Fallen From The Heavens

The air within the Abyssal sanctum had changed. After three long months of transformation—months filled with bone-shaping pain, silence-drenched meditation, and the rewiring of their very blood—Rain and Oni stood now at the edge of something they could not yet name. Something deeper than instinct… darker than survival.

Kazin stood before them, his robe clinging to his pale skin like soaked parchment. The water clung to him differently now—it recoiled slightly, uneasy even in the presence of its master. His eyes had not blinked in minutes, fixed on the currents that shifted unnaturally through the chamber. A slow tide of power was forming, as if summoned by fate or summoned by hunger.

"It is time," he said at last, the words slipping through the water like gravel dragged across glass. "The first gate has stirred. The Sirens have begun their call."

Neither Rain nor Oni spoke. In this space, silence was law, and even the breath of rebellion cost dearly.

Kazin turned from them and raised one skeletal arm. The obsidian coral wall behind him groaned as it slowly peeled open, revealing a descending trench of shadow. The temperature dropped immediately. Light refused to follow them, bending around the abyss as though afraid to touch the threshold of that cursed corridor.

Kazin did not step forward. He remained anchored like a monument. "You are not ready," he said coldly. "But readiness is a lie in this place. You are only… transformed. And transformation is the only currency that matters here."

Oni's hand brushed the scaled edges of his ribs. His body had indeed changed—bones now denser, lungs evolved for underwater respiration, veins pulsing with ancient energy. Rain's fingers hovered just over the hilt of Vermillion, Eater of All, which now shimmered in cyan and dark blue hues, sharpness fused with water-elemental finesse. His connection to the blade was no longer just tactile—it was symphonic.

Kazin's voice cut into their minds one last time, deep and slow like a tolling bell. "They will not test your strength. They will test your identity. The Sirens sing not to kill you, but to unravel you. If you hear their voices and understand them—then it is already too late."

The chamber sealed behind them.

Descent Into the Domain

The passageway was narrow at first. Roughly-scraped walls of volcanic obsidian pressed against their shoulders as they moved down into the trench. No light accompanied them now—only the faint glow of fungal lanterns that bloomed in the cracks. Each emitted a soft, trembling hum, barely perceptible… yet painfully dissonant. As they swam downward, Rain realized the vibrations weren't random.

The fungus was singing.

And the further they sank, the louder it became. Not in volume—but in meaning. He didn't understand the language, but his instincts recoiled. It was a song of memory, of regret, of flesh torn by indecision. A lullaby laced with guilt.

They passed skeletons tangled in root-like coral. Creatures with wide eyes and fingers extended in clawed horror. Some were humanoid. Some… were not.

"I feel like this place remembers us," Oni whispered, voice a mere flicker in the water.

Rain said nothing—but he, too, felt the pull. A strange awareness, as if the abyss were leafing through their memories, thumbing along their regrets and fears like pages in a book.

And then—without warning—the trench dropped away entirely.

They fell into open water.

(The Glass Garden)

Below them stretched a vast dome-shaped cavern, filled with spires of transparent crystal that reached up from the seabed like shattered cathedral pillars. Schools of bioluminescent fish darted between them, casting light that fractured into thousands of swirling motes. At the center stood a ring of coral platforms—elevated slightly above the floor, like a sacrificial altar awaiting its priest.

Rain and Oni hovered just outside the rim of this cathedral. The water was eerily still here. Not dead—but waiting. Coiled.

Something brushed Rain's ankle.

He spun, weapon half-drawn, but saw only a trail of bubbles. Oni was already scanning the terrain. "They're here. Watching."

Rain nodded, but then blinked. For a moment… he had seen someone else. A woman. Pale skin, long black hair flowing like ink, suspended in the water just behind Oni. Her hand outstretched. Eyes like cracked mirrors.

She vanished the instant Rain moved.

"We have entered their mind," he whispered, more to himself than to his partner. "Or maybe—they've entered ours."

The singing returned. Soft at first. Then layered. Then… specific.

Kazin's Warning Comes to Life

The first true song did not pierce—it caressed.

Like a mother's hand across a fevered brow. Like a lover whispering a name lost to time.

Rain staggered back, clutching the side of his head. He could feel words sliding beneath his skin, digging into the soft corners of his memory.

"Rain…" The voice was crystalline. And it was his mother's voice.

He whirled, heart slamming against his ribs. But no one was there. Only the water. Only Oni.

But Oni… looked different. His expression had gone slack, his eyes glassy. His fingers twitched.

"Oni?" Rain swam closer, reaching out—but the moment his fingers grazed Oni's shoulder, the boy snapped around and drove a fist into Rain's stomach.

