The silence after Haruto's revelation hung thicker than the frozen air, charged with the terrible weight of Kuro's potential fate. The petrified noblewomen seemed to watch with their crystalline eyes; their eternal screams a silent prophecy of what awaited him. Kuro stared at his corrupted right hand as if it were a venomous serpent coiled on his arm, poised to strike. The sickly blue white veins pulsed beneath the translucent grey skin, the static buzz a constant, maddening counterpoint to the distant baying of the hounds, scraping at the edges of his sanity. He clenched his fist, knuckles whitening against the unnatural hue, tendons standing out like frozen cables under strain. The effort was immense, a war fought nerve by nerve against an alien will whispering promises of cold stillness and an end to pain through surrender. "Part of it?" he rasped, his voice thick with revulsion that barely masked the underlying terror. He looked from his traitorous limb to the puppeteered songbird, its stiff, unnatural posture a grotesque mockery of the life it once held. "Like... like them?" He gestured weakly with his chin towards the woman frozen mid curtsy, her face a mask of perfect, crystalline dread, Elara Veyne, forever captured in her final moment of terror.
"Potentially," Haruto replied, his voice devoid of comfort, only stark, tactical assessment. He kept his gaze scanning the perimeter where the garden met deeper shadows, his starlit blade held low and ready, a sliver of defiance against the encroaching dark. "The Blight consumes life force, but its true sustenance is the emotional resonance of the moment of death, the terror, the despair, the sheer, freezing shock. It preserves that resonance perfectly. Sustains Nyxara's power and... infects." He glanced back at Kuro, his aristocratic features hard as the surrounding ice in the moonlight. "Your excision of the brand was an act of magnificent defiance, Kuro. A rejection of Ryo's chains, burned into your own flesh. But it opened a wound steeped in the Frostway's corruption. The Blight found a conduit. It seeks to replicate the state it preserves within you, helplessness, despair. To freeze your defiance solid. To turn your rebellion into another exhibit in her gallery."
Ryota tore his gaze from his aunt's frozen face, etched with the horror he could now vividly imagine. The grief in his Polaris eyes had crystallized into something harder, colder, a glacial fury mirroring the garden itself, ready to shatter. He stepped towards Kuro, his massive frame deliberately blocking the view of the petrified figures. "Fight it, princeling," he growled, the command vibrating with the intensity of grinding tectonic plates, a bedrock of certainty. "You tore out your father's brand with a shard of ice and spit in his rotting eye while he watched. This," he jabbed a finger towards the corrupted arm, "is just fucking another chain. Another fucking collar forged by that fucker shatter them like you did his." He pointed Starbreaker, its pommel still faintly glowing with the residual energy of the Hound's demise, not at Kuro, but towards the direction of the palace's heart, towards the source of all their suffering. "Remember your mothers light. This," his gesture swept around the garden, "is the same fucking desecration. The same void trying to extinguish defiance, to turn light into a leash for darkness. Don't let it sculpt you into another frozen scream for her collection."
Juro, his grip firm and steady on Kuro's less injured side, his face etched with concern beneath the grime, added his voice, low and urgent, cutting through the cosmic dread with pragmatic, brotherly force. "He's right, Kuro. Don't give the cold the satisfaction. Don't let it win. Lean on me. We get you out of this frozen hellscape, yeah? One step at a time. Just like navigating the Black Vaults' lower ducts after curfew." His presence was a pillar of pragmatic support, a familiar anchor in the nightmare, reminding Kuro of shared scrapes and smuggled contraband, a life before the frost's grip tightened. Haruto moved to Kuro's other side, adding his strength, his usual aristocratic composure replaced by focused determination. "The exit is there. Focus on that, Kuro. The Blight thrives on despair. Deny it that fuel."
Shiro pushed off the dead star tree trunk, the phantom echoes of its death screams and Elara Veyne's final, futile party vibrating in his bones, merging with his own agony. The Polaris scar etched on his palm throbbed in time with the pulsing light of his own starlit chains scar, a steady, resonant beat against the discordant static buzzing in Kuro's veins , a lifeline thrown across the chasm of their shared torment. Kaya's stolen legacy, her stolen joy, was here too, in this violated sanctuary. He met Kuro's terrified, defiant eye, seeing the desperate struggle against the ice, against the despair Haruto had named, against the physical agony that threatened to buckle them both.
"We shatter them together," Shiro said, his voice raw but steady, each word a deliberate strike against the encroaching darkness, a vow forged in pain. He extended his uninjured left hand, palm up, the constellation of scars, shattered chains dissolving into stardust, pulsing with a warm, defiant ember bright light. It wasn't an offer to touch Kuro's corrupted arm, but a beacon, a promise of shared defiance. "Look at the collars. The brand. They are not just metal or scars. They are lies. Nyxara thrives on despair? Then we'll give her a fucking wildfire."
Kuro's single eye flickered, desperation warring with a spark of dark, familiar humour. "Wildfire, huh?" he rasped, a weak cough interrupting him. "Since when... are you the poet, slum rat?" The ghost of Kuro's defiance surfaced, a tiny spark in the overwhelming icy gloom.
Shiro managed a tight smirk, the ghost of a joke cutting through the suffocating tension and his own wrist's blinding pain. "Since I realized we've got nothing left to lose but each other. And that... that pisses me off enough to burn this whole frozen kingdom down."
