Agony.
It was the pain of his very essence being unraveled and rewoven. The world vanished in a torrent of screaming shadows and silent light. He felt a vast, ancient hunger latch onto his spirit and sink its teeth in deep.
Power flooded him. Raw, primordial, and vicious. It was the power of ending things.
The elite guard holding Katsuro dissolved into a puddle of true shadow that evaporated with a faint shriek.
Sensei Kage froze, his eyes wide with genuine fear for the first time. "Fool! You have doomed us all!"
Hirokage rose. He was still Hirokage, but he was also more. Shadows bled from his body, not as a technique, but as a natural exhalation. The light in the room seemed to bend toward the blade in his hand, dying where it touched.
The voice was in him now, part of him.
Yes… it purred. Now… let us feast.
Hirokage's eyes, glowing with the same abyssal darkness as the Sword's, found Sensei Kage.
He took a step forward.
The world had narrowed to a single point: Sensei Kage.
The man who had taught him everything. The man who had lied about everything. He stood frozen, his expression a perfect mask of fury shattered by primal fear. The wakizashi of solid shadow in his hand seemed to waver.
Hirokage took a step. It wasn't a lunge or a charge. It was a glide, the shadows in the room curling around his feet like eager hounds. The Devouring Sword felt like a living extension of his arm, a cold, hungry void that pulled at the very air.
The teacher… the voice cooed in his mind, an intimate and venomous whisper. He fed you lies. Let us feed on him.
"Hiro, stop!" The scream was Katsuro's, raw and desperate from where he still lay on the ground.
The sound of his friend's voice was a flicker of warmth in the vast cold that had consumed Hirokage. It was a memory of a different life, a different person. He hesitated for a fraction of a second.
That was all Daichi needed.
With a cry of pure, misguided loyalty, Daichi abandoned the sobbing initiate and threw himself between Hirokage and Sensei Kage. His own kunai was raised, his face a contorted mix of terror and determination. "You will not touch him, traitor!"
He was a blur of motion, the perfect, disciplined form of the Shadow Fang, a form he and Hirokage had practiced together a thousand times. He aimed not to kill, but to disarm, to disable. A precise strike at Hirokage's wrist.
It was a futile gesture. A pebble trying to dam a flood.
Hirokage didn't even parry.
The Sword moved with a mind of its own. A flick of his wrist, almost casual. The jagged, dark blade met Daichi's kunai.
There was no clang of metal. There was a dry, sucking crackle. The polished steel of the kunai blackened, rusted, and crumbled to dust in the space of a heartbeat.
Daichi's eyes went wide with incomprehension. He stared at his empty hand.
The loyal dog… the Sword hissed, its hunger a physical ache in Hirokage's gut. So full of conviction… it will taste sweet…
"No…" Hirokage whispered, the word a strangled gasp. He fought against the pull, the overwhelming urge. "Daichi… run…"
But it was too late.
The Sword was not a tool. It was the master. And it was hungry.
Hirokage's arm thrust forward, driven by a will that was not entirely his own. The Devouring Sword plunged into Daichi's chest.
There was no scream.
There was only a terrible, silent inhalation from Daichi. His body didn't jerk or convulse. It stiffened, his back arching. His eyes, locked on Hirokage's, didn't show pain. They showed a profound, emptying confusion. The light in them, the cold, disciplined fire that was Daichi flickered and began to drain away.
Hirokage felt it. A torrent of raw energy flooding up the blade and into him. It was not just life force. It was Daichi's strength, his discipline, his memories, the sharp, crisp image of a perfect kata, the cold satisfaction of a mission accomplished, the unwavering certainty of his loyalty to the Sect. It was all unspooled, consumed, and devoured.
The voice in his head sighed with pleasure. Ahhh… the taste of order… so rigid… so pure…
Daichi's skin grayed, desiccating like old parchment. His hair turned white and brittle. He was a husk, a fossilized mockery of the ninja he had been seconds before. When Hirokage yanked the blade free, what was left of Daichi crumbled, collapsing into a pile of fine, grey ash and crumbling bone that settled silently on the bloody floor.
The chamber was utterly silent, save for the ragged, terrified breathing of the initiates.
Katsuro was on his knees, staring at the pile of dust that had been his squadmate, his face a sheet of pure, uncomprehending horror. "What… what did you do…?"
Ayame had stopped moving entirely, her disruption tags forgotten in her hand. She looked from the ashes to Hirokage's face, and what she saw there made her take a stumbling step back.
Sensei Kage used the moment. The shock was his shield. With a guttural cry, he didn't attack. He retreated. He slammed his hand against a hidden panel on the wall. A section of the stone floor gave way beneath Katsuro and Ayame, a sudden trapdoor into blackness. They vanished with startled cries, the door snapping shut instantly.
