The Red Choir's Chant

They reached the monastery's approach road by mid-afternoon the next day, and immediately knew something was wrong.
The path should have been maintained—monks from the monastery made regular journeys to nearby villages for supplies and aid. But the road was overgrown, vines and brush reclaiming what human hands had carved from the mountain. And there was a smell in the air that made Haruto's stomach turn.
Rot. Flowers. Something sweet and wrong.
"The corruption has spread this far?" Shinjiro stopped, his hand moving to his sword. "This is three days' journey from Kagura-no-Sato. The seal's influence shouldn't reach—"
"It's not the seal," Ayame said quietly. Her face was pale, drawn. "It's the Lilim. They've been here."
The priest pulled out a scroll, checking something written in faded ink. "The monastery is called Jōdo-ji—the Temple of Pure Land. It's been here for over five hundred years, maintained by monks who specialize in spiritual purification and demon containment. If anyone could help us manage the demon essence, it would be them."
"If they're still alive," Haruto added grimly.
They continued up the path, moving more cautiously now. The forest around them was too quiet, just like it had been when the Lilim first appeared. No birds, no insects, just the whisper of wind through leaves and that underlying smell of decay.
The road curved around a massive boulder, and suddenly the monastery came into view.
Haruto's breath caught.
Jōdo-ji was built into the cliff face itself, its buildings seeming to grow from the stone rather than rest upon it. Wooden walkways connected various levels, and a massive bell tower rose from the center, its copper roof green with age. It should have been beautiful, serene, a place of meditation and peace.
Instead, it was covered in crimson chrysanthemums.
The flowers grew everywhere—on roofs, walls, walkways, even hanging from the bell tower itself. They bloomed with unnatural vibrancy, their petals so red they looked black in the afternoon light.
And in the courtyard before the main hall, figures stood motionless.
Monks. Dozens of them, arranged in concentric circles around a central platform. Their robes were traditional orange, but flowers grew from the fabric as if the cloth itself had become a garden. Their heads were bowed, their hands pressed together in prayer position.
But they weren't moving. Weren't breathing.
"Are they—" Shinjiro started.
"Alive. Barely." Ayame's voice was strained. "The Lilim have them. Transformed them into... vessels. They're being used to maintain some kind of ritual."
As if responding to her words, the monks began to chant.
It started as a low hum, almost below the threshold of hearing. Then it grew louder, resolving into words in that ancient language—the language of the seal, of the demon queen, of four hundred years of suffering compressed into sound.
The demon essence in Haruto's chest resonated with the chanting, pulsing in rhythm with the words. He could feel it straining against his control, drawn toward whatever the monks were creating.
"We need to stop them," he said. "Break the ritual before—"
"Before what?" the priest asked. "We don't know what they're doing. Interrupting could make it worse."
"Or it could stop the Lilim from completing whatever they've planned." Haruto drew the guardian's sword. The blade's blue fire was dim, exhausted from recent battles, but it still responded to his will. "Either way, we can't just stand here."
They moved toward the monastery cautiously, spreading out to approach from different angles. As they got closer, Haruto could see the monks more clearly—their skin had a grayish tint, veins visible beneath like dark rivers, and the flowers growing from their robes had roots that burrowed into their flesh.
Just like the corrupted villagers of Kagura-no-Sato.
The chanting grew louder as they entered the courtyard. The words seemed to have physical weight, pressing down on Haruto's shoulders, making each step harder than the last.
*Come to us**Join the choir**Add your voice to the eternal song**Let the essence sing through you*
The demon inside him wanted to respond, wanted to add its voice to the chorus. Haruto gritted his teeth, forcing it down, wrapping it in layers of will.
But it was getting harder.
On the central platform, something was taking shape. Not physical exactly, but a presence—a concentration of spiritual energy that was rapidly becoming solid. As Haruto watched, it coalesced into a figure.
A woman. Beautiful and terrible, with ember eyes and crimson robes.
The Crimson Lilim.
But she was different now. Larger, more solid, more real. The monks' chanting was feeding her, giving her substance and power.
"Welcome, vessels," she said, her voice cutting through the chant without interrupting it. "Welcome to the Red Choir. We've been preparing this ritual since you fled our first encounter. Building our strength, gathering followers, creating a space where essence calls to essence without interference."
"The monks," the priest said, his voice shaking with rage. "What have you done to them?"
"Given them purpose. They spent their lives trying to contain demons, to purify corruption. Now they serve a higher calling—they help us become whole." The Lilim gestured, and the chanting intensified. "The essence you carry wants to be here. Wants to join with its children, to reunite with its true nature. You can feel it, can't you? The pull? The longing?"
