There's a place outside the city
No name
No map
Just rumors carried by madmen and drifters
A pit where memories go to rot
Shigure walked for hours
Boots sinking in mud and ash
Every step heavier than the last
When he finally reached it
The ground itself looked like it was screaming
Uneven earth
Charred trees clawing at the sky
Graves with no markers
Just holes filled with forgotten names
This was where the city buried what it couldn't face
But he wasn't here to bury anything
He was here to remember
He knelt by one of the pits
Dug into the dirt with bare hands
Fingers bleeding
Nails snapping
He found a necklace
Rusty
Bent
But familiar
It belonged to her
He didn't cry
Didn't speak
Just held it until the blood dried on his palms
A voice echoed from the trees behind him
"You're digging in a grave that already swallowed your soul"
A boy stepped out
Thin
Eyes hollow like his own
Shigure didn't react
Didn't need to
"I know you" the boy said
"You're the one who can't die
The one who lost everything but won't stop digging"
Shigure stood slowly
Clutching the necklace like it could still bring warmth
"Why are you here"
The boy smiled
And it was wrong
Twisted
"Because I'm what you would've become if you stopped fighting"
He rushed forward
Blade drawn
But it wasn't metal
It was guilt
Pain
All sharpened into something lethal
They clashed without words
Without sound
Just the language of those too broken to scream
When it ended
The boy vanished
Like fog swallowed by wind
Shigure dropped the necklace back into the earth
Not because he wanted to forget
But because some pain deserves to stay buried