The elite guard, the last one remaining, gave a sharp nod to Sensei Kage and then dissolved into shadow, fleeing up the tunnel.
They were alone. Sensei Kage and the monster he had created.
Hirokage stood amidst the ashes of his friend, the Sword humming with satisfied power in his grip. The warmth, the strength, the clarity that had been Daichi was now a part of him. The horror was still there, a distant, screaming part of his soul, but it was muffled under the intoxicating wave of power. The voice was right. It did taste sweet.
He turned his glowing eyes back to Sensei Kage, who stood his ground, his black wakizashi held in a shaking defensive stance.
"You see?" Sensei Kage said, his voice stripped of its authority, leaving only a desperate, trembling core. "You see what it is? It does not grant power. It is power. And it consumes everything. You are not its wielder. You are its next meal."
He seeks to delay us… the Sword whispered, its attention now fully on the master. He fears the truth he helped create. Finish it. Devour the lie to fuel the truth.
Hirokage took another step forward, the shadows in the room deepening. The initiates wept in the corner, forgotten by everyone but their fear.
"You taught me that the strong endure," Hirokage said, his voice now a dual toned thing, his own layered over a deeper, hungrier echo. "You taught me that the weak become fuel."
He raised the Devouring Sword, its single eye fixed on Sensei Kage.
"Lesson learned."
Sensei Kage's face was a parchment of terror stretched over a skull. The unshakable discipline of the Shadow Fang was gone, replaced by the raw, animal instinct to survive a predator. He backpedaled, his black wakizashi held before him not as a weapon, but a talisman against the advancing darkness.
"Hirokage, listen to me!" he pleaded, his voice cracking. "You can still control it! We can… we can harness this together! The sect, think of the sect!"
The sect… the Sword's voice was a mocking lullaby in Hirokage's mind. A nest of rats squabbling over crumbs. He would offer you a crumb to save his own skin. Devour the rat. Take the warren for yourself.
The intoxicating rush of Daichi's consumed essence still coursed through Hirokage. The memory of his friend's final, emptying gaze was a cold ember buried under a mountain of intoxicating power. The voice made sense. It was the only thing that made sense in this room of blood and lies.
"You offered me a family," Hirokage said, his voice that chilling blend of his own and the thing that lived in the steel. He took another step, and the shadows clinging to the walls stretched toward Sensei Kage like grasping hands. "You offered me justice. You offered me strength."
He gestured with the Sword to the pile of ash that was Daichi, to the initiates chained and weeping. "This is all you had to offer."
"It is the way of the world!" Sensei Kage cried, his back hitting the cold iron of the broken door. There was nowhere left to run. "The Crimson Ash burn their own to cinders to fuel their hellfire! We are no different! We are just more efficient!"
He begs for his life by comparing his sins to others… the Sword purred. How pathetic. End the comparison.
Hirokage didn't lunge. He simply moved forward, the space between them closing in an instant that defied physics. Sensei Kage screamed, a high, shrill sound of utter despair, and thrust his shadow forged wakizashi forward in a last, desperate strike.
The Devouring Sword moved to meet it.
This time, there was no crumbling. There was only silence.
The inky blackness of the wakizashi seemed to be pulled, like smoke into a vacuum, into the jagged edge of the Sword. The blade itself dissolved, unraveling into strands of pure shadow that were sucked into the hungry eye on the hilt. Sensei Kage's scream cut off as the corruption traveled up his arm. The skin greyed, the muscle withered, the life and power within him, decades of cultivated Kage no Chikara, were siphoned away in a torrent.
Hirokage felt it flood into him. This was different from Daichi. This was vast, deep, a reservoir of shadow and knowledge. He felt the memories of a hundred assassinations, the cold calculus of a thousand betrayals, the intricate patterns of advanced shadow manipulation techniques etching themselves into his mind. He saw the secret meetings with the other sect elders, the maps of territories, the hidden weaknesses of the Crimson Ash's fire masters and the Iron Vein's stone-skin champions. It was all laid bare, consumed, and made his.
Sensei Kage didn't turn to ash. He remained standing for a moment, a desiccated husk held together by will and terror, his eyes two dry, staring orbs in a skeletal face. Then, with a dry rustle, he collapsed into a heap of robes and bones.
The voice in Hirokage's head sighed, a sound of deep, sated pleasure.
A satisfying first course…
Silence descended, thick and heavy. The only sounds were the crackle of the lone remaining torch and the muffled sobs from the corner.
Hirokage stood amidst the evidence of his damnation. Two piles of remains. One a friend, one a father. Both gone. Both devoured.
