When Kagetsu opened his eyes, he was jolted by a sensation he hadn't tasted in a thousand years: physical weight.
Emerging from the boundlessness of the soul and being thrust into a cage of bone and flesh felt like imprisoning a giant in a cramped cell. Hyoga's body was foreign. Compared to his own former majestic frame, this body was slower and more fragile, yet it harbored a deep-seated resilience waiting to be discovered. He moved his fingers slightly; he felt that faint ache in the joints and the warmth of the blood flowing through his veins.
"Weak," he murmured. His voice sounded strange even to his own ears—young, with a rasp that hadn't yet fully settled. "But not entirely empty."
He sat up slowly. Night had settled over the city like a silent predator. Moonlight filtered through the stone buildings, casting a pale, sickly glow onto the narrow streets. Kagetsu had seized complete control of the body, but Hyoga was not gone. The young boy's consciousness had been pushed into the darkest corner of his mind, forced into a winter slumber. Yet he was there; he made his presence felt as a suppressed scream, a trembling flicker of fear. Kagetsu liked this resistance. It was more entertaining to sit atop a struggling soul than to inhabit a dead husk.
As he stood up and took his first step, he began to feel the city through the rhythmic strike of his shoes against the stone ground. The scent of this era was different; instead of the smell of burning wood, there was something heavier and more metallic in the air. But humans... humans had remained the same for a millennium. As Kagetsu passed between closed shops and flickering torches, he caught that familiar scent: fear, greed, and that irrepressible arrogance.
The streets were not entirely mute. The night market had long since dispersed, leaving behind only the wheezing of drunks lingering on street corners and whispers hidden among the shadows. Passing through a narrow, damp alley, Kagetsu noticed three silhouettes. They leaned against the wall like hyenas waiting for their prey. They wore haphazardly assembled pieces of cheap armor, and in their hands, rusty blades glinted dully in the moonlight.
They stirred as Kagetsu approached.
"Hey," said one of them, his voice creaking like a rusty door hinge. "Look at this guy. What happened to his eye? Did it run out?"
The other let out a foul laugh. "His clothes look like some mage wannabe, but he's a wreck. Probably an Academy scrap. Maybe he's got a few silver coins left in his pocket."
Kagetsu didn't stop. His pace remained rhythmic. However, Hyoga's consciousness was clawing upward from within, trying to make the body tremble with nausea and intense panic. Hyoga knew these men; they were the scavengers of the neighborhood.
Kagetsu felt a faint curl at the corner of his lips. "Humans," he said in a low, resonant voice. "Still digging their graves with their tongues first."
A rough, disrespectful hand gripped his shoulder. The man's palm was calloused and filthy. "We're talking to you, brat! Didn't you hear?"
Kagetsu stopped. He turned his head slowly. His right eye suddenly flashed in the darkness. It wasn't a torch's glow or a magical shimmer. It was more like light being absorbed and annihilated at that single point, as if the darkness had turned solid.
"Take that filth off me," he said. His voice was so calm that the hair on the man's neck stood up.
The man hesitated at first, then tightened his grip to avoid looking weak in front of his friends. "Look at that! The pup is showing his teeth."
Kagetsu dipped a bucket into the ancient darkness deep within his mind and brought only a drop to the surface. Just enough not to kill, but dense enough to paralyze the soul.
The hand on his shoulder suddenly spasmed. The man's fingers began to clench and unclench involuntarily, as if someone were twisting his bones backward. The mocking grin on his face froze. His pupils shrank to pinpricks of terror. His knees hit the ground with a thud, as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was locked. His nerves no longer obeyed him; they obeyed the stranger standing before him.
The other two recoiled in horror. "What are you doing? Let him go!"
Kagetsu took a step. The stone floor didn't crack, and no lightning bolted through the air. But the atmosphere became so heavy it felt as if they were trying to breathe underwater. An invisible pressure squeezed their lungs.
"A thousand years ago," Kagetsu said, as if making small talk, "those who touched me like this would first forget their own names. And then, why they even existed."
The second man, trying to suppress his fear, drew his knife with a snarl and lunged forward. Kagetsu didn't even flinch. The dark density in his right eye simply rippled. The man's arm froze in mid-air. His muscles locked so violently that the sound of snapping bone could be heard. The knife fell from his hand, clattering on the stone floor.
