Autumn had painted the mountains in bruised shades of purple and gold. Two years had passed since the funeral, and the Uzumaki shrine had settled into a quiet, scarred existence.
In the center of the courtyard, the air cracked with the sound of wood on wood.
"Too slow!" Reiko shouted, twisting her body like a willow branch in the wind.
Rion lunged. He was seven now, taller and leaner, his muscles coiled like steel wire beneath his training tunic. He swung his bokken (wooden sword) with terrifying speed, a horizontal slash meant to bruise.
The time seemed to stutter. He didn't just see Reiko; he saw the tension in her quadriceps, the slight shift of her weight to her back foot. He saw the dodge before she made it.
She's going left, Rion analyzed instantly.
He adjusted his swing mid-air, putting his weight into a brutal downward chop. It was a move that would have shattered a clavicle.
But Reiko didn't dodge. She stepped in.
Using the momentum of his own swing against him, she hooked her leg behind his knee and slammed her palm into his chest. It wasn't a hard strike, but it was perfectly timed.
Rion's balance vanished. He crashed into the dirt, dust pluming around him. Before he could scramble up, the tip of Reiko's wooden sword was pressed against his throat.
"Dead," she panted, brushing a stray lock of black hair from her face. She was nine, lanky and fierce, her movements possessing a fluid grace that Rion envied.
Rion dropped his sword and flopped back onto the ground, staring up at the gray sky. "I saw you moving left."
"I feinted left," Reiko said, offering him a hand. "You rely too much on your eyes, Rion. You see the muscle move, but you don't feel the intent."
Rion took her hand. His grip was strong—too strong for a seven-year-old. He pulled himself up, dusting off his robes. His wrist throbbed with a dull ache, a constant companion of his training.
Daetsu sat on the veranda, watching them with a pipe that had long since gone cold.
"The Hammer and the Willow," the old priest muttered to himself. "One breaks the world; the other bends around it. I only hope they don't break each other."
That night, the air in the Healing Room was stale.
Rion sat by his mother's bedside, his hand glowing with the faint, golden light of gathered Natural Energy. He had performed this ritual every night for two years. It was the only thing keeping Keiko's spirit tethered to her body.
But tonight, the light was struggling.
He pushed the energy toward her chest, but it washed over her skin like water on oil. It wasn't sinking in. Her chakra network, usually a hungry void, felt closed off. Her breathing was shallow, hitching every few seconds.
"It's not working," Rion whispered, panic rising in his throat. "Daetsu! It's not working!"
The old priest hobbled into the room, his face grave. He checked the seals on the wall. They were flickering.
"Her resistance is building," Daetsu said quietly. "Her body is tired of sleeping, Rion. It's starting to reject the energy transfer. She needs a stabilizer to open the pathways again."
"What do we need?" Reiko asked from the doorway, her face pale.
"Moon-Pale Lilies," Daetsu said. "They are rare. They grow only in places where the spirit energy is thick and undisturbed. The nearest patch is in the Hollow Gorge."
Rion stood up. "I'll go get them."
"You will not," Daetsu snapped, slamming his cane down. "The Hollow Gorge is halfway down the mountain. It is outside the shrine's barrier. Since Mōryō awakened, the land down there has been… twisted. It is not safe for children."
"If we don't go, she fades," Rion said. His voice wasn't defiant; it was cold and factual. He pointed at the flickering seals. "Look. We have maybe two days before she slips away completely."
Daetsu looked at the seals, then at the two children. He saw the crimson fire in Rion's eyes and the stubborn set of Reiko's jaw. He realized, with a heavy heart, that he couldn't stop them even if he tried.
"Take the hunting knives," Daetsu sighed, defeated. "And if you see anything bigger than a fox… You run. Do you understand? You run."
The world outside the shrine was loud.
For Rion, stepping beyond the barrier stones was like walking into a riot. The forest screamed with visual noise.
Through the Alpha Eye, he saw the chaotic texture of every leaf, the frantic movement of insects, the sway of branches.
Through the Omega Eye, he saw the life force of the forest—a blinding web of green and gold energy. But amongst the gold, there were stains.
"Black spots," Rion murmured, stopping on the trail.
"What do you see?" Reiko whispered, gripping the handle of her knife.
"Rot," Rion said. He pointed to a patch of moss that looked perfectly normal to Reiko. To him, it was oozing with a sickly, oily darkness. "The land is sick here. It's Mōryō's leftovers."
"Keep moving," Reiko said, steering him around the patch. "We just need the flowers."
They descended into the Hollow Gorge. The air here was cooler, damp, and smelling of wet earth. The trees grew twisted, their roots gnarled like arthritic fingers. Silence hung heavy, pressing against their ears.
"There," Reiko pointed.
In the center of a small clearing, bathed in a shaft of moonlight, grew a cluster of pale, silver flowers. They glowed faintly, humming with pure energy.
"Moon-Pale Lilies," Rion breathed.
They hurried forward. Rion knelt, carefully digging his fingers into the soil to uproot them without damaging the bulbs. The soil felt cold and slimy.
Snap.
The sound of a twig breaking echoed like a gunshot.
Rion froze. Reiko spun around, her knife raised.
From the shadows of the underbrush, a pair of eyes glowed. Then two more. Then a low, wet growl vibrated through the ground.
A boar stepped into the light.
But it wasn't a normal boar. It was massive, standing as tall as a man at the shoulder. Its fur was matted with the same black, oily sludge Rion had seen in the earth. Two curved tusks jutted from its jaw, dripping yellow saliva.
And on its forehead, above its normal eyes, two smaller, red eyes blinked erratically.