The power thrummed within him, a dark ocean where his soul used to be. He knew things he should not know. He felt strong enough to tear the stronghold down around his ears. The grief and horror were there, but they were distant, viewed through a thick pane of glass. The Sword's hunger was a more immediate, more real sensation.
His glowing eyes, twin pools of abyssal darkness, slowly turned from the robes of his sensei to the corner of the room.
The initiates flinched back as one, chains rattling. A young boy, the one Daichi had been dragging to the altar, whimpered, pressing his face into the shoulder of the girl next to him.
The offering… the voice whispered, its hunger stirring again, not sated, but awakened. The fuel they gathered for us… why let it go to waste? Power, little shadow. Pure, untouched power. Take it. It is your right.
Hirokage took a step toward them. The shadows in the room leaned in with him.
The boy squeezed his eyes shut.
Hirokage stopped.
The boy's face… it was pinched with terror, streaked with dirt and tears. It was his own face, a lifetime ago, watching his parents cut down for ideals that meant nothing in this wasteland.
Justice through action.
The words surfaced from the depths, a ghost from a drowned world.
This was not justice. This was the same thing Sensei Kage would have done. This was what the sects did. This was the law of the wasteland.
He had become what he hated.
With a shudder that wracked his entire body, Hirokage wrenched his gaze away from the children. He focused on their chains, on the heavy locks. He raised the Devouring Sword.
No… the voice hissed, a spike of angry protest. Do not deny us!
"Be silent," Hirokage growled, the words gritted out through clenched teeth. It was the first resistance he had offered the voice since grasping the hilt.
He brought the blade down. But not on flesh. On the chains. The ancient, pitted iron did not break; it dissolved where the Sword touched it, withering into rust and then into nothingness.
The initiates stared, too terrified to move, even as their bonds vanished.
"Go," Hirokage commanded, his voice a ragged thing, strained from the internal battle. He pointed the Sword toward the broken doorway, toward the tunnels. "Run. And never look back."
They scrambled to their feet, stumbling over each other in their desperation to flee. They didn't look back. In seconds, they were gone, their footsteps echoing away into silence.
The voice in his head was a silent, furious storm.
Sentiment… a weakness… they will bring others… they will hunt you…
"Let them hunt," Hirokage whispered to the empty, blood stained chamber. He looked at the pile of ash that was Daichi, then at the heap of robes that was Sensei Kage. He was alone. Truly alone.
Except for the voice.
Except for the hunger.
He had chosen to devour. And now he was forever devoured.
The truth of it settled in his bones, colder than the Sword's touch. He was an exile. A rogue. A monster wielding a legend of terror. The entire Shadow Fang sect, and eventually every other sect, would be coming for him.
The voice, sensing his despair, returned to its seductive whisper.
Then we must become the hunter… not the prey… it cooed. We must grow stronger than any who would seek us. The wasteland is vast. It is full of things to devour.
Hirokage turned his back on the sanctum, on the remnants of his old life. He walked out into the dark tunnel, the Devouring Sword humming a low, eager song only he could hear.
He had no home. No family. No nindo.
There was only the hunt. And the hunger.
And the whisper in the dark, promising him power.
The tunnels of the Shadow Fang stronghold, once a place of belonging, of drilled routines and shared secrets, were now a tomb. The air, once smelling of damp rock and communal meals, now carried the iron tainted memory of what he had done. Of what he had become.
Hirokage moved through them not as a member, but as a ghost. A predator. The shadows, which he had once learned to blend with, now curled around him like loyal subjects, deepening and stretching at his passing. The Devouring Sword was a cold weight in his hand, its single eye half lidded, sated for the moment, but always watching. Always hungry.
They will be mobilizing… the voice murmured, a constant companion in the cathedral of his skull. The loyal dogs, roused by their master's death. Their fear will make them strong. Or foolish.
He didn't need the voice to tell him. He could feel it. The subtle vibrations in the stone, the shift in the air pressure. The sect was awakening, a hive struck and now buzzing with alarm. Shouts echoed from deeper within, the clash of steel on steel, not combat yet, but the frantic arming of a fortress preparing for a siege.
Against me, he thought, the reality of it a cold stone in his gut. He was the threat now.
A squad of three junior sentries rounded a corner ahead, their faces pale but determined under their headbands. They were boys he'd trained with, shared meals with. Their eyes widened as they saw him, the glowing eyes, the bleeding shadows, the infamous blade held loosely in his grip.
"Halt, traitor!" the lead one shouted, his voice cracking with fear. He fumbled for a kunai.
See? the Sword whispered. The pups bark. They do not yet know they are already dead.
Hirokage didn't want to fight them. The part of him that was still Hirokage recoiled. But that part was buried under the cold, efficient knowledge he had consumed from Sensei Kage. He saw their stances, their footwork flawed, predictable. He saw a dozen ways to kill them before they could even ready their weapons.
