Eyes in the Dark

The darkness that followed the mention of Kazuya was unlike any darkness Takeru had ever known. It was heavy, viscous—tightening around his neck like the limbs of that shadow creature they had just faced. Even his breath sounded muffled, as if passing through a mask of blackened sludge.

As he tried to spit out the strange metallic taste that had seeped into his mouth, he heard a laugh.

Not the laugh of the man on the throne of skulls.

Not Ryo's fearful laugh behind him.

But the laughter of a young girl.

A faint green light erupted suddenly in the center of the hall, revealing a child, no older than ten, dressed in a white kimono stained with mud—skipping across the skulls like she was playing in a garden.

— "You finally made it!" she sang, twirling in place. "Kazuya was sure you'd die on the way!"

Takeru didn't understand how he could see her body through the kimono. It wasn't transparent... rather, there was no body inside. Just shadows swirling like smoke.

— "Who..." he tried to speak, but his tongue suddenly felt like lead.

— "Oh, I'm sorry!" she leapt inches from his face, her golden eyes unblinking. "I forgot to introduce myself! I'm Hikari! Or… as Kazuya calls me: the First Sin."

As she said that, her kimono opened at the chest like a curtain—revealing a void where her heart should be. Floating in that emptiness was a tiny golden sword, embedded in nothingness.

Ryo collapsed to his knees behind Takeru, groaning:

— "She's not human... She's one of the Old Pact Beings..."

The girl—Hikari—tilted her head toward Ryo at an inhuman angle:

— "Correct! We are older than mountains, older than your feeble gods!" Then she turned back to Takeru. "But you... you're different. Kuroyami hasn't chosen anyone in over four hundred years."

She raised her small hand (through which he could see the wall behind her) and touched his red eye:

— "He wants you to rage... because your rage is his food. The more you kill, the stronger you become—and the closer he comes to breaking free."

"He"?

Before Takeru could ask, the ground beneath them split open.

---

They fell into the belly of the castle.

A circular chamber, its walls coated with human bodies, melted together like wax then frozen in place. At the center, atop a platform of bone, stood Kazuya.

No one needed to tell Takeru that this was him.

The tall man in tattered priest's robes, his long black hair slithering like it was alive—and his eyes...

He didn't have two.

He had seven eyes lined within his sockets, each a different color, each staring at Takeru with its own flavor of hatred.

— "Takeru," Kazuya said in a voice that sounded like a hundred voices merged into one, "you've brought me a most precious gift today."

He pointed behind Takeru.

When Takeru turned, he saw Ryo suspended mid-air, engulfed in a dark aura, his eyes wide open—yet completely lifeless.

— "Your first kill... and my first offering."

Hikari appeared beside Kazuya, giggling as she rocked on her heels:

— "Do you know why I'm called the First Sin? Because I am Pride! And pride... always comes first!"

Kazuya raised his arms, revealing two more swords floating behind him:

— "Shinko-no-Tsurugi... and Tama-no-Tsurugi. Now that I have all three, all I need is their bearer."

Takeru felt the black sword in his hand pulsing, as if it wanted to fly toward Kazuya on its own.

But the most terrifying thing wasn't the swords…

It was Ryo's voice, which came from Kazuya's mouth, whispering:

— "Please... kill me..."

In that moment, Takeru's red eye erupted with indescribable pain, and something began to emerge from within it...