The clearing where the Kong had stood was silent, the air heavy with the sharp, metallic stench of ozone and scorched earth. The black smoke from the beast's dissolution had already been sucked into the dirt, leaving only a circular patch of glassed grit.
The figure in the black hood didn't arrive so much as he simply became a part of the landscape. He stood where Kenjiro had stood seconds before, his face lost in the depth of a mask that absorbed the remaining twilight. The ascendant sword, strapped to his back, hummed—a low, discordant vibration that caused the nearby pine needles to shiver. He didn't track the boy's footprints. He simply looked at the space where the air was still cooling.
Kenjiro didn't remember the walk back. He remembered the weight of the deer, the rough wood of the rifle against his shoulder, and the rhythmic, dull throb of the mark on his wrist. By the time the thatched roofs of the village edge appeared through the fog, his legs were moving on sheer, mechanical instinct.
He reached the mud-slicked path leading to his mother's stall. The smell of pickled radishes and damp wool hit him, and then the world tilted. The deer slid from his shoulders, hitting the ground with a heavy, wet sound. Kenjiro followed it, his knees buckling, his face pressing into the cold silt.
"Hana!!"
The shout came from a merchant three stalls down—a man named Sato. He pointed a trembling finger at the small, red-haired heap in the road. "Hana! Your son!"
Hana dropped a ceramic jar of brine. It shattered against the stones, but she was already moving, her wooden sandals clattering as she bolted toward the child.
"What happened? What did you do to him?" She turned on the gathering crowd, her voice a jagged edge of panic. She rolled Kenjiro over, her hands frantic, searching for the jagged, open wound she'd expected to find on his cheek.
There was nothing. His skin was smooth, pale, and entirely devoid of the claw marks that had been there an hour ago. No blood. No broken ribs. Just the deep, rhythmic sleep of a body that had been pushed past its mortal limit.
"How?" Hana whispered. Her chest felt tight, the air refusing to settle in her lungs. She gathered the boy into her arms, ignoring the mud and the stares of the merchants. She didn't wait for Kazuki. She didn't wait for help. She hauled him up, her muscles screaming under the weight, and ran toward the small clinic at the village's edge.
"Wake up, Kenjiro. Please. Stay with me," she sobbed into his hair.
Inside the boy's mind, the darkness shattered into a blinding, featureless white.
There was no horizon. No floor. Just a vast, aching void of pure light that stretched until it hurt to look at. Kenjiro stood in the center of it. He looked down at his hands—they were small, but as he watched, the air around him began to warp.
Images of himself began to flicker like frames of a broken reel.
He saw a versions of himself he didn't recognize. A teenager with split-colored hair, eyes like flint. Then a man with long, white hair streaked with veins of red, his features carved from marble and malice. Then the white hair turned to a fire-red mane, the eyes glowing with the emerald heat of the Abyss.
A high-pitched screech tore through the white space—the sound of metal grinding on metal.
[ System Initializing... ]
[ Processing... ]
[ System Identified: Voidmancer ]
[ Warning: System Corrupted. Core Identity Desync. ]
[ Failed to Proceed: Re-gifted Status Pending. ]
Kenjiro slammed his hands over his ears. The noise wasn't external; it was vibrating in his teeth, beating against the inside of his skull. "Stop it! What's happening?"
He spun, his vision blurring, and the white space tore open.
Through the rift, he saw a city. It wasn't Itosai. It was a forest of steel and glass—Tokyo, though he didn't know the name yet. The sky was a bruised purple, and descending from the clouds was a nightmare made flesh.
[ Entity Identified: Malphas, Descendant of the Fallen Primarch. Rank: Divine Demonic. ]
The entity was a tower of obsidian and wings, and behind it came an army of thousands—creatures of smoke and bone that blotted out the sun. The city didn't just burn; it evaporated. Buildings toppled like dry sand. People were erased. Fire didn't just consume the houses; it consumed the very air.
At the end, there was only a world of ash.
Kenjiro fell to his knees, panting, the smell of burnt hair and ionized air filling his nose. "What is this? I want to go home!" He stomped his foot, a childish gesture of defiance against a cosmic horror.
"Five hundred years."
The voice didn't come from a throat. It came from the white itself—a thunderous, tectonic resonance that vibrated in his marrow.
"Five hundred years of service. Failure to serve the punishment will result in total erasure. Chaos will fall, and one soul must hold the line until the cycle completes."
Kenjiro looked up, his brow furrowed in a confusion that was rapidly turning into a cold, hard anger. "Five hundred years? Humans don't live that long! I'll be dust in a box before then!"
The voice didn't answer. It didn't care about biology.
A portal opened beneath him, a swirling vortex that showed his own body lying on a narrow hospital bed, Hana's hand trembling as she gripped his. He felt the pull of the meat, the heavy, dull sensation of returning to skin and bone.
"Serve the punishment. Five hundred years."
The white space collapsed.
Kenjiro bolted upright. His lungs expanded with a sharp, painful gasp of air.
"Am I alive?"
The words were a raspy croak. Hana's head snapped up from the edge of the bed. She didn't speak; she simply threw her arms around him, a crushing embrace that smelled of medicinal herbs and salt.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice muffled by his shoulder.
Kenjiro looked past her, toward the door. He remembered the river bank. He remembered the rifle. He remembered Kazuki's face when he sent a six-year-old into the territory of a Kong.
"Mom," Kenjiro said, his voice dropping into that flat, unnerving calm. "I need to rest. Can we... can we talk tomorrow?"
Hana pulled back, searching his face. She saw the exhaustion, but she also saw something else—a stillness in his eyes that made the hair on her arms stand up. She nodded, forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and backed out of the room to find the doctor.
Kenjiro sat in the silence. He turned his head slowly toward the small, silver-backed mirror on the wall. He touched his cheek.
No wound. No scar. Not even a scratch where the Kong's claws had ripped into the bone.
"How?"
"Because you are no longer just a boy."
The voice was soft, like the sliding of a blade from a scabbard. Kenjiro's neck turned sharply toward the corner of the room.
The hooded figure sat on a small, wooden couch in the shadows. He didn't move. His gloved hand rested on the pommel of the ascendant sword, which stood upright between his knees. The mask stared at Kenjiro, a blank, expressionless void.
Kenjiro didn't scream. He didn't call for Hana. He felt the mark on his wrist start to hum in recognition.
"Who are you?" Kenjiro asked.
The figure leaned forward slightly, the leather of his armor creaking in the quiet room. "I am the one who ensures you survive the first century. You have a punishment to serve, Little King. And the mountain has eyes that do not sleep."
The figure stood, the sword emitting a faint, silver light that cast Kenjiro's shadow long across the wall—a shadow that looked less like a boy and more like a man holding a crown of thorns.
"The Kong was a scout," the figure said. "The Vanguards are coming. Get out of bed. Your training starts now."