The air in the Boundary tasted of time—a dry, layered flavor of aged parchment, crumbling leather, and the hushed breath of centuries. Dust motes, illuminated by shafts of silver light from impossibly high windows, danced like forgotten ghosts in the cathedral-like silence. Rows upon rows of books, a silent army of spines, lined the walls from floor to vaulted ceiling. At least that how it was when eh first arrived. Trhough the months sense it had become much more lviely, eager, even desrpate minds searchign for watys to devlop, to grow.
To find their way through it all.
This was a place of learning for the Nine Families, a repository of their collective memory and power. But to Inari, it was a graveyard and a birthplace, the tomb of the man he was and the cradle of the man he was becoming.
His fingers, long and scarred, ghosted over the hard spines, the touch a familiar caress. He remembered the first time he’d walked these aisles. He had been a different creature then, his chest puffed out with a crude, fragile arrogance. He was so assured of the strength of solitude, so prideful in being different, in being alone. He had called it independence, a fortress built of scorn against a world he deemed beneath him. He didn’t see it for what it was: a curse of isolation, a machination of some forgotten trauma that allowed a festering rot to eat away at his potential, all while guised as strength. He had been blind to the Hellgate he was becoming, a conduit for a darkness he mistook for his own power.
How connected he was, even then. He just couldn't see the strings.
Separation was his shield and his sword. It was how he coped with the yawning void inside him, a chasm filled with things he couldn't even remember. The pain was a phantom limb, an ache so profound that though the mind’s grasp of it had slipped, the body… the soul recalled its amputation in screams only his blood could hear.
He had come here then, a boy playing at being a man, to learn about the Myotis. He’d found a singular, ragged book tucked away in a forgotten alcove, its title long since eroded by time. In his haste, a sliver of parchment had sliced his thumb. A single drop of his blood fell onto the page, and the ancient text absorbed it not like ink, but like a parched man drinking water. The letters had shimmered, rearranged, and revealed to him the first true words of his path, the first stepping stones away from the abyss.
A feat never accomplished, a destiny never to be realized, had it not been for the whim of one Vesta,
Nagase.
Her name was a quiet canticle in his mind. He had often pondered it in the dead of day, the shape of the life he would have led had they not crossed paths in forest, had they nto parlayed in this very irbary. Fought the Bone Golem,
Now, so painfully aware of the many scarlet strings pulling at his fate, he could see the other path with horrifying clarity. He could feel the phantom tug of the Scarlet Moon’s call, a siren song promising power in exchange for his soul. He could taste the cloying sweetness of the Fel Sovereign's dark gift. He would have become the Sovereign's vessel, a herald of ash and slaughter, killing everything in his path until he was utterly, truly alone.
He would have never known the Myotis as family. If by some stroke of cruel fate he’d found them, he would have dominated them. He saw the vision of it now: seeing their loyalty not as a gift, but as a tool; their trust as a chain to be pulled. He would have seen them as blades to be sharpened, as fangs to gorge on his enemies, mere paws and slaves to be subjugated to his whims. Not family to be fed, cared for, and mourned.
But… this had not come to be so.
As his hands leafed furiously, yet gently, through the litany of literatures before him, what bloomed in his heart was not hatred for the man he might have been, nor an agonizing disgust. It was… appreciation. A quiet, profound gratitude for his trek thus far. This place, this haven of knowledge, was not just a collection of stories. He was a part of its history now, his blood and hers intertwined in its silent narrative. He was bound to it. And now, he understood his role in its preservation, its evolution.
Which is precisely what he had come here to do.
This very same place that once helped him reach the power in his own blood would now prove to be his greatest asset in assisting the people of Muu. The request from their elders had been desperate. Their world was being encroached upon by the creeping undead, and their defenses were failing. To expect a bricklayer to become a force capable of felling a wraith, or a weaver to stand against a ghoul, would normally be beyond unreasonable.
But through blood, anything was possible. Through the memories we inherited, the echoes of greatness passed down in the very marrow of our being, the pieces of information the legacy of our essence carries on… even the smallest spark could become an inferno. So long as even a single hair of a heroic lineage existed in a person, a single drop of diluted blood, Inari could spark its growth, engorge its potential until it burst forth.
He needed but the thread.
