Cel took a slow breath and closed his eyes.
The bond was there - carved into him like scripture across his soul. Silent Moon. Not just a weapon waiting in some distant armory, but something closer.
He raised his hand and reached for it.
Not with fingers, but with intent. A pulse of will extended from his chest like a breath released into cold air.
The air shifted.
Cel's eyes snapped open.
Ash curled inward at his feet, recoiling from something unseen. A breeze rose - sudden and soundless - carrying no temperature, no scent. Just presence. The gray dust spiraled toward a point before him, caught in an invisible current.
A glimmer appeared in the empty air.
Then it grew.
Thread by thread, moonlight unraveled from nothing. Weaving. Building. The light moved with deliberate grace, as if the artifact had always existed beneath the surface of reality and was only now choosing to be seen.
The radiance exploded.
He threw up an arm, shielding his face as the light reached its peak - blinding, merciless, absolute. For a heartbeat, the Ashlands vanished into pure white.
Then the brilliance collapsed inward.
When he could see again, a blade hung in the air before him.
Long. Slender. Perfectly straight.
A chokutō.
Recognition sparked immediately. A straight katana - he'd studied its form years ago during weapons training. Simple geometry. Single-edged. Single-edged. Practical. The kind of weapon that rewarded precision over fancy movements.
But this was no training blade.
It hovered in the air, and Cel found himself unable to look away.
Deep violet bled into dark steel along its length, creating a flow that shifted with the angle of his gaze. The edge carried a spectral indigo sheen - subtle, but unmistakable.
His eyes traced down the blade's length and stopped.
Etched into the blade near its hold were nine symbols. Moon phases. Crescents, half-moons, and at the heart - a full circle. Each one carved with divine precision, spaced in flawless intervals from new moon to full and back again.
No embellishment. No wasted detail. Just the phases themselves, stark against the metal.
The guard was a narrow oval - simple, obsidian-dark, serving its purpose without demanding attention. Below it, the hilt stretched clean and sure, wrapped in midnight silk that caught the hollow light. Dusk blue and coal black, braided together like woven shadows.
A single crimson ribbon trailed from the pommel.
Cel's fingers twitched at his side.
He could feel the weapon's weight without touching it. Not physical mass, but meaning. Presence. This artifact had been forged for a single purpose, meant for one hand alone.
The Moon's.
Or now... his.
Slowly, he reached forward.
His fingers closed around the hilt.
Cold shot through his palm.
Cel gasped - not from pain, but from sudden, sharp awareness. The sensation raced up his arm, into his shoulder, straight to his chest where it settled like ice against his ribs.
The weapon wasn't just metal. It was alive - responding to his touch like something waking from a long sleep.
Then the moon phases began to glow.
Four of them ignited with soft white light - pristine and cold, like moonlight untouched by cloud or smoke. The outermost crescents blazed first, then two quarter moons, illuminating in sequence along the blade's length.
But five remained dark.
The full moon at the center. The half-moons on either side. And two crescents flanking them.
Those symbols alone stayed dormant, as if the weapon had looked inside him and found those spaces... empty.
Cel stared at them, pulse quickening.
'Empathic Steel.'
The description hadn't explained what that meant. Now he understood.
The blade was reading him. Not his thoughts or memories - something deeper. And it was reflecting that truth back through those glowing symbols, showing him exactly what he was in this moment.
But what did it mean that five phases remained unlit?
He didn't know. At least not yet.
His grip tightened around the hilt. The weapon felt... right. Balanced perfectly for his reach, the weight distributed in a way that made holding it feel natural despite his lack of real combat experience.
Cel lifted the blade slightly, watching how the edge caught the red dawn light.
A bitter smile pulled at his lips.
His father had spent years trying to make him into a warrior… and failed completely. The clan's weapon masters had given up on him before he'd turned twelve.
Now the Moon Goddess had placed a divine blade in his hands.
The irony was almost beautiful.
"This is mine," he whispered.
Not handed down from his clan. Not stolen, borrowed or granted as charity. Earned through suffering. Through death itself.
Cel exhaled slowly and stepped back from the twisted pillar, letting the Ashlands stretch around him. Silence pressed in from all sides, heavy and waiting.
Time to see what this weapon could actually do.
Cel adjusted his grip, fingers settling into the silk wrapping. The hilt was just long enough for two hands, but he held it with one - the way a chokutō was meant to be wielded. Single-handed.
His stance felt wrong immediately.
Feet too close together. Weight distributed poorly. But fragments of old lessons surfaced anyway - the theory he'd been drilled on years ago, buried beneath failure and his father's disappointment.
He planted his feet wider into the ash and raised the blade. Not high. Not aggressive. Just... ready.
Then he moved.
A basic diagonal slash. Down and across.
His arm surged forward.
Too fast. Too hard.