Haruto could. The demon essence was straining harder now, fighting against his containment. Beside him, Shinjiro had gone pale, his hand pressed to his chest where the scar glowed like a brand. The priest was muttering prayers, but his voice was weak, uncertain.
"You cannot resist forever," the Lilim continued. "The Red Choir's chant is specifically designed to resonate with the demon queen's essence. Every word, every syllable, weakens your control. Strengthens our call. In minutes, maybe hours, one of you will break. Will release the essence. And when you do—"
"When we do, you'll try to absorb it," Ayame said. She stepped forward, her frail body somehow projecting strength despite its obvious weakness. "Just like you tried before. But you failed then, and you'll fail now."
The Lilim laughed. "Mother. Always so defiant. But you don't have the power you used last time. You burned yourself out driving us away. And these monks—" she gestured to the chanting figures, "—provide us with a constant source of energy. We are stronger now. More solid. More real."
"Then face me." Ayame moved to the center of the courtyard, positioning herself directly before the platform. "If you want the essence, if you want to be whole, you'll have to go through me first."
"Ayame, no—" Haruto started, but she cut him off with a gesture.
"I created you through my suffering. I fed you for four hundred years with my pain. That gives me a connection to you, whether you like it or not." Her eyes blazed with something that might have been the last ember of the demon queen's power. "And I'm going to use that connection to unmake you."
The Lilim's smile faltered. "You're bluffing. You're human now. Powerless."
"Am I? Look closer." Ayame raised her hands, and light began to gather around them—not the brilliant white from before, but something darker, tinged with red. "I may have separated from the demon essence, but I carried it for four hundred years. You think it didn't leave traces? You think I don't still have access to some of that power?"
The light intensified, and the Lilim actually stepped back.
"The essence inside those three men may be divided," Ayame continued, "but it all came from me. Which means I can still influence it. Can still command it, if I'm willing to pay the price." She looked at Haruto, at Shinjiro, at the priest. "But I need your permission. Need you to lower your defenses, just for a moment, and let me touch the essence you carry. Let me show you how to weaponize it against the Lilim."
"What price?" the priest asked. "What will this cost you?"
"Everything." Ayame's smile was sad but peaceful. "Using the essence, even influencing it from outside, will burn through what little humanity I have left. I'll survive, probably. But I'll be changed. Maybe permanently."
"Don't do this," Haruto said. "There has to be another way—"
"There isn't. The Red Choir is too strong. Their chant is breaking your defenses faster than you can rebuild them. In another ten minutes, one of you will crack." She looked at each of them in turn. "Let me help. Let me use what I am—what I was—to protect you. To finally make my suffering mean something positive."
The chanting grew louder, more insistent. Haruto could feel the demon essence tearing at his containment now, desperate to answer the call. His hands were shaking, sweat pouring down his face despite the cool mountain air.
She was right. He couldn't hold much longer.
"What do we need to do?" Shinjiro asked.
"Open your containment. Just a crack. Just enough for me to touch the essence inside you." Ayame's light-wreathed hands trembled. "Trust me. Trust that I can control what I was for long enough to save you from what I created."
It was asking the impossible. Opening their containment meant risking everything—the demon essence could break free completely, could consume them, could escape to the Lilim. They'd be utterly vulnerable.
But the alternative was letting the Red Choir's chant slowly erode their defenses until they broke anyway.
Haruto looked at his companions. Saw the same calculation in their eyes. The same desperate understanding.
"Together," he said. "All three of us, at the same moment. On my count."
They moved to stand beside Ayame, forming a circle. The guardian's sword Haruto laid at their feet, its blue fire guttering but still present. The priest produced sacred beads, wrapping them around his hands. Shinjiro simply stood ready, his sword sheathed, his expression calm despite the scar burning on his chest.
"One," Haruto counted.
The chanting intensified. The monks' bodies were beginning to wither, their life force being drained to power the Lilim's manifestation.
"Two."
The demon essence thrashed inside him, sensing freedom, anticipating release.
"Three."
They opened their containment.
The demon essence exploded outward, fragments of the demon queen's power erupting from all three men simultaneously. It was agony—like their chests were being torn open from the inside—and for a terrifying moment, Haruto thought he'd made a fatal mistake.
Then Ayame's hands touched the essence.
The world went white.
Power flooded through the connection—not just Ayame's influence, but memories, knowledge, four hundred years of accumulated understanding about what the essence was and how it worked. Haruto saw:
*How to shape the essence into weapons**How to use it to counter demonic influence**How to turn the Lilim's own call against them**How to make suffering into strength*
And beneath it all, Ayame's consciousness, guiding them, showing them what to do.