His eyes scanned the towering shelves, no longer seeing just books, but genealogies, histories, annals of power. He was sure he would find them here: records of the notable mages, the brilliant minds, the unbreachable warriors of the Nine Families and their vassal clans. And, more importantly, the genealogy connected to them, the lines that had spread and diluted over generations, trickling down into the common folk of places like Muu.
He moved with a new purpose, a predator hunting not for flesh, but for hope. He sought the name of a forgotten hero, a legendary smith, a mage who could command the seasons. He sought their descendants.
He pulled a heavy, dust-choked tome from a high shelf. The Annals of the House of Cinder-fall: Warriors of the Forge Flame. His fingers traced the faded gilt. Somewhere, in a quiet town, a baker kneading dough might carry the last embers of that Forge Flame in his veins, entirely unaware.
Inari opened the book. His search had begun. He was no longer a solitary island, but a bridge to a forgotten past, and the architect of an impossible future.
An Unspoken Kindred
Re: An Unspoken Kindred
The Boundary was more than a library — it was the beating heart of Acrix Solara, the Hellgate stronghold and capital city. Its halls stretched endlessly, a labyrinth of tomes and tablets chronicling ages of triumph and ruin. Here, within these walls, time held its breath. The Boundary was a sanctuary of remembrance, one of the few places on Vescrutia where the record of its history remained whole, untouched by war or whim. Scholars, mystics, and wanderers alike revered it. To walk its corridors was to walk the memory of the world itself.
It was here that Nagase had first brought Inariel, when his search for the truth of his own existence had just begun. That journey, once born of obsession and confusion, had bound their fates together more deeply than either could have predicted.
Nagase returned now to the Boundary, a changed being. Once, she had been a demigod unburdened by empathy, a creature of pure intellect and cold precision. Her mastery of telepathy had made her omniscient in all the wrong ways — every thought within reach, every emotion dissected, every secret revealed. There had been no mystery left in life, and thus, no joy. She had grown detached, calculating, treating existence as a problem to be solved rather than lived.
But in the twilight of her own sickness, when her mind began to turn against itself, she found a strange and unexpected cure. Her father. He had raised her with patience, trained her with compassion, and loved her with a steadiness she could neither comprehend nor reciprocate. He had known that one day she would kill him — and still, he gave her kindness.
That act, that impossible mercy, had shattered something within her. It broke the mirror of her coldness and forced her to see herself as more than a sum of her power. Since then, she had vowed to change — to fight not for dominance or proof, but for something greater. Whatever that may be.
And so she returned to the Boundary.
To reflect.
To remember.
And perhaps, to speak with the only soul who might tolerate her.
Nagase drifted between the towering stacks like a shadow that had learned to smile, her footfalls silent against the polished stone. She found him easily — there were few presences in existence as loud to her inner sight as Inariel’s. He stood over a pile of tomes, hands restless, purpose sharpened to a hunter’s edge.
Of course she knew why he was here.
With her talents, very little was ever chance. Even less was an accident.
She noticed the thin line of blood glistening , the faint shimmer of magic in the parchment he’d just touched.
Nagase approached with a confident, mischievous curl to her lips — a smile that always suggested she was three steps ahead and enjoying the view. Without a word, she tossed a decidedly unimpressive book down upon the table beside him.
Cooking with Ki-Ya: The Complete Edition.
The cover was glossy and new, a reflection of Acrix Solara’s luxurious culture and privilege. It looked laughably mundane sitting beside histories of war and ancient bloodlines.
Inariel’s eyes rolled from the cookbook to her — unimpressed, unamused.
Nagase’s smirk only widened.
“I also know what you’re thinking now,” she said. “Not that I need telepathy to read those eyes.”
She pricked her finger — a quick, careless motion — and let a single droplet of scarlet fall onto the cover. The page drank it instantly, like stone swallowing rain. Her eyes flicked to his hand, gesturing for him to do the same.
“Antares went through great lengths to hide certain information,” she explained, voice low and quiet in the vastness of the Boundary. “It would’ve been easier to destroy the artifacts entirely but… one can’t override their own nature.”
Her gaze lifted to the endless shelves, reverent and resentful all at once.
