Even in the eternal twilight of the cave, lit only by the dull glow of the Well of Souls and the cold gleam of frost crystals on the walls, one could feel the passage of time. Akatsuki Magoro stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the black water's surface, but he saw not it, but something distant, lost in the dust of centuries. Raidou, as always, was in his respectful shadow, his presence as immutable as mountain ice.
"They fight like kittens over a ball, not knowing a snake is hidden inside," Magoro said quietly, his voice even, devoid of mockery. He spoke of Akira's team, fighting in the Labyrinth. "Their bravery... is born of ignorance. A convenient form of courage."
Raidou did not answer. His icy eyes were fixed on his master's back. In such moments of silence, his own past seemed to emerge from the fog, cold and clear as a pattern on frosted glass.
Then, three hundred years ago.
He was not called Raidou. He had no name. He was "that boy with the icy eyes," "unclean," "cursed." The village at the foot of the Misty Mountains was poor, and its inhabitants sought someone to blame for their misfortunes in everything except their own laziness and stupidity. His eyes, the color of a frozen mountain lake, became their obsession.
And then winter came. So harsh that birds froze mid-flight. Crops perished, supplies ran out. And the elders, gathered in a smoky hut, passed judgment: the boy was the evil eye, sent by the spirit of winter. His banishment would appease the elements.
They didn't just drive him out. They beat him with sticks to "beat out the foolishness" and left him to die in the forest, in the heart of a raging blizzard. Cold pierced his ragged clothes, burning his skin like hot iron. Snow crunched on his eyelashes, clogged the wounds on his back. He crawled, seeing no path, driven only by a blind survival instinct. Tears froze on his cheeks, and he knew this was the end. The world, always cruel to him, was now simply finishing him off.
And then he saw a Flicker.
Through the curtain of falling snow, in the pitch darkness, a dim, wavering light. He crawled toward it like a moth to a flame, spending his last strength. He crawled out onto a small clearing, sheltered from the wind by a ring of ancient pines.
And there, in the center of this icy hell, sat a man. He sat on a bare rock, and before him, a fire burned. Small, almost unbelievable in such a storm. The flame was steady and obedient. The man was clad in an ash-gray kimono, carelessly draped over his shoulders, and held a sharpened stick with a large carp skewered on it. The fish sizzled, splattering fat into the fire, spreading a smell that made the boy's stomach cramp with hunger.
This was Akatsuki Magoro. In those days, he was already an outcast, a power feared and hated by the clans. He wandered, having grown weary of a world he considered too small for his genius.
The boy, trembling all over, made a final lunge and collapsed into the snow at the edge of the clearing.
Magoro didn't even turn his head.
"Get lost," his voice was calm and irritatingly mundane. "You're ruining my dinner. Your stench spoils the aroma."
"H-help..." the boy forced out, his teeth chattering so hard he could barely speak.
Only then did Magoro slowly turn. His gaze, heavy and all-seeing, slid over the emaciated, frostbitten body, over the bruises and scrapes. There was neither anger nor pity in his eyes. Only... boredom.
"Why should I?" he asked, as if clarifying the weather. "You are weak. You are nothing. The world is full of beggars and weaklings freezing in ditches. How are you different? Give me one reason."
Despair, sharper than any cold, pierced the boy. He saw the carp forming a golden crust. He saw the indifference in this man's eyes. And this indifference was more terrible than the villagers' sticks. It was the final verdict.
And then a rasp tore from his throat, born at the junction of agony and last, desperate hope.
"I... I can help! I can cool your carp if it's too hot!"
He wasn't thinking of Kokuro. He didn't know what it was. He simply willed it. He concentrated all his hatred of the cold, all his fear of death, all his pathetic will to live into a single point—the fish on the stick.
And the world obeyed.
The air around the fire froze. The flame didn't go out, but it wavered, shrank, its color shifting from orange to bluish. Frost, like powdered sugar, crackled as it ran over the stone Magoro sat on and coated his sandal in a thin crust. The edge of the carp facing the boy became covered with ice crystals.
Silence hung over the clearing, becoming louder than the blizzard's roar.
Akatsuki Magoro did not smile. Did not praise. His bored expression shifted to sharp, predatory attention. He tore his gaze from the carp and stared at the boy. He looked not at a child, but at a phenomenon. A rarest, virgin talent breaking through the brink of death. Not a learned technique, not a clan legacy. Purest instinct. A will capable of changing reality... just to cool a fish.
"...Interesting," he uttered, and for the first time, notes of genuine interest sounded in his voice. He smirked behind his high scarf.
It was not a kind smirk. It was the smirk of an alchemist finding the philosopher's stone, or a sculptor seeing a future masterpiece in a block of marble.
He took the carp off the stick and casually tossed it into the snow before the boy. The half-eaten carcass made a dull thud.
"Eat," Magoro commanded. "Your body, your will, your fear... are now my property. You will become my experiment. I will see what a force born not from ambition... but from the fear of freezing... can become."
In the cave, Raidou slowly exhaled, and his breath became a cloud of icy dust. He looked at Magoro's back—at the one who had not saved him, but had given him definition. Who had not offered love, but had granted purpose. Who had seen in a dirty, hunted stray not a human, but absolute potential.
His devotion was not gratitude. It was philosophical certainty. Magoro was the only one who understood his true nature. And to become a perfect tool in the hands of such a being was the greatest honor existence could bestow.
He was no longer a nameless boy. He was Shiroyama Raidou. The Ice Sentinel of the Heavenly Demon Emperor. And he was ready to turn the whole world to ice to prove his master's choice had been right.