High above the shattered forest, suspended in the open sky, a baby rested within the confines of a translucent hexagonal barrier.
His skin was soft and pale, short black hair falling in smooth strands over his forehead. His most striking feature was his vivid, luminescent fuchsia eyes—a hue that felt unnatural for a human infant, yet undeniably belonged to him.
Albion tilted his head, staring curiously at the crystalline barrier. He had never seen anything like it inside the dark, sterile facility where he had spent his short existence.
"Bweoo…?" A tiny, confused sound slipped from his lips.
Slowly, with unsteady coordination, he reached out and pressed his small hands against the smooth surface. The high-density magic shimmered, scattering midday sunlight across its geometric edges like fractured glass.
To Albion, it was beautiful—a dazzling spark of color in a world he was seeing for the very first time.
Tap. Tap.
He tapped the surface, a toothless smile spreading across his face. "Bwee…!"
His eyes shone like warm embers. He pulled his hands back and clapped them together lightly, rolling his small body along the bottom of the barrier to explore his miniature world.
Thud.
His head bumped against the boundary. He dropped onto his stomach, clutching his forehead as a soft whimper escaped him.
"…mmh…"
Blinking through a tear, Albion looked outward. Something massive was standing just beyond his glass-like shell.
It was a towering, grotesque beast. Its broad shoulders stretched unnaturally wide, tapering down into pillar-like arms and a dense, stone-hard torso. The titan smiled—a wide, unnatural grin revealing jagged teeth—before casually marching toward the clearing below.
Albion's infant mind lacked the capacity to process where it was going. But that smile…
Something deep within his developing consciousness stirred.
Suppressed memories of the Vulcan surfaced all at once: its wide, fanged grin, the coarse green tail wrapped around his fragile frame, the chaotic way it moved, and the brutal violence of its fight. Even without the cognitive ability to fully comprehend the scene, his eyes had recorded every detail.
He remembered the deafening scream. The viscous red liquid.
(Blood.)
He remembered its massive arm torn away by a flash of light, its body severed, destroyed, and consumed by roaring fire. One memory stacked onto another, flooding his mind in a chaotic rush. In a single afternoon, he had been pulled from a glass tank, given a name, tasted warm milk, and gained a protector. All of it—combined with the primal trauma of the Vulcan's demise—coalesced into an overwhelming, brand-new psychological sensation.
His tiny body began to tremble. His breathing hitched. Tears welled in his fuchsia eyes and spilled over his pale cheeks.
For the first time in his brief life, he felt it.
Fear.
The rapid succession of extreme trials had forced his mind to develop at an unnatural pace. That lingering trauma gave sudden, agonizing depth to his emerging sense of self, birthing a profound dread of being abandoned.
His lips quivered. His fragile, unsteady voice finally broke the silence of the open air.
"…Ma…"
"…ma…"
"…mama…"
His very first word was not born from joy or comfort, but from absolute terror—a desperate, primal plea not to be left alone in the dark.
Down in the fractured forest below, Metsuri drew her straight-edged ninjatō with a lethal rasp.
"What a massive pain… It seems the entire forest is hostile." She pulled her black cloth mantle back over her lower face, dark eyes scanning the perimeter. "I need to dismantle them one by one."
Several massive humanoid beasts were closing the distance. Each shared a towering 15-meter frame, yet every single one carried distinct biological mutations.
Metsuri lowered her gaze to the matte steel of her weapon, watching her cold reflection.
'Normally, picking them off from the shadows would be the safest approach,' she calculated rapidly. 'But would it be smarter to flee entirely?'
Time was the one resource she lacked. The possibility that elite tracker shinobi from Metsugakure were already on her trail left a cold weight in her chest. Even if she was acting out of hyper-vigilant paranoia, that paranoia had kept her alive in the shadow village.
'How would I escape efficiently?' Her thoughts sharpened. 'I cannot utilize my float Magic freely while sustaining Albion's suspension barrier… and maintaining a high-density shell during a high-speed retreat isn't viable.'
"Think, Metsuri. Think," she whispered, forcing her heart rate into a professional rhythm. "What is the path with the highest probability of survival?"
Then, a cold, pragmatic thought crossed her mind.
"…I could leave Albion behind."
A heavy, ground-shaking stomp echoed yards away.
"…Damn it." Her eyes hardened as she discarded the idea. "I'm out of time."
