Hounds of the Abyss: The Last Choice to Protect Paradise
At the very bottom of the Abyss, there is a door that nobody knows about. It leads to the 'bottom' of the world. Guarding this door are twin hounds with fluffy white hair: Fuwawa and Mococo. Fuwawa, the elder sister, has calm aqua eyes; Mococo, the younger, has sparkling pink eyes and boundless energy. Every day, they drive away 'those who wander in' from outside the Abyss. That was their job. That was their mission. One day, a girl named Lily is found collapsed at the entrance of the Abyss. She
Hounds of the Abyss: The Last Choice to Protect Paradise - The Blank of Nightmares: The Curse Undone, the Sisters' Tears, the Girl Who Holds the Key's Resolve
The air before the Terminal Door was still and cold.
There was no light-moss in the Seventh Layer. Only darkness — and a door roughly three meters tall. Countless patterns carved into its surface pulsed faintly, pale blue and slow. That light caught in Fuwawa Abyssgard's long white hair, barely illuminating it.
Fuwawa sat before the door.
Knees drawn to her chest, back rounded, she simply stared at it. Her spear of light lay on the floor to her right, discarded.
Blood still seeped through the bandage on her left arm.
(Mother.)
She tried to remember her mother's face.
White hair. A gentle voice. Arms that held Mococo close.
...That was as far as she got.
The contours of the face blurred. The voice dissolved into static. The memories she had paid as compensation for the Contract Fang had carved away her mother's very existence from within her.
Fuwawa exhaled deeply.
Her white breath dissolved into the dark.
(Protect Mococo.)
Only those words remained.
No — even the words themselves were growing faint. They no longer had the shape of sound. Only the sensation that she had been told this, once, clung to the depths of her chest.
(But, Mother—)
Fuwawa looked at the back of her left hand.
The Contract Fang's mark. The proof of a hound, inherited from her mother. Now it glowed faintly, as if asleep.
(Mother, did you really say to dispose of the Vessel of the Key?)
The question slipped from her lips for the first time.
"...Mother wouldn't have said to kill the Vessel of the Key."
She caught herself and shook her head.
(No. What Mother said was to protect Mococo. That was all.)
For eight years, she had treated the code as absolute.
Show no mercy to outsiders. If you find the Vessel of the Key, dispose of it. She had believed without question that this was bound to her mother's dying words.
But now, having lost the memory, she had no proof.
Perhaps her mother's final words had been nothing more than *protect your sister* — and nothing else.
Fuwawa's fingertips trembled, just slightly.
(If that's true—)
(Then what have I been bound by for eight years, thinking it was the code?)
The mark on her left hand throbbed with a faint sting.
From beyond the door, she heard whispering.
—Open it.
—You are alone now.
Fuwawa did not cover her ears.
The whispers echoed from inside her head. But she was no longer swept away by them.
The mark glowed.
As if resisting the whispers beyond the door, a pale aqua light pulsed strongly on the back of her hand.
(I am not alone.)
Fuwawa thought this quietly.
—And then.
Behind her, she heard the sound of a staff.
*Tap. Tap. Tap.*
Slow, heavy footsteps.
Fuwawa did not turn around.
"...You came, Gran."
"To think you would be sitting here, of all places."
An aged voice echoed from beyond the darkness.
Gran Duskwalker. Patriarch of the Hound clan. Sixty-eight years old. His gray-tinged white hair swept back, the left half of his face covered in old scars. His left eye was gold, his right pale blue. A pair of mismatched eyes — one of which was rumored to have been consumed by the Void.
He stood beside Fuwawa.
The hand that gripped his staff carried the weight of his years.
"Were you thinking of your mother?"
"...Yes."
Fuwawa answered without taking her eyes off the door.
"I can't remember her face or her voice anymore. I lost the memories as payment for the Contract Fang. But because of that, there's something I've come to understand."
She paused for a beat.
"Did Mother really say to dispose of the Vessel of the Key? I no longer have proof. I don't even know if I ever did. For eight years, I believed the code was connected to her dying words. But maybe I was the one who connected them. Maybe I just... decided that on my own."
