Shadow trilogy

The wind atop the Mountain of Bones screamed with inhuman voices.

Takeru walked along a path of human ribs, paved like stones. Each step echoed with a brittle crunch. The twin swords—Shinko and Tama—were wrapped in black cloth on his back, yet both throbbed like diseased hearts.

The Kuroyami-no-Tsurugi in his hand had become heavier. Not like metal… but as if it carried an entire soul.

The mountain slope ended abruptly at a bony wall riddled with hundreds of holes, and from each hole, black saliva oozed down.

"Here..." whispered the sword's voice in his head, "Here lies the Fourth Blade."

Before he could move forward, the wall opened wide—like a gaping mouth.

---

Inside was a living stomach.

The floor was ulcerated flesh. The ceiling, pulsing veins. And in the center—on a pedestal of human teeth—was the Fourth Blade, half-buried in a massive skull.

Shirai-no-Tsurugi—the Blade of Whiteness.

But what made Takeru vomit was what surrounded the sword.

Hundreds of naked bodies, fused together like wax, swayed in one grotesque mass. Their heads were severed, but their mouths—located in their chests—moaned in unison:

"Hungry… hungry… hungry…"

Suddenly, every eye turned toward him.

---

"Feed us… feed us… feed us…"

The bodies began to crawl toward him, melting and merging into a colossal mass of flesh. Their mouths stretched wider and wider—until they became a single gaping hole in the center of the monster.

Takeru reached for his black sword, but his blackened hand refused to move.

"No…" whispered a voice in his mind. "This is not our prey."

The creature lunged.

At the last moment, Takeru's red eye exploded.

A black shadow—unlike any before—erupted from it, forming a giant hand that crushed the monster like an insect.

A voice, sharp as shattering glass, rang out from the shadow:

"You… forgot your place."

Then, the hand squeezed, and the monster burst like an overripe fruit.

The black fluid that splattered across the room was drawn toward the Fourth Blade, then pulled back like a retreating tide—revealing a giant skeleton buried beneath the mountain.

---

At the peak stood Kazuya.

But he was no longer "a man."

His priestly robes were torn, exposing his true body.

His chest was split down the middle, opening like a second mouth, filled with golden teeth.

"Ah…" he whispered with the voices of a thousand starving souls. "Shirai… has tasted your blood."

His arms—now twice as long—reached out and seized the Fourth Blade with ease.

"Now…" he grinned, dark saliva dripping from his golden mouth, "Let's play."

---

It wasn't a battle.

It was a feast.

Every strike from Kazuya left behind not blood—but spilling darkness. The ground beneath them devoured itself.

Takeru tried to attack, but his arms melted merely by nearing the Fourth Blade.

"Show me your rage!" Kazuya roared as he pressed forward. "Show me the hatred that feeds him!"

Suddenly, Hikari appeared, perched on his shoulder, laughing.

"Look! Look at his hands!"

Takeru's hands—the black and the human—began merging. Black veins crawled toward his heart.

Kazuya laughed—a sound that made the mountain tremble:

"It's choosing you as its meal!"

In that moment, Takeru's red eye exploded completely.

The shadow that emerged this time was different.

It was a man.

Tall. Long white hair. And eyes that matched Takeru's.

Kazuya—for the first time—stopped laughing.

"No way…" he muttered. "We buried you… a thousand years ago…"

The shadow turned to Takeru, and his words made the bones beneath their feet sing:

"Now… you will know who you are."

Then the shadow devoured Kazuya whole.

---

When Takeru awoke, Shirai-no-Tsurugi was embedded in the ground beside him.

The blade was now white.

And white, as everyone knows,

is the color of mourning.