Chapter 13: Spell 13 - Shadows of Her Name
After passing through the gate, Ren walked the empty streets that had once been the heart of Kagutsuchi. The buildings were grand, and the streets stretched wide, clearly built to impress.
His steps echoed as he moved through it all. At times, the sound even startled him, as it was almost as if someone else was moving near him.
He drifted for a while until he chose to investigate one of the buildings at random since he had no clue as to where to start.
Inside, the corridor sloped downward, opening into a wider space. Ren stepped carefully through the rubble, unsure as to what to expect inside.
He kept walking until he reached the remains of a staircase with broken railings. He followed it down into a sunken hall that ended with two massive doors that bore no handles. They had been sealed with layered sigils, most of which were now worn down or shattered. But some of their traces remained, faint lines burned into the wood, glowing when he drew close to them.
Kagami paused beside him.
He then looked at her, expecting some warning, but she gave none. She only watched as if she, too, was weighing in on how safe this place actually was.
Ren stepped through the broken doorway, slipping inside.
The air was humid as they entered. Thick layers of dust covered everything, altering the original colors of the objects around.
Most shelves were either bent or broken, but a few still stood intact, holding volumes of books and scrolls that had survived somehow. Others lay scattered across the floor, open wide. Their paper was damaged by the humidity in the chamber, causing it to ripple slightly at the edges.
This had once been the Grand Library of Kagutsuchi, a place that had gathered knowledge from every corner of the city. Now it stood abandoned and mostly forgotten, but still holding remnants of everything the Clans had once been.
Ren moved carefully through the wreckage, brushing his fingers over the old textured surfaces, searching for anything that might stand out.
Near the far wall, partially shielded by another set of shelves that had fallen over, he spotted what looked like a reinforced cabinet. The locking mechanism was broken, but some of the contents inside still looked intact. They were metal tablets marked with inscriptions too deep to have been erased by natural elements.
Ren crouched next to it, wiping away the dust with the back of his hand.
The markings were clearly old but not indistinguishable. He could make out names and dates tied to the Clan wars, some of which he knew based on what Mika and Iori had already told him. There were also mentions of alliances and witchcraft agreements that he did not have any context for.
But then, somewhere along those namings, one struck immediately.
Kagami.
She was named as a witch of great rank, and her role was listed as that of Arbiter and Enforcer of the Clan’s inner rituals.
Ren’s fingers clutched the tablet harder while reading through it, as if that would help him better uncover the truth hidden beneath the lines.
It seemed she had been both respected and feared at the same time. And now, everything she had once been stood beside him in the shape of a mere cat. Was that just irony, or was there a deeper meaning to it?
So he turned slightly towards the place where Kagami was sitting patiently. She hadn’t moved from her place near the doorway, like taking refuge under the shadows created by the door frame. Her golden eyes were watching him without blinking, feeding from every reaction he might have let out as he was taking in the history buried there.
"You’re not going to say anything about this? Not even now?" he asked.
"What’s left to say?" she replied with coldness. "I was that once. But not anymore."
Ren searched her expression but found no cracks there, only the same distant calm as if she was looking at something far beyond the walls of this ruined library.
He turned back to the cabinet, pulling out more books, scrolls, and tablets. He found all sorts of formal agreements between the Clans, each one distinguished by its own seal, still carved at the edges. There were also mentions of witches bound to serve and of power moved around between names. But always, somewhere between the lines, her name remained.
Her titles varied throughout time: sometimes Witch, sometimes Arbiter, sometimes simply "The Bloom".
Everything he read was helping Ren paint a picture he hadn’t expected, not just of her but of the city itself. How deeply it had relied on her presence.
He kept searching until, tucked behind other books, he found something different. A scroll. It had a seal which seemed to have been broken long ago. The paper inside was wrinkled and torn in places as if someone had tried to destroy it without fully succeeding.
Ren unfolded it carefully.
The script inside was written in the same formal tone as the others, only this time it seemed to target a different type of subject. At first, it spoke of Kagami again, detailing rituals performed under her guidance and her victories in maintaining balance during the early years of the Clans. But further down, an entire section of text was torn, one that seemed to be describing a second figure that seemed important. And it was ripped precisely where the name of this second figure should have been written. The text around it remained legible, but the crucial piece was gone, as if removed intentionally, leaving only a fragment behind.
That was odd, Ren thought.
The remaining words were enough to suggest that whoever this second figure was, it had stood alongside Kagami in every major event mentioned. Curiously enough, it spoke of instability, of a bond growing to be dangerous.
He stared at the old scroll for a long while, trying to figure out what to make of it.
"Kagami," he then asked, still studying the ruined paper, "this name here... the one that’s missing. Who was it?"
But just as Ren stepped around in an attempt to reach Kagami and show her what he meant, his foot crossed an unseen glyph carved on the floor. A deep sound echoed throughout the walls and hallways, stopping Ren in his tracks.