Standing a short distance away was a five-meter mutation. Where its face should have been, there was only an absolute void, crowned by a massive cluster of jagged antlers branching out like dying oak roots. Its torso was split vertically from chest to abdomen, exposing a dark, hollow interior completely devoid of organs. Long, threadlike green tendrils dangled from its neck and arms, swaying in the wind.
'Reasoning with it is impossible. If I want to see tomorrow, I have to slaughter it.'
"Eeeh—hehehehehe…!" The antlered creature let out a high, piercing laugh. It raised a pale palm, and a sphere of pure white magic compressed rapidly above its skin.
"What is that?" Metsuri's eyes narrowed slightly. "…The Vulcan utilized the exact same technique."
A realization struck her analytical mind. 'I assumed that kinetic compression was an innate trait unique to the Vulcan's species.'
magical beasts possessed Innate Magics—instinctual abilities tied directly to their biology. Each species typically operated under a single, uniform magic attribute.
'If that Vulcan wasn't using a species-exclusive power… then magical beasts share a universal method of energy manipulation.'
She watched the white sphere expand. The creature was shaping raw magical energy without a fixed spell structure or magic circle. It was commanding the energy through sheer, unadulterated will.
Before she could analyze the theory further, the monster launched the kinetic sphere.
The projectile tore through the air like a meteor. A devastating explosion engulfed her coordinates, sending a wall of scorching smoke and stone debris erupting outward.
Silence settled over the crater. As the thick smoke parted, Metsuri remained standing at the center, her arms raised in a tight defensive guard. The sleeves of her bodysuit had been burned away by the thermal flash, exposing her pale, toned arms.
"I don't know what form of manipulation you just performed," she said coldly, a faint, dangerous edge to her voice, "but it requires exceptional control over internal magic flow."
Her pitch-black eyes sharpened. "You insects are far more troublesome than I anticipated."
Metsuri slammed her boot into the earth and vanished. The ground shattered beneath her heel as she launched forward, blurring into a streak of black and white. Instead of charging head-on, she angled toward the dense treeline, kicking off a thick oak branch to redirect her momentum without losing speed. She struck another trunk, then another, transforming into a phantom within the canopy.
She ricocheted from tree to tree, each step stacking momentum until her velocity reached its peak. The antlered beast's hollow gaze dragged behind her trajectory, unable to track her speed.
In a fraction of a second, she occupied her personal space. Kicking off a final trunk, Metsuri launched herself straight at its head, running vertically up its thick hide in defiance of gravity.
High-density white energy surged over her right leg, condensing into a razor-thin edge around her shin. She snapped her leg around in a devastating kick, slamming her shin into the side of the creature's head. The impact jerked the five-meter beast violently sideways, its heels digging deep trenches into the soil to arrest its momentum.
Recovery was instantaneous. The beast brought its massive, clawed hand crashing down over her position like a falling wall.
Airborne and unable to use Flight Magic without dropping Albion, Metsuri took the full force of the strike. The heavy palm drove her straight into the dirt, blasting out a crater of mud and splinters.
The beast stared into the settling dust, a low, wet chuckle slipping from its split torso. It raised its massive foot, preparing to crush whatever remained of her frame.
A soft light illuminated the crater. A hyper-luminous orb of white magic drifted upward from the dust, stopping directly at the beast's eye level. The moment the creature locked eyes with it, the orb detonated in a blinding, solar-grade flash.
"SKRRAAA—YEEEEEE!!!" The beast shrieked, staggering backward as its hands flew up to cover its blinded face.
"I doubt your primitive mind expected Light Magic to be used as a flashbang," Metsuri's mocking voice cut through the haze.
A crimson magic circle ignited above her raised palm. Thermal energy gathered rapidly, warping the surrounding air into a roaring flame.
"Fire Magic—" Metsuri raised both hands toward the sky, her voice steady. "—Enkō Rasenshō!"
A spiraling column of condensed inferno erupted from the magic circle, surging forward like a blazing vortex. The blinded beast raised its arms instinctively to shield its hollow core, taking the brunt of the thermal blast across its left side.
"SKREEEE—!!!"
As the beast staggered under the agonizing burn, Metsuri drew her ninjatō and swung in a single, fluid arc. A crescent of compressed energy tore free from the blade, slicing through the air with precision.
The beast's left arm was cleanly separated at the shoulder, crashing to the earth with a heavy thud. Metsuri exhaled a measured breath, lowering her blade. "That was Suntetsu."
Her eyes remained fixed on the writhing creature. "Suntetsu and Sesshoku-zan—through these advanced applications, I do not merely swing sharpened steel. I replicate and surpass the concept of a blade through direct mastery over Ethernal Infusion."
