Terror and despair were cold anchors, holding Yuki pinned beneath the towering pine. The image of his corrupted reflection – the grey skin, the crimson eyes, the rows of shark-like teeth – was seared onto his retinas. Kage's presence was a suffocating weight in his mind, the demon's cold amusement a constant, grating hum.
You see now, the demon whispered, its voice layered and chilling. The illusion is shattered. The mask is slipping. You are becoming what you were always meant to be.
Yuki squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block it out, trying to cling to the memory of the numbness, the fragile hope. But it was gone, washed away by the horrifying truth in the stream. He was a monster wearing a boy's skin.
He needed to move. To get to the sanctum. To end this. Before there was nothing left of Yuki at all. He pushed himself up, every movement heavy, weighted by despair.
He started climbing again, following the ridge line upwards. The mountain was vast, indifferent. The snow crunched under his boots. The air bit at his exposed skin. The physical exertion was a welcome distraction from the psychic torment.
He climbed for hours, lost in the rhythm of movement and pain. The burns on his arms throbbed with a steady, insistent heat. The black veins pulsed in time with his heart, a dark counterpoint. Kage's presence was a constant, cold pressure at the base of his skull.
He reached a high plateau, a relatively flat expanse of wind-scoured rock dotted with stunted, wind-bent trees. The view was staggering – endless peaks under a vast, empty sky. He paused, catching his breath, the wind whipping his hair.
That's when he saw it.
Movement. Below him, on a lower slope, partially hidden by the trees. A figure. Small. Clad in a bright blue jacket that stood out starkly against the grey and white of the mountain.
Aoi.
Yuki's heart stopped. Then hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. No. Impossible. How?
He watched, frozen, as the figure picked its way carefully down the slope, moving with a determination that was painfully familiar. It was Aoi. What was she doing here? How had she found him?
Panic, sharp and acidic, surged through him. He'd warned her. Told her to stay away. To be safe. And she'd followed him. Into the mountains. Into the architect's blight. Towards the sanctum. Towards him.
The anchor seeks the vessel, Kage's voice observed, a cold, predatory interest in its tone. Drawn by the fading connection. Or perhaps… by the growing darkness. Some moths are drawn to the flame, little vessel. Even when it consumes them.
"Shut up!" Yuki hissed, the sound whipped away by the wind. He had to get to her. To stop her. To send her back before it was too late. Before the darkness he carried consumed her too.
He scrambled down the rocky slope, his movements clumsy, fueled by fear and desperation. He called out, his voice lost in the wind. "Aoi! AOI!"
She didn't hear him. Or didn't look back. She kept moving downwards, towards a denser patch of forest.
Yuki pushed harder, his breath coming in ragged gasps, the burns screaming in protest. He reached the edge of the forest where she'd disappeared. He plunged into the trees, the air suddenly still and heavy, the wind muted.
"Aoi!" he called again, his voice echoing slightly in the quiet.
He found her standing in a small clearing, her back to him. She wasn't moving. She was just standing there, looking up at the canopy of the ancient trees.
Relief warred with renewed fear. "Aoi!" he said, stepping into the clearing.
She turned slowly.
And it wasn't Aoi.
Not quite.
It was her face. Her body. Her clothes. But her eyes…
They were empty. Not just vacant, but hollow. Like polished stones that reflected no light. There was no recognition in them. No fear. No warmth. Nothing.
And her skin… it was pale. Unnaturally pale, like fine porcelain. In the dim light filtering through the trees, it seemed to have a faint, bluish tint.
"Aoi?" Yuki whispered, taking a hesitant step forward. "What… what are you doing here? How did you find me?"
She didn't answer. She just tilted her head, the movement slow, mechanical. Her empty eyes fixed on him. Then, slowly, she raised her hand and pointed. Not at him. Past him. Towards the deepest shadows beneath a massive, gnarled oak tree at the edge of the clearing.
Yuki turned to look.
The shadows under the oak were deeper than they should be. They writhed and shifted, not with the wind, but with a life of their own. And within that darkness, he saw them.
Eyes. Dozens of them. Small, glowing with a faint, sickly green light. They blinked and swiveled, fixing on Yuki. Then, small, dark shapes began to detach themselves from the shadows, scuttling forward on too many legs.
Imps. Or something like them. Small, hunched creatures made of shadow and malice, with too many joints and too many eyes. They moved with a skittering, chittering silence, surrounding the clearing, cutting off any escape.
Yuki spun back to face the girl who looked like Aoi.
She was still pointing, her hollow eyes fixed on the advancing imps. A faint, chilling smile touched her lips. It wasn't Aoi's warm, kind smile. It was a cold, empty curve of the mouth, devoid of any emotion.
The architect's touch, Kage's voice hissed, laced with something akin to respect. A lure. Bait. Drawn by your fading light, now twisted to serve the darkness. Clever.
Understanding crashed over Yuki, cold and devastating. Aoi hadn't followed him. She'd been sent. Drawn by the residual connection between them, the same connection that had allowed him to feel her fear, now corrupted and used by the architect. She was a puppet. A trap.
The imps closed in, their chittering growing louder, their green eyes glowing brighter. The girl who looked like Aoi lowered her hand, her hollow eyes never leaving Yuki's face, the cold, empty smile still in place.
Yuki stood frozen, trapped between the advancing imps and the hollow shell of the girl he cared about. The anchor hadn't just drifted. It had been hijacked. And it was leading him straight into the architect's snare.