Chapter Twelve: The Fox’s Mask

Sora of House Yurei stood alone beneath the cherry blossom tree behind the old monastery, her white hair glowing under the moonlight. Though the petals fell around her like snow, none touched her shoulders.

She was speaking to someone who wasn’t there.

“They’ve both survived,” she whispered. “Both embers have chosen. The prophecy is broken but the curse is awake.”

From the shadows emerged a figure cloaked in midnight silk, bearing the three-eyed sigil of the Eclipse Cult.

“You’ve done well,” the cultist said. “Lord Kanzuro trusts you now. The Seers believe you’re simply a strange little mystic.”

“I am a mystic,” Sora replied. “But not yours.”

The cultist stiffened. “Then why wear our mark?”

Sora’s gaze sharpened, eyes gleaming with foxfire.

“Because I needed to walk through the fire to steal the spark.”

She raised her hand and the mark on her palm pulsed. Not black like the cult’s, but silver.

The flame she bore was a third ember. Smaller. Hidden.

A false flame.

Days earlier, during the Second Trial…

While illusions tormented the others, Sora had found herself before a mirror that didn’t show her own face.

It showed Kaede’s. And behind her, a broken Ren, bleeding out under a crimson moon.

A voice had whispered to her from the glass:

“You are the hinge. The shadow between the flames. Save one, and doom the other.”

But Sora had torn the mirror down. She chose a different path.

She found a hidden chamber in the Hall of Echoes one even the Seers had forgotten. Inside, she summoned her ancestral spirit a fox of a thousand tails.

“Help me forge a lie so perfect, even fate believes it,” she asked.

The spirit agreed.

And together, they created a false ember. A decoy. One that could twist the prophecy just enough to confuse the cult.

But now… it was ticking like a bomb.

Back in the present

The cultist’s voice grew cautious. “You’ve been feeding them information. Warning the twins. If you betray us”

Sora stepped forward. “You don’t understand. I’m not betraying you. I’m ending you.”

Her shadow shifted.

Dozens of fox-spirits rose around her, eyes glowing, laughter sharp and cold.

“I’ve walked both paths. I’ve danced between your darkness and their fire. Now I decide which world survives.”

The cultist lunged.

But Sora vanished in a burst of petals and smoke.

That same night, outside the shrine…

Ren woke with a start. Something tugged at his dreams.

A whisper. A scent.

Kaede was already awake, staring at the open window.

“Sora was here,” she murmured.

Ren nodded. “She left a message.”

Scrawled in petals on the floor was a single word:

Choose.