Masakiro sat cross‑legged on the tatami in Tsuramo's room, back to the sliding window.
Afternoon light slipped past the shōji and caught in his white hair, turning the loose strands almost silver.
In front of him, on a low wooden stand, Tsuramo's egg rested—smooth, faintly warm, traced with thin red lines like veins.
He'd been told to watch it. To guide it, if it stirred. The egg shuddered. Masakiro's eyes opened fully.
A thin crack traced along one of the red lines, then another, spiderwebbing with a soft, dry sound.
The room went oddly quiet, as if the air itself was listening.
"...Eh?" he breathed.
The shell split. But no creature crawled out.
No newborn beast, no scaled hatchling like Mrs. Kurohana had described in her lectures.
Instead, something rose from the broken pieces—a perfectly cut crystal, diamond‑shaped, the size of a child's fist.
It hovered above the stand, spinning slowly. Deep red light burned at its core, pulsing in time with a heartbeat that wasn't his.
Masakiro's eyes widened.
"Oh. Tsuramo‑nii's egg hatched." He leaned forward, breath caught in his throat.
The red glow bathed his face.
"This isn't… what Kurohana‑sensei said," he muttered.
"No beast form, no physical shell… just a core. A pure Shinryu crystal." His voice dropped.
"Brother… you're on a different level."
As if responding, the crystal flared—one sharp, blinding pulse. Then it was gone. No shatter, no sound.
Just vanished, like it had been swallowed by space itself. Only the cracked, empty shell remained, thin as paper.
Masakiro stared at the void where it had floated. For a moment, he could feel it—far away, racing down into the earth, straight toward the Yokoshima Tunnel.
"Tsuramo‑nii…" he whispered. "Just how powerful are you?"
He gathered the fragile remains of the egg carefully into both hands, stood, and slid the door open.
Confusion still tight in his chest, he stepped out into the corridor, already moving to report what he'd seen.
---
At the Yokoshima Tunnel's depth, the world was already breaking.
Ayame's violet eyes narrowed. A wave of pressure slammed through the passage. Stone groaned, the warped walls flexing.
Rei's golden light shattered into fragments for an instant before he forced it back into form.
Kurojin cursed as the shockwave hit.
Ayame braced, but it wasn't enough—her sword wrenched from her grip, metal ringing against stone as it clattered and slid away into the dark.
Pain lanced up her arm; her fingers refused to close for a heartbeat too long. Behind her, Tsuramo froze.
Something tore open inside his chest—not flesh, but space.
A surge of power, hot and cold at once, roared through him.
For an instant, the tunnel, the others, even the watching presence in the dark blurred.
Red.
The same deep, crystalline red that had flickered above his egg.
He exhaled slowly. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth beneath the mask.
The air around his right hand twisted, spiraling in a tight vortex. With a lazy, practiced motion, he turned his wrist.
From the swirl, a blade emerged—long, slender, black like quenched steel, veins of dark red light running just beneath its surface as if the sword had been carved from a living gem.
The pressure in the tunnel flinched.
Even the Kijin's eyes widened a fraction as he felt it.
Tsuramo stepped forward, boots silent on stone, passing Kijin, then Rei, until he came to stand at Ayame's side.
She glanced at him, violet eyes sharp despite the thin line of blood at the corner of her lip.
"I told you," she said, voice tight but steady, "you only fight when necessary, Tsuramo."
He rolled his shoulder once, raising the crystal‑veined sword so its edge pointed toward the unseen depths ahead.
"And now it's necessary, Ayame‑taichō," he replied. "You drop your blade, the captain bleeds, and the damn tunnel starts throwing tantrums. If this doesn't count, nothing does."
For a brief moment, the light caught his eyes beneath the hat's shadow—they glowed faintly red, pupils slit thinner than before.
The mark on his neck pulsed once, like something old and draconic had just opened its eyes.
He faced the darkness where the Shinryu Beast and its unseen army watched.
"Oi, Shinryu," Tsuramo called, voice carrying clean down the warped stone.
"So this is your 'divine terror'? Hiding in walls and making girls do your dirty work?" He snorted softly.
"You feel more like a scared lizard playing Beast."
The tunnel answered with a low, hostile rumble. Tsuramo shifted into stance, sword humming faintly in his grip.
"Remember this," he said, every word clear.
"I'm Tsuramo—the only one here who actually is Shinryu." His smirk sharpened. "I don't kneel to beasts. I put them down."
Kijin's jaw clenched. "Idiot."
Koryu laughter cut off.
The Shinryu Beast lifted one hand and the tunnel answered him. Green power slammed outward—stone buckled, the floor heaved, and a crushing weight dropped over them like deep water.
Rei staggered, light threads shivering.
"Domain pressure—!" he hissed.
Tsuramo vanished.
One blink he was beside Ayame, the next there was only the faint swirl of red motes where he'd stood.
Koryu's massive arm swept down; stone shattered where Tsuramo had been an instant before.
A thin red line appeared across Koryu's side. Blood.
Too shallow. Not enough.