Rain reeled, eyes wide. "What the—"

Oni drew his weapon.

"I see you now," Oni snarled. But it was not his voice. Not truly. It was bent. Warped. "I see your lies."

(The Sirens' Game Begins)

They had turned Oni's heart into a battlefield—and Rain was the enemy.

The Sirens did not attack with claws or teeth. They attacked with truths too sharp to face. Regrets too foul to swallow. Their domain was not made of coral and stone—it was built from illusion, memory, and manipulation. And Oni had fallen first.

Rain parried a slash just in time, Vermillion igniting with the red-orange hue of weight and power, deflecting Oni's blow but not shaking the fury from his friend's eyes.

"You let Raphata die," Oni hissed. "You let him fall alone, just so you could live."

Rain flinched. The memory had haunted him. Raphata's broken form, bleeding on the rocks of the Plains of the Lion. The Manticore towering above.

"I didn't let him—" Rain started, but Oni was already attacking again, faster this time.

And behind him—they appeared.

Sirens. Their forms slipped from the crystal pillars like oil from stone. Long black tendrils of hair. Eyes like shattered quartz. Dozens of them. Not attacking—singing.

The notes formed chains.

Rain felt them curling around his limbs. Around his thoughts.

You are alone, the song whispered. You have always been alone.

Turning the Tide

But then… Rain gritted his teeth. The words hurt, yes—but not all pain was weakness.

He closed his eyes. Slowed his breathing. Remembered the Second Key.

Stillness is the truth of water.

Movement is the lie.

He opened his eyes and switched Vermillion to its purple hue—strength and sharpness combined. His next parry sliced the water with perfect clarity. Not rage. Not emotion. Precision.

"Oni," he growled. "Wake up. This isn't you."

But Oni only screamed louder, charging again—until Rain reached out with his left hand and grabbed the Mark of the Beast on Oni's chest.

A pulse.

A memory.

They both froze.

Synchronicity Reforged

A flood of images shot through them—training in the Abyss, the breathless nights by the crystal pool, the way they moved together in combat, learned to speak through silence. The bond forged through suffering.

The Sirens' song shattered as Rain's energy poured through Oni's mark—and Oni's eyes cleared instantly.

The Sirens recoiled, screeching in frequencies that bent the coral around them.

Rain and Oni turned, side by side. The water stilled around them, responding to their unity. Their movement was no longer two forms—it was one flow.

"Let's end this," Oni said.

Rain nodded.

And then the real battle began.

They didn't attack the Sirens.

They danced between them.

Rain cast Cristilian, but not to trap—he split the light into mirrored veils, confusing the Sirens' own reflections.

Oni used the Pegasus dash not to strike—but to create countercurrents—breaking the song's rhythm.

Rain chanted:

"Rubrum. Niger. Caeruleum."

Strength. Magic. Sharpness.

Oni flared the Gargoyle's power through his arms, absorbing each psychic echo the Sirens threw at him. With a cry, he plunged his hand into the lead Siren's chest—not piercing, but binding her with raw pressure.

The Sirens screeched. The chamber writhed.

But it was Rain who ended it.

With a final cast of Vermillion Purple—strength and sharpness unified—he stabbed downward, not at the Sirens… but into the floor of the chamber.

The sea buckled.

A pulse of magic rippled across the space.

The illusions shattered.

And silence fell.

The abyss was quiet now. No more songs. No more screaming in their minds. Just the sound of Rain's slow exhale and the distant shudder of shifting waters above. The Sirens lay scattered, their forms twitching with the last remnants of cursed life. Though they were not dead, their power was shattered—tamed by the twin resolve of Rain and Oni.

The dark ocean shimmered with residual magic, the final echoes of the Sirens' illusions drifting like dying embers in water. Oni stood over the central Siren, her face twisted in an expression between fury and surrender. Her once-irresistible voice now carried the fragility of a broken instrument, rasping through cracked lips.

"You… were supposed to drown… in each other…" she hissed.

Oni didn't respond. He placed his hand over the symbol etched on his chest—the Mark of the Beast, still glowing faintly from his earlier transformations. Now, it pulsed with something new. The Siren's body began to twitch violently as if resisting, but the pact had already begun. Runes across Oni's chest ignited with blue-green light, twisting into serpentine patterns. His eyes flickered like the reflection of moonlight on deep water.

The Siren shrieked one final time before her form broke apart into motes of azure and silver essence, drawn into Oni's mark like petals into a whirlpool.

