NARAK: The Blood Covenant

"WHAT. THE. HELL." Raka said every word with strong pause in between.

"This isn't my body," the Voice said again, horrified.

"NO KIDDING, AVICI," Raka shrieked, backing up. "YOU MISSED. YOU MISSED SO BAD."

"This has never happened before—"

"You THINK?!"

"Her spinal architecture is completely different—"

"DUDE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT HER BONES???"

Suddenly, the glowing sigils stuttered.

Nayla's mouth twitched.

Then, another voice slipped out.

Sharper. Angrier. Sarcastic as hell.

"I swear to every quantum thread in the multiverse, if you don't GET OUT OF MY BODY IN THE NEXT 30 SECONDS—"

Avici flinched.

Inside Nayla.

"Oh no. She's awake in here."

"YES I'M AWAKE."

"...This isn't ideal."

"I'LL TEAR YOU INTO A THEORETICAL CONCEPT."

Raka stared, hands half-raised like he was at a hostage negotiation.

"Okay, okay! Everyone just chill. Let's be rational—"

Nayla's hands shot out like lightning—one pointed at Raka, the other glowing with Oathbound energy.

"DO NOT MAKE ME COMBUST THIS SCHOOL."

"Okay! No combustion! Just… maybe try breathing?"

At that exact moment, Vicki groaned and sat up like a zombie halfway through rebooting.

"Ugh… my spine has regrets..."

He blinked.

Saw Raka sweating bullets.

Then turned to the real horror:

Nayla floating. Glowing. Literally possessed.

"What the hell did I miss—?"

Nayla spun in midair, eyes locking on him.

Avici's voice came out first:

"Ah. Vessel is back online."

Then Nayla's voice layered on top of his:

"FIX. THIS. NOW."

Vicki's soul almost left his body.

"BRO WHY ARE YOU—WHY IS SHE—"

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Avici yelled (from inside Nayla).

"I WASN'T AIMING FOR HER BONE MARROW!"

"THAT MAKES IT WORSE??"

"HER CORE HAD A PERFECT CHANNEL—"

"STOP TALKING ABOUT MY CORE LIKE A MAGIC WIFI ROUTER!"

Suddenly—

A light flickered down the hallway.

Dim. Pale. Wrong.

Everyone froze.

Even Nayla.

The glyphs on the ground began to dissolve—like ash retreating from a fire it didn't want to touch.

Avici's voice dropped low, serious again.

"That's not mine."

"Then what is it?" Raka asked.

Vicki stood up, still wobbling.

"It's the Bone Seal... isn't it?"

From down the corridor, something whispered:

"One... Oathbound... failed."

And another voice answered it:

"Then the Ashen One remembers."

Avici tried to eject himself from Nayla's body immediately.

The sigils flared.

But instead of jumping back to Vicki—

He got stuck halfway.

Vicki and Nayla both screamed:

"OH NO. OH NO NO NO NO—"

"WHY ARE WE BOTH TALKING?!"

"WHY ARE WE BOTH IN HER?!"

"AVICI WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

"I'M STUCK IN THE SHARED CACHE!"

"WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!"

And from deep below the school—

A bone-white sigil cracked open.

The Fourth Seal.

And something began to walk out.

In the lower sanctum of the Whispered Archive, the walls were sweating.

Not water.

Memory. World's Memory from ancient time. More ancient than history.

Faint flickers of ink that hadn't been written yet ran sideways across the paper-laced bricks.

And for the first time in decades...

Anata Dharma looked afraid.

He stood alone, eyes darting from one artifact to another.

Scrolls unraveled themselves.

Grimoires shifted glyphs mid-sentence.

The Archive was misbehaving.

Worse—it was lying.

And Anata afraid when The Archive that supposed to be holding all of information about every fact that exist, now can't be trusted.

"This isn't right," he muttered, flipping open a record dated three centuries ago.

The entry was clean. Too clean.

It documented the death of the Second Oathbound.

'Consumed by flame. Seal burned. Bloodline broken.'

But something was wrong.

The ink didn't match.

The handwriting was flawless.

Too flawless.

Like it was generated by memory, not recorded by hand.

Anata's fingers trembled for half a second.

"Someone's rewriting the past. But, Dharmas cannot do this, as long as that sacred oath about keeping and guarding truth exist "

He bolted deeper into the Archive.

Past the Dream Scrolls. Past the Womb-Written Logs. Past the thirteen chained ledgers that even Avici refused to touch.

He reached the Hall of Echoes.

A room where every truth had a voice.

And in the center: a slab of blackstone.

On it: a single sentence.

Etched by an Oathbound hand.

"A second flame still breathes."

Anata staggered back.

"Impossible... I saw the seal collapse—"

He reached into his coat and pulled out a small vial.

Inside: a drop of ancient blood.

He poured it over the blackstone.

It hissed.

Lines flared.

A name appeared.

"ARANA… DHARMA… NARAK."

Then it collapsed into one single word:

"ARDHANA."

"Oh my god," Anata whispered.

"It's not a name. It's a lineage code."

"Ardhana... wait!! Don't tell me... Raka... Ardhana."

He leaned against the wall, mind racing.

"He's not just part of the seal. He's born of it."

"And he doesn't even know."

