No Place Like Home (ノー・プレイス・ライク・ホーム / Nō Pureisu Raiku Hōmu)

Far from Solarii’s broken walls, beneath a sky the smoke could not reach, another city woke to its own kind of morning.

Zebulum did not mourn.

It pulsed.

The capital of the Chainbound Doctrine rose from jagged black stone and warped iron, built in uneven layers that climbed a canyon of its own making. Structures jutted from cliff faces. Balconies hung over bottomless drops. Bridges crossed chasms where something alive and hungry moved far below.

Demons and humans walked the same streets.

A man in tattered robes laughed as a horned creature gnawed on his severed arm, Seiki knitting the limb back together even as teeth tore it apart. A woman with blackened eyes bartered over talismans with a vendor whose jaw was missing, voice crawling out in a wet rasp. Children kicked a skull back and forth in the dust, shrieking with delight when it cracked.

Overhead, spires climbed into a sky that always seemed a shade too dark.

At the highest point of the city, a fortress sat like a crown that had grown teeth.

Akane Yatogi stepped through its inner gate with blood still on her legs.

Her Seiki had calmed since Solarii, no longer shaking the air with every breath, but it still clung to her like heat. The scraps of cloth that passed for her outfit were torn and stiff with dried red-black. Her hair hung wild down her back. She walked barefoot, feet smeared with ash.

Lord Kurotaka Hisomi came behind her, the huge cleaver resting against his shoulder. Dark green Seiki clung to his skin like a thin fog. He smelled like rot and old graves. Lord Fushimi Renjirō drifted along at her other side, hands flexing inside his clawed gauntlets, eyes bright with amusement that never reached kindness. Lord Shigure Amaya moved a few steps behind, quiet and precise, void-dark eyes taking in everything and reacting to almost nothing.

Demon spawn parted for them in the hallway.

Cultists knelt.

No one tried to speak to Akane.

They had seen the way her aura had twisted when she returned. They had seen the sealed scroll in Kurotaka’s grip. Some things were better admired from a distance.

The fortress interior was cooler. Black stone walls absorbed light instead of reflecting it. Symbols crawled across the ceiling, carved so deep they seemed to move when you stared too long. Braziers burned with pale flame that made shadows look sharper.

The four of them entered the central hall.

At its centre stood an altar.

It was not elaborate. Just a block of ancient rock, surface worn smooth by the weight of countless offerings. Old blood had dried in its cracks. New blood had been added on top. The air around it felt heavier, as if the world itself leaned in to listen.

Kurotaka stepped forward and set the First Seal Scroll on the altar.

The sealing cloth it was wrapped in had already begun to darken. Symbols that had once been clear shimmered at the edges, as if whatever the scroll contained did not appreciate being contained.

Akane watched it with the contentment of someone who had finally put a long-sought trophy where it belonged.

Renjirō stretched his shoulders. His gauntlets clicked softly as he flexed his fingers.

“So,” he said, voice lazy. “All that for a piece of paper. Solarii in ruins, a Lord dead, half a city broken. The Doctrine will be telling this story for years. Yuck.”

“It's more than paper,” Shigure said quietly. “You felt the pulse when we removed it. The world itself shook.”

Renjirō smirked. “I felt something. Mostly, I felt Rei Kurayami trying not to die.”

Akane’s eyes slid to him.

Renjirō didn't notice. He was already rolling his neck, enjoying his own words.

“The great Celestine commander,” he went on. “He breaks his own arm so he does not have to kill you. Refuses the blade, lets himself get dragged into the dirt. What was he used to be called? The Blade of Judgment?” He snorted. “Looked more like a dog that lost its teeth.”

The air changed.

It didn't get louder. It didn't flash.

It tightened.

Akane turned her head fully toward him.

Her smile was gone.

Renjirō’s Seiki flickered without his permission. The instincts honed from years of fighting told him to shut his mouth, but the words had already left, and he didn't like backing up from anyone.

“What?” he asked. “Did I hurt your feelings, Demon Queen?”

