Ling Wu's bandaged gaze stayed fixed on Kazuya. A long silence sat between them before she finally spoke. Her voice had lost that playful edge it usually carried.
"Kazuya," she began, "we barely know each other, but I've already realized something. You're... unusual."
"How so?"
"Your tone is always flat, you don't show anything, and your way of thinking is pragmatic to the point where it feels heartless." She tilted her head. "You don't seem like a bad guy, but you aren't exactly a 'good' one either."
Kazuya didn't offer a defense. He didn't feel the need to justify the way he was built.
"Is that wrong?" he asked. "I am the way I am to survive. 'Good' and 'Evil' are meaningless labels. What is the reason for restricting yourself to one label if you're going to die in the end?"
Ling Wu listened, her expression unreadable.
"I consider myself neutral," Kazuya added. "I act based on whatever benefits my objective."
"Then why didn't you act in front of me?" she asked. "Surely it would have been easier to work with me if you played a part."
"You saw my body heal," Kazuya said. "And you seemed like the type of person who would be easier to deal with if I was just myself. Most importantly..." He looked at her directly. "...I doubt I could deceive you."
Ling Wu's lips curled into a faint smile. "What if that was a misjudgment? What if you actually could have fooled me?"
Kazuya thought about it for a second. "I don't know about earlier. But now, I think I understand you a little. For better or worse, we're alike. I don't want to put on an act around someone like me."
Ling Wu let out a sharp laugh. "Alike? Us? In what way?"
"You hate these people, don't you?"
The question caught her off guard. Ling Wu went quiet, something that did not happen often.
"You aren't a bad person, but you aren't 'good' either," Kazuya continued. "You play the part with them because it benefits you. If you didn't, as you said yourself, you'd invite the same fire that took your kin. Don't get me wrong, we're alike, but also vastly different. You're inherently a good person, I'm not."
Ling Wu stared at him through the white cloth. Suddenly, she reached out and placed a hand on his head.
"You're wrong about one thing," she said.
"Which is?"
"You're wrong about yourself. You're a good person."
Kazuya didn't move. He didn't feel any warmth from the compliment. "And your proof?"
"Just a hunch," she giggled.
Kazuya could only sigh. The conversation was drifting into the realm of things that couldn't be measured or proven.
"Kazuya," she asked, ruffling his hair gently, "I'm intrigued. Since when have you been like this? This... way you are?"
"Since birth," he said, his gaze lowering to the stone street. "I've always been seen as faulty, defective, and flawed. My voice and my face just push people away."
"So you've always been seen as an emotionless person?"
"Yeah."
Ling Wu seemed to fall into deep thought. Before she could speak, Kazuya cut through the mood. "This aside, what are we doing now that the clothes are handled?"
She retracted her hand slowly. Her smile widened, shifting back into the role of the master. "Now, I'm going to drag you through hell until you wish we never met. Follow me, disciple. We're heading to your training ground."
The destination was a ruin, an abandoned mansion that had been rotting for decades. Nobody had bothered to tear it down, leaving it as a hollow shell for anyone to wander through.
"Is this it?" Kazuya asked.
"Yes. People can come here, but they don't," Ling Wu explained. "I use this place personally, so they avoid it."
Kazuya looked at the wreckage. He didn't care about the damp or the decay. It was just a place.
"Let's not waste time," she said. "Your clothes will take five days, so you'll have to deal with training in those casual ones."
They entered through a broken gate. The courtyard was a graveyard of weeds and cracked stone.
"Your physique is average," she said bluntly. "We'll start with warmups."
Kazuya followed her instructions without hesitation. When the blood was moving, she pointed to the mansion. "Run around the entire first and second floors."
Kazuya started. The first floor was a labyrinth of collapsed walls and broken furniture. Insects scurried under his feet, and the thick dust made him cough, but he didn't slow down. The stairs were worse, rotting wood that required careful footwork to avoid a snap.
The second floor felt like it was waiting to collapse. He instinctively sped up, his heart thumping against his ribs as he cleared the final rooms and ran back down to the courtyard. He was already drenched in sweat and grey with dust.
"What now?" he asked, trying to steady his breathing.
