POV: Kaito Mugenrei
The battlefield had gone silent, save for the low, trembling rasp of the dying. Smoke twisted through the broken trees, curling like black veins across the ashen snow. Kaito stood at the center of it all, breathing hard, blood dripping from the edge of his greatsword. The blade's once-dark sheen had turned molten red, steam rising in faint waves.
Anzuyi lay among the rubble behind him, her chest rising unevenly. A deep cut marked her side where one of the ogres' axes had grazed her. She had managed to kill two before being thrown against the stones. Even now, her fingers refused to release her daggers.
The ogres lumbered in a loose ring around them, snarling, shifting—yet none advanced. Their yellow eyes twitched, their nostrils flaring. Then, as if an unseen command had rippled through the air, they began to step aside.
Not out of fear. Not even fatigue.
Obedience.
A path opened through their hulking forms. And from it, a figure emerged—calm, immaculate, utterly foreign to the chaos he walked through.
He was draped in long robes of gray and violet, trimmed with silver runes that shimmered faintly under the smoky light. His hair was the pale white of northern frost, slicked neatly back, and over his eyes gleamed two metallic lenses that shifted and refocused with faint mechanical clicks.
A Valerian. But not a soldier.
This one carried the air of a scholar—the cruel, detached calm of a man who saw no difference between flesh and formula.
He paused to glance around the battlefield. His gaze moved from the corpses to the ash, then to Kaito himself, as though inspecting a painting. When he finally spoke, his tone was soft, measured, disturbingly kind.
"Curious," he murmured. "You've survived longer than projected. Unmodified, yet efficient. A relic that refuses to break."
Kaito raised his sword slightly, the point dragging against the snow. "And you are?"
The man smiled faintly. "Merely an observer. One who has a…personal interest in your companion."
His eyes—cold behind the lenses—shifted past Kaito and landed on Anzuyi. Something in his smile changed. It became recognition. Then delight.
"Ah," he whispered. "The little shadow from House Bizen. How poetic. They said you disappeared after the treaty. I assumed the family had…disposed of its error."
Anzuyi's breath caught. Her eyes, already dim with pain, widened as though struck.
The man knelt beside her, close enough for her to smell the faint scent of oil and reagent clinging to his robes. "Still so quiet? Did our sessions not loosen your tongue?" He reached forward, brushing a gloved finger along the blood on her cheek. "You used to tremble when I brought out the tools."
Her entire body stiffened.
The memories came not as thoughts, but sensations. Cold metal tables. The sterile brightness of an operating lamp. The sound of her own heartbeat echoing off stone.
And that same voice, calm and unhurried: Pain is the price of perfection.
Somewhere in those flashes, she remembered the seal burned into her family's documents—the Bizen crest—offered to Valeria as a gesture of "cooperation."
She had been the gift.
Anzuyi's breath shuddered. "You…"
The man tilted his head. "Still quiet. Some habits never die."
Her hands trembled around her daggers, but her strength failed her. The blades fell into the snow with a dull sound.
Kaito had not moved. But his silence had changed.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm in a way that promised violence.
"Never in my life has anyone come when I called."
He sheathed his greatsword and looked north, toward the mountains.
"If help comes, let them clean the ashes. I'll handle the fire."
He took one step forward.
The Valerian rose to meet him, unhurried.
"If you value your life, head back," Kaito said without looking at Anzuyi. "No one will call you a coward."
She said nothing. Her breath came ragged and small.
The Valerian chuckled softly. "Protective now? How endearing. You were meant to be weapons, both of you. Failed prototypes. It seems even failures cling to one another in the cold."
Kaito's eyes lifted, and something inside him—something long frozen—shifted. The fury that came was quiet, precise.
"He's mine," he said.
No roar. No threat. Just a sentence. Final and absolute.
The Valerian adjusted his gloves. "Then let us continue the experiment."
He raised his hand, and the ogres moved instantly, surrounding Kaito once more. The ground trembled beneath their synchronized steps. Their veins glowed faintly red under the skin—the mark of corruption perfected by this man's hand.
Kaito inhaled once. The cold burned his lungs.
Then he moved.
The first ogre fell before it could swing. The black blade ripped upward through muscle and bone, spraying steam and blood. The second swung a hammer that crushed a crater into the ground—but Kaito was already past it, sliding through the dust, cutting a clean line across its chest.
He fought like someone who had forgotten the meaning of defense. Every swing carried the full weight of his body and the full measure of his restraint.
The air cracked with every impact.
Anzuyi watched through the haze, her body trembling as she tried to rise. The ogres' roars blurred into a wall of noise. She had fought in shadows her entire life—silent kills, precision, one heartbeat, one blade.
But this…
This was chaos.
And chaos devoured her.
A club smashed the ground near her. She rolled aside, stabbing upward out of reflex. Her dagger met flesh, but another blow came from behind. She barely blocked it, the shock rattling her arms.
Kaito saw her falter.
He tore through another ogre to reach her, shouting her name—but his voice was lost in the thunder of battle.
Anzuyi's legs buckled. Her vision swam. One of the ogres caught her with a backhand swing, sending her crashing into a broken pillar.
The world blinked white.
Kaito turned in time to see her fall, her mask shattered, blood streaking the snow beneath her. The sight hit him harder than any blow could.
Something inside him—whatever restraint he had clung to—snapped.
The greatsword roared through the air, igniting with a violent crimson glow. Every strike after that was merciless. The ogres broke under his onslaught, bodies falling like trees in a storm. The snow turned black with soot and red with blood.
Through it all, the Valerian watched, expression unreadable, whispering into a small, glowing sigil that hovered before him.
"Subject Mugenrei," he said softly. "Behavioral shift detected. From self-destructive to protective aggression. Fascinating."
Kaito looked up from the carnage, eyes wild, chest heaving. His blade dripped black fire.
The Valerian smiled. "Let's see how far the failure can evolve."
And as the last ogre collapsed, the wind shifted—the snow began to fall again, silent and clean—covering the dead as Kaito advanced toward the man who had broken Anzuyi's soul.