She stepped toward him.

There was no sway in her hips now. No playful tilt to her head. Her eyes were flat and bright, the way they had been when she walked through Solarii’s blood.

“Say his name again,” she said.

Renjirō scoffed. “Rei Kurayami. There. Happy?”

Her hand moved.

He didn't see her cross the distance. One moment, she was three paces away. Next, her fingers were wrapped around his throat.

She didn't squeeze.

Not yet.

Her Seiki surged through that one point of contact, pushing past his own. It felt like being dunked into a vat of molten glass. His serpentine aura writhed in response, trying to slip away, finding nowhere to go.

“You can mock Solarii,” Akane said softly. “You can mock their king. You can even mock Hayate if you like. The dead man."

Her fingers tightened just enough to cut off his next breath.

“But you don't get to talk about Rei.”

Renjirō’s eyes narrowed. His hands lifted slowly, claws ready to dig into her wrist. “He is Celestine,” he rasped. “He's their dog. That makes him mine to mock.”

Akane leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched.

“He's mine, forever and always, got that?” She said.

For a heartbeat, her aura flared so violently that the braziers flickered. The stone under Renjirō’s boots trembled. Farther back, minor demons flinched and turned their faces away.

Kurotaka watched with a frown that might have been concern or boredom.

Shigure’s expression did not change, but his eyes sharpened.

Akane’s voice dropped lower.

Her grip tightened.

Renjirō’s vision went white at the edges. His Seiki surged, instinct forcing venom up his veins, but she had him pinned in a way that made all his tricks feel slow.

She could crush his throat in an instant.

She did not.

She watched him fight for breath for two long seconds, then opened her fingers and stepped back.

Renjirō coughed, bending at the waist, one hand braced on his knee. His pride screamed louder than his crushed airway. He didn't lower his gaze, but he also didn't speak.

Akane turned away from him as if he no longer existed.

Her attention shifted back to the scroll.

“The First Seal,” she said. “Abaddon’s little lockbox is one piece lighter.”

Kurotaka sighed, rolling his shoulders. “One of seven,” he said. “All this trouble, and we are only at the first door. The Doctrine will want to know where we are going next.”

Shigure folded his hands inside his sleeves. “Our enemies are weak,” he said. “Solarii staggered. The Verdant Veil without its Lord. The Crimson Legion is still sitting on its iron walls. We could press the advantage.”

“We could,” Akane said. “We could also walk blind into whatever old things are hiding the other seals and let them eat us because we were impatient.”

She rested her fingertips lightly on the sealing cloth.

“We know where one scroll was. In Solarii. My intel has informed me that no other Factions are hiding any except our allies in the Thorned Pact. When the time comes, we'll steal it from them. For now, I say we avoid fighting any more cities and go for the rumoured Grigori.”

Kurotaka scratched at the side of his neck, rotted Seiki flickering under his skin. “You think the Grigori might have some of them?” He asked.

Akane smiled.

The Grigori Eight. Fallen watchers. Half legend, half whispered report. Men and women who had walked away from the heavens and dug themselves into the deepest cracks of the world, taking secrets with them.

“They like collecting things,” she said. “Relics. Scripts. If anyone has been hoarding seals just to see what they do, it's them. After all, their Wills created the seals all that time ago.”

Renjirō’s voice was rough when he finally spoke again. “Finding them won't be simple.”

“It never is,” Shigure said.

Akane shrugged. “We don't need to find all of them at once. We just need to find one who knows where the others are. You're all a bunch of fucking buzzkills.”

Her eyes glittered.

“The Doctrine and the Thorned Pact will be happy enough with that. We bring them the path to Abaddon; they can argue later about which one of them gets all seven seals first.”

Kurotaka gave a low, amused grunt. “Then were agreed. We move toward the Grigori next.”

Shigure inclined his head.

Renjirō straightened, voice steady again. “And the scroll?”

Akane tapped it lightly. “It goes where it belongs.”