Meanwhile above, in the real world:

Vicki still sat with his head in his hands, trying to process the body-swap error of the century.

Nayla (still glowing faintly, still furious) stood three feet away from him, arms crossed, glaring like a supernova with glasses.

And Raka?

Raka stood quiet for once.

Too quiet.

"You good, man?" Vicki asked, finally looking up.

"Yeah…" Raka replied. "Just… my head's been hurting since the glyph cracked."

"Like how?"

"Like... something inside me is waking up."

Back in the Archive—

Anata stared at the ceiling like it might explain anything.

"The second Oathbound didn't die."

"He was reborn."

"Because his blood kept the Oath."

He pulled open a dusty scroll labeled "Echoes of the Unburned."

Inside: only two entries.

The first?

Avici Narak.

The second?

[REDACTED].

But the shape of the redaction?

Same character count as Raka Ardhana.

Anata closed the scroll.

Then did something he never does.

He cursed.

"I miscalculated."

Back above, the hallway lights flickered again.

But this time, Raka looked up before anyone else did.

His pupils dilated.

"Something's coming."

Vicki stood.

"What do you mean something?"

"I mean I think I can feel it breathing."

A slow rumble echoed from beneath their feet.

Not earthquake.

Not magic.

Heartbeat.

Avici's voice flared inside Vicki.

"The Bone Seal's opening."

"The Fourth one?"

"Yes. And it's not supposed to open for another twenty years."

"So why is it opening now?"

Avici paused.

"Because... the second flame just blinked."

Suddenly a call came through an untraceable glyph.

Carved into air.

Spoken in a language Vicki didn't know he knew.

"The Archive calls. Come now."

The letters unraveled midair burning away before Raka could even blink.

"That's not creepy at all," he muttered.

"It's Anata," Nayla said flatly. "He probably thinks this is 'subtle.'"

"Is it bad I miss the part where I was unconscious and none of this was my problem?" Vicki groaned, still rubbing his temples.

"You got possessed by a flaming soul-entity that run through your bloodline and I got turned into his rental car," Nayla snapped.

"Get up."

[WHISPERED ARCHIVE – LOWER SANCTUM]

The air down here was thicker than memory.

Anata Dharma didn't greet them at the door.

He waited in the Hall of Forgotten Vows, standing before a suspended scroll that bled ink into the void around it.

He didn't smile.

Didn't sip tea.

Didn't crack a joke.

He looked like someone who had finally found the answer and hated it.

"You're late," he said. "Time's bleeding faster than expected."

"That sounds like a YOU problem," Vicki said.

"It's everyone's problem now."

Anata turned to face them.

"I found something."

He unrolled the scroll with the care of someone disarming a bomb.

At the center was a name, slowly forming in living ink:

Arkana Arhad

"This is the name of the Second Oathbound," he said.

"The one who was supposed to have died in the fire."

"But didn't," Nayla whispered, catching on.

Anata nodded. "Because he held the Oath. Even in death. And it reincarnated... into one of you."

The air stilled.

Raka blinked.

"Okay, wait. One of us?"

Anata turned.

And placed his hand over Raka's chest.

"You carry three bloodlines legacy and oath. Arana. Dharma. Narak."

"Your name isn't just a name. It's a map."

Avici unintentionally stirred inside Nayla head. 

"Arkana Arhad…"

He fell silent.

Too silent.

"You know him," Nayla whispered.

Avici didn't respond.

Vicki took a step forward.

"Avici. Who is Arkana Arhad?"

Still silence.

Then—A crack.

In Vicki's head.

Like something broke open inside Avici.

"…He was my brother."

The air trembled.

"But I didn't remember… I didn't know why…"

Anata's eyes widened.

"Memory seal."

"You were sealed too, weren't you?"

"By Narakasura, of course by that damned creatures" Avici growled.

"He didn't want me to know, so he can easily whisper about the end of the world"

"Didn't want you to remember what?" Raka asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Avici's voice dropped.

"That Arkana never betrayed the Oath."

"He died protecting it."

"And Narakasura made me believe he didn't."

Suddenly—The Archive screamed.

A ripple of bone-white glyphs surged across the walls.

The floor shook.

The sigils flickered violently.

Anata looked up.

"No..."

He turned to the trio.

"We're out of time."

"The Fourth Seal—"

[ABOVE GROUND – NARAYA DHARMA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL]

The eastern wing was gone.

No explosion.

No warning.

Just… erased.

Where once stood classrooms and towers—now only ash and a crater lined with sigil-bone.

And in the middle of it:

A figure.

Colossal. Pale. Horned.

Clad in bone-forged armor and crowned with fangs made of light.

Hiranyaksha.

The guardian of the Bone Seal.

The first general of Narakasura.

Alive.

Awake.

Screaming.

Opposing him—A single man.

Clad in white and gold.

Hair flaring like a storm of light.

Eyes burning with divine lineage.

The Headmaster of the school. Narayana.

His coat ripped. His breath ragged.

But he stood firm.

Hand raised.

And behind him floated six rings of Vishnu's Vow.

"You will not break that seal."

"You were never meant to awaken."

Hiranyaksha snarled.

"Then you were never meant to survive."

The sky cracked.

And the war began.