The world was no longer Harajuku, and it was no longer Nagano. The world became gold and black.
The Resonance Stone felt like a dying star in my palm—hot, heavy, screaming conquest into my bones.— singing a song of ancient, bloody conquest that my soul recognized. This wasn't just energy.
It was a memory.
Not mine.
A King who leveled mountains because he could—and because no one stopped him.
[SYNC RATE: 18.9% → 19.5%]
[WARNING: SOUL BOUNDARY—ERROR]
[POSSESSION IMMINENT]
My vision fractured. I could see the Zenin spy choking in my grip, his face turning a bruised, pathetic blue, but I also saw the Heian-era battlefields Valthazar had walked a thousand years ago. I felt the weight of a crown I had never worn and the bitterness of a betrayal I hadn't suffered. The smell of the ramen shop was replaced by the scent of ozone, scorched earth, and iron.
"Don't fight it, boy," Valthazar's voice was no longer a whisper; it was a roar that vibrated through my very marrow, shaking the foundations of my consciousness. "The Zenin wanted a battery? Let us show them a supernova! Let us show them why the stars bowed when I walked the earth!"
"Ren! Drop it! NOW!"
Nobara was running toward me. In my distorted vision, she looked like a flicker of orange flame in a world of cold ink. She didn't look at the Zenin enforcers I'd tossed aside like broken dolls. She didn't look at Kurosu, who was crawling out of the crater my [Collapse Point] had left, his face a mask of terror. She only looked at me—or the monster that was currently wearing my skin.
I turned my head. My neck cracked with a dry, stony sound. I knew my eyes were no longer human; they were glowing pits of celestial gold. I knew the vertical slit of the third eye was beginning to tear through the skin of my forehead, an agonizing heat blooming in the center of my skull.
"Stay... back..." I wheezed. Each word felt like swallowing shards of broken glass. "I can't... hold him... He's too loud, Nobara!"
"Then don't hold him alone, you idiot!"
Nobara didn't stop. She dove into my personal gravity field—a zone where the air was ten times heavier than normal. I watched her muscles strain, her boots skidding on the blood-slicked stones, her face contorting with the sheer effort of moving against my will. She reached out, her fingers clawing through the violet aura that was beginning to incinerate my clothes and char the air around us.
Maybe this was the price of power.
Maybe I'd already paid it the moment I reached for that stone.
[SYNC RATE: 19.9%]
[SYSTEM CRITICAL: VALTHAZAR MANIFESTATION AT 0.1% TO THRESHOLD]
The Inner Sanctuary
Suddenly, the outside world vanished. I was standing in a void of endless black water, staring up at a throne made of teeth and shadow. Valthazar sat there, his form massive and terrifying, his three eyes locked onto mine.
"Finally," he sneered, reaching down with a hand that could crush a city. "The boy breaks."
'I'm not broken,' I whispered, though I felt small—so small.
"You are a grain of sand against a tidal wave," Valthazar laughed.
But then, a sound echoed through the void. Thump. Thump. A steady, rhythmic heartbeat that didn't belong to the demon. A bright blue light pierced through the black water, and I saw Nobara. She wasn't really there, but her soul was—a fierce, stubborn spark that refused to be extinguished.
"Get your hands off him, you over-sized fossil!" her voice echoed through my mind.
The Soul's Gamble
Back in the physical world, Nobara's hand slammed onto my chest. She wasn't holding a nail. She was holding her straw doll, pressing it directly against my heart, over the very spot where my soul met Valthazar's.
"I told you," she hissed, her face inches from mine, her orange hair whipping in the magical gale I was creating. "I'm not letting a bunch of masked creeps or a fossilized demon take what's mine! You're my partner, Ren! You owe me a second date!"
She raised her hammer, her blue cursed energy flaring so bright it blinded the Zenin spies.
"Nobara, no! The kickback will kill you!" I screamed, but the voice that came out was a monstrous, dual-toned boom that shook the village houses.
"RESONANCE!"
She slammed the hammer into the straw doll pinned to my chest.
The world went white. It wasn't a physical blow meant to kill my body. It was a surgical strike to the soul. Nobara's cursed energy, sharp, jagged, and unapologetically human, pierced through the layers of Valthazar's influence. It acted like a lightning rod grounded in a hurricane. She wasn't just attacking the demon; she was using her own body as a bridge to pull my consciousness back from the deep.
The Resonance Stone in my hand couldn't handle the conflicting energies. It didn't just break; it shattered into a million diamond-like shards. The explosion of raw, unfiltered power threw us both backward.
I hit a stone wall fifty feet away, the air leaving my lungs in a violent rush as the golden fire in my eyes died out. The black veins receded, leaving my skin raw, bruised, and burning as if I'd been dipped in acid.
[SYNC RATE STABILIZING: 13.0%]
[STATUS: SOUL SHOCK — TEMPORARY PARALYSIS]
[MISSION UPDATE: SOUL BOND STRENGTHENED]
The Final Stand
I lay in the rubble, gasping for air that felt too thin. My [Shadow-Wrap Gloves] were torn to shreds, the violet runes dim and flickering. A few feet away, Nobara was on her knees, her head hanging low, coughing up a bit of blood that stained the gray stones of the square. The effort of using Resonance on a living Vessel had drained her of every drop of her cursed energy. She had gambled her life to save my mind.
"Is... is that all you've got?" she wheezed, looking at me with a weak, triumphant smirk through the strands of her messy hair. "Told you... I'd stop the gravity... you owe me... the expensive ramen next time."
But the threat wasn't over. The "Mountain God" ritual had been disrupted, but the cursed energy was still looking for a host.
Kurosu rose from the center of the square, his haori in tatters and his skin gray like ash. He looked at the shards of the Resonance Stone—the power he had promised the Zenin in exchange for his life—and his face twisted into something truly pathetic and demonic.
"You broke it," Kurosu whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of fear and insane, twitching rage. "The Zenin... they'll flay me alive for this. They'll put me back in the box! If I can't bring them the stone, I'll bring them your heads! I'll become the God myself!"
He raised his hands, and the shadows of the entire village—every building, every ancient tree, even the shadows of the corpses—began to flow toward him. He was becoming a titan of ink, a towering mass of discarded shadows that stood thirty feet tall, blotting out the moon.
"Ren," Nobara whispered, trying to stand but falling back down, her legs refusing to move. "I'm empty. I've got nothing left. If he hits us now..."
I looked at my hand. I had 50 OP left. I had a body that felt like it had been run over by a train. And I had a demon who was currently sulking in the back of my mind, hissing because he'd been kicked out of the driver's seat by a "common girl."
"Fine," Valthazar grumbled, his voice faint but sharp. "If you won't let me take the throne, then use the last of the juice. But remember, Ren... you owe me more than a soul for this. You've tasted the gold. You'll want it again."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[FINAL GAMBIT: OVERDRIVE ACTIVATED]
[Sync Rate Locked at 13.0% for 60 Seconds — NO DRAIN]
[ALL SKILLS UNLEASHED: LIMITER REMOVED]
I stood up. My legs felt like jelly, but my heart was a drum of pure defiance. I walked past Nobara, my hand brushing her shoulder for just a second—a silent promise.
"Rest, Nobara," I said, my voice finally, completely my own. "I've got the rest of the bill."
I faced the shadow titan. The remnants of the gloves on my hands began to glow one last time, not with Valthazar's gold, but with a fierce, stubborn violet that defied the darkness.
"Phantom Step," I whispered.
I didn't move toward Kurosu. I moved through the shadows, my body becoming a streak of purple lightning in the crimson fog.