She lifted the scroll from the altar.

The hall dimmed for a heartbeat as if the room itself disapproved.

“Council adjourned,” she said. “Let the lesser priests make noise about our victory. We have something more important to attend to.”

They left the central hall through a door at the back that most of the city did not know existed.

The passage beyond was narrow and steep.

It led down.

At first, the walls were cut stone, lined with old carvings and shallow alcoves where pale lanterns burned. Then the masonry gave way to raw rock. The air grew cooler. Their footsteps echoed.

After a time, even the lanterns disappeared.

The only light came from their own Seiki.

Kurotaka’s infection green shimmered lightly along the tunnel, painting the rough walls in sick colour. Shigure’s presence dimmed edges and swallowed sound. Renjirō’s aura slid and twisted, serpents tasting the air for any threat.

Akane walked at the front without summoning more light.

She knew the way.

They passed murals carved directly into the stone, half eroded by time. Winged shapes bent above circles that might have been cities. Lines of text in languages no one in the upper city could still read wound between them.

The tunnel opened into a vast cavern.

The ceiling disappeared into the dark. The floor dipped slightly toward the centre, where a structure rose that was not quite an altar and not quite a gate. It resembled a slab of stone forced up from the bones of the earth, its surface carved into a circular pattern.

Seven deep recesses were set into it.

Six were empty.

One, near the top, looked as if something had once rested there and then been torn free, long before any of them were born.

Akane approached.

Her steps echoed once, twice.

She felt something shift under her feet. Not physically. In the air. In the old, buried Will of the thing beneath this place.

It recognised the scroll.

“Abaddon’s seal,” Shigure murmured. “No one has stood here with one in hand for thousands of years.”

“Yay, we get to be first,” Akane said.

She lifted the scroll and fit it into the lowest recess.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the entire slab shuddered.

Lines of dim red began to crawl out from the slot like veins, tracing paths across the carved surface, filling in symbols that had been dead for centuries. The faintest tremor ran up through the cavern floor, tickling their ankles.

Somewhere far below, something sighed in its sleep.

A hairline crack formed along one edge of the stone.

Akane stared at it, eyes wide with the kind of satisfaction most people reserved for quiet, simple things like a home-cooked meal. She looked like she had just watched a door unlock by a fraction of an inch and could already see the ruin waiting behind it.

Kurotaka shifted his grip on the cleaver. “That's all?” He asked.

“For one scroll,” Akane replied. “What did you expect, Samael’s hand pushing up to say hello?”

Renjirō ran his tongue along his teeth, gaze fixed on the faintly glowing lines. “Feels like the start of something powerful,” he said.

Shigure listened to the silence that followed the tremor. “The Doctrine’s high circle will want a report,” he said.

“They'll get one,” Akane said. “Later.”

She turned her head slightly.

Her smile faded.

Something brushed the edge of her senses. It did not feel like demon spawn or corrupted soldiers. It did not feel like the Hellbound Lords beside her. It felt quiet. Small. Wrong in a way that made the hair on her arms lift.

“Do you feel that?” she asked.

Kurotaka frowned. “No. Just the seal.”

“Not that.” Her eyes narrowed. “Like a whisper under the floorboards.”

She stepped away from the slab.

The sensation was faint, so faint that anyone less attuned to blood and fear might have missed it. Akane did not miss things like that. Her Seiki slid along the cavern, tracing the source.

She walked toward the far wall.

Rock loomed, irregular and wet in places where underground water had seeped through. There were no obvious doors, no gates, nothing to mark a difference.

But she felt it.

“Here,” she said.

Renjirō and Kurotaka exchanged a glance but followed. Shigure stayed back by the seal, watching both them and the stone.

Akane lifted her hand and pressed her palm flat against the rock.

Red-black Seiki seeped from her fingers, searching. The stone resisted at first, then parted with a quiet grinding sound. A narrow gap opened, just wide enough for her to slip through.

She didn't hesitate.