He chose the fastest.
He didn't move. The shadows around him did.
Tendrils of absolute darkness lashed out from the walls, moving with a speed that defied the eye. They wrapped around the throats of the two flanking sentries. There was no struggle, no sound. The light simply vanished from their eyes, snuffed out, and their bodies went limp, dragged back into the crevices from which the shadows had sprung.
The lead sentry stared, his kunai falling from nerveless fingers. He vomited onto the stone floor.
Hirokage walked past him. The boy was no threat. He was broken. A resource not worth the effort of harvesting.
Sentiment… the voice chided, but without its earlier heat. It was learning him. He will describe you to his superiors. He will give them a name for their fear.
"Let him," Hirokage said, his voice rough from disuse. He needed them to be afraid. Fear would make them hesitate. Fear would make them stupid.
He was heading for the armory. Not for weapons, but for the evidence locker. Sensei Kage's consumed memories had provided a treasure trove of secrets, but they were impressions, feelings, flashes of maps and faces. He needed concrete intelligence. He needed to know what the Fang knew about the other sects, about the wasteland, about the Black Sun they all feared. Knowledge was power. And power was the only currency that mattered now.
The main armory was a bustle of controlled panic. Ninja scrambled for gear, their voices a low, anxious hum. He bypassed it, slipping into a side passage known only to the elite, a memory gifted by his last meal. A single guard stood before a reinforced door, his Kage no Chikara already active, his body half phased into the wall itself.
He saw Hirokage and his eyes went wide. He began to melt fully into the stone, to raise the alarm.
Hirokage didn't give him the chance.
He didn't use the Sword. He used the knowledge inside him. He moved his hand in a sharp, complex gesture Sensei Kage had perfected, a technique that manipulated the very cohesion of shadow. The guard's own shadow, cast by the wall sconce, suddenly snapped taut around him like a net, yanking him out of the stone and pinning him, rigid and terrified, against the door.
A parlor trick… the Sword mused, unimpressed. But efficient.
Hirokage placed a hand on the man's forehead. He didn't need to kill him. The fear was enough. The guard's eyes rolled back in his head as the invasive shadow technique overwhelmed his mind, dropping him into unconsciousness.
The door was sealed with a complex blood lock. Hirokage simply placed the tip of the Devouring Sword against the mechanism. The ancient, enchanted metal blackened and corroded instantly, the lock crumbling to dust.
Inside was not an armory, but a library of secrets. Scroll cases lined the walls. Maps of the wasteland were spread on tables, marked with sect territories and symbols he now understood, the flaming skull of the Crimson Ash, the mountain keep of the Iron Vein, the raindrop and knife of the Silent Rain. There were dossiers on rival sect leaders, their strengths, their vices.
And there, on a stand by itself, was what he needed. A large, hide map, older than the others, its edges frayed. It depicted a vast, blasted region to the north, far beyond any sect's claimed territory. In its center was drawn a black circle, like an eclipsed sun. Scrawled beside it in spidery Common Tongue were the words: "Sun's Grave // The Black Maw // Here there be Demons."
The Black Sun Sect's supposed origin point. The source of the fear that drove the other sects to their monstrous rituals.
A direction… the voice purred, intrigued. A place of old power… old hunger…
He rolled the map tightly and shoved it into his robes. He grabbed a few select scrolls on advanced shadow techniques, things Sensei Kage had known but never taught him. Fuel for the fire.
An alarm horn blared, deep and resonant, shaking dust from the ceiling. The general alarm. They'd found the bodies. They knew he was here.
Time to leave the warren, little shadow… the voice urged, its hunger returning, eager for the open hunt. The wider world awaits. And it is full of things that need to be devoured.
Hirokage turned his back on the vault of secrets. He had what he needed.
He strode back into the tunnels, not with stealth, but with purpose. The shadows parted for him. Squads of Fang ninja saw him, their formations faltering, their courage breaking against the palpable aura of dread that radiated from him and the blade. He didn't engage. He was a storm passing through, and they were merely trees bending in his wake.
He emerged from the main entrance behind the waterfall of black sludge, blinking in the grey, ashen light of the wasteland day. The air, though tainted, felt clean compared to the lies and blood of the stronghold.
He stood on the canyon rim, looking back at the hidden home that had betrayed him, that he had in turn betrayed. He could hear the shouts of pursuit forming behind him.
He was Hirokage no more. He was a rogue. A demon of the Fang. A man with a hungry sword and a map to hell.
The voice in his head was a promise and a curse.
Run… it whispered. Let them chase. It will make the feast sweeter when we turn and devour them all.
Hirokage turned his back on his past and faced the endless, broken expanse of the future. He took his first step into the ashes.
The hunt had begun.