The beast clutched its smoking shoulder. Then, its magic signature shifted violently.
A dense green mist leaked from its open pores as its muscle tissue locked up. Within seconds, bone, sinew, and hide knit together in a rapid, grotesque display of regeneration. The severed arm remade itself, flexing completely whole.
"I see," Metsuri murmured, her expression flat. "You are a rare variant with high-speed regeneration."
The creature pulled back its split torso into a wide, toothless grin. She tightened her grip on her hilt. "Clever—"
The world shook as a thunderous quake split the air behind her.
Metsuri turned her head, meeting the gaze of a true nightmare. Towering fifteen meters tall, a colossal titan blotted out the sun. Its shoulders resembled the flying buttresses of a dark cathedral, holding up a torso clad in rigid, stone-like armor plates.
Slowly, the titan raised a fist the size of a carriage and brought it down.
Snapping her fingers, a magic circle flared beneath Metsuri's boots. She raised her hands toward the sky just as the fist struck.
A catastrophic shockwave shattered the surrounding terrain. Oak trees were uprooted and hurled into the air as spiderweb cracks fractured the dirt.
A transparent barrier held firm beneath the impact, locked in a collision with the beast's raw strength.
Metsuri ground her teeth together. 'Absurd power… It poured its entire magic into pure physical strength!'
A volatile white glow erupted around the titan's descending fist. Energy flowed down its arm, doubling the weight of the strike. Metsuri's knees buckled under the sudden shift, the taste of copper flooding her mouth.
"To think…" she rasped, straining against the weight, "that I would struggle against unrefined insects…!"
The ground collapsed into a jagged crater beneath her. As the pressure mounted, a repressed memory surfaced in her mind.
◆ ◇ ◆
"Look at her… a female ninja born into the main line, yet possessing zero talent for caster magic."
The veteran shinobi's voice had echoed with open disdain across the stone training grounds of Metsugakure.
At the time, she was only a child undergoing the village's lethal daily regimen. Bloodlines meant nothing if a child failed to manifest magic deemed useful by the clan elders. Those who failed were cast into the wilderness, their names erased from the scrolls.
"What did you expect? She's a woman," another assassin had added, turning his back on her bruised, bleeding frame. "At absolute best, she is a tool to be utilized."
The women of the hidden village were stripped of autonomy, reduced to tools for population growth or expendable infiltrators. Compassion was a fatal flaw. They were conditioned from childhood to kill without hesitation—even if the target was a classmate.
Metsuri had learned that lesson perfectly: If you were weak, you could protect nothing. Not your dignity, not your autonomy, not your life.
◆ ◇ ◆
"Every single one of you…" Metsuri's voice trembled with cold, unadulterated fury. "Mindless, pathetic beasts…"
A fine line fractured the surface of her shield.
Metsuri Ebonveil did not possess a massive reservoir of raw magic. She never had. But the one trait she possessed in limitless supply—the trait that allowed her to slaughter her allies and flee the shadow—was an unyielding, unbreakable willpower.
"All of you are just pigs bowing to structured formulas!!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH—!!!" Her feral scream tore through the roaring wind.
The high-density barrier flared with blinding light and forcefully pushed back. The 15-meter fist was violently deflected upward, sending the colossal titan staggering backward with its balance shattered.
Metsuri stood in the center of the crater, heaving for air. Her long black hair had come completely undone from its ponytail, shaggy strands spilling past her waist around a face twisted with raw intensity.
"I am Metsuri Ebonveil," she rasped, her palm settling back onto her ninjatō. "A kunoichi of the Ebonveil Clan. The true terror of Fiore."
Something razor-sharp cut through the air—far too fast for her exhausted state to counter. A blunt force collided with her ribs, launching her backward through the forest. She smashed face-first through five massive oak trees before the sixth trunk halted her momentum.
She hit the dirt hard, coughing up crimson as she forced her upper body up. Embedded deep in the soil where she had stood was a long white staff constructed from solid, compressed magic power—a Khakkhara.
Her gaze snapped toward the five-meter antlered beast. It stood at a distance, its arm regenerated, watching her with that same wide, toothless grin.
"It was you…" Metsuri wheezed, gripping the shattered bark behind her for support. "You are shaping raw magic into a solid object. No structured formula. No spoken incantation."
Her strategic mind recalculated the threat. 'Giving energy, physical weight and tangibility outside the body… that defies modern magic fundamentals. Even veteran casters require complex formulas to achieve external physical constructs.'
