CHAPTER 6: THE DESCENT BENEATH THE SCHOOL
Rain returned that night — but it wasn't falling outside.
It was dripping from the ceiling of Valencia High's basement, dark red and thick like diluted blood. Every drop echoed. Every echo sounded like a heartbeat.
Adrian and Adriana stood at the bottom of a spiral staircase that wasn't supposed to exist — a passage they found after the walls split open from the last demon's death cry.
> "Rin Kaito… fallen?" Adrian muttered. "No. He can't be."
Adriana stared at the glowing phone screen. "You saw his message, didn't you? Only Rin could trigger that seal."
The air shimmered with cursed energy. Symbols moved along the walls, twisting into words neither twin could read. They pressed on, weapons drawn. The hallway pulsed faintly with light — like veins carrying blood deeper underground.
Then came the whispers.
Not words. Names.
Their names.
> "Adriaaan…"
"Adrianaaa…"
The voice was wet and layered — like dozens of throats speaking at once.
They turned the corner and froze.
Before them stretched an underground cathedral of bone and flesh — lockers melted into walls, desks fused into ribs, and blood pooling into crimson rivers. Hanging from the ceiling was a single crucifix made of broken swords.
And nailed to it — was Rin Kaito.
His eyes were open. But wrong. Hollow.
His body still twitched, and chains of cursed light ran through his arms into the walls.
> "You shouldn't have come," Rin said, voice distorted, half-human.
"Sensei…" Adriana whispered, trembling.
"They got to me before I could warn you. The school... is alive."
The floor rumbled. From the red pools, hundreds of pale hands began to crawl upward. The laughter from earlier returned, echoing through the chamber.
> "Run?" Adrian asked, gripping his weapon.
Rin smirked — a faint, broken smirk.
"No. You fight. If you run, it follows. It feeds on fear."
---
The twins ignited their weapons.
Adriana's twin blades burned with angelic light; Adrian's gauntlet cracked, forming a demonic claw.
They charged together — brother and sister, against a flood of shadow creatures crawling from the walls, some wearing faces of their classmates.
Each strike left afterimages of light and flame. Each scream filled the air with black smoke.
And above it all, Rin's voice echoed, chanting something ancient — summoning a seal with his last strength.
Then a blinding red flash filled the chamber.
When it faded, Rin was gone. The crucifix was shattered. The school had gone silent.
Only a single sigil burned into the floor, glowing faintly — the same mark on Rin's sword.
Adrian touched it.
> "He's not dead," Adrian whispered. "He's sealed below."
Adriana nodded. "Then we'll break the seal — and kill whoever did this."
They turned back toward the stairs. Behind them, the sigil pulsed once more, forming a faint message in blood:
> "THE HELL GATE OPENS IN THREE DAYS."