The rain in Azerion did not fall in droplets; it fell in sheets of liquid lead, cold and unforgiving.
In the center of the merchant district's narrow intersection, Kaito Hana Sato stood amidst the swirling mist, his hands empty, his posture deceptively relaxed.
"Come on," Kaito's voice cut through the gale, dripping with a venomous boredom. He raised a hand, pointing a single finger toward the two men in red.
"You two... you're more like hunting dogs than 'Crimson Brothers.' Tell me, does your master feed you scraps, or do you have to beg for the bone?"
The air turned frigid. The brother on the left, a man with a face scarred by a dozen shallow blade marks, gripped his katana until his knuckles turned white.
"I am the Crimson Sword," he spat, his voice a low growl.
The man on the right, his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark, cracked goggles, leveled a heavy-barreled revolver. "And I am the Crimson Revolver. And you?
You are a walking corpse who hasn't realized he's already on the ground."
With a synchronized roar, the brothers detonated their power. Their Hunting Will surged, a violent, blood-red aura that merged with their weapons.
The katana began to vibrate with a high-pitched, serrated hum, and the revolver's chamber glowed with a heat so intense the raindrops vaporized before they could touch the metal.
Kaito stood still. Then, something strange happened. The thick, suffocating black aura that had been radiating from him—the terrifying pressure of the Shadow Fang—vanished. It was as if a candle had been snuffed out in a storm.
"He stopped manifesting his Hunting Will?" the Crimson Sword brother scoffed, a mocking grin splitting his face.
"What's this, Fang? Have you already accepted your defeat? Are you trying to die with some dignity?"
Kaito didn't answer. He just stood there, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and rhythmic.
"Sword... do you notice that change?" the Crimson Revolver brother whispered, his goggles reflecting a strange distortion in the air.
"What are you—"
Sword didn't finish his sentence. Suddenly, his crimson cloak was shredded. A dozen fine, razor-sharp lines appeared across his chest and arms, blood blossoming through the fabric in an instant.
There had been no movement. No blade.
Sword stumbled back, his eyes wide with a new, crystalline fear. "What... what was that? Wind slashes? Without a weapon?"
He looked at Kaito, who had finally opened his eyes. They were no longer the dark pits of the Shadow Fang; they were a piercing, translucent gray.
"Did he just switch his Will?" Sword hissed, his voice trembling. "He's no longer hunting... he's become the Will of Wind."
Kaito took a single step forward. The ground didn't crack; instead, the wind beneath his feet swirled in a violent cyclone. He raised his hands, crossing them in front of his chest like a grim reaper's scythe.
"CROSS."
The word was a command to the world itself. Suddenly, the entire intersection—the space between the buildings, the air itself—began to collapse inward. The brothers felt as though the atmospheric pressure had tripled in a heartbeat. Invisible walls of moving air were crushing the domain they stood in.
"What is this, Brother?!" the Sword brother screamed, hacking desperately at the air with his katana to deflect the invisible blades that were flaying his skin.
The Revolver brother fired three shots, but the bullets didn't travel straight; they were caught in the swirling vortex, spinning harmlessly away into the stone walls.
"He's forcing his Will to manifest in reality! He's not just using an aura—he's rewriting the laws of the air!"
Kaito made a cold, predatory smirk, his cloak snapping violently in the wind of his own making.
"Let's start the hunt for the dogs," he whispered.
Far from the city, on the ancient highroad that connected the kingdom of Purasia to Azerion, the night was a masterpiece of starlight and silence. But that silence was shattered by the rhythmic thunder of two thousand hooves.
Lord Ethan, the Great War God, rode at the head of his cavalry. He was a mountain of steel atop a black stallion, his golden armor shimmering under the brilliant stars.
Behind him stretched a line of five hundred Will Users, an army capable of erasing a small nation from the map in a single afternoon.
Suddenly, the stallion reared back, neighing in distress. Lord Ethan raised a gauntleted hand, and the entire five-hundred-man cavalry ground to a halt with a deafening clatter of armor.
Standing in the center of the road, bathed in the silver light of the stars, was a single figure.
The man was draped in a long, heavy black cloak that obscured his frame. On his head sat a wide, conical bamboo hat, the shadow of which hid his face entirely. He didn't move.
He didn't speak. He simply existed there, a static blot of ink on a canvas of light.
Ethan rode forward, his face twisting into a mask of noble fury. He looked down from his mount at the silent traveler.