“The Holgurd are protectors of knowledge at their core. So, certain books that appear benign or useless… are actually elaborate glamours. Sealed behind wards that require two or three different blood signatures.”
Her eyes glinted as she looked back at him.
“And as fate would have it…”
She tapped the cover lightly.
It was here that Nagase had first brought Inariel, when his search for the truth of his own existence had just begun. That journey, once born of obsession and confusion, had bound their fates together more deeply than either could have predicted.
Nagase returned now to the Boundary, a changed being. Once, she had been a demigod unburdened by empathy, a creature of pure intellect and cold precision. Her mastery of telepathy had made her omniscient in all the wrong ways — every thought within reach, every emotion dissected, every secret revealed. There had been no mystery left in life, and thus, no joy. She had grown detached, calculating, treating existence as a problem to be solved rather than lived.
But in the twilight of her own sickness, when her mind began to turn against itself, she found a strange and unexpected cure. Her father. He had raised her with patience, trained her with compassion, and loved her with a steadiness she could neither comprehend nor reciprocate. He had known that one day she would kill him — and still, he gave her kindness.
That act, that impossible mercy, had shattered something within her. It broke the mirror of her coldness and forced her to see herself as more than a sum of her power. Since then, she had vowed to change — to fight not for dominance or proof, but for something greater. Whatever that may be.
And so she returned to the Boundary.
To reflect.
To remember.
And perhaps, to speak with the only soul who might tolerate her.
Nagase drifted between the towering stacks like a shadow that had learned to smile, her footfalls silent against the polished stone. She found him easily — there were few presences in existence as loud to her inner sight as Inariel’s. He stood over a pile of tomes, hands restless, purpose sharpened to a hunter’s edge.
Of course she knew why he was here.
With her talents, very little was ever chance. Even less was an accident.
She noticed the thin line of blood glistening , the faint shimmer of magic in the parchment he’d just touched.
Nagase approached with a confident, mischievous curl to her lips — a smile that always suggested she was three steps ahead and enjoying the view. Without a word, she tossed a decidedly unimpressive book down upon the table beside him.
Cooking with Ki-Ya: The Complete Edition.
The cover was glossy and new, a reflection of Acrix Solara’s luxurious culture and privilege. It looked laughably mundane sitting beside histories of war and ancient bloodlines.
Inariel’s eyes rolled from the cookbook to her — unimpressed, unamused.
Nagase’s smirk only widened.
“I also know what you’re thinking now,” she said. “Not that I need telepathy to read those eyes.”
She pricked her finger — a quick, careless motion — and let a single droplet of scarlet fall onto the cover. The page drank it instantly, like stone swallowing rain. Her eyes flicked to his hand, gesturing for him to do the same.
“Antares went through great lengths to hide certain information,” she explained, voice low and quiet in the vastness of the Boundary. “It would’ve been easier to destroy the artifacts entirely but… one can’t override their own nature.”
Her gaze lifted to the endless shelves, reverent and resentful all at once.
“The Holgurd are protectors of knowledge at their core. So, certain books that appear benign or useless… are actually elaborate glamours. Sealed behind wards that require two or three different blood signatures.”
Her eyes glinted as she looked back at him.
“And as fate would have it…”
She tapped the cover lightly.
-
Inariel Myotis
- Drifter
- Posts: 168
- Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:57 pm
Re: An Unspoken Kindred
Casually, he sat sifting through the pages of the tomes before him. Not out of idleness—nothing about Inari was casual—but because centuries had taught him the wisdom of stillness. His claws, blackened at the tips like burnt parchment, traced delicate runes along the spine of ancient volumes, each one a vessel of forgotten oaths, of lineages crumbled under the weight of pride and betrayal. Some bore fruit: legacies still pulsing with raw, unspent power, their magic thick as molasses, just ripe for the picking. Others were tombstones in disguise, hollow echoes of noble bloods reduced to footnotes in the annals of Vescrutia.
Among them, the Hellgate name stood like a broken archway in a ruined temple—once grand, now crooked with decay. Tales of galaiant families rooted in the unified philosophy of the First Kings had been snuffed out, not by invasion or famine, but by centuries of ineptitude, civil wars, and heinous schemes hatched in candlelit chambers by men who forgot what honor meant. It was a stark reminder of what Inari sought to mend: not just the bloodlines, but the purpose they had lost.