The space beyond was a small chamber carved into the rock, ceiling low enough that Kurotaka would have had to duck. The air smelled stale, like it had not been disturbed in a long time.

A boy stood in the middle of it.

Bare feet on cold stone. Clothes torn and too thin for the depths of the underground. Dark hair hung in his face. His eyes were the only part of him that looked truly awake.

Naoto Aigami looked up at Akane as if he had been expecting her.

He was not shaking.

He was not crying.

He just watched her, head tilted slightly, as though she were an interesting piece on a board he was still learning how to play.

Akane stopped just inside the chamber.

For the first time in a long while, she did not immediately know what she was looking at.

His Seiki was not a demon, not pure human. It felt old and strange, like he had been standing in the shadow of something massive for so long that a piece of it had soaked into his bones.

“You are a long way from home, little thing,” she said.

“I've been home,” Naoto replied.

His voice was quiet, but it did not waver.

She took another step in, circling him slowly.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Naoto Aigami.”

“Do you know where you are, Naoto Aigami?”

He thought about it for a second. “Under Zebulum,” he said.

Akane smiled faintly. “Clever.”

She could feel it more clearly now, standing this close.

Something vast, just beyond touch, leaning close to this boy the way adults leaned close to whisper in a child’s ear. It did not feel like Abaddon. It did not feel like Samael, Asmodeus, or Belial. It felt like a shadow of a shadow, a promise written in teeth.

“You should be afraid,” she said.

Naoto looked her straight in the eyes.

“I have a protector,” he said simply with a smile. “I'm not afraid.”

The words did not sound like bravado. They sounded like facts.

Akane’s skin prickled.

For a heartbeat, something moved at the edge of her perception, just behind the boy’s shoulders. Not shape, not sound. Just weight. Like a presence glancing at her and deciding she was not yet worth a full look.

Her lips parted, then curved slowly.

“You shouldn't exist,” she said.

Naoto blinked once. “People keep saying that.”

She laughed.

It was not the bright, wild laughter she had poured over Solarii. It was softer, edged with genuine surprise.

“You know what you are standing next to, Naoto Aigami?”

He glanced past her, as if he could see through rock and stone to the seal in the other chamber.

“A door,” he said.

“And what happens if it does?” she asked.

His expression did not change.

Akane watched him for a long moment.

“I should kill you,” she said.

There was no tease in it. No play.

She was stating a tactical truth.

A child standing next to an ancient seal, wrapped in the attention of some unseen thing, speaking about the world changing without a flicker of fear. Every instinct honed by years in the Doctrine told her to end this now, before it grew teeth.

Naoto didn't move or falter.

“You can try, but you wouldn't be able to,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow. “No?”

He shook his head once. “My protector wouldn't like that.”

Akane’s smile sharpened.

“Your protector,” she repeated. “You put a lot of faith in something you can't see.”

“I can feel him,” Naoto said. “Like you feel Lilith's Will”

She studied him.

Then she looked past him, at the rough stone wall, at the sense of something waiting beneath the world.

She stepped close enough to put her hand on the boy’s head.

He didn't flinch.

“Welcome aboard, kid,” she said.

Naoto’s eyes narrowed just a fraction, as if he were testing the weight of those words.

“Okay,” he said.

Behind Akane, at the edge of her awareness, she felt Kurotaka shift, Renjirō stiffen, Shigure’s attention sharpen to a fine point.

They didn't know yet what she had picked up.

She didn't explain.

She turned back toward the narrow opening, Seiki brushing the stone until it widened enough for them both to pass through.

“Come,” she said without looking back. “I think you'll make a great addition to the team.”

Naoto followed.

He didn't look afraid. He did not look excited, either. He looked like someone who had been walking toward this his entire life without knowing the name for it.

They stepped back into the cavern where the first seal had begun to glow faintly in its place.

Far above them, Solarii counted its dead and began to rebuild.

Far below, in the depths of Zebulum, an ancient lock stirred, and a boy with a protector known as the Ashen King took his first step into the heart of the Doctrine.