"Who are you?" Ethan's voice was like grinding stones. "How does a lowly creature like you dare to intervene in a royal noble path? Do you have any idea whose blood you are stealing?"
The man under the hat didn't look up. The atmosphere around the cavalry began to thicken. The horses began to foam at the mouth, their eyes rolling back in their heads.
The five hundred Will users behind Ethan felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. It was a weight—a massive, silent mountain of pressure that suggested the person in front of them wasn't a man at all.
Ethan gripped the hilt of his claymore, his knuckles white. The air between the army and the lone man became so intense it felt like it might spontaneously combust.
In the small house on the edge of the city, the dream of a reunion had become a nightmare.
CRACK.
The door splintered as Kashima Hanto's boot slammed into it. He lunged into the warm kitchen, his face a mask of sweating, desperate greed.
"Found you!" he wheezed. Before Asha could react, he lashed out with a backhanded strike, the force of his blow sending her spinning across the floor. She hit the wooden cupboards with a sickening thud.
"Sister!" Hana shrieked, her voice high and thin with terror. She scrambled toward Asha, but Kashima was faster.
He didn't go for the girl. He went for the leverage. He pulled a heavy, black-iron revolver from his belt, his thumb cocking the hammer with a metallic click that sounded like a death sentence.
Asha, her lip bleeding and her vision swimming, didn't stay down. She roared with a mother's fury, lunging from the floor and grabbing the barrel of the gun.
She wasn't a fighter, but the love for the girl behind her gave her a strength that defied logic.
"Leave her alone!" Asha screamed, her fingers clawing at Kashima's eyes, her other hand desperately trying to wrench the weapon away.
They grappled, a chaotic blur of wet silk and desperate gasps. Kashima growled, his face turning purple with effort as he tried to point the barrel at her chest.
"Get... off... me!"
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
Three deafening reports echoed through the small house, followed by a silence so heavy it felt as though the world had stopped breathing. Smoke curled from the barrel, mingling with the smell of vegetable stew.
At the same moment, in the opulent silence of the White Hunter Guild Headquarters, Yanto was still lounging on his velvet sofa. The Transmit Will crystal on the table hummed once more.
A message flickered across its surface. Yanto's eyes widened, and a slow, dark smirk spread across his face.
"So, the prodigal son returns," Yanto whispered.
The doors to the balcony swung open, and a man stepped in from the rain. He was tall, lithe, and carried a long, slender katana that seemed to drink the light in the room.
This was Yurata, the most skilled swordsman of the White Hunter Guild, a man who had been on a three-year mission in the frozen north.
Yurata didn't say hello. He simply looked at the city below, where the black gale of Kaito's Will was still raging in the distance.
"The Fang is back," Yurata said, his voice as smooth as silk and twice as dangerous. "I can feel his scent on the wind."
"He's busy with the Crimson Brothers," Yanto replied, tossing a coin onto the table. "But Lord Ethan is coming. And now you're here."
Yurata smirked, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade. "All your enemies are coming for your hunt, Shadow Fang. I hope you've said your prayers."
Back in the merchant district, the "CROSS" domain had faded. The wind had died down, leaving only the steady, rhythmic patter of the rain.
Kaito was no longer standing.
He lay on the cold, wet cobblestones, his chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths. His eyes were unfocused, staring up at the dark clouds.
Beside him, the two Crimson Brothers stood, their red cloaks shredded and their bodies covered in the fine nicks of the wind-will, but they were still on their feet.
The Crimson Revolver brother tucked his weapon back into its holster, a mocking, jagged laugh escaping his throat.
"Even if you are the strongest," the Revolver brother sneered, looking down at Kaito's twitching form, "you're still just a man who breathes air. And you didn't realize that we don't just use fire and steel."
Kaito tried to push himself up, but his arms collapsed beneath him. A dark, purple hue was spreading through his veins, visible even beneath his pale skin. His throat felt as though it were full of glass.
"The air," Kaito rasped, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes, the air," the Sword brother laughed, stepping forward and pointing his blade at Kaito's throat. "While you were showing off your 'Will of Wind,' you were inhaling our specialty.
A concentrated neuro-poison, merged with our own Hunting Will. Every time you used a technique, you pumped the poison deeper into your heart."
Kaito's eyes rolled back. The world began to gray at the edges. The legendary Shadow Fang, the man with the billion-gold bounty, lay unconscious in the mud, defeated not by a blade, but by a breath of poisoned wind.
"End of the line, Captain," the Sword brother said, raising his katana for the final strike.