"That's... sweet," Kuro gasped, a fresh wave of rib pain making him wince. "I'm almost touched... rat. Truly." The sarcasm was weak, but the intent was pure Kuro.
"Yeah, well," Shiro grunted, shifting his weight to alleviate the screaming pressure on his wrists, "You'll never... hear me say that again. Enjoy it."
Kuro stared at Shiro's outstretched hand, then down at his own corrupted limb. The static screamed surrender, become cold, become still, become part of the exhibit. But the memory burned hotter: Ryo's sneer, Akuma's promise to carve Aki, his mother's stolen eyes staring sightlessly. He remembered the terrifying, liberating agony when the Oji brand melted away under his own hand. He remembered declaring himself The Unforged Star. With a guttural snarl ripped from deep within his core, a sound more wounded animal than human prince, he slammed his left fist, the one bearing his self made constellation of liberation, just above the worst of the spreading frost.
THUDDDD
The impact jarred his broken ribs, sending fresh, blinding agony lancing through him, a white hot counterpoint to the icy violation. But it also sent a shockwave through the invasive static. The creeping tendrils of frost visibly recoiled for a fraction of a second, the sickly light dimming, the whispering cold momentarily silenced. Kuro gasped, sweat freezing anew on his brow, but his single eye blazed with fierce, bloody triumph. He glared at his own corrupted flesh, defiance momentarily overriding terror and agony. "Not... today," he choked out, spitting blood. "Not... fucking... ever. Hear that, you frozen bitch?"
Mira, her face pale as the surrounding ice but etched with determined focus, stepped closer, her fractured crow lens held up. The prismatic glass caught the moonlight and the pulsing light from both Shiro's and Kuro's scars, refracting it into a brief, complex pattern on the frozen ground. "The crows... they cut through the Blight's veil," she whispered, her voice thin but urgent, layered with distant avian shrieks. "They show a way. Not back. Deeper. Through the garden's western edge... there's an old carvern. Lady Veyne's... for storing winter blooms, rare spices. It connects... to an old barrack, less guarded. Less watched by Ryo's eyes." She pointed towards a section of the garden wall, heavily obscured by a massive, ancient rose trellis completely encased in ice, its thorns grown into jagged, foot long icicles that gleamed wickedly. "The Hounds... their baying splits. Some follow our scent here... others... circle ahead, cutting off the main passages. The cavern... it's our thread."
"Cavern," Ryota grunted, hefting Starbreaker, the Polaris light in his eyes flaring brighter, banishing the immediate shadows around him. "Better than becoming a permanent fixture. Move. Kuro," his gaze fixed on the prince, assessing his shattered state, "can you walk?"
Kuro tried to push himself up using the dead tree, Juro and Haruto tightening their grips. Agony ripped through his ribs and radiated from his corrupted arm, a symphony of pain. His legs, weakened by blood loss, shock, and the invasive cold, buckled instantly. "Can't..." he gasped, the admission torn from him, laced with frustration and fear. "Legs... fucking lead weights... full of ice..." The static surged back, a freezing wave threatening to drag him into unconsciousness. Juro instantly shifted his hold, taking nearly all of Kuro's weight, looping the prince's less corrupted arm firmly over his shoulders, his other arm bracing Kuro's waist with surprising strength. "Got you, Prince. Don't fight it. Just move your feet when I lift. One step. Then another. Like smuggling that crate of Sun Isle brandy past the drowsy gate sergeant, remember? Easy does it." His voice was strained but deliberately encouraging, the older bolder smuggler using familiar ground to anchor the wounded prince. Haruto moved seamlessly to Kuro's other side, adding his significant strength, his focus entirely on the physical task, a bulwark against the physical collapse. Kuro, sweat and blood mingling on his frozen brow, managed a weak, pained glance at Haruto through slitted eyes. "Never... thought I'd see the day... Lord Isamu the one… who always followed rules to the letter…," he rasped, each word a knife in his chest, "...rebelling against the kingdom... playing pack mule for a broken prince..." A flicker of something like bleak, genuine gratitude touched his eye beneath the pain. "...Unexpected. But... nice... to have familiar faces... in the frozen shit. Truly." The raw honesty in his voice, stripped of his usual armour, was stark.
Haruto's lips tightened, a complex mix of emotions flashing in his eyes, resolve, grim acceptance, perhaps a flicker of that long suppressed brotherly protectiveness. "Unexpected paths can cross and new ones form, Kuro," he said, his voice firm. "Hold on. The path narrows ahead. Focus on Juro's count." He adjusted his grip, taking more of Kuro's dead weight.
They moved as one, a ragged, pain wracked unit fleeing the gallery of death. Shiro stayed close to Kuro's flank, his own agony a blazing crucible in his arms, each step sending fresh torrents of fire up his nerves, the exposed bone in his wrists scraping with every jarring movement. He focused on the pulse of his scar, the thrum of the crystal, anchors against the garden's suffocating aura of preserved despair and his own body's betrayal. Ryota took point, his Polaris eyes scanning the shifting shadows beneath the skeletal trees and frozen topiaries, radiating a protective fury that seemed to push back the encroaching gloom. As they passed the woman frozen mid curtsy, Elara Veyne, Ryota's aunt, host to Kaya's last gathering of starlight, Shiro couldn't help but look. Up close, the detail was horrifyingly intimate