Gran said nothing.
A deep silence filled the darkness of the Seventh Layer.
The patterns on the door pulsed, over and over.
"...Fuwawa."
Gran's voice was low and heavy.
"Thirty years ago, I devoured my own younger sister with these hands."
Fuwawa's shoulders shifted, almost imperceptibly.
"Whether your mother's dying words were what you think — that, I cannot say. But my sister was not the Vessel of the Key."
Fuwawa slowly raised her head.
She looked at Gran's profile.
In the old patriarch's eyes, thirty years of regret bled quietly to the surface.
"It was a misjudgment, born from a disturbance in the seal. My sister was merely the wrong vessel. She wasn't even the Vessel of the Key. And still — the code is the code, I told myself — and I devoured her. With the Contract Fang, I returned the memory of her existence to the Void."
Gran tightened his grip on the staff.
"The code is sometimes wrong. I followed a wrong code and killed my sister. Thirty years later, the feel of it still hasn't left my hands."
Fuwawa felt her breath stop.
(The code... can be wrong.)
(The code is not absolute.)
Something inside her chest crumbled with an audible sound.
"Fuwawa."
Gran looked down at her.
"Do not walk the same path I did. The answer you arrive at does not belong to you alone. It belongs to Mococo. It belongs to that girl as well. ...And it belongs to your mother, too."
Gran's voice wavered, just slightly.
"...Forgive me. I placed too heavy a burden on your shoulders."
Fuwawa could say nothing.
Gran said nothing more. He slowly turned his back.
"Dawn is near. Return to the White Hollow. Mococo is waiting for you."
Leaving only those words behind, the old patriarch vanished into the darkness like mist.
Fuwawa was left alone before the door.
Still watching the direction Gran had gone, she could not move.
(The code is sometimes wrong.)
The words repeated in her mind, over and over.
(Maybe Mother never said to kill anyone.)
(The code is not absolute.)
(Have I been bound by the wrong thing for eight years?)
A single tear spilled from Fuwawa's eye.
The cold droplet traced her cheek and fell to the floor.
She wept, stifling the sound.
The long night was quietly beginning to break.
When she returned to the White Hollow, the pale blue glow of the light-moss illuminated the walls as it always did.
Fuwawa stopped at the cave entrance.
On the sleeping pallet, Mococo lay with Lily in her arms.
Mococo's short white hair mingled with Lily's pale blonde, shimmering softly under the light-moss. The bell ornament at the tip of Mococo's right ear chimed faintly — *chirin*.
At Lily's chest, the Arca Fragment pulsed slowly, as if asleep.
Fuwawa gazed at the two sleeping faces.
(Mococo.)
She looked at her sister's face.
Defenseless. Innocent in sleep.
(What have I been doing to you?)
Fuwawa leaned her spear of light against the wall.
Without making a sound, she sat quietly beside the two of them.
The mark on the back of her left hand stung faintly.
She stared at it.
(Mother left this to me.)
(To protect.)
(Surely, that's why.)
Fuwawa closed her eyes.
The exhaustion of the long night rushed over her all at once.
She fell into a shallow sleep, just like that.
She woke because she heard Mococo's voice.
"...Big Sister?"
Fuwawa slowly opened her eyes.
Mococo's face was right in front of her.
Her big pink eyes peered at Fuwawa with worry.
"Big Sister, how long have you been there? You didn't sleep, did you?"
"...I slept a little."
Fuwawa sat up.
The bandage on her left arm had stiffened with dried blood.
Beside Mococo, Lily was still asleep.
"Big Sister, is your arm okay?"
"It's fine. More importantly, Mococo—"
Fuwawa looked her sister straight in the eyes.
Mococo tilted her head.
Fuwawa took a deep breath.
(I have to say it.)
(What I couldn't say for twenty years.)
"...I'm sorry."
The words were so small, so hoarse.
Mococo's eyes went wide.
