Episode 41 – Shadows Against the Forgotten

The obsidian gate shut behind them with a grinding finality, sealing the four in a silence so dense it pressed against the skin like a weight. The air was different here—colder, sharper, carrying with it the faint scent of parchment and dust, as if they had stepped not into a labyrinth, but into a tomb of memory.

The corridors twisted unnaturally, each wall engraved with countless names, some etched deep, others barely visible, already fading. Their whispers bled into the stone itself, murmuring, murmuring, ceaseless.

Kuro's emberlight eyes scanned the endless lists. "These are… names of the dead."

Elira's frostfire dimmed as her fingers brushed across the wall, tracing a name that flickered faintly before vanishing beneath her touch. Her voice was low, tight. "…No. Names of those who were forgotten."

Akira scowled, hand on his katana. "Creepy place for a stroll. Who builds a labyrinth out of names?"

Reina's boots clicked softly against the stone, her emerald eyes gleaming as she studied the shifting walls. She spoke without turning, her tone steady, edged with disdain. "Not who. What. This place isn't built—it remembers. It feeds on those who fall here, erasing them from history itself."

Her words echoed too well with the whispers.

Elira's gaze hardened. "You sound as if you've walked here before."

Reina glanced back, her smirk faint. "Maybe I have. Maybe I just survived longer than the rest."

The tension between them thickened, frostfire humming faintly in the air.

Kuro cut through with his calm iron voice. "…Keep your focus. The labyrinth wants us divided."

---

They pressed deeper.

The whispers grew louder, clearer, until words formed within them. Words not meant for strangers.

"…Akira…"

Akira froze, eyes snapping wide. That voice. Familiar. Impossible.

His mother's voice.

He grit his teeth, blade trembling. "This—this is a trick."

Reina's hand shot out, gripping his wrist before he could step forward. Her emerald eyes were razor sharp. "Ignore it. The labyrinth will carve into your past, use the names you've buried against you."

Akira yanked his hand back, anger flaring. "Don't touch me!"

But even as he snapped, his chest heaved. His mother's voice whispered again, tender, accusing.

"…Why did you leave me behind?"

Akira staggered back, fists clenched.

Kuro moved, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. His emberlight burned steady. "It's not real. Anchor yourself."

Elira's frostfire wrapped lightly across his arm, soothing against the storm. "Akira. Stay with us."

For a heartbeat, Akira's eyes softened. He exhaled, grounding himself. "…Tch. Fine."

But his glare shifted to Reina, sharp. "Don't think I needed your hand."

Reina's smirk returned, cool and cutting. "Of course not. The proud swordsman never needs saving."

The tension between them crackled like lightning.

---

The labyrinth shifted.

Walls groaned, grinding as new corridors twisted into existence. And from the shadows between names, figures bled forth—wraithlike echoes, their forms draped in broken armor, their faces absent, as if erased from existence.

Their whispers shrieked now, a cacophony of forgotten accusations.

[System Alert: Trial Initiated – Echoes of the Nameless]

[Objective: Survive Until Recognition]

The wraiths surged forward.

---

Akira roared, his katana blazing with spirit light as he cut through the first swarm. The blade struck true, scattering shadows into fragments that screamed as they dissolved.

But the fragments reformed almost instantly, crawling across the walls of names before lunging back with doubled force.

"Damn it—they don't stay down!"

Elira's frostfire flared, spiraling into lances of crystalline ice that skewered three wraiths at once, shattering them into shards. For a moment, silence. Then the shards bled back together.

She grit her teeth. "They're bound to the names. We can't kill them."

Kuro's emberblade seared through the mass, his fire scorching even the walls. But new wraiths poured forth, whispers layering into screams.

And then—Reina vanished.

Shadow Step.

Emerald afterimages flickered across the battlefield as she danced through the swarm, her daggers flashing like streaks of midnight silver. She didn't strike their bodies. She struck their names.

Every dagger plunge carved across the walls, severing the runes of memory. The wraiths tied to those names shrieked and collapsed into dust, unable to return.

Elira's eyes widened. "She—she's breaking their anchors."

Akira's jaw clenched as he watched her cut through the swarm with effortless precision. "Tch. Show-off."

But Kuro's emberlight narrowed with recognition. "…She knows how this labyrinth works."

Reina landed in the center of the hall, twirling her daggers with a sharp grin. "Lesson one: you can't fight the forgotten with brute strength. Cut out their memory, and they can't come back."

---

The swarm surged again.

This time, the four of them moved together.

Reina darted along the walls, her daggers carving anchors. Elira blasted frozen paths for her to dash across. Akira cut down the wraiths that tried to block her, each strike more ferocious than the last. And Kuro held the line at the center, his emberblade blazing as a beacon against the endless tide.

The labyrinth roared with their defiance, walls trembling, names flickering and vanishing one by one.

[System Alert: Recognition Progress – 63%]

The voices screamed louder, more desperate.

---

Then came the figure.

A towering wraith, its body cloaked in thousands of names etched across its form, its face shifting between forgotten identities.

The Guardian of the Forgotten.

Its voice thundered, layered with countless whispers. "You who defy erasure… be unmade."

It struck with a blade of shadows longer than the hall itself.

Kuro met it head-on, his emberblade flaring into a storm. The clash shook the labyrinth, fire clashing against oblivion.

Akira leapt in, katana carving into its arm, splitting hundreds of names in one arc. Elira's frostfire blasted across its chest, freezing layers of memory.

And Reina—she struck its legs, carving name after name in a blur of emerald steel. Each cut tore screams from its body as more of its form dissolved.

[System Alert: Recognition Progress – 91%]

The Guardian roared, its shadow blade crashing down again.

Kuro braced—only for Reina's Shadow Step to blur her into position, her daggers crossing the strike with impossible speed. Shadows shattered, sparks raining as her emerald eyes locked on his emberlight.

"Don't waste your flame on defense. Burn it."

Kuro's jaw clenched—but he obeyed. His emberblade ignited brighter than ever before, a roaring inferno that consumed the Guardian's chest in fire.

Elira's frostfire spiraled in, Akira's steel slashed deep—

And Reina's twin daggers cut the last of the names from its form.

The Guardian screamed—then crumbled into ash.

---

Silence fell.

The labyrinth trembled. The walls of names shuddered and split, vanishing into motes of light.

[System Update: Trial Complete – Recognition Achieved]

[Reward: Fragment of the Forgotten Seal Acquired]

The obsidian chamber stilled, the whispers gone. Only four remained, breathing hard, standing together.

Kuro lowered his emberblade, sweat sliding down his brow. "…It's over."

Elira's frostfire dimmed, her violet eyes sharp as they lingered on Reina. "…For now."

Akira sheathed his katana with a sharp exhale. "Hmph. You fight well—for someone I don't trust."

Reina smirked faintly, emerald eyes glinting. "Good. Don't trust me. Just keep up."

Kuro's emberlight lingered on her, unreadable. But deep inside, he knew—something had shifted.

They were no longer three.

They were four.

And the labyrinth itself had recognized it.

---

[To Be Continued…]

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