"Push-ups. On the ground."
Kazuya hit the stone. He managed a count that was below average, the run had already eaten his stamina. He eventually fell, his chest heaving.
"Look at you," Ling Wu sighed. "You're even worse than—"
She stopped. Kazuya was pushing himself back up. His arms were shaking violently, his movements slow and ugly, but he didn't stop.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
He finished the set and finally collapsed, his limbs feeling like lead.
"Not bad," she laughed. "But the road is long. Get up."
The day was a blur of building muscle and testing endurance. She showed him a range of exercises, ensuring he would know how to work even if she wasn't there to watch him. By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, Kazuya was sprawled on his back in the dirt. His clothes were damp and clung to him like a cold skin. His hair was a mess.
"Let's go," she said, looking at the black sky. "You need to wake up early tomorrow."
Back at the house, Ling Wu handed him a set of clothes.
"Take a shower, I'll make dinner in the meantime."
Kazuya took them. They were male clothes, and they weren't her size. He wondered why she had them, but he didn't have the energy to ask.
When he emerged from the bath, the smell of actual food hit him. Ling Wu might have been a disaster at baking, but her cooking was different. It was good. Delicious, even. Kazuya ate with a feral hunger, asking for seconds and thirds until the ache in his stomach finally silenced.
Ling Wu showed Kazuya to his room, it was the same one he had woken up in.
As she turned to leave the room, Kazuya stopped her.
"Yes?"
"Why are you helping me?"
"We had a deal, didn't we? Baking for training."
"The deal isn't equal," Kazuya said. "You helped me in the forest. You brought me here, fed me, and gave me clothes. That's more than 'kindness.' Tell me the real reason."
Ling Wu sighed, a small chuckle escaping her. "I'm bad at hiding things, it seems. I helped you because I saw something."
She stepped forward and pressed a finger against his chest.
"You have an incredible power inside you. You see, my eyes are special, I see the visible and the hidden. Usually, I see everything. But in you... it's mysterious, it's like it's being hidden from me on purpose."
Kazuya's heart beat faster, but he kept his face still.
Could she be talking about the power that lets me revive?
If his body was stitching itself back together because of something inside him, something hidden, then he wasn't just a lucky survivor, he was probably a vessel for something he didn't understand.
"So you're helping me because of what's inside me?"
"I'm surprised you're so calm about it," she said. "But yes, that's the reason."
Kazuya nodded. It confirmed his suspicion, Ling Wu wasn't a charity. She had a goal, and she needed a weapon with "incredible power" to achieve it. He didn't ask what that goal was. He knew she wouldn't tell him yet.
He waited until she left, then lay back on the bed. The exhaustion was a heavy weight, pulling him down. He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
"..."
In the depths of sleep, murmurs found him.
They weren't words. They were soft noises that scraped against the inside of his skull. Kazuya could do nothing but listen as the world around him shifted. He was standing in a barren wasteland, a landscape of gray soil under a sky that had no sun. The air was thick with a dim fog.
He stood motionless, staring into the gray void, until the murmurs began to sharpen. They grew louder, layering over one another until they became screams.
Kazuya's eyes snapped open.
He jolted upright, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Cold sweat slicked his forehead, and when he looked down at his hands, he saw them trembling.
For the first time in his life, Kazuya felt fear, true fear.
It wasn't the shallow panic of a near-miss, but a cold drill boring into his bones. He didn't know why. He had dreamed a thousand times before, and those dreams had never left a mark. This was different. This was a biological rejection of whatever he had just seen.
He clasped his hands together, pressing his knuckles against his forehead until the trembling stopped and his breathing steadied.
"What the hell was that?" he muttered.
The silence of the room offered no answer. The lingering dread made sleep impossible, so he didn't try. He slipped out of the bed, moved silently through the house, and stepped out into the night city.
He found himself back at the abandoned mansion. The courtyard was bathed in a weak silver light, enough to see the jagged edges of the debris. Kazuya didn't hesitate. He went back to work.
He pushed his body through every exercise Ling Wu had shown him. He moved heavy stones, relocating piles of rubble just to feel the strain in his muscles. He had realized something during the day: his regeneration gave him an unfair advantage in training. Ordinary people needed a long time to recover after a workout, but Kazuya only needed a few hours.
