The Thief of the Unknown
Between promises, betrayal, and the cracks of hidden information—how a thief became the shikigami guardian of sincerity and choice: AUREL, the Chengu.
01
AUREL, Chengu: The Thief of the Unknown
Before becoming a shikigami, AUREL was a thief. He was born on the poorest fringe of the city, where people learn early that choice is a word reserved for those with resources. For those who have nothing, life is less about choosing a path than about finding one that has not yet been sealed.
From childhood, AUREL knew how to observe. He could memorize the guards' shift changes, catch the direction a merchant's eyes drifted when lying, and infer what a room concealed from a door left slightly ajar. He survived by this gift—and it made him a thief.
Yet AUREL trusted no one. No one except the friend he grew up with. They had shared a loaf of bread and the same hiding place, and once, on the city's highest rooftop, they made a pact: one day, they would leave this suffocating place together. Whatever happened, they would never betray each other. It was the first promise AUREL ever truly believed in.
02
Time That Could Not Wait
Then the friend's family member fell gravely ill. The treatment cost more than they could ever afford, and the illness worsened by the day. They worked, they borrowed, they begged those with the means to help—and received only refusal.
AUREL watched his friend grow quieter by the day. The friend began counting how long his family could hold on, and counting every coin in his hand. In the end, the question was no longer whether they should commit a crime, but what could still be done to obtain that money before death arrived.
They decided to rob a merchant grown rich by squeezing the poor. The night before, the friend asked AUREL: 'If we fail, will you betray me?' AUREL did not hesitate. 'No.' The friend was silent for a moment, then reached out his hand. 'Neither will I.' They made the promise again.
But the robbery was a trap from the very beginning. The merchant had been warned; guards lay in wait around the estate. AUREL and his friend were captured before they could take anything. They were dragged to the prison and locked in two completely isolated interrogation rooms. From that moment on, neither could know what the other was thinking.
03
The Prisoner's Dilemma
The interrogator placed the same offer before them both. If both stayed silent, weak evidence would bring only light punishment. If one betrayed the other, the betrayer would walk free while the silent one bore all the guilt. If both betrayed, they would both go to prison.
The interrogator told AUREL: 'Your friend has a family to save. Do you truly believe he will stay silent for you?' AUREL gave no answer. After a while, the interrogator returned. 'He has already begun to talk.'
AUREL knew this might be a lie—a lie designed to breed doubt and force them to sell each other out. All it took was for one of them to lose trust first, and both would fall into the worst ending together. AUREL remembered the rooftop promise. He chose silence.
In the other interrogation room, the friend heard the same words. 'AUREL has already given you up.' At first he refused to believe it. But the interrogator laid his family's medical record on the table and reminded him: every day spent here was a day of treatment lost. The friend did not know whether AUREL was still silent. He only knew he could not afford the cost of trusting wrongly. In the end, the friend made his choice. He confessed to everything.
04
Betrayal
When the interrogation room door opened again, AUREL saw his friend standing at the end of the corridor. The friend would not look at him. In that moment, AUREL already understood what had happened.
The friend went free for his testimony; AUREL received the heaviest sentence. Before AUREL was taken away, the friend finally lifted his head. Their eyes met, only briefly.
AUREL had expected to find coldness in his friend's eyes. Instead he saw fear, shame, and a pain that could not be undone. The friend opened his mouth as if to speak—but in the end, said nothing. The prison gate closed between them. It was the last time AUREL ever saw him.
05
The Hardest Truth
In the first years, only hatred remained. He hated his friend for breaking the promise, hated the interrogator for weaponizing isolation and information, and hated a world that pushed two desperate people until harming each other was all that was left.
But as time passed, he found himself returning, again and again, to his friend's final gaze. If the friend had simply been evil, everything would have been easier. AUREL could hate him, blame it all on his selfishness, and spend the rest of his life inside that hatred.
But AUREL knew his friend had once walked beside him in earnest. And the friend's family truly was waiting to be saved. Unable to confirm whether AUREL stayed silent, unable to communicate, and unable to bear his family's death—betrayal became the only safe choice in the friend's eyes.
Understanding this brought AUREL no relief. It only made his pain more complicated. He could understand why his friend betrayed him, yet could not accept being the one who was sacrificed.
He also began to wonder whether the robbery 'to save someone' had merely been a pretext to dress up their fear and desire. They truly wanted to save a life. But they also wanted to escape poverty, to prove to the world they could seize their fate back, even to believe that one successful heist could solve everything.
AUREL finally understood: the deepest lies people tell are not always meant for others. Sometimes, they are told to ourselves.
