SCENE 1 — FUG ELDER CHAMBER: THE FIRST FAILURE
The chamber went quiet the moment my Zoan form filled it.
Wings scraped the ceiling.
Heat burned through stone.
My eyes glowed gold.
The Elders stared at me—not confused.
Furious.
Because they knew exactly what this meant.
The central Elder slammed his staff.
"YOU AGAIN—!!
YOU, THE FIRST FAILURE!"
Another Elder lurched to his feet in panic.
"He's proving it!
He's proving WHY VIOLA IS UNCONTROLLABLE!"
A third hissed, voice trembling.
"This is why the boy RUNS BEHIND HIM—!"
The room fell silent.
Because that was the truth.
One Elder spoke, voice cracking.
"Jing-Sung trained Viola by our orders.
He used the conditioning we demanded…
the methods we approved…
the pressure we mandated…"
He turned his mask toward me with hatred.
"And the moment the training was complete—"
His grip tightened on the staff.
"—the boy HID behind YOU."
I didn't move.
I didn't train Baam.
I never touched his drills.
Never shaped his stance.
Never taught him Shinsu.
That was Jingsung's job.
But Baam trusted me with something deeper than training.
"Crow won't let them hurt me again."
That was what they were really furious at.
The left Elder shrieked:
"IT WAS NOT HIS TRAINING THAT FAILED—!!
IT WAS CROW'S INFLUENCE THAT RUINED HIS SPIRIT!"
Another slammed both fists on his throne.
"THE BOY DOES NOT OBEY!
THE BOY DOES NOT SUBMIT!
THE BOY DOES NOT FEAR US!"
A shaking hand pointed straight at me.
"AND IT'S BECAUSE HE HID BEHIND HIM!"
Heat rolled off my body as I stepped forward.
"I didn't train him," I said.
The Elders froze.
"I didn't teach him Shinsu.
I didn't teach him fighting.
I didn't teach him anything."
My head lowered until my beak hovered inches from their masks.
"But when Jingsung was done—
when you broke that boy down—
when you scared him—
when you hollowed him out—"
I smiled, slow and sharp.
"—he ran to the one person who never broke."
The room cracked in half with panic.
One Elder screamed:
"THE BOY TRUSTS HIM—!!"
Another choked:
"HE FLED TO CROW—!!"
A third gasped out the truth they'd been avoiding:
"CROW IS HIS SAFE HAVEN—!!"
The central Elder trembled visibly.
"Baam…
our Viola…
the only Irregular we ever had a chance of molding…"
Another whispered, devastated:
"He fears us…
but does not fear him."
I let the heat spike.
They needed to understand the situation clearly.
I folded my wings down and let the Zoan bleed away, feathers retracting, bones reshaping, until I stood there in human form—smaller, but radiating the same threat.
"Listen closely," I said.
"You damaged that kid.
Jingsung hated the methods you forced him to use.
And when Baam was finished…"
I tapped my own chest.
"…he didn't come to you. He came to me."
The Elders recoiled.
"AND I DON'T LIKE YOU HURTING GOOD KIDS."
Silence.
The kind that feels like a loaded weapon.
"So let's make a deal," I said, voice calm.
"I won't interfere with your plans."
They leaned forward despite themselves.
"—as long as you don't touch him again."
The words landed like a sentence.
No arguments.
No negotiations.
Behind me, Hajinsung's voice was barely a whisper.
"…you just declared war."
I shrugged.
"I wasn't talking to them," I said. "I was telling them a fact."
The Tower itself seemed to flinch.
SCENE 2 — KARAKA'S FURY
The Elder Chamber had barely stopped shaking when the doors exploded inward in a gust of black Shinsu.
A void stepped through.
A moving eclipse.
Karaka.
His armor scraped the floor with a metallic growl, and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
He didn't bow.
He didn't greet.
He didn't wait for permission.
He stormed directly to the center of the chamber.
"What happened here," he demanded, voice edged with steel, "and where is Viola?"
No one answered.
Not because they didn't want to.
Because they were still recovering from me turning the chamber into an oven.
Karaka scanned the cracked walls, the melted throne edges, the scorch marks.
"Someone used a transformation here," he said quietly.
The Elders remained silent.
Karaka turned his mask toward Hajinsung, then toward me.
"How did an intruder breach the Elder Chamber?"
I leaned against a broken pillar, arms crossed.
"Not an intruder," I said. "I walked in."
Karaka's Shinsu surged—cold, oppressive, swallowing light.
"You," he said, voice dropping an octave.
"You caused this."
I shrugged.
"You Elders wanted Viola. I told them he's not here."
Karaka froze.
"You what?"
"You're looking for him, right? He's not here."
Karaka's aura detonated.
A dome of black Shinsu slammed down, cracking the floor at my feet.
"Crow," Karaka growled, "explain."
The Elders scrambled back. They knew his temper.
Jingsung moved like a shadow, watching both of us with the weary patience of a man who raised idiots.
"Where. Is. Viola," Karaka said.