"Which means…" she whispered, a cold realization settling in, "you do not require spells at all."
"Eeeeeh—heheheheheheh—" The creature's distorted laughter echoed through the woods.
Metsuri looked down at her bleeding palm. 'I need to abandon this place. I must run.'
Before the thought could fully take root, the air pressure shifted completely. A vibrant green hue bled into the wind around her. Local currents spiraled into a violent vortex, drawing in heavy debris, shattered leaves, and dust until a full-scale tornado roared into existence in the center of the forest.
The vacuum seized her frame, lifting her off the ground. Metsuri twisted mid-air and grabbed a deep-rooted branch, her body whipping wildly in the gales.
"What now?!" she shouted, her voice swallowed by the storm. "Another beast?!"
The branch snapped under the tension. The entire tree was uprooted by the vacuum, dragging her straight into the eye of the storm.
"KRAAAAAA—SKREEEEEE!!!"
A piercing avian cry split the gale. High within the vortex, a colossal shape materialized—a ten-meter eagle draped in pearlescent alabaster feathers, its wingtips shaded in slate blue and charcoal gray. Powerful legs covered in golden down ended in obsidian talons, and its molten amber eyes locked directly onto her.
"You are the one manipulating the wind," Metsuri muttered, narrowing her eyes against the wind.
Instead of fighting the rotational g-force, her shinobi training took over. She fluidly aligned her spine with the flow, letting the storm carry her while grabbing a chunk of floating stone to stabilize her path.
A massive violet magic circle ignited before the beast's chest. From its core, razor-sharp blades of compressed wind materialized in rapid succession. With a single flap of its wings, the beast launched the volley.
Metsuri angled her ninjatō defensively.
Each wind blade met her steel in rapid succession. Moving on muscle memory and raw instinct, she deflected, parried, and sliced the wind constructs apart.
A thin cut traced across her left cheek. Another blade shredded away her lower face mantle entirely, exposing her sharp features to the storm.
Dispersing the final wind blades with a desperate swing, she sheathed her blade, spread both arms wide, and unleashed a torrent of compressed flames from her open palms. The fire coiled violently around her skin, twisting into a blazing spear that cut straight through the green tornado.
The inferno detonated from the inside out, vaporizing the vortex into a towering cloud of black smoke.
The eagle beast burst through the haze, its wings scorched, but it maintained its flight path. Moments later, Metsuri emerged from the cloud, falling rapidly toward the earth.
"I am way too high!" her steady voice finally cracked as she tumbled through the open sky.
"SHRRRRAAAAKK—!!!" The avian cry echoed again as the scorched eagle dived directly toward her.
mid-fall, she unsheathed her blade once more. 'I can still end your life with a maximized Suntetsu.'
High above her falling trajectory, a massive purple magic circle formed across the clouds, crackling with static electricity as the air pressure grew dangerously charged.
"You can utilize both Lightning and Wind magic simultaneously…" Metsuri exhaled a sharp breath, clicking her tongue. "And I cannot activate Flight Magic without dropping the kid's barrier…"
The sky flashed a dangerous violet hue.
"This entire situation is such a—" She inhaled sharply, a vein pulsing at her temple. "—fucking pain!!!"
Multiple jagged bolts of lightning descended from the circle, completely engulfing her frame in searing light and explosive force. The world flashed brilliant white, followed by absolute silence.
◆ ◇ ◆
The ground below was ruined, charred, and deeply fractured. At the center of a massive crater, Metsuri lay motionless on her back.
Her pale skin was covered in severe electrical burns, trails of white smoke rising from her shredded bodysuit. Her breathing was shallow and uneven.
Heavy, rhythmic footsteps approached the crater's edge. Four 15-meter titans emerged from the burning treeline, each wielding massive weapons forged from raw, pulsing magic energy. They closed the perimeter around her broken body in silence.
To Metsuri, the approaching monsters no longer mattered. As she stared up at the canopy, her vision blurred into darkness.
'I have to run… I have to survive,' her thoughts echoed within her skull. 'No matter the cost… I will have my vengeance on that man.'
'This entire world… every part of its society… is to blame for what I was forced to become.'
'Betrayal. Deception. Slaughtering my own allies… none of it is off-limits.'
A looming shadow fell over her face. One of the titans raised a colossal mace of condensed white energy high into the air, swinging it down with crushing velocity aimed squarely at her chest.
