The war had reached the healer's tents.
Rain hammered the roof like nails from the sky, and thunder clawed across the heavens. Inside a dim, flickering tent stitched together by desperation and hope, blood pooled around the feet of a sixteen-year-old boy.
Ken stood motionless, clutching surgical tools with trembling hands. His eyes fixed on the open wound before him — a Ministry general, barely breathing, his insides torn apart by something unnatural. Not shrapnel. Not spellfire.
No… Chaos Magic.
It pulsed beneath the man's skin like living ink, veins glowing black, muttering curses in a tongue no healer dared to speak. It wasn't supposed to exist. Not anymore.
And yet it was here.
"Hold that steady, Ken," his father barked, voice sharp but tired. "If the seal breaks, we lose him."
Ken obeyed, pressing down on the rune-etched clamp, ignoring the heat of the general's corrupted aura. His father moved like a man possessed, hands weaving magical sutures while sweat poured down his face. He had saved hundreds like this. But Chaos Magic... that was something else entirely. It resisted healing. It fought back.
Suddenly, the wind changed. The candles dimmed to near nothing. And the shadows twisted unnaturally.
The tent flap fluttered open.
And in stepped a man wearing a mask—a smooth, smiling face of a child, cracked slightly at the cheek.
Ken felt it instantly.
Wrong.This man didn't belong here.Not among the living. Not even among the dying.
His father froze mid-suture. His voice cracked. "You…"
His eyes widened—not in confusion, but recognition.
"You were supposed to be helping us," he said, almost pleading. "We trusted you. You were one of—"
"I was," the masked man interrupted, stepping inside slowly, dragging the storm behind him. "But your side is flawed."
He unsheathed a jagged weapon — somewhere between an axe and a sword — the steel humming with something darker than death. It didn't gleam. It absorbed light.
"You heal," he said softly, "but you never cleanse. That's why evil festers in your side of the line."
Ken's father stood in front of his son, chest rising, bloodied hands clenching magic and fear. "You're insane," he whispered.
The man tilted his head. "No. Just honest."
Then came the words Ken would never forget:
"Magic will be mine one day. All of it. Without me, it'll fall into ruin anyway. You people only delay decay—you never stop it."
In one swift movement, the blade sank into his father's chest.
It wasn't magic that killed him. It was betrayal.
Blood sprayed across Ken's face as his father collapsed.
Ken didn't scream.
He couldn't.
The masked man looked down at him, smile unmoving, eyes hidden behind glassy holes. "Shoo off, kid. I'll spare your life. For now."
Then thunder cracked.
And lightning tore through the sky—
He was gone.
Nothing left but blood. Smoke.And the curse that had been left behind in Ken's heart.
Outside, the storm raged. Inside, something colder than rain began to bloom within the boy.A silence louder than war. A stillness darker than death.
And the shadow of that smile would follow him for the rest of his life.