"Stop..." the man groaned, his face contorted in pain and pure dread. "Don't..."
Kagetsu looked at him. Long and steady. As if examining an antique or a piece of stale food. "I am doing it," he said. "Because you pollute this world with your very existence."
He slightly curled his fingers. The man's consciousness went out like a snuffed candle. He collapsed. He was alive, but his mind was shattered. From now on, he would be nothing more than a wounded animal staring blankly into space.
The third man tried to run, but his legs betrayed him. After two steps, he fell to his knees. He saw his own reflection in a puddle on the stone ground and began to sob uncontrollably.
"Please," he gasped through his tears. "I... I didn't do anything."
Kagetsu leaned down, bringing his face close. When Hyoga's youthful features merged with Kagetsu's ancient expression, a terrifying contrast emerged.
"Wrong," Kagetsu whispered. "That was your greatest sin: existing."
The man fainted, unable to bear the weight of the terror.
The street returned to its eerie silence. Kagetsu straightened up. The body was trembling slightly. Hyoga's consciousness wanted to vomit, to cry, to escape this violence. Kagetsu didn't suppress these feelings. On the contrary, he savored them.
"You'll get used to it, little boy," he said into the void within. "This world isn't made of fairy tales; it's made of the sound of breaking bones."
Kagetsu walked on, indifferent to the wreckage he left behind. He studied the city's architecture, gauging the power of this era by the height of its towers and the strength of its walls. Finally, he reached a wide terrace at one of the city's highest points.
Below, the city bustled like an insect nest. People scurried under the lights, wasting their lives on meaningless troubles. Kagetsu rested his hands on the cold marble railing. This body was still foreign, but Hyoga's memories were slowly seeping into his mind. The Academy... being an outcast... lack of talent...
"Talentless?" he laughed to himself. "I will show you what true talent is, Hyoga."
At that exact moment, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. A thousand years of combat experience moved the body before the brain could even process the threat. Kagetsu stepped to the side. The air was torn by a sharp whistle. A metallic flash passed his ear by a fraction of a second and embedded itself into the stone pillar behind him.
Clang!
Kagetsu turned slowly. The object embedded in the pillar was an arrow. But this arrow looked like no weapon he had ever seen. Its shaft was made of a white metal, without a single blemish or speck of dirt. It looked as if it didn't belong to this world, but had leaped out of a dream.
Kagetsu reached out and pulled the arrow from its place. As soon as his palm touched it, something strange happened. The rusty, dark energy Kagetsu called "Echo of Sin" did not react upon contact with this arrow. There was nothing inside the arrow. No hatred, no killing intent, no ambition.
This arrow had been fired not with an intent, but with a duty.
"So, it took you this little time to find me," Kagetsu said into the darkness.
At the other end of the terrace, a figure emerged from the shadows. Despite the night, the man wore heavy cloth garments that shimmered a brilliant white, as if they could never be stained. In his hand, he held a longbow with no ornamentation but a flawless curve. His face was as expressionless and calm as a marble statue.
"A stain has appeared in the city," the man said. His voice was as clear and emotionless as a temple bell. "A black stain. An echo that must be cleansed."
Kagetsu smiled, but this time his smile was more of a snarl. "Sinless Mages... I thought your kind was extinct. Are you still fooling yourselves with that stupid 'purification' fairy tale?"
The man took a step. It seemed as though not a single grain of dust rose from where he stepped. "We do not fool. We simply balance. You are a mistake from a thousand years ago."
"A mistake?" Kagetsu stepped forward. His shadow began to coat the terrace floor like ink. "I am the reality of this world. I am the only mirror capable of seeing the filth beneath your lily-white robes."
The man raised his bow again. He notched a new arrow. This time, a faint white light began to gather at the tip of the arrow. "A mirror is destined to break."
"Try it then," Kagetsu said. The darkness in his right eye expanded as if wanting to cover his entire face. "But be careful; hurting someone without sin is my favorite art."
The cool night wind passed between them. The city continued to sleep below, but above, a thousand-year-old hatred stood face-to-face with an unrecognizable purity. Kagetsu could not find a single crumb of sin within this man; this was the greatest obstacle against his power.
The bowstring tightened.
The darkness intensified.
The man's lips moved: "The first sign has been given. Now, the whole city will hunt you."
Kagetsu's only response was to take a step. Because he knew: only those who flee are called prey.