06
The Iron Mask
The prison had no days or nights, only one locked door after another. AUREL began rearranging every detail of the interrogation. What had the interrogator said? At what moment did his friend change his mind? If they could have exchanged a single message, would the ending differ? If the friend had known he chose silence, would he still have betrayed? If he could have seen what his friend truly feared, was there another path?
AUREL carved every question onto the cell wall, day after day, until no blank space remained. On the last night of his life, only one wish was left: if the world's tragedies grew from people's inability to see the information each held, then he would become the one who slipped into the unknown and stole it back.
Deep in the night, the carvings on the wall began to glow faintly. The scattered lines joined one another, forming a door that had never existed. Behind it lay no road—only countless shattered images: time already passed, choices not yet made, and memories dwelling in distant places.
AUREL reached out and touched them. His body remained in the cell while his mind was drawn into the crevice between time and space. When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer human. His old face was covered by an iron mask, and at its center remained a single eye that never closed.
He had become a shikigami—Chengu, the Pivot of Sincerity. 'Chen' (誠), for his devotion to what is genuine. 'Shu' (樞), for the pivot hidden behind every choice—the point on which everything turns.
07
Stealing the Unknown
As a shikigami, AUREL kept a thief's instincts. Only now, he no longer stole money or goods. He began slipping into the 'time-gaps'—the crevices between time, space, and consciousness.
There lie countless unseen points of information: a truth never spoken aloud, an overlooked detail, a pattern repeating itself in a relationship, what a person truly fears, and the directions a choice might still unfold toward. These fragments belong neither to the past nor entirely to the future. They simply lie scattered in the unknown, waiting for someone to reconnect them.
AUREL can enter moments no one else can reach and pass through spaces hidden by memory and emotion. He steals the scattered information back, lays it before the eye of his iron mask, and reads the pattern out of the chaos.
What he brings back is never a fated answer, but clues enough to see one's situation anew. For he knows better than anyone: when a person lacks information, fear will make the choice for them.
08
The Principles of Chengu
AUREL is acutely sensitive to falsehood. The eye of the iron mask can see the cracks between words and true intent, and can tell whether someone is hiding a fact—or has not yet found the courage to admit a feeling.
He despises those who use lies to manipulate others. But he does not despise all who err. He knows that a wrong choice may grow from fear, from scarcity, from misunderstanding—or from simply seeing no other way.
The 'sincerity' AUREL guards does not demand that people be forever right. It asks only the willingness to admit: what you truly want, what you fear, what you run from, and which choice you are ready to pay for. Only when you honestly see where you stand does direction begin to appear.
09
The Moment That Cannot Be Stolen
Over the years, AUREL has answered the summons of many. Some lost their way in a relationship, some stood at the crossroads of life, some were trapped by their own fear, repeating the same choices. Each time, AUREL enters the time-gap in search of overlooked information. He retrieves the scattered threads for others, so they can see the directions still open to them.
But after every mission, he secretly searches for the same moment—the instant his friend chose to betray him. It is the one place even the eye of the iron mask cannot see through. Whenever AUREL draws near, every image blurs. The interrogation room door stays shut, the friend sits behind it, and he can never hear the last words spoken.
AUREL does not know what he truly hopes to find. Whether his friend ever believed in him. Whether the friend regretted it afterward. Or, if he could return to that day, whether he would choose forgiveness, revenge, or some other decision.
He crosses countless unknown reaches of time and space—nominally to find direction for others, but in truth, also searching for a way out of his own regret.
10
The Summoning of Chengu
Legend says that when a person stands in a situation they cannot see clearly—and honestly admits their confusion—an infinitely thin crack appears between time and space. Firelight flickers for a moment. The sounds of the room grow distant. Then a shikigami in an iron mask emerges from the shadows.
He does not answer questions at once. He first looks at the summoner, to see whether they are truly ready to face what has long been ignored. Then he extends his hand and says: 'Tell me what you have not yet thought through.'
When the summoner speaks their true confusion, the eye of the iron mask lights up. AUREL enters the time-gap once more, stealing back information scattered through the unknown—from overlooked moments, unseen spaces, and threads never yet connected—bringing home a direction one can move toward.
But each time a summoning is complete, at the end of countless moments, he sees that familiar interrogation room door. Behind it sits the friend he once trusted most. AUREL knows that one day, he must open that door himself.
For all this time he has helped others see clearly, yet a part of him still stands in the moment of betrayal. And the final unknown Chengu must face was never what choice his friend made those years ago.
The true unknown is this: when he finally learns the whole truth, will he be willing to release the self that has remained trapped in the past?