Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Raizen’s knuckles hovered over the wooden doorknob.

Then, he pulled it back, and decided to knock instead.

Nothing.

He waited, listening for footsteps, for a voice, for anything. Then, he knocked again, harder this time.

Still nothing. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

His chest tightened. The red threads around the knife brushed his forearm inside his sleeve like a reminder that the next step was supposed to happen already.

He leaned closer, listening.

No movement. No shifting. No breathing.

Raizen swallowed hard, then pushed the door open.

The same warm, dim light met him. The chamber looked almost exactly as he remembered - bed, carved walls, the empty chest still near the bedside like a relic left behind. The Ruler lay in the same position, head angled slightly, hands resting near his chest, gaze fixed on the ceiling.

Then Raizen noticed the sound.

Music.

Soft, slow, and layered in a way that made his brain stumble. It wasn’t one instrument. It wasn’t even two. It was... Many things at once, weaving around each other, rising and falling like a tide that somehow knew exactly where it was going.

And beside the bed, where there hadn’t been anything before, sat a record player.

Raizen blinked.

It didn’t look like Ukai stuff.

Ukai made everything feel alive - carved wood, floral patterns, things like that. Neoshima made everything feel industrial - steel, glass, sharp edges, machinery that looked like it was built to survive, not look good.

This didn’t feel like that either.

The record player was sleek and minimalistic.

It looked rather... Refined.

The base looked like white stone, but not the rough kind. It had that soft, clean brightness of marble, with a faint colorful shine running through it like quartz.

A glass dome covered the top, clear and delicate, and the whole thing had a quiet elegance that made Raizen feel like he was looking at something from another city that didn’t exist on the maps he memorized.

The music itself held him in place.

It was slow, but it wasn’t simple. There were grave sounds underneath, deep and heavy like the world’s heartbeat. Then there were high, thin notes that rose above everything. And then there was one sound that Raizen could recognize.

A sharp, high-pitched sound of an instrument he’d heard once in the Underworks, from a street musician.

It was called a violin.

In his village, there had been an instrument with two brass chords stretched tight, and you could pitch them with your fingers. He heard wooden flutes once, too - but those didn’t have too many sounds.

This... whatever he was hearing - was built like an entire world.

The Ruler just lay there, eyes open, staring upward, face still. Only when Raizen stepped fully into the room, the Ruler’s gaze shifted.

Slowly, he turned his head.

His eyes landed on Raizen, and Raizen felt that familiar pressure again - not power, exactly, but awareness. Like the Ruler never truly stopped watching.

Reaching a hand toward the record player, the Ruler adjusted it, turning the volume down, but not completely off. The music softened until it became a background piece.

"Please, come in" the Ruler said quietly.

Raizen took a few steps forward.

And now he could see it.

The Ruler’s eyes were wet.

Not quite crying, just... Teary, like a memory had surfaced and he was living it again

The Ruler lifted a hand and wiped beneath his eye in a single quick motion.

Raizen swallowed, the moment settling in his chest in a way he didn’t know what to do with.

He came here ready to do what Elin kinda forced him to do.

He cleared his throat.

"The Sky Sovereign sent me, to tell you to -"

"Break the contract" the Ruler finished.

"I already did."

Raizen blinked once, slow.

"You... Did?"

The Ruler nodded faintly, eyes shifting back to the ceiling for a long second.

"It was... Obvious" he said. "I could feel it, the Anathema fragment being trapped in another cage."

Raizen’s mouth went dry again.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, and he didn’t mean it like it was just a polite question. He meant it like someone looking at a man whose body was a battlefield.

The Ruler opened his mouth to answer, but coughing interrupted him.

His shoulders shook slightly with it. Raizen’s instincts kicked in immediately, and he looked around for water, for a cup, for anything he could offer.

"There’s... No need" the Ruler said between coughs, voice tightening. He lifted a hand slightly as if to stop Raizen from moving. "Sit. Or stand. But don’t... Worry."

