—a cold, empty expression.
Then she vanished.
Only to reappear directly behind Chi a split second later.
Chi started to turn—
Too slow.
A fist slammed into her spine with bone-crushing force.
She flew forward and hit the platform hard enough to crack the stone.
Blood filled her mouth.
Her vision went fuzzy at the edges.
Then the girl's voice whispered in her ear:
"Come home, daughter. Stop fighting what you are."
Chi reached inside her cloak with shaking fingers.
She drew out a small knife—not a weapon for battle, but a tool for binding rituals.
Her real name was carved into its bone handle.
She drove the blade deep into the platform's surface.
The hidden seal she'd carved into the knife's edge ignited with white fire.
The entire chamber shook like an earthquake.
The girl screamed—a sound like breaking glass.
The Pulse energy in the room surged wildly—
And sucked her back into the crystal prison.
The red light dimmed to almost nothing.
New chains formed around the crystal, binding it to the platform.
Chi collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath.
Hinata ran to her side as soon as the barrier dissolved.
"You okay?"
Chi nodded slowly, still catching her breath.
No words came.
Just the weight of what had happened.
Just the effort of breathing.
Hinata looked back at the crystal prison. "So... that thing was you?"
"No," Chi said firmly. "That was what she wanted me to be."
Hinata looked down at her friend. "And it's still trapped in there?"
"For now."
Chi struggled to her feet.
She wiped Red Crescent clean and slid it back into its sheath.
"This place was built to be a prison," she said. "But it was also meant to be a door."
Hinata raised an eyebrow. "A door to what?"
Chi looked up at the crystal one more time.
And said nothing.
They climbed back up the tunnel without speaking.
But behind them, buried under stone and old snow and layers of ancient magic...
The crystal pulsed once.
Then went dark.
But in that single pulse, something had changed.
Something had awakened.