"Huh? Why are you apologizing? Did you do something, Big Sister?"
"...For never crying in front of you. Not once."
Fuwawa's voice trembled.
"For trying to carry everything alone. For saying I would protect you, while leaving your heart behind. ...For all of it. I'm sorry."
Mococo watched her sister's face in silence.
"Losing Mother's memories — that's when I finally understood. I never told you anything. I never shared anything. That's not what protecting someone means. ...I was pushing you away."
Tears overflowed from Fuwawa's eyes.
The mask she had never let crack for twenty years peeled away with an audible sound.
The tears would not stop.
"I'm sorry, Mococo. ...I'm sorry."
Mococo gripped her sister's shoulders tightly.
"Big Sister."
Her voice was surprisingly steady.
"This is the first time I've ever seen you cry. ...You've been holding it in all this time, haven't you. You've been suffering all alone, haven't you."
Tears welled in Mococo's pink eyes too.
"Big Sister, you don't have to carry it alone. I'm on your side. I've always, always been your little sister."
Mococo hugged Fuwawa with all her strength.
Fuwawa wept aloud at her sister's warmth.
She cried like a child.
"...Mococo... Mococo..."
"Yeah. I'm right here, Big Sister."
Mococo stroked her sister's back gently, again and again and again.
Twenty years of tears soaked into Mococo's shoulder.
The bond between the sisters was being retied — not by the code, but by emotion itself.
That was when it happened.
"...Fuwawa."
A small voice cut between them.
Fuwawa and Mococo turned toward the sound at the same time.
Lily was awake.
Her pale blonde hair, nearly silver, was tousled from sleep. Her deep purple eyes were wet with tears.
"I heard. ...I'm sorry."
Lily clutched the Arca Fragment at her chest with both hands.
"I know. That I'm the Vessel of the Key. Every time I get close to the Abyss, the stone resonates and my head hurts. ...That I might be something that could destroy this world."
Lily's voice was shaking.
But she did not look away from either of them.
"But I don't want to be disposed of by you, Fuwawa. ...I'll close the door myself. If I'm the key, then I'll fulfill my role as the key."
Fuwawa, her face still wet with tears, looked at Lily.
(This child is trying to face forward on her own.)
The boy she had disposed of at fourteen had no such will.
He had only wept and repeated that he wanted to go home.
But Lily was different.
"...Lily."
Fuwawa knelt before her.
"You're strong, aren't you."
Lily shook her head.
"I'm not strong at all. ...I'm scared. But watching you and Mococo suffer is worse. So I'll do it myself."
Mococo flung herself at Lily.
"Lily! Lily, you're Lily! Key and vessel and all that doesn't matter! You're our family!"
Mococo hugged Lily tight.
Lily wept aloud in Mococo's arms.
Fuwawa watched the two of them quietly.
(I will stop seeing this child as something to be disposed of.)
(She is a companion who will close the door alongside us.)
Deep in Fuwawa's chest, a new perspective was certainly taking root.
Afterward, Fuwawa went alone to the Sealing Chamber.
From the White Hollow, deep into the Abyss.
Before the Terminal Door, she stared at the mark on the back of her left hand.
The Contract Fang.
A power she had used only to devour. A power to return the memory of a target's existence to the Void.
(But did Mother really leave this to me so I could devour?)
Fuwawa spoke to the mark.
"Mother — didn't you really leave this to me so I could protect?"
In that instant.
The mark glowed faintly, as if answering.
The pale aqua light pulsed slowly on the back of her hand.
Fuwawa's eyes widened.
(...It glowed?)
(It responded to my will?)
She remembered the sensation from when she was fourteen.
When she devoured the boy.
Just before the Contract Fang consumed the target's memories.
For a single instant, there had been a sensation of touching the shape of the other's existence.
(If I could use that sensation in reverse—)
(Instead of devouring, I could *connect*.)
It was still a hope without shape.
But certainly, within her, the possibility of a third path was beginning to bud.
A way to avoid killing the Vessel of the Key.
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