"Far away," I answered.
Karaka's Shinsu pulsed.
"Define far."
I held up six fingers.
"Sixth Floor."
The entire chamber went still.
Karaka processed it.
Then roared.
"YOU LET HIM GO?!"
He pointed at me, shaking.
"YOU are the reason he escaped!"
"I'm the reason he survived," I corrected.
Karaka's armor rippled with fury.
"HE IS FUG'S ASSET!
HE IS OUR CANDIDATE!
HE IS OUR SLAYER—"
"He's a kid," I said flatly.
Karaka recoiled as if struck.
I pushed off the pillar and walked toward him, unbothered by his suffocating aura.
"Let me explain something," I said quietly.
"Baam follows me because he's scared.
Because you people broke him down to nothing.
Because Jingsung was forced to hurt him.
Because your Elders wanted a puppet."
Karaka hissed:
"Jingsung's training was NECESSARY."
"No," I snapped. "It wasn't."
His armor flared. Black spikes extended from his shoulders.
"You dare—"
I stepped nose-to-mask.
"Baam trusts me," I said. "You know what that means?"
Karaka held still.
"He'll never obey you if I'm around."
The Elders froze.
Hajinsung winced.
Karaka trembled.
Because it was true.
"And if you try to hurt him again—"
Heat cracked through the floor. My eyes burned gold.
Karaka's Shinsu recoiled instinctively.
"—you'll deal with me."
Karaka clawed his hands into fists.
"You think you can threaten me?"
"I'm not threatening you," I said.
"I'm promising you."
The Elders tried to intervene at once:
"Karaka! Enough!"
"He is unstable—"
"He is provoking—"
Karaka didn't listen.
He roared and stepped forward to attack—
—and Jingsung's hand closed around his wrist.
The room snapped still.
"Karaka," Jingsung said, deadly calm, "you touch that boy—Crow or Baam—and you answer to me."
Karaka froze.
Jingsung tightened his grip just enough to make the armor creak.
"And you won't enjoy the answer."
Black Shinsu seethed around Karaka, but he slowly pulled his arm back.
"This is not over," he spat.
"It is for you," I said.
Karaka turned sharply to the Elders.
"You allowed this.
You lost Viola.
And you let HIM walk out alive."
The Elders had no reply.
Karaka stormed out, black smoke spilling behind him.
The chamber sagged.
One Elder whispered, hollow:
"…we cannot stop either Irregular…
…not Crow…
…not Baam…
…we have created a disaster…"
I turned toward the exit.
"No," I said.
"You created Baam."
I walked away.
"And he chose to follow me."
SCENE 3 — THE ECHO OF A PROMISE (BAAM POV — SIXTH FLOOR TEST)
Shinsu dripped from the ceiling like cold rain, splashing against Baam's cheeks as he pressed himself into the rocky alcove of the test chamber.
Breathing slow.
Heart steady.
Hands only trembling a little.
The examiner had said the test was simple:
Endure the pressure.
Endure yourself.
Regulars muttered nearby, complaining about the weight, the cold, the fear.
Baam stayed quiet.
He lifted his hand and watched it shake.
Not from cold.
From memory.
Five years in a dark chamber.
Five years being struck, pushed, drowned, torn down.
Five years hearing:
"Do not hesitate."
"Do not think."
"Do not feel."
"Kill."
Jingsung's voice.
The Elders' commands.
All mixing into one long nightmare.
Baam closed his eyes—
—and another voice pushed through the fog.
Calm.
Firm.
A little irritated.
"You don't need to listen to them."
Crow's voice.
Baam found himself smiling. Just a little.
Crow hadn't trained him.
Hadn't guided his forms.
Hadn't explained Shinsu.
But Crow had done something harder:
He hadn't let Baam be broken.
Even Jingsung, for all his guilt, had stepped aside in the end and let Baam run to him.
There was still a small bruise on Baam's cheek from the last day of training.
The blow Jingsung delivered and immediately regretted.
Baam touched that spot now, fingers brushing the fading ache.
"I'll get stronger," he whispered.
"So he doesn't have to stand in front of me every time."
Crow wasn't here.
Wasn't shielding him.
Wasn't tearing down tests in his place.
But the feeling hadn't left.
That pressure Crow carried—
defiant, warm, uncompromising whenever someone hurt a "good kid."
Baam trusted it.
He trusted him.
Baam stepped out of the alcove and let the Shinsu pressure slam into him at full force.
His legs wobbled.
His ribs tightened.
His lungs refused to expand.
But he kept walking.
Every step echoed Crow's blunt words:
"Stand on your own feet."
Regulars stared as he pushed deeper into the chamber.
Someone cursed under their breath.
"How is that guy not crushed?!"
Baam didn't know either.
He only knew this:
He wasn't being watched.
Wasn't being commanded.
Wasn't being reshaped.
He was climbing because he wanted to.
Not because FUG demanded it.
He reached the center of the test chamber and knelt, letting the pressure try to break him.