The life he sought to pour back into the Nine once more.
And then there was the coming of the Horsmen.
That battle—fought not on fields, but across dimensions, in dreams and dead worlds—had raged through lifetimes. Blind to the true threat lurking beneath the surface of petty tiffles and territorial squabbles, Inari had joined this world's war only to realize: he’d been pruning branches while the roots rotted. The Horsmen were symptoms. The disease was deeper, older. Something ancient stirred beneath the skin of the world. Behind the teeth of secrets older than galaxies.
And further shielded others.
His thoughts spiraled: Where could the Myotis fit in this? How should he lead those who remained in Ars, the last citadel clinging to the edge of oblivion? These questions, and a legion more, consumed him. His focus was like a pair of sharpened shears, tracing the frayed seams of fate that tied the Nine together—once a coalition of equals, now a chain broken in nine places.
Then—THUMP.
A single tome struck the obsidian table, its impact reverberating up his bones like a pulse from the earth itself. For a moment, Inari’s breath caught. It felt like the first unlabored inhalation he’d drawn in ages.
"Cooking With Ki-yah."
He didn’t flinch at the title—his gaze remained cold, uninspired. But as his eyes lifted, slow and deliberate, to the figure who had tossed the book, something stirred. A flicker. Not recognition, not affection—something deeper. The primal pull of kinship, of blood that had once coursed through shared hearts.
Nagase stood there, slender and sharp, her crimson-dipped hair like a banner of defiance. Too young to remember the fall, too old to forget what it cost. She wore her defiance like armor, but Inari saw past it—the tremor in her wrist, the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him. Not fear.
Anticipation.
Before he could speak, she pricked her finger.
The moment Nagase’s blood struck the air, Inari was thrust into a whirlwind of instinct. Her crimson—Nagase of the Elder Line—wasn’t just blood. It was memory. It was power. A lineage older than kingdoms, richer than gods, steeped in mystic affluence that defied time. She was a descendant of the first sorceresses and seers who wove the Veil between worlds, who whispered life into stone and shadow.
And Inari—once a beast, now a sovereign—felt the hunger rise.
His brow twitched...the lapse of control happened for a mere fraction of a second, but in that time his fangs ached in a way that reminded him of the merciless beast she first found him as. A being enslaved to the pursuit of the unknown, not from any altruistic, scientific quest. No, a creature that fed on curiosity, the wish to know and experience what he did not, with such fervor that he would consume the object of his interest entirely, ultimately forcing them to become yet another link in the chains of desire that bound his once endless thirst for more. Perpetually unsated, a thirst perennially unslaked.
He took in a sharp breath—his shoulders broadened, his chest rising like a storm swelling over the sea—then exhaled slowly, deliberately. The hunger receded. He was beholden to the Dark Divine no longer. He had survived madness, purged addiction, outlived gods. He would not fall to savagery. Not now.
Not with her.
His voice, when it came, was low, smoky with restraint.
"Antares went to great lengths to cover many things… Hellgates so enjoy their... our secrets."
His eyes—sharp as daggers, yet soft as forest dusk—settled on Nagase. They saw past flesh, past lies, into the very weave of her being. She met his gaze, unflinching. Foolish. Brave.
He looked back at the book, now shimmering faintly under the weight of her blood. But it wasn’t enough. The seal held.
Then he remembered: Antares had hidden the truth not to destroy the Myotis—but because of them.
"Worth more to them than gold. More to them than the lives of others."
Inari’s mind flickered to Aurelius—golden, radiant, draped in the light of the Myotis, his skin alight with bioluminescent grace. The last of the true Alchemists. Dead now. Mourned. The word still tasted foreign. Once, to the Crimson Crown, grief had been weakness. Now, it fueled him—like a lunar blossom drinking moonlight, letting sorrow feed resolve.
But you are not behind me, are you, Aurelius?
No. He was with him. Always. A whisper in the wind, a thread in the spell.
And that was when Inari understood.
He bared his forearm. With deliberate precision, he sank his fangs into his own flesh. Not a snarl—a sacrifice. His blood, dark as starless void, dripped onto the book.