At the absolute last millisecond, Metsuri's torso snapped upright. Pivoting sharply on her hip, her bare foot intercepted the descending mace mid-swing, halting the multi-ton strike dead in its tracks with a ringing metallic impact.
Behind her back, a second titan raised its mace toward her blind spot.
Metsuri didn't hesitate—she released her block, pushing off the first beast's weapon with her heel to leap backward through the air. The second titan's mace came crashing down, missing her entirely and striking the first beast's weapon, knocking its massive frame off balance into the trees.
Metsuri landed in a low slide, her heels grinding against the dirt.
'That is the way of a Metsugakure shinobi. We exist solely to serve the efficiency of the village… nothing more.'
Thunderous footsteps approached from her left as a third titan stepped forward, bringing its mace down in a vertical executioner's strike.
Metsuri calmly raised her right hand. A small dome barrier formed instantly around her frame. The massive mace collided violently with the shield, sparks bursting outward, but not a single fracture formed across its surface.
'Anyone in this world can and will betray you. If you are weak, you are expendable…'
The barrier flickered—just enough for her hand to slip through. Her bare palm reached out and caught the beast's energy weapon mid-contact.
'So I will always prioritize my own survival above all else.'
A soft, hyper-compressed glow spread across her palm. The titan's mace shattered into thousands of fading light fragments.
'Above anyone else.'
The titan staggered forward under its lost momentum. Metsuri didn't look back.
'...Even if that means abandoning Albion right here.'
She turned and ran. Weaving through the dense forest without a shred of hesitation, her speed carried her away from the clearing.
'This is simply how the world operates. I will start over from scratch…' Her pace didn't slow for a single heartbeat. 'And if I truly have to… I will locate another unique child to shape into my tool.'
"WAAAHHH—!!!" The piercing cry cut through the forest, freezing Metsuri mid-step. Her heels hovered inches above the dirt.
Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head back toward the sky.
"…Albion?"
High above the shattered treeline, safely encased within his glowing hexagonal barrier, Albion was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Ahhhh—waaahhh!!" His tiny, pale fists slammed repeatedly against the transparent geometric walls of his shell.
"MA—MAA!! MAMAAA!!!" His high-pitched voice broke with each desperate cry—raw, terrified, and utterly exposed.
The forest fell completely still. The four 15-meter titans stopped their advance, turning their glowing eyes upward toward the source of the sound.
Metsuri stood motionless in the shadows, her expression unreadable beneath her shaggy hair.
'Does he… actually care about me?' The concept felt foreign. It made no sense.
They had been together for mere hours, and his fragile life had been placed in constant danger because of her choices. Even now, his loud cries had drawn the focus of the titans directly to his suspended frame.
The monsters shifted their weight, approaching his suspended form. At seven meters above the ground, his barrier was well within reach of a 15-meter giant.
"I left you alone inside a dark cave," Metsuri whispered, her voice hollow in the quiet forest. "I slaughtered the head scientist who raised you inside that tank. I assigned you a completely fabricated birthdate…"
She stared up at the crying infant. "So how…?"
"How can you sit there in the sky and call a monster like me your mother…?"
The memory of choosing his name surfaced clearly. She had not done it out of maternal care; she had treated his existence like a rare weapon meant for long-term utility, feeling no guilt about it whatsoever.
"M-MAMA!! MAMAAA!!!" His desperate cries tore through her clinical thoughts.
"…Why…?" Metsuri asked the empty air. Was the child simply ignorant? Or was his developing heart truly that pure?
One of the 15-meter titans stepped directly in front of his barrier, reaching out a clawed hand to crush the floating shell.
'My long-term goal will never change,' Metsuri's muscular frame tensed as her core locked into place. 'But… perhaps… just this once…'
She moved before the thought could fully form in her mind.
"WAAAHH!! MAMAAA—!!!" The titan's massive hand snapped shut—clutching empty air.
A black and white blur streaked across the clearing at a velocity that defied sight. A single heartbeat later, Metsuri landed at the far edge of the forest, her heels skidding across the dirt as she stabilized her balance.
In her arms, she held the small, glowing hexagonal barrier. Inside, Albion was safe, his tear-filled fuchsia eyes staring up at her face.
She looked down at him, her cold expression softening just a fraction.
"Just this once… alright?" A weary half-smile formed on her lips beneath the rags of her mask.
Turning back toward the wall of 15-meter titans, her right hand settled firmly onto the hilt of her ninjatō.
"I'll fight for the survival of the both of us."