The question lingered in the collapsing ruins long after the guardian finished speaking.
Will you have the strength to kill what comes through it?
Hiroto couldn't answer.
Not because he lacked courage.
But because deep down—
he still didn't fully understand the scale of what stood before him.
A gate between worlds.
Shadows that were not human.
An ancient war hidden beneath centuries of lies.
Everything he thought he knew about the world suddenly felt painfully small.
The guardian slowly lifted its head again, chains dragging across the shattered ruins as pieces of the mountain continued falling around them.
"You hesitate," it rumbled.
Hiroto frowned. "You're asking me to fight something I don't even understand."
"And yet," the creature replied, "the blade chose you anyway."
The crimson markings along Hiroto's weapon pulsed softly again.
Almost as if responding to the guardian's words.
Akari stepped closer despite the danger around them. "Enough riddles already. If this gate is so dangerous, why hasn't anyone talked about it before?"
"Because history was rewritten," Tamagichi answered quietly.
Everyone turned toward him immediately.
He stood motionless beside Hiroto, his expression unreadable beneath the falling dust and crimson light.
"The Ten Shadow Clans erased most records connected to the old war," he continued. "To the modern world, the gate became myth."
The guardian let out a low growl.
"A convenient lie."
Tamagichi didn't argue.
Because it was true.
Yui looked shaken. "So all this time… the clans knew?"
"They know enough," Goro answered grimly.
Kenzaku crossed his arms tightly. "And they've just been hiding this from everyone?"
"Not everyone," Tamagichi said.
A pause followed.
"Certain bloodlines were entrusted with fragments of the truth."
Hiroto looked toward him sharply. "Including yours?"
Silence.
The guardian's golden eyes narrowed slightly.
"He finally asks the correct question."
Akari looked between them. "Okay, seriously, what's going on with you two?"
Tamagichi closed his eyes briefly.
For the first time since Hiroto met him—
he looked tired.
Not physically.
Burdened.
"The Tamagichi bloodline," he said quietly, "once stood among the original guardians of the gate."
The ruins fell silent again.
Yui stared at him. "Wait… what?"
Kenzaku's expression hardened. "You mean your family worked with that thing?"
The guardian growled lowly at the wording, but Tamagichi remained calm.
"Long before the Ten Shadow Clans rose to power, the world was protected by several ancient houses. Their purpose was to maintain the seal and prevent contact with the other side."
His gaze darkened slightly.
"But eventually, some among those houses desired more."
"The shadows," Hiroto muttered.
Tamagichi nodded once.
"They believed the power beyond the gate could reshape humanity itself."
Akari's expression tightened. "And the Ten Shadow Clans came from them."
"Yes."
The answer came with no hesitation.
The mountain trembled violently overhead as another section of the cavern ceiling collapsed into the ruins. Dust exploded through the air, but nobody moved.
The truth mattered too much now.
The guardian suddenly looked toward Hiroto again.
"The blade was created after the betrayal began," it explained. "Forged specifically to oppose those who drew power from beyond the gate."
Hiroto slowly looked down at the weapon in his hand.
"So the previous wielder…"
"…was the last true protector," the guardian finished.
A strange heaviness settled in Hiroto's chest.
He still didn't know that man's name.
Didn't know his face clearly.
Yet somehow, the weight of his legacy felt terrifyingly real now.
The guardian's voice lowered.
"He failed."
The words echoed harshly through the ruins.
"Not because he lacked strength," it continued, "but because humanity had already begun rotting from within."
Tamagichi's expression darkened.
"The clans won."
"For a time," the guardian corrected.
Its massive golden eyes shifted toward the distant opening torn through the mountain earlier.
"But the shadows are moving again now."
Hiroto remembered the Black Daimyo immediately.
That overwhelming pressure.
That impossible strength.
"…He wants the gate opened."
"Yes."
The guardian's answer came instantly.
"And unlike the fools before him…"
Its voice deepened dangerously.
"…he understands exactly what waits beyond it."
A cold silence followed.
Then Hiroto asked the question nobody else wanted to.
"…What exactly is on the other side?"
The guardian stared at him for several long seconds.
Then the ancient creature finally answered.
"Gods."
The word hit like ice through Hiroto's veins.
Not gods in the sense of worship.
Not peaceful beings watching from above.
The guardian's expression alone made that clear.
These were something else.
Something ancient.
Something terrifying.
Before anyone could speak again—
the mountain suddenly shook with catastrophic force.
A massive fracture ripped across the cavern ceiling overhead.
Goro's eyes widened. "The entire mountain's coming down!"
Tamagichi immediately stepped forward.
"We leave. Now."
But as the group began retreating through the collapsing ruins—
the guardian called out one final time.
"Successor."
Hiroto turned back instinctively.
The ancient creature's golden eyes burned intensely within the dying ruins.
Then it spoke words Hiroto would never forget.
"The day will come when you must choose."
The mountain groaned violently around them.
"Save this world…"
A pause followed.
"…or destroy it before the shadows consume everything."
The cavern ceiling shattered completely.
And the mountain began to fall.
To Be Continued