Nagase inhaled sharply. "You're using your blood? Why would Antares use the blood of those he saw as less than?"
"Exactly..." Inari finished, voice quiet. "That’s precisely why it will work."
Antares had seen the Myotis as abominations. Yet he could not deny their connection to the Unseen—to magic, to evolution, to the silent rhythm of life’s transformation. On Vescrutia, DNA was not destiny. Even the commonborn could ascend through will alone. But none did so as naturally, as beautifully, as the Myotis.
It wasn’t simply hate that drove Antares to genocide
It was envy.
For all his power, all his centuries, all his conquests—he could not evolve. He remained what he was. But the Myotis? They changed, naturally, like rivers carving stone. He wanted to erase them entirely. So that he could have...just a bit more time.
And the book knew.
As Inari’s blood mingled with Nagase’s, the tome shuddered. A resonance echoed through the chamber—like the final click of a lock turned after ages. The cover rippled. The title bled away.
"Cooking With Ki-yah"
faded.
And in its place, glowing like embers in the dark:
"Founders’ Manifesto: Delinators of the Unseen"
The book sighed—a release, a surrender. Knowledge, long buried, now offered.
Silence.
He opened them. “We were never enemies. We were brothers. The Nine were not built on dominance. They were built on balance. The Vesta, the Myotis… even Holgurd. We were meant to hold the world, not rule it.”
He placed a hand on the book. Warmth pulsed beneath his palm. It was the same...the same as the light of the soul beat that she, Zeik, and Inari used to save the Acrix.
“The coming storm isn’t about power. It’s about memory. About remembering what we are. Facing the things we once fled from.”
Nagase looked at him—really looked. Not at the beast. Not at the ruler.
At the man who had walked through fire and murk to become both.
And for the first time in centuries, Inari smiled.
Not wide. Not joyous.
But hopeful.
Because the first page of the Founders’ Manifesto bore a single line, written in blood older than time:
"The Nine are one, for even if there is only one left, they carry the will of Nine with them."
Among them, the Hellgate name stood like a broken archway in a ruined temple—once grand, now crooked with decay. Tales of galaiant families rooted in the unified philosophy of the First Kings had been snuffed out, not by invasion or famine, but by centuries of ineptitude, civil wars, and heinous schemes hatched in candlelit chambers by men who forgot what honor meant. It was a stark reminder of what Inari sought to mend: not just the bloodlines, but the purpose they had lost.
The life he sought to pour back into the Nine once more.
And then there was the coming of the Horsmen.
That battle—fought not on fields, but across dimensions, in dreams and dead worlds—had raged through lifetimes. Blind to the true threat lurking beneath the surface of petty tiffles and territorial squabbles, Inari had joined this world's war only to realize: he’d been pruning branches while the roots rotted. The Horsmen were symptoms. The disease was deeper, older. Something ancient stirred beneath the skin of the world. Behind the teeth of secrets older than galaxies.
And further shielded others.
His thoughts spiraled: Where could the Myotis fit in this? How should he lead those who remained in Ars, the last citadel clinging to the edge of oblivion? These questions, and a legion more, consumed him. His focus was like a pair of sharpened shears, tracing the frayed seams of fate that tied the Nine together—once a coalition of equals, now a chain broken in nine places.
Then—THUMP.
A single tome struck the obsidian table, its impact reverberating up his bones like a pulse from the earth itself. For a moment, Inari’s breath caught. It felt like the first unlabored inhalation he’d drawn in ages.
"Cooking With Ki-yah."
He didn’t flinch at the title—his gaze remained cold, uninspired. But as his eyes lifted, slow and deliberate, to the figure who had tossed the book, something stirred. A flicker. Not recognition, not affection—something deeper. The primal pull of kinship, of blood that had once coursed through shared hearts.
Nagase stood there, slender and sharp, her crimson-dipped hair like a banner of defiance. Too young to remember the fall, too old to forget what it cost. She wore her defiance like armor, but Inari saw past it—the tremor in her wrist, the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him. Not fear.
Anticipation.
Before he could speak, she pricked her finger.
The moment Nagase’s blood struck the air, Inari was thrust into a whirlwind of instinct. Her crimson—Nagase of the Elder Line—wasn’t just blood. It was memory. It was power. A lineage older than kingdoms, richer than gods, steeped in mystic affluence that defied time. She was a descendant of the first sorceresses and seers who wove the Veil between worlds, who whispered life into stone and shadow.
