Jamie pushed the shack door open with her shoulder and stepped inside like she owned the place.
"Oi, old man!" she called. "We're back!"
Silence answered her.
No grumbling. No muttered curses. No smell of that awful tea he liked brewing. The air inside the shack felt still, undisturbed, as though SK had stepped out only moments ago.
Elias entered behind her, far less concerned with the absence of their mentor. He shut the door gently, walked to the table, and set the Velvet Archive down with care. The thick leather diary was already swollen with knowledge. Pages filled with hand-drawn diagrams, intersecting lines, layered circles, notations in the margins, theories half written and crossed out.
He pulled out a chair and sat.
Jamie wandered. She took advantage of their mentors abscence and wandered. He didn't like them touching things without his permission so to her, this was an opportunity.
Elias began writing immediately, scratching symbols into the page, mumbling to himself.
"…if arrays are a language then the problem isn't understanding the words… it's translating the grammar to a more practical form. A form thats most compatible with my parameters…"
Jamie looked around then looked back at him, tilting her head. "You talking to me?"
"No."
"Good. Because I don't understand a single thing you say when you start doing that."
She moved around the shack, lifting cloths, peering into jars, opening small drawers. SK had a habit of keeping strange things everywhere, These were the unfinished artifacts he was making. Bits of carved wood. Small stones etched with symbols. Twine wrapped around nails. Bundles of dried herbs. None of it labelled.
Then she noticed it.
The trapdoor beneath the table.
She grinned.
SK had gone through great lenghts to prevent her in particular from being close to that trapdoor.
She knelt and brushed aside a bit of dust. A talisman was plastered neatly across it, thin paper with faint symbols glowing softly.
Jamie's eyes sparkled. It was a Talisman with a Containment Array.
She glanced at Elias. He was hunched over the book, scratching his head, completely absorbed.
Jamie infused the tip of her finger with a thread of Anti-Flow and flicked the talisman.
It tore silently.
The glow vanished.
She bit her lip in satisfaction and lifted the trapdoor.
Inside, objects were arranged neatly. SK had hidden this with intent.
She began pulling things out.
A cloth pouch.
A carved bone rod.
Then her fingers touched something cold and smooth.
She pulled it free.
An Obsidian Dagger.
Her eyes widened.
It looked exactly like Elias's Jade Dagger. Same shape. Same design. Just black and gold instead of white and silver.
"Ooooh. Hey Elias..."
He friend just waved her off dismisively, not even bothering to lift his head.
She scoffed and set it on the table.
Then she saw the box.
A small black box, covered in layered seals. The seals were old. Ancient. The air around it felt… wrong. It was abundantly clear off looks alone that this was somethin that wasn't meant to be touched
Of course Jamie, being Jamie, pulled it out and placed it beside the dagger.
"Elias."
"Mhm."
"Watch this."
"I'm busy."
She started peeling at the seals.
"What are you doing?" he asked absentmindedly.
"Just look here for a second."
He didn't look up.
She broke the last seal and opened the box.
The world changed.
The air inside the shack grew heavy. Darker. As though the light itself had dimmed.
Elias's pen stopped.
He looked up.
His eyes fell on the open box.
Inside it lay the kitsune mask.
His expression changed instantly.
"Jamie."
She blinked. "What?"
"Why the would you open that?!"
"I was curious." Jamie eresponded in a small voice, startled by her friends chane of tone.
He opened his mouth.
Elias
The mask seemed to hum softly.
Elias swallowed. He had asked SK about it multiple times. The old man had always ignored him.
The answer was here.
Elias
He should have told Jamie to close it and put it back. The wise thing would be to forget he ever saw it. Instead he stood slowly, curiousity taking the better of him.
"Jamie. Be ready."
She looked at him. His tone had shifted from its calm nonchalance to reproach to now analytical caution. She didn't like it.
Elias extended his hand walking around the table and inscribing a containment array with precise strokes of Flow.
Jamie walked counter-clockwise around it, layering an Anti-Flow containment over his.
They moved without speaking now.
They grabbed four containment artifacts SK had lying around and placed them at the corners of the table.
Elias inhaled deeply.
He reinforced his right arm with Flow.
He picked up the mask.
Before removing the final talisman from its forehead, he said quietly, "If anything happens, run."
Jamie nodded.
He peeled it off.
Instantly, Elias was no longer in the shack.
He stood in his Spirit Domain.
A universe stretched above him. Nebulae drifting. Galaxies turning slowly. Cosmic dust glittering in the endless expanse. Beneath him, the perfectly still ocean of Flow reflected the entire cosmos like a mirror.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the water began to boil.
Especially around the Torii gate.
"Move!" Elias shouted.
His beast constructs erupted into motion. Winged serpents. Horned leviathans. Crystal golems. Beasts of flame and crystal and shadow rushed toward the disturbance.
The water exploded upward.
Something emerged.
A shadow.
Huge.
Canine in shape.
Four tails lashed behind it like living whips of darkness. Its form was blurred, shifting, as though reality itself struggled to define it.
Its paws touched the surface of the Flow and did not sink,instead causing a ripple to spread outward that Elias felt in his soul.
The beasts attacked.
It tore through them effortlessly.
A leviathan was split in half with a swipe. A serpent dissolved into mist,being impaled by its tails. A horned titan was crushed beneath its jaws.
Elias manifested phenomena—blasts of lightning, spears of compressed light, spatial distortions.
They struck.
They wounded it.
Black mist bled from its form.
But it did not slow.
The arrays Elias had layered into his domain activated, glowing like constellations in the sky.
Containment.
Enhancement.
Binding.
All layered in an attempt to halt this interloper.
The creature paused for a second as the arrays tightened around it,ribbons of Flow and Chains of Anti-Flow.
Then they began to crack as the creature walked towards him.
Elias felt the strain.
He pushed forward, infusing more energy.
The air grew darker.
The nebulae dimmed.
The creature stepped closer.
It was enormous now. Towering. Its head lowered to his level.
It stared directly into his soul.
Its maw opened.
And darkness poured out.
It lunged.
There was a flash of red and a voice tore through everything.
"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"
Elias gasped.
He was back in the shack.
The mask clattered onto the table.
He stumbled backward, his body covered in sweat and his breathing heavy. TheJade Dagger was somehow in his hand, the ruby begining to dim as light left it.
Jamie was frozen in place, staring.
SK stood in the doorway, eyes blazing.
The containment arrays around the table flickered violently.
The air was still heavy, still wrong.
SK strode forward, grabbed the mask, and slammed the box shut.
The atmosphere snapped back to normal.
He turned on them.
"Are you two fucking fools trying to get yourselves killed?!"