Spell 21 - She Lied

The floor reflected patches of light wherever red sigils floated above it. Thick black cables hung from above, pulled down by gravity. Ren couldn't tell what they were, but he guessed they were coming down from the upper walls, likely part of the same mechanical network that covered the pagoda's exterior.

Then, at the far end stood a statue. A single ray of light went through the chamber from somewhere high above, falling directly onto it and revealing it in all its details. It was the statue of a woman. She was wearing elegant ceremonial robes, while her arms were folded across her chest. Her features were harsh, almost judgmental.

Beneath her feet, set into the platform she stood upon, was a tomb. It was old by the looks of it, since the stone was smoothed and cracked in places, like it had been there for centuries.

Ren slowed down as he took all that in. The echo of his footsteps was loud, travelling through the chamber, hitting walls and building up into something bigger each time.

Kagami stepped beside him. She, on the contrary, made no sound as she moved.

"She is one of the oldest. The goddess that ends things and returns them to silence."

Ren was right in front of the statue as he stared upward. "Death?"

Kagami nodded. "Izanami. They don't usually place her in shrines unless they are really desperate in trying to seal something deep into the other side."

"Izanami?" Ren turned toward Kagami, surprised. He was sure he had heard that name before. Yes, it had been during that first fight with the Hollow, back in Nezumi Kura. The building there... it had the same name, didn't it?

"Wasn't Izanami Vault that place we went to and encountered that Hollow?" Ren asked, genuinely curious about the coincidence in names.

Kagami smirked, like the answer to that question required too much explanation, and it almost felt like an impossible barrier to overcome with a human.

"That's what people do when they don't understand something," she said with a slight irony in her voice. "They pretend they understand, so they repeat names like this in their daily lives. They use them in the most inappropriate of scenarios. It makes them feel less afraid of them, I suppose."

Ren glanced once more towards the statue as it rose above him. Then, as he admired its imposing aura, he saw something shining on the statue's right hand, over its stone sleeve. It was a ring. It emanated faint trails of violet smoke that spiraled softly in the air along with glowing particles of the same color. Its metal seemed untouched by time. No rust, no decay. It seemed new, unlike the rest of the statue.

He then reached out to touch it, as if it was calling to him to do so.

"Don't touch it!" Kagami suddenly exclaimed, raising the tone of her voice.

Now that was peculiar, Ren thought. Kagami never raised her voice, regardless of whether there was danger or not. But it was too late anyway, as his fingers were already brushing against the metal.

Then, suddenly, the vision he had witnessed before entering the pagoda returned. He was back there in that chamber where chanting voices echoed around a ring of fire. And just like before, at some point, the symbols shattered into smaller, glowing fragments that resembled sharp pieces of glass. Then the ring of fire transformed into that fiery whirlwind that consumed everything in its path.

Only this time, it seemed the vision played more than its original counterpart. Somewhere on one side of the ritual chamber, a man stood with his arms open wide. He was facing the same woman with long black hair that Ren had already seen before. The man looked deeply concentrated, as if everything was on the edge and about to tip over. He was visibly shaken but still holding on, while all sorts of sigils and symbols broke apart around him.

Then, in the background, a pair of golden eyes took shape, drawn by an invisible force in the air. They hovered, suspended in a black liquid that slowly seeped inside of them. The image looked terribly familiar. Yes, he had seen those types of eyes before... they resembled the eyes of the ghosts there in Naraku.

It was like the pieces of an awkward puzzle were starting to fall into place, one by one, although he couldn't quite tell yet what their final meaning actually was.

Then suddenly, Kagami's voice roared through the silence, breaking whatever connection had been formed.

Her incantation tore the vision into bits until reality poured back in. Fast.

Ren fell back hard, coughing and vomiting something bitter and black onto the stone floor. When all of that was finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried to regain balance.

"That wasn't meant for you," Kagami snapped. "Drop the ring. Now."

But Ren didn't drop it.

His head pounded, his ears were still ringing from whatever that vision was, and he kept shaking uncontrollably. But he knew he would die before dropping that ring.

"You have no idea what that is," Kagami continued with a lower voice, and if the circumstances were different, Ren might have even mistaken it for gentleness.

"Exactly!" Ren said, and this time his voice was raised. "I don't know! Because you never tell me anything. I've followed you through everything since that freaking tunnel. And every time I ask you something relevant, you say nothing. Or worse, you only tell me what you find convenient."

Kagami looked at him without saying anything. This time, and for the first time, she did not have a valid argument.

"I'm your pact-bearer, aren't I? Then maybe it's time you start treating me like one. I'm not your puppet."

Suddenly, as soon as he said that, a massive eye opened on the far wall of the chamber without any warning whatsoever. At first, it was just stone, but then a crack spread through it and golden light poured in from within. The pupil locked on Ren.

Neither of them reacted in any way. They were both surprised by the event.

Then, across the chamber, the sigils that Ren had seen hovering around suddenly started changing into something else. Unclear at first, but then the language came in as clear as water.

"She lied."

Written all over the place.