The walls of Hollow Keep no longer felt abandoned.
Kai knelt in the center of the room, chalk in one hand, curse-ink brush in the other, as the final lines of a containment seal pulsed to life beneath his fingertips. Blue light flickered gently across the stone floor, illuminating rows of etched barriers, paper charms, and shelves of cursed tools made from scrap.
It had taken him nearly two weeks of quiet, unseen labor.
Now, it was done.
Not perfect.
But functional.
This wasn't a shelter anymore.
It was a base.
The air down here was still cold, but stable.
Cursed energy saturation remained balanced thanks to the suppressive glyphs he'd embedded in the corners. Storage shelves now held his hand-bound talismans, chalk kits, early prototypes of weaponized curse-thread, and recharged seal paper. A stone wall bore diagrams of spirit classifications, threat notations, and movement maps — all drawn from memory and firsthand experience.
A training space — crude but open — lined one corner.
In the far back, he had carved out a meditation alcove: three lanterns, a smooth sitting mat, and an old metal panel transformed into a shrine plate for focus rituals.
He stood slowly and looked around.
He had built this with nothing.
Just ink, scraps, instinct — and the Six Eyes.
But it was more than that.
This wasn't just a base for fighting.
It was a foundation.
A promise.
He walked to the far wall where a scroll sat untouched, pinned beneath a stone.
It was blank.
Reserved.
Meant for this moment.
He knelt, dipped his brush in fresh ink, and wrote:
"I will not be seen. But I will be felt."
A pause.
Then:
"If the world cannot see the curse, I will become its cure."
He let the ink dry.
Then pressed a seal over it, binding the words to the Keep itself.
From now on, this wasn't just his home.
It was his oath.
The next morning, while the other children gathered for their weekend chores, Kai quietly slipped back into Hollow Keep with a new objective: gear.
He had learned from the battle in the nest. Raw strength meant nothing if he couldn't hide, move, adapt. He needed to control every part of the fight before it happened — before the world ever realized there was a fight.
He pulled out his notebook and began sketching designs.
By nightfall, the construction began.
It wasn't flashy. No armor. No cape.
Just pieces pulled from utility uniforms, discarded tech kits, and fragments of curse-treated fabric salvaged from old exorcism scrolls.
He forged it slowly, with method and precision.
A black hoodie, double-stitched and lined with curse-resistant thread. The inner hem bore a personal barrier seal — subtle, pressure-reactive, and silent.
Tight-fitted gloves, reinforced with talisman weave. Good for grip. Good for tracing glyphs on the fly. He added a charm in the left palm for emergency ward deployment.
A reinforced blindfold, now layered with energy suppression runes woven directly into the band. It muted his cursed presence almost entirely.
Slim-fit pants with hidden pouches for scrolls, nails, smoke tags.
A folding dagger made from salvaged pipe metal, inscribed with a minor cursed core — designed not just to pierce, but to disrupt cursed mass.
Each item was tested in the Keep's center. He paced, moved, rolled, struck the air, climbed mock ledges.
Every stitch had meaning.
Every seal had weight.
He wore it all for the first time that evening.
Stood in the mirror shard wedged in the wall.
And stared.
Still small.
Still lean.
Still technically five years old.
But now — armored in silence. Armored in will.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then, finally, he whispered:
"Now I start."
That night, he moved like wind through Gotham's southern district. No rooftops yet. Just alley edges, abandoned storefronts, and utility catwalks.
A test run.
But halfway through, something called to him.
He felt it — the tug of cursed pressure slipping under concrete. Old pain. The kind that never healed.
He followed it.
To a junkyard.
Where a man slept in a rusted car.
And a spirit crouched above it.
It looked like a slouched puppet made of coat hangers and wires. Its limbs rattled. Its head spun slowly, as if caught in a loop of its own memory. It didn't hiss. It didn't growl. It whimpered.
Kai appeared behind it, stepping between two rusted crates.
No sound.
The spirit jerked around, sensing him — and froze.
It saw the blindfold.
The seals.
The hum of something that didn't belong in this world.
It tried to scream.
Kai raised a talisman.
Snapped it.
The cursed paper flared blue — and the spirit staggered, momentarily stunned.
That was all he needed.
He moved in.
One strike.
Quick.
Silent.
The blade slid through cursed matter like butter, and the spirit dissolved into smoke and static.
The man in the car never stirred.
Kai looked at him for a moment, heart steady, hands clean.
Then vanished.
He returned to Hollow Keep just before dawn, gear damp with rain, steps soft across the stone.
He removed the blindfold, washed the blade, and lit a single lantern at the altar.
Then sat.
Not because he was tired.
But because he needed to remember how this felt.
The first one.
Not the nest.
Not defense.
This was the first hunt.
And it had gone perfectly.
He opened his logbook and wrote:
Mission 001: Confirmed exorcism. Type: Constructed scavenger. Location: East Junkyard. Result: One strike. No witness. No detection. Target neutralized.
Then added:
Presence suppression: 92% effectiveness. Blindfold integrity: holding.
He stopped writing.
And underlined the date.
Then he closed the book.
And smiled.