Tsuramo reappeared behind him, already mid-swing.
Blade flashed, drew another cut, then he was gone again—presence suppressed so hard even Kijin's senses barely caught the afterimage.
In a heartbeat, a dozen wounds bloomed across Koryu's body.
The Beast roared, power surging. Green force erupted from him in all directions, smashing into the walls and ceiling.
The shockwave caught Tsuramo mid-step; he slammed into the rock, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs.
For a moment, darkness bit at the edge of his vision.
Ayame's eyes widened. "Tsuramo!"
He slid down the wall, boots scraping, one knee hitting stone. Pain bit deep along his ribs where something had torn.
Warmth spread under his clothes.
Still, he stood.
He pushed himself up with one hand on the floor, sword in the other, mask tilted down.
Koryu turned, amused again.
"Fast," he rumbled. "Annoying. But you can't carve down a mountain with a knife, boy."
Green energy gathered in his palm, dense and violent.
"Tsuramo!" Kijin snapped. "Pull back! Your core just hatched—you can't trade with that thing head-on!"
Tsuramo rolled his shoulder, blood dripping from under his sleeve. His voice was calm. "I wasn't planning to trade."
He stepped forward again.
Ayame's hand twitched toward him, then tightened into a fist. Her violet eyes flicked from Koryu's swelling power to Tsuramo's stance, to Kijin's clenched jaw.
"Kijin," she said, low. "If you move, make it count."
Kijin exhaled through his nose. "Hai, taichō."
Wind gathered around him in a tight spiral. His silver hair lifted, eyes sharpening.
Koryu thrust out his hand.
A torrent of green force tore through the tunnel—enough to pulverize stone, enough to erase a squad.
It swallowed Tsuramo's silhouette whole.
Ayame's heart lurched.
Then the image of Tsuramo broke apart into black feathers of shadow and mist, dissolving soundlessly.
An illusion.
Koryu's head snapped to the side. Three more Tsuramos stepped from the air itself—one on the wall, one behind him, one above.
"All wind and lies," Koryu snarled.
He struck the closest, hand passing through it like smoke. The "Tsuramo" shattered into drifting shards of red light.
"Kijin's Illusions," Ayame murmured. "Layered on space, not sight."
Kijin's voice chanted under his breath, each word riding the wind "Kaze Maboroshi—Kagegiri."
The tunnel blurred. Koryu's sense of distance twisted—walls and floor bending just enough that every swing missed the real thing by a hand's breadth.
Illusory footsteps circled him. Countless presences flickered and died.
Only one was real.
Tsuramo moved at the heart of it all, one-handed, sword low, breathing steady despite the blood wetting his clothes.
The red veins in his blade glowed brighter, perfectly in time with his heartbeat.
Ryugan snarled, lashing out, but every attack met phantoms—wind-sheared doubles, warped echoes of Tsuramo's presence.
"Quit hiding!" Ryugan roared. "Show me your true—"
He didn't finish.
The illusions folded inward.
For an instant, every false Tsuramo, every shimmer of red, all occupied his field of vision at once—layered, stacked, impossible to separate.
Kijin's fingers snapped. "Now."
The real Tsuramo stepped through them.
No flourish. No shout.
Just a single, perfectly placed cut drawn in silence across Ryugan's core.
The tunnel seemed to exhale.
Koryu staggered. Green light poured from the wound, his power stuttering. He looked down at the line of red across his chest, then up at the masked shinobi in front of him.
"Heh..." Ryugan chuckled, voice lower. "You're a nasty one."
His massive form cracked—not with gore, but with light. Fissures of bright green split along his body, spreading like broken glass.
"Tsuramo," Ayame called, wary. "Back."
Tsuramo took one step away, blade lowering but not sheathing. His shoulders rose and fell once, calm.
Koryu's form finally shattered—breaking apart into fragments of light that dispersed into the air.
From the collapsing glow, a single orb drifted upward: a green sphere, bright and pulsing, like a condensed soul.
Rei's eyes widened. "Shinryu soul core —!"
The ball started to float higher, drawn toward the stone above.
Tsuramo moved before anyone else.
In a blur, he was there, arm shooting up.
His gloved hand closed around the orb in a tight grip. The light flared, burning bright enough to sear.
"Tsuramo!" Kijin snapped. "You don't even know what that will—"
Tsuramo's fingers tightened.
Fine cracks ran through the glowing sphere, spiderwebbing under his grip.
Faint, distant, Koryu's voice snarled something wordless—then cut off as Tsuramo crushed the core completely.
It shattered in his hand with a sound like breaking glass and distant thunder.
Silence dropped into the tunnel.
Ayame stared at him, violet eyes unreadable.
Rei's jaw was clenched.
Kijin's wind stilled around him, his expression dark.
Tsuramo lowered his hand. Ashlike motes of green faded from between his fingers. His sword's red glow dimmed back to a low, slow pulse.
Behind the mask, he exhaled once.
"One less Shinryu crawling back," he said quietly.
Then he stepped back into the line, as if nothing had happened at all.