Raizen hesitated, then stopped, hands raised uselessly at his sides.

The coughing eased after a few seconds, leaving the Ruler breathing shallowly again, expression controlled.

Raizen looked at him, then glanced toward the open chest and the white inside.

"So then... What happened with the fragment?" Raizen asked.

The Ruler’s eyes shifted to the record player for a moment, as if the music was easier to answer than the truth.

"It felt being suppressed" he finally said. "By ice, I think."

Raizen’s brows pulled together. "Ice... already?"

The Ruler nodded faintly.

"The moment it left" he said. "The moment it began moving toward the Floating Islands... I felt the pressure change."

"The contract was built around the fragment’s presence. Around what it needed from me."

Raizen’s fingers flexed at his sides, restless.

"So you broke it" Raizen murmured.

"Yes" the Ruler answered. "Without anyone telling me."

His gaze returned to Raizen briefly, and there was something almost amused there, thin and tired. "You came back here for nothing."

Raizen’s face twitched.

"I almost died for nothing" he muttered, then realized he’d said it aloud.

The Ruler’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.

Raizen’s chest tightened again, the humor fading quickly under the weight.

"So..." Raizen began, searching for the right words. "You’re alright. You’re not... enslaved by it anymore."

The Ruler breathed out slowly.

"I’m alive" he agreed. "And my Eon is back."

Raizen’s eyes widened slightly. "You can feel it?"

"Well... Yes..." the Ruler’s voice softened in relief.

He sounded like a man whose shackles had been removed after so long he forgot what it felt like to live without them.

"After all" the Ruler continued, "I don’t have much to live either way."

Raizen didn’t answer.

He didn’t know how.

The Ruler stared at the ceiling again, as if the ceiling was the only thing that didn’t expect an answer.

The music continued softly, filling the silence with a slow, layered warmth that felt almost insulting next to iminent death.

After a long moment, Raizen asked the question that had been hovering at the edge of his mind since he stepped in.

"What is that music?" he said. "Who’s playing?"

The Ruler’s eyes brightened, like he was talking about something very dear.

"It’s called ancient music" he explained.

Raizen blinked. "Ancient?"

The Ruler nodded once. "From a time far older than any historical documents we have today! This one - oh, I love this composer. His name was Beethoven, and this piece is called Romance in F Major, Op. 50-"

"Huh?" Raizen’s eyes widened as he was watching Ukai’s Ruler so excitedly describe this music, when 3 minutes ago he looked like he was about to give out his last breath. After listening to the piece more than the explanation, Raizen frowned.

"But... It doesn’t sound like one person" Raizen said quietly, because that was the part that had stunned him most.

The Ruler’s eyes looked even more enthusiastic.

"Oh, but it’s not just one musician!" he said. "It’s a whole group. They called it an orchestra."

Raizen stared. "All at once?"

"Yes."

Raizen tried to imagine it - dozens of people, each holding an instrument, each playing their part without drowning out the others.

"How do they..." he began, then stopped, shaking his head in disbelief. "...Synchronize so perfectly?"

The Ruler’s smile deepened, and he looked even less like a dying king and even more like a man remembering something he loved.

"They each hold their piece" he said. "And the pieces weave together into something whole."

Raizen listened again.

The violin sounded the loudest, but its voice wasn’t alone. It was being held up by something pleasant, something softer. More sounds, beautiful sounds, all intertwined.

Raizen looked back at the Ruler and found the man watching him.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and Raizen felt a strange jolt of unease.

"Now I recognize you!" he exclaimed.

Raizen blinked. "Recognize me?"

The Ruler nodded.

"You’ve been to Ukai before, haven’t you?" he asked.

Raizen’s mind stuttered. Then he remembered. When Ichiro almost killed Alan. When Seen blew up a geyser. When he saw Ukai for the first time.

"When you came with Solomon... After the artifact" the Ruler continued, voice calm.

"I saw you."