"Mutant," Rion whispered. "It's been eating the corruption."
The beast snorted, pawing the ground. The killing intent rolling off it was a physical weight. Reiko froze. She had trained against Rion, against wood and straw. She had never stood in front of something that wanted to eat her.
The boar squealed—a high-pitched, unnatural sound—and charged.
It moved with terrifying speed for its size, a battering ram of muscle and hate. It was heading straight for Reiko.
"Reiko! Move!" Rion screamed.
She didn't move. Her legs were locked by fear.
The Cold Snake Strikes
Rion didn't think. He didn't plan. He just reacted.
He threw himself between his sister and the beast. As he moved, he reached into the pit of his stomach. He grabbed the Cold Snake—his heavy, dense chakra—and yanked it to the surface.
Harden, he commanded his body. Be a rock.
He channeled the chakra into his right arm, intending to stop the charge with a punch.
He met the boar head-on.
CRACK.
The sound was sickening.
Rion's fist collided with the boar's skull. The impact was devastating—the boar's head snapped back, its momentum halted as if it had hit a wall. The beast stumbled, dazed.
But Rion flew backward, crashing into a tree root.
He scrambled up, clutching his right arm. His wrist was bent at the wrong angle. The bone had snapped under the recoil of his own power.
"Ahhh!" Rion screamed, the pain blinding him white.
The boar shook its head, shaking off the stun. It turned its four eyes toward Rion, saliva flying. It roared and prepared to charge again. Rion was on his knees, one hand useless, tears of pain blurring his vision.
I'm going to die, Rion thought.
Suddenly, a blur of motion cut across his vision.
Reiko.
Seeing Rion hurt had snapped her paralysis. She didn't try to punch the boar. She didn't try to match its strength.
She slid underneath its tusks, slapping a piece of paper onto its snout.
"Bind!" she shrieked.
It was a basic Paralysis Seal she had stolen from her mother's library. It wasn't strong enough to hold a demon, but against a beast, it worked.
The seals flared blue. The boar seized up, its muscles locking mid-stride. It crashed to the ground, sliding through the mud, paralyzed but still conscious.
Reiko scrambled back, chest heaving. "Rion! Do it! Now!"
Rion stood up.
The pain in his wrist was screaming, a high-pitched siren in his nervous system.
But as he looked at the beast struggling against the seal, something inside him shifted.
The pain didn't stop, but his mind pushed it into a box. The panic evaporated. The tears stopped.
The Soldier—the ghost of the man he used to be—stepped forward.
Rion walked toward the boar. He didn't run. He walked.
He drew a kunai with his left hand.
The world zoomed in. He saw the boar's thick hide. He saw the heavy bone of the skull. He saw the frantic, erratic beating of its mutated heart beneath the ribs.
There, he thought. Between the third and fourth rib. A gap in the armor.
He stood over the beast. The boar's four eyes rolled wildly, looking up at him.
Rion felt a surge of the Cold Snake chakra. It flooded his good hand, coating the kunai in a dense, dark aura.
He didn't hesitate. He dropped his knee onto the boar's neck and drove the blade down.
Shhhk.
It wasn't a struggle. The chakra-enhanced blade sliced through skin, muscle, and heart like they were water.
The boar shuddered once. Then it went still. The black sludge in its veins stopped pumping.
Rion stayed there for a moment, kneeling in the mud, his hand buried in the beast's chest.
He waited for the horror. He waited to feel sick.
But he didn't.
He felt… efficient. He felt the Cold Snake in his gut purr with a dark satisfaction. The threat was neutralized. The mission was a success.
He looked at his blood-soaked hand. It was easy, he thought, and the thought chilled him to the bone.
"Rion?"
Reiko's voice broke the trance. She was beside him, her hands trembling as she reached for his broken wrist.
"Don't look at it," Rion said flatly, pulling his hand out of the boar. He wiped the blade on the beast's fur and sheathed it.
He held out his broken arm. Reiko winced, but she worked quickly. She used strips of her own sash and two straight sticks to splint the wrist.
"You killed it," she whispered, tying the knot. She looked at him with wide eyes. "One hit."
"You stopped it," Rion corrected her. He looked at her, his crimson eyes fading back to their normal, dull red glow. "If you hadn't used the seal, I'd be dead."
Reiko looked at the dead monster, then back at her little brother. He looked different. Older.
They gathered the lilies in silence.
The climb back up the mountain was grueling. Rion cradled his broken arm, every step a jolt of pain, but he didn't complain. He just kept moving, his eyes scanning the darkness for more threats.
When they reached the shrine, Daetsu was waiting at the gate with a lantern. When he saw the blood and the splint, his face crumbled, but he didn't scold them. He just ushered them inside.
An hour later, in the Healing Room.
Rion stood by the bed, his arm in a sling. With his good hand, he pressed the crushed paste of the Moon-Pale Lilies, mixed with his energy, into his mother's mouth.
The reaction was immediate.
Color rushed back into Keiko's cheeks. The seals on the wall stopped flickering and burned with a steady, strong light. Her breathing deepened into a natural rhythm. She wasn't awake, but she was safe.
Rion slumped against the wall, sliding down until he hit the floor.
"We did it," Reiko whispered, sitting beside him. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
"Yeah," Rion said.
He looked at his good hand—the one that had held the knife. He could still feel the resistance of the meat giving way.
He closed his eyes. He had saved his mother. But to do it, he had to break his bones and kill a living thing without blinking.
To be a guardian, Rion realized, listening to the wind howl outside, you have to be a monster first.
He let his head rest against Reiko's. The Cold Snake slept in his gut, full and content.
And for the first time in two years, Rion slept without dreaming.