Rain didn't move. He watched in silence, battered and breathless, his hands still faintly glowing with lingering spell-light from the illusion-breaking crystal spell they'd cast. His Uzuka, Vermillion, hovered silently behind him in its dual-purple state—having fused sharpness and strength for the killing stroke.

As the Siren's energy fully merged with the Mark, Oni stumbled, nearly falling. But the moment he touched the sand, something changed. His body shifted—not physically, but rhythmically. His posture loosened, his movement flowing even as he rose again. The fury of the battle had hardened him, but now, a strange grace took hold. Like a predator adapting to water.

Rain blinked. Even his aura had changed.

Kazin's voice cut through the silence.

"You didn't kill them," he said from behind, his tone neither approving nor disapproving—just… knowing. "You subdued them. Impressive. That choice will matter later."

Rain turned. Kazin stood at the border of the domain, arms folded, cloak still completely dry despite the soaked realm around him. His dark eyes studied Oni, then flicked to the motionless forms of the remaining Sirens—now unconscious, sealed beneath layers of underwater vines and crystal barriers.

"Oni," Kazin said. "You've begun adapting the second key now. But this is different than the Pegasus or Gargoyle. The Siren is not strength or endurance. It is flow. Voice. Mirror. Deception. Harmony and disharmony together. You'll need to understand it fully, not just wear it like armor."

Oni nodded slowly, the Mark still glowing across his chest.

"What… happens now?" Rain asked, wiping blood from his lip.

Kazin tilted his head. "Now, Oni learns how to swim with the song inside him… without drowning."

The Days That Followed

The Sirens were gone.

Not dead—but bound in ancient crystal sarcophagi deep beneath the abyss, their voices muffled by chains of coral and runes carved into black stone. Kazin had sealed them personally—fusing Rain's crystals with Oni's vines to ensure they would not sing again.

Rain and Oni returned to the central temple of the Abyss of Reflection, their bodies healed but their minds still raw from the illusion war they had endured.

Kazin began the second stage of the process: teaching Oni how to wield the power of the Sirens without losing himself to it.

Kazin knelt beside a pool of still water and motioned for Oni to do the same.

"The Sirens didn't attack with their bodies," he said. "They attacked your mind. Your trust. Your identity. Their weapon is voice—but not in the way humans understand voice. The Siren speaks with your own thoughts, your own desires. To use their power is to become a mirror."

Oni's hand hovered over the water. His reflection shimmered—and for a brief moment, he saw Rain's face instead of his own.

He flinched.

"That will happen often now," Kazin warned. "When you speak with the Mark active, you can twist your tone to match the listener's deepest fear or desire. If you don't control that… you'll lose yourself again."

Rain remained nearby, leaning on his sword, silent. He remembered too clearly how he and Oni had nearly killed each other—screaming, casting spells blindly, each thinking the other was the enemy. The Sirens had nearly torn their brotherhood apart.

But now, that connection was stronger.

Their fight had bled away the final wall between them.

[Training – Mastery of the Siren Mark]

Kazin's training methods were brutal.

Each day, he forced Oni to activate the Mark and speak to Rain.

Sometimes, Rain would see his mother's voice come from Oni's mouth.

Other times, it was the whisper of a past enemy, or worse—Rain's own voice echoing lies from Oni's throat.

"You must learn to twist the voice without falling into it," Kazin would say. "Control the illusion. Shape it, but never believe it."

On the seventh day, Kazin dragged a mirror construct made from reflective stone and cursed coral into the depths. Within it, Oni faced a perfect replica of himself.

"You must defeat your own mind before you can command another's."

Inside the mirror, Oni fought not a monster—but a version of himself shaped by the Sirens' doubt, anger, and vengeance. A version of himself that hated Rain. That resented the pact. That wanted to be free.

Rain watched the battle for hours, unable to help, until finally Oni shattered the reflection with a scream that didn't sound human at all—but… didn't sound monstrous either.

It was something new.

A song only he could sing.

The Flow Between Them

Three days later, Kazin tested them again.

He summoned one of his illusions—shaped like a monstrous sea-creature, claws of bone and a hundred glowing eyes. It struck with overwhelming force.

But Oni didn't speak.

He sang.

His voice carried no words—just vibration. Just intent.

The monster froze mid-lunge, confused, dazed.

Rain dashed in, sword glowing purple, and severed its spine in one perfect movement.

They didn't speak after. They didn't have to.

Their movements had synchronized beyond tactics or shouts. They fought like water moving over stone—one pushing, the other pulling. One distracting, the other killing. No hesitation. No friction.

"That," Kazin finally said, "is the Siren's true curse… turned into a gift."