He worked until his limbs were lead and his breath came in ragged gasps.
I need to be patient, he told himself, wiping sweat from his eyes. Regeneration or not, there's only so much a body can take before it quits.
He was turning to leave when a dry creak echoed through the courtyard.
Kazuya froze. His gaze landed on a pile of shadows near a collapsed wall. Slowly, a figure detached itself from the dark. It looked human at first glance, but closer inspection revealed a floating shape made of concentrated ink with no legs and no features, save for two pinpricks of red light where eyes should be.
Kazuya's pupils contracted. He backed away, his boots scuffing against the stone. The shadowy thing looked around in a distressed motion before its red gaze locked onto him.
It flew straight toward him.
"Ugh—" Kazuya's legs buckled, the muscles he had just spent an hour destroying screamed in protest.
He broke into a run, cursing his own timing. He looked back to see the thing gaining ground. He reached down, snatched a rock, and hurled it with everything he had. The stone passed through the shadow's chest as if it were smoke, clattering uselessly against a wall.
It was fast, too fast.
The shadow reached him, its long, ink-like claws slashing at the air. Kazuya rolled, the jagged stone of the courtyard tearing at his skin. He scrambled up, dodging again and again, but as he reached the exit of the mansion, he skidded to a halt.
The night was no longer empty. A dozen shadows appeared from the darkness, surrounding him in a circle.
Kazuya's panic didn't flare. In the face of a total checkmate, he became cold. He didn't know what these things were, and he didn't care. He couldn't trust that his revival would work a third time. He had to survive here.
My legs are giving out, and I'm exhausted. Even if my body heals the cuts, the fatigue still hits me, I can't push through that.
He looked at the circle of red eyes and spoke, his voice as flat as a grave.
"Even if it's a dreadful situation... so what?"
The shadows rushed him.
Kazuya spun on his heel and sprinted for a gap, but there were too many. He rolled, dodged, and ducked, but the claws found him. In minutes, he was a map of shallow red gasps. His blood stained the casual clothes Ling Wu had given him. He was at the edge of collapse when a voice cut through the dark, chanting with a heavy authority.
"What is impure shall be cleansed. Let the tainted walk the Grey. Grant me your aid for these lost souls."
A soft yet vibrant light erupted from the ground. Beneath Kazuya's feet, lush green grass tore through the stone.
The shadows froze. Vines, thick and glowing with the same soft light, snaked out of the earth and coiled around the ink-like figures. They couldn't struggle. Roses bloomed on their chests, and as the petals opened, the shadows simply dissipated into mist.
Kazuya stood in the center of the sudden garden, his face expressionless. He watched the last of the red eyes vanish.
Footsteps approached. The grass was already beginning to wither back into the cracks of the stone.
The man walking toward him was built like a pillar. He wore a dark blue robe over a white shirt left open at the collar. A mandolin was strapped across his back. His brown hair fell in a braid over his shoulder. He was smiling, a friendly and easy expression that didn't match the carnage he had just ended.
"'Even if it's a dreadful situation, so what?'" The man's voice was raspy but gentle. "A wonderful line. Simple resolve. I'm impressed someone your age can say that with a straight face."
Kazuya's eyes widened. He didn't stay still. He bowed, low and deep. "Thank you, my savior. I am grateful. I owe you my life."
The man blinked, his smile faltering for a second. He clearly hadn't expected the "fearless" boy to be so humble.
Kazuya straightened up, scratching his cheek with a feigned nervousness. "I only said that because I was terrified. I was just trying to convince myself I wasn't about to die."
A flicker of disappointment passed through the man's eyes, though the friendly mask returned quickly. "Understandable. Most would have been frozen, you're actually doing better than most."
"Benefactor," Kazuya said, choosing his moment, "what should I call you?"
"Kalthor!"
The shout came from the street. Kazuya turned to see Ling Wu coming toward them. Even with the bandages, her agitation was visible in the way she moved.
Kazuya looked back at the man. Kalthor was staring at Ling Wu, his smile widening into something more complex.
"That would be me," he said softly. "Need something?"