: When Flames Remember Their Names

Chapter 32

The Archive trembled like a living beast caught between two heartbeats.

Nezutsu stood between two staircases — one spiraling downward into the broken echo of Kaelith's loop, the other ascending toward the True Core, where the original memory of the Fifth Flame — and perhaps, its name — was locked.

Velgrim stepped beside him, voice steady.

"If we split… we may not find each other again."

Nezutsu's jaw clenched.

"We have to. There's no other way."

He looked to Asphor.

"Go with Velgrim. Find the Core. If the Fifth Flame had a name, it must've had a voice."

Asphor hesitated, then gave a single nod.

"And you?"

"I'll bring Kaelith back."

And with that, the three turned — the group torn apart by duty and flame.

Nezutsu — Into the Loop of Thorns

The staircase down into Kaelith's loop was made of memory.

Every step flickered with a version of her face: smiling, weeping, bleeding, screaming.

When Nezutsu stepped through the veil, the world reset.

The cathedral returned — thorns everywhere, Kaelith once again bound at the center, her silver eyes flickering like a dying moon.

Twelve robed figures circled her, chanting in that grotesque tongue.

Nezutsu whispered the word he barely understood:

"Elaruh."

The shadows recoiled. One hooded figure turned — revealing a mask of his own face.

"You again," it said. "Always the Flame, always too late."

"Who are you?"

"The Guardian of the Loop. The part of you that believes she must suffer… for you to grow."

"Then you're a lie."

"No. I'm the reason you survived this long."

Nezutsu raised his hand, violet fire igniting in his palm — but the masked one whispered a forbidden syllable, and the flame froze mid-air.

"You cannot burn what's already ash."

Suddenly, a second Kaelith appeared — outside the loop — watching silently from the rafters. She wore black robes and a crown of thorns, and her expression was utterly hollow.

Nezutsu turned to her.

"Who are you?"

She spoke in a voice devoid of life.

"The Kaelith who never left the chain. The one who became the Sealed Oracle. I'm what she becomes if you fail again."

Asphor and Velgrim — The True Core

Meanwhile, Asphor and Velgrim ascended the twisting staircase, their path lit by shifting constellations.

They emerged into a chamber of silence.

A glass sphere floated above a pedestal. Inside it: a name written in flame — constantly changing, never readable.

Velgrim approached. "Is that…?"

"The Fifth God's true name," Asphor whispered. "But it was erased. Look—each letter burns itself before we can read it."

Velgrim narrowed his eyes. "Or someone is rewriting it."

Suddenly, glyphs lit up around the room — seals, hundreds of them, forming a prison not for a god… but a memory.

"This whole room," Asphor realized, "isn't a memory vault. It's a cage."

Behind them, the air tore open like paper.

A figure stepped through: a tall woman, skin black as void, eyes filled with stars.

"You should not have come."

"Who are you?" Velgrim raised his blade.

"I am the Archivist. The one who feeds the flame of forgetting. The Fifth Flame was never meant to be remembered."

She raised her hand — and all the constellations above began to fall like rain.

Nezutsu's Defiance

Back in the loop, Nezutsu stood between Kaelith and the chained truth of her fate.

"I won't let this loop define her," he growled.

The masked version of himself shook its head.

"You don't get to change destiny."

Nezutsu stepped forward — even as the air shattered like glass.

"I'm not changing it. I'm choosing it."

He walked into the center of the loop and took Kaelith's hand.

"If this is her cage, then I'll burn with her."

The violet flame exploded.

Reality twisted.

The thorns melted into wind.

The masked self screamed,

"You break the loop, you break the world—!"

And Nezutsu answered:

"So be it."

: The Memory Unsealed

Back in the Core, Asphor lunged for the glass sphere.

The Archivist hurled blades of silence — but Velgrim took the hit, shielding Asphor with his body.

Blood bloomed. Velgrim fell.

Asphor's fingers touched the sphere —

And suddenly, it stopped burning.

For the first time in countless centuries, the name stayed whole:

"Aez'rah."

The True Name of the Fifth Flame.

And in that moment, far across the Archive, Nezutsu felt it.

A voice whispered into him — not from above, but within.

"You have remembered me."

His eyes blazed violet, brighter than ever before.

But so did the chains on his soul.

They screamed — then snapped.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]