The blade ripped through empty air with violent speed, and Cel's entire body lurched with it. His front foot skidded through loose ash.
He stumbled, barely catching himself before falling completely.
Dust scattered around his legs as he straightened, breathing harder than he should have been.
'What in the gods' name…?'
He'd barely put any force into that swing. Just a simple practice cut, the kind he'd done hundreds of times as a child.
But his muscles had responded with far more strength than he'd meant to use.
Cel gritted his teeth and reset his stance.
This time he moved more carefully. A straight thrust forward. Slow. Controlled.
His arm extended—
And the blade shot forward.
The tip punched through air like it had real weight behind it, his shoulder rotating harder than he'd planned. His back foot scraped against stone as his body tried to compensate, and he had to hop once - actually hop - to keep from pitching forward.
Heat crawled up his neck.
This was absurd.
He had strength now. Real strength, gifted by divine resurrection. But his body didn't know what to do with it. His mind gave commands expecting the response of his old, broken flesh - and his muscles answered with overwhelming force he couldn't control.
The weapon made no protest. Silent Moon followed every motion with perfect balance, its weight barely felt in his grip.
It wasn't the blade that was clumsy.
It was him.
Cel stood motionless for a moment, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. Frustration coiled tight in his chest, hot and familiar.
'Focus.'
He closed his eyes briefly, forcing the heat down. Getting angry wouldn't help. He needed to adjust. Learn this body's limits the same way he'd learned to survive that cell - through observation and adaptation.
When he opened his eyes again, his vision had narrowed.
Not to the empty Ashlands or the distant horizon.
Just to what he could feel.
The brittle ground beneath his feet. The silk wrapping against his palm. The quiet hum of power coiled beneath his skin, waiting.
He readied the blade again. Slower this time.
His weight shifted onto his back foot. Core tightened. Front foot lifted slightly, hovering.
Then forward.
A thrust. Clean. Measured.
His arm extended at the speed he intended - not perfect, but closer. The blade's tip drove straight ahead, cutting through air without that wild surge of uncontrolled strength.
His balance held.
When he pulled back, his feet stayed planted exactly where he'd put them.
Better.
Not good. Not even competent by any real standard.
But better.
Cel let the tension drain and glanced down at the blade in his hand.
Then froze.
Two more moon phases had ignited.
Now all six crescents on the outer edges shone along Silent Moon's length, leaving only the full moon and the half-moons at the center unlit, dark and waiting.
Cel's breath caught.
The blade hadn't responded to strength. Hadn't cared about perfect form or technique he didn't possess.
It had responded to focus.
To the moment his mind and body had aligned.
Something warm flickered in his chest. Not pride - he had no right to that yet. But recognition.
The weapon saw him - just like the Moon Goddess did.
Not what he pretended to be. Not what others wanted him to be.
Just what he was in each moment - distracted or centered, scattered or focused.
And it reflected that truth without judgment.
Cel's fingers tightened around the hilt, that warmth spreading.
He adjusted his stance again, more confident this time. Weight back. Core engaged. Blade raised.
A downward cut. Precise. Controlled.
His front foot stepped forward—
—and sank.
The ash gave way beneath his heel. His weight pitched forward, balance destroyed before the cut even began.
Cel tried to compensate mid-swing.
His arm jerked back. The blade pitched upward, tip veering wide. His back leg locked, and he nearly went down on one knee before catching himself.
Clumsy. Terrible.
He straightened slowly, jaw clenched, and looked down at Silent Moon.
The two crescents beside the half-moons had gone dark again.
But not just them.
Two more phases had dimmed as well - the quarters, one on each side. Their light snuffed out like candles in sudden wind.
Only two remained lit now. The outer crescents, glowing faintly at the edges of the blade.
Cel stared at the darkened symbols.
He understood now.
This wasn't a tool he could master through repetition or brute force. Silent Moon demanded more than technique. It demanded something he'd spent years trying to bury beneath rage and survival instinct.
Presence.
Awareness of himself - not just his body's movements, but his mind's state. Every flicker of doubt. Every surge of confidence. Every moment of clarity or chaos.
The blade would reflect all of it.
Yet he didn't understand what those reflections actually did. What power they unlocked or withheld.
He would have to learn that.
But now. Not today.
Expecting to master a divine weapon in the span of minutes was absurd.
His fingers loosened slightly on the hilt, tension draining from his shoulders.
Understanding would come.
Eventually.
First, he needed to understand his other gifts.
Cel dismissed Silent Moon with a thought.
The blade dissolved into moonlight, threads of pale radiance unraveling until nothing remained but empty air. The connection didn't sever - he could still feel the weapon's presence within him, waiting just beneath the surface of reality.
Ready when he needed it.
His attention turned inward, reaching for the authority of White Death.
Frostmark.