It didn't.
"…Thank you," he breathed softly.
"Crow."
At that exact moment, somewhere far above, a wave of heat rolled through the Tower like a heartbeat.
Baam's eyes snapped open.
He felt it.
"…he's okay," Baam whispered.
Up on the observation platform, the examiner blinked twice, then shouted:
"PASS!
The boy in the center passes!"
Baam stood, chest burning, but proud.
He didn't know the Elders had just lost their minds.
He didn't know Karaka was hunting Crow.
He didn't know FUG was collapsing around its own schemes.
He only knew this:
Crow said he'd protect him.
So Baam would get strong enough not to need that protection.
He walked toward the exit.
"Floor Seven…"
"Floor Eight…"
"Floor Nine…"
His steps were light.
"I'll see you again soon," he murmured.
SCENE 4 — KARAKA HUNTS THE WRONG MONSTER (KARAKA POV)
Karaka moved like a storm swallowing light.
Black Shinsu crackled behind him as he tore through the upper levels of FUG headquarters, armor rattling like a war drum.
The Elders' last words burned in his mind:
"Crow launched Viola to the Sixth Floor."
"He escaped us."
"Crow interfered."
"Crow broke our leash."
Karaka cared little for their panic.
He cared about one thing:
Retrieving the boy.
Retrieving their only Irregular weapon.
He slammed his palm onto the floor, sending a pulse of dark Shinsu outward.
BOOM.
The Tower's pressure shivered, mapping signatures across nearby floors.
He felt nothing familiar.
No trace of Baam.
But something else…
Something worse.
Karaka froze.
A heat signature flickered across his senses—not Shinsu, not ordinary aura, not anything he could name.
A pressure he remembered from the Elder Chamber.
Crow.
Except it wasn't just Crow in front of him.
It was a trail.
A smear of burning, golden heat imprinted in the air like a claw mark across reality.
Karaka clenched his fists.
"He's been here…"
He extended his senses farther—
Farther—
And felt something impossible.
Crow's presence was rising.
Upward.
Floor by floor.
Too fast.
No Regular should move like that.
No non-Guide should navigate that fast.
No Irregular should—
Karaka's armor rippled violently.
"This monster…"
His voice was a rasp.
"…isn't even climbing."
The Shinsu map warped around the heat.
"…He's walking through the Tower."
Karaka expected to catch Crow's scent, track his path, intercept his route.
Instead he sensed another resonance faintly entangled with that heat:
Gentle.
Warm.
Pure.
Uncomplicated.
Baam.
The boy didn't physically follow Crow.
But spiritually?
His resonance clung to Crow's trail like a shadow.
Karaka's rage flared.
"Even now," he hissed, "that boy aligns himself with Crow's presence…"
He smashed his fist into a wall, cracking stone and metal.
"Even apart, the child gravitates toward him!"
For the first time in years, Karaka's voice slipped out of its cold monotone.
He sounded almost… uneasy.
"If Viola inherits even a fraction of that Irregular's defiance…"
His hands tightened.
"…then he will never obey us."
Karaka reached out again—
And the heat signature changed.
It didn't move.
Didn't fade.
It flared.
Bright.
Blinding.
Like a solar detonation.
Karaka stumbled half a step back before catching himself.
"This pressure…" he muttered.
"That's not Ranker-level. That's—"
He cut himself off.
"No. Irregulars do not have limits."
He clenched his fist, and the air warped.
"Crow," Karaka whispered beneath his mask.
"I will find you."
A beat.
"And when I do…
I will reclaim Viola."
Then something else whispered into his senses.
A resonance Crow had left behind.
A message burned into the Tower's fabric.
Not words.
Not Shinsu.
A feeling.
Don't touch the kid.
Karaka's core recoiled.
Not from fear of pain.
From the certainty behind the promise.
The Tower shivered.
Karaka stood in silence for a long moment.
Finally, he spoke, voice low.
"…This will be more complicated than I expected."
Black Shinsu flared around him again as he turned away.
The hunt had begun.
But the monster he was chasing
wasn't the one on the Sixth Floor.
It was the one the boy chose to hide behind.
———————-
Note of the Eighth Fragment
There are only eight of these.
Not eight arcs.
Just eight fragments I threw into the Tower to see what would happen if my Crow stepped into FUG too early.
This run is pure brainstorming:
"If a second Irregular was in the room
every time they tried to break Baam,
how much of the story changes?"
Right now:
Only 8 chapters exist
The Death Floor isn't drafted—it's just a goal post in my head
Everything past that is possibility, not promise
I'm using these chapters to poke at:
FUG pretending they only ever had one Irregular
Baam's early trauma and growth feeling too light
What changes if someone refuses to let the kid break
If you spot a crack—
Irregular rules, FUG logic, power scaling, Crow causing future plot holes—
mark it.
These eight are allowed to be broken and rebuilt before I decide whether Crow truly keeps a Tower route…
or if this remains just one unfinished road Cueljuris once examined and set aside.