And Inari—once a beast, now a sovereign—felt the hunger rise.
His brow twitched...the lapse of control happened for a mere fraction of a second, but in that time his fangs ached in a way that reminded him of the merciless beast she first found him as. A being enslaved to the pursuit of the unknown, not from any altruistic, scientific quest. No, a creature that fed on curiosity, the wish to know and experience what he did not, with such fervor that he would consume the object of his interest entirely, ultimately forcing them to become yet another link in the chains of desire that bound his once endless thirst for more. Perpetually unsated, a thirst perennially unslaked.
He took in a sharp breath—his shoulders broadened, his chest rising like a storm swelling over the sea—then exhaled slowly, deliberately. The hunger receded. He was beholden to the Dark Divine no longer. He had survived madness, purged addiction, outlived gods. He would not fall to savagery. Not now.
Not with her.
His voice, when it came, was low, smoky with restraint.
"Antares went to great lengths to cover many things… Hellgates so enjoy their... our secrets."
His eyes—sharp as daggers, yet soft as forest dusk—settled on Nagase. They saw past flesh, past lies, into the very weave of her being. She met his gaze, unflinching. Foolish. Brave.
He looked back at the book, now shimmering faintly under the weight of her blood. But it wasn’t enough. The seal held.
Then he remembered: Antares had hidden the truth not to destroy the Myotis—but because of them.
"Worth more to them than gold. More to them than the lives of others."
Inari’s mind flickered to Aurelius—golden, radiant, draped in the light of the Myotis, his skin alight with bioluminescent grace. The last of the true Alchemists. Dead now. Mourned. The word still tasted foreign. Once, to the Crimson Crown, grief had been weakness. Now, it fueled him—like a lunar blossom drinking moonlight, letting sorrow feed resolve.
But you are not behind me, are you, Aurelius?
No. He was with him. Always. A whisper in the wind, a thread in the spell.
And that was when Inari understood.
He bared his forearm. With deliberate precision, he sank his fangs into his own flesh. Not a snarl—a sacrifice. His blood, dark as starless void, dripped onto the book.
Nagase inhaled sharply. "You're using your blood? Why would Antares use the blood of those he saw as less than?"
"Exactly..." Inari finished, voice quiet. "That’s precisely why it will work."
Antares had seen the Myotis as abominations. Yet he could not deny their connection to the Unseen—to magic, to evolution, to the silent rhythm of life’s transformation. On Vescrutia, DNA was not destiny. Even the commonborn could ascend through will alone. But none did so as naturally, as beautifully, as the Myotis.
It wasn’t simply hate that drove Antares to genocide
It was envy.
For all his power, all his centuries, all his conquests—he could not evolve. He remained what he was. But the Myotis? They changed, naturally, like rivers carving stone. He wanted to erase them entirely. So that he could have...just a bit more time.
And the book knew.
As Inari’s blood mingled with Nagase’s, the tome shuddered. A resonance echoed through the chamber—like the final click of a lock turned after ages. The cover rippled. The title bled away.
"Cooking With Ki-yah"
faded.
And in its place, glowing like embers in the dark:
"Founders’ Manifesto: Delinators of the Unseen"
The book sighed—a release, a surrender. Knowledge, long buried, now offered.
Silence.
He opened them. “We were never enemies. We were brothers. The Nine were not built on dominance. They were built on balance. The Vesta, the Myotis… even Holgurd. We were meant to hold the world, not rule it.”
He placed a hand on the book. Warmth pulsed beneath his palm. It was the same...the same as the light of the soul beat that she, Zeik, and Inari used to save the Acrix.
“The coming storm isn’t about power. It’s about memory. About remembering what we are. Facing the things we once fled from.”
Nagase looked at him—really looked. Not at the beast. Not at the ruler.
At the man who had walked through fire and murk to become both.
And for the first time in centuries, Inari smiled.
Not wide. Not joyous.
But hopeful.
Because the first page of the Founders’ Manifesto bore a single line, written in blood older than time:
"The Nine are one, for even if there is only one left, they carry the will of Nine with them."
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