The silence at the center of this clearing was different from the silence within the bamboo labyrinth. If the forest "muffled" sound, here, sound felt as if it "never existed." The space surrounding the ruined shrine felt hollow, like a vacuum in deep space forcibly sucking the air from my lungs.
Kageyama lay sprawled on the ground, his hand still gripping the hilt of his sword, but his eyes were vacant. Natsu was far worse; she was curled in a fetal position, clutching her ears as a clear fluid began to seep from them. Her blood-pumping power had been drained dry by the ribbons that had earlier smothered her protective dome.
I stood alone, trembling before that faceless figure.
The Demon of Silence did not move. It simply sat there, yet the white ribbons trailing from its body began to hover in the air, swaying to the rhythm of my ragged gasps. Every time a ribbon shivered, I felt a tug deep inside me. Not a physical pull, but a tether straining against the bond connecting me to Charon.
"Aqua..."
The voice surfaced. Not from Sumeragi, not from Kageyama. It was the voice of my little demon companion, Charon. But it sounded incredibly thin, like a whisper behind a thick concrete wall.
"Aqua... be careful... it's... erasing... our existence..."
I looked down at my chest. Charon's heart, usually a vivid, pitch-black weight, was starting to turn transparent. Its darkness faded into a pale gray, slowly beginning to merge with the color of my skin.
This demon didn't want to kill me with wounds. It wanted to erase my contract. If the "Show me your dream" contract was wiped from my existence, then Charon's demonic energy would never have been there. I would revert to a teenage corpse rotting on the edge of the city, and Charon would return to being a dying little imp.
"Noooo!" I screamed. But of course, no sound came out. Only empty air forced from my throat.
The Demon of Silence slowly stood up. As it straightened, the white ribbons shot forward like thousands of arrows. They didn't aim for my heart or my head; they aimed for my memories.
Whoosh!
A ribbon pierced my shoulder. Instantly, I forgot my mother's name. I knew I had a mother, I knew she was sick, but her name... her face... gone.
Whoosh!
Another ribbon pierced my thigh. I forgot what it felt like to eat hot ramen for the first time with Charon. That savory, warm sensation was replaced by a cold, bland emptiness.
I fell to my knees. My memories of Tokyo, of Kageyama's apartment, of the ridiculous bickering with Natsu—all of it was being pulled out like thread unraveling from a loom. I began to lose my grip on reality. Who am I? Why am I in this forest? Who is the man in the strange civilian clothes lying dying next to me?
In the middle of the black hole beginning to swallow my consciousness, a sharp frequency shattered the silence.
Bzzzt... Aqua-kun... Bzzzt...
The phone in my pocket exploded from the heat. The battery couldn't handle the energy being beamed from the other side. Yet, even though the device was destroyed, Sumeragi's voice continued to echo inside my skull. This time, it wasn't soft. It was heavy, authoritative, and cold as polar ice.
"Are you forgetting who owns you, Aqua-kun?"
The pressure of Sumeragi's voice collided with the demon's silence. Inside my mind, I saw a vision: thousands of red hands emerging from the darkness, coiling around every fragment of my nearly lost memories, pulling them back by force.
"Remember the pain, Aqua. Remember your fear of me. That is a contract stronger than any memory."
The thought of Sumeragi—her cold, smiling face, her scent, and the way she looked at me like a prized diamond—became the only thing that remained sharp in my brain. My fear and obsession with her became an anchor. The Demon of Silence appeared startled. For the first time, it emitted a sound: a long hiss that sounded like wind passing through a narrow crack.
It raised its hand, and every white ribbon in the area converged, forming a massive spear intended to shatter my heart—where Charon resided—once and for all.
"Now, Aqua!" Sumeragi shouted. "Be angry. Rage! Give me the filthiest noise imaginable!"
I couldn't see Charon's heart with my eyes, but I could feel it with my soul. I imagined my hands gripping that pulsing heart. I imagined the fury of something trying to erase Charon's existence from mine.
I won't let you erase us!
In my mind, I screamed Sumeragi's name as a mantra of power. I clawed at the empty space above my chest and pressed down with every shred of my remaining sanity.
ARRRGGGHHHHH...
The sound died for a moment, strangled by the silence. But then...
SRRIIIIIINNNGGGGGG!!!
The explosion of the dual swords emerging from my hands was so violent that the mist in the clearing was blasted away. Blood sprayed, soaking the white ribbons trying to close in. The crimson of my blood scorched the mantras on the ribbons, turning them to ash in an instant.
A blackish, demonic aura enveloped the blades on my arms. But something was different. Usually, my swords roared with a constant sound, as if screaming death. This time, the sound was unstable; it vibrated at an incredibly high frequency, as if the blades themselves were shrieking in pain against the vacuum of sound around them.
The Demon of Silence took a step back. Its giant ribbon-spear crumbled into pieces before it could even touch me. The energy I produced was pure poison to it.
I looked up, my eyes now glowing bright yellow indicator lights in the darkness. I looked toward the ruined shrine. There, atop an old peach tree growing amidst the rubble, a black crow perched calmly. Its eyes glowed a faint red.
Through the crow's eyes, Sumeragi was watching me.
"Good, Aqua-kun," she whispered through the wind that was now beginning to blow again. "Now, devour that silence until there is nothing left."
I lunged forward. The ground beneath my feet cracked. I was no longer a terrified teenager; I was death itself, and I was very, very hungry for the sound of tearing flesh.
The real battle had only just begun.