*"The essence is not your enemy,"* her voice echoed in their minds. *"It's a tool. A weapon. And right now, you're going to use it to cut away the corruption I created."*
Haruto understood. He reached into the essence—no longer fighting it but working with it—and pulled out a thread of raw demonic power. It burned his hands, seared his mind, but he held on.
Beside him, Shinjiro and the priest were doing the same, each pulling their own thread from the essence they carried.
"Now," Ayame said aloud, "weave them together. Braid them into something new. Something the Lilim won't expect."
The three threads came together, twisting, merging, becoming a single strand of concentrated power. And as they wove it, Ayame added her own contribution—not power, but purpose. Direction. The knowledge of how to hurt the creatures she'd inadvertently created.
The strand became a whip. A blade. A hammer of light and darkness mixed.
"Strike," Ayame commanded.
They released the woven power as one.
It crashed into the Lilim like a tidal wave, and she screamed—a sound that shattered windows and cracked stone. The Red Choir's chant faltered, the monks stumbling as their connection to the ritual broke.
"No!" the Lilim shrieked. "You can't—you shouldn't be able to—"
"I was the demon queen," Ayame said, her voice layered with echoes of that ancient power. "I know every weakness in demonic essence because I lived with those weaknesses for four hundred years. And I'm going to teach these three men how to use them."
The woven power struck again, and this time the Lilim's form destabilized. Her ember eyes flickered, dimmed, and her solid presence began to smoke, becoming incorporeal again.
"This isn't over," she hissed as she retreated. "We'll find another way. Another ritual. You can't protect them forever, mother."
"I don't need forever. Just long enough for them to learn to protect themselves."
The Lilim vanished, along with the other Crimson demons that had been lurking in the shadows. The oppressive presence lifted, and suddenly the monastery felt almost normal again.
The monks collapsed as one, their chanting finally silenced. The flowers growing from their robes withered and fell away, turning to ash before hitting the ground.
Haruto staggered, the guardian's sword clattering from his grip. His chest felt hollow, scoured clean by the power they'd channeled. Beside him, Shinjiro had dropped to his knees, blood trickling from his nose and ears. The priest simply sat down hard, looking decades older than he had moments before.
And Ayame...
Ayame stood in the center of their circle, light still wreathing her hands, but her eyes had changed. The warm brown was gone, replaced by something that flickered between human and inhuman. Red and brown, mortal and demon, constantly shifting.
"Ayame?" Haruto managed. "Are you—"
"Changed," she said, her voice carrying that same layered quality the demon queen's had. "I told you there would be a price. Using the essence, even from outside, has... reawakened something. I'm not fully demon again, but I'm not fully human either. I'm..." She looked at her hands, at the light still dancing around them. "I'm something in between. Something new."
The priest forced himself to stand, moving to check on the collapsed monks. "They're alive. Unconscious, but their pulses are steady. The corruption is gone—burned away by what you did."
"They'll recover," Ayame said. "Though they'll have no memory of what happened. The Lilim's influence erases itself when broken."
"Can you teach us?" Haruto asked, pulling himself to his feet. "What you just showed us—how to use the essence as a weapon instead of just containing it—can you teach us to do that ourselves?"
"I can try. But it's dangerous. Every time you actively use the essence, you risk it using you back. Risk becoming more demon and less human." She met his eyes, and he saw genuine fear there. "That's what happened to me, four hundred years ago. I thought I could control the power I'd taken. Thought I was strong enough. I was wrong."
"But you also learned from that mistake," Shinjiro said, joining them. "Learned how to balance demon and human. How to retain yourself even while transformed. That's what you can teach us—not just how to use the power, but how to survive using it."
Ayame was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Yes. I can teach you that. But first—" She gestured to the monastery. "—we need to wake these monks and explain what happened. And we need to rest. The Serpent of Eight Sins will return at moonrise for the next trial. We have perhaps four hours."
Four hours to rest, to recover, to prepare for seven more trials.
Four hours before judgment resumed.
Haruto looked at the guardian's sword lying on the ground, its blue fire completely extinguished now. They'd pushed it beyond its limits, and it might never recover its full power.
Just like them.
But they'd survived. They'd driven off the Crimson Lilim, saved the monks, and learned how to weaponize the very burden they carried.
That had to count for something.
As the sun began its descent toward the horizon, painting the monastery in shades of gold and red, Haruto allowed himself a moment of hope.
They were changing. All of them. Becoming something neither fully human nor demon, but something in between.
Something that might actually be strong enough to carry this burden.
Or something that would destroy them trying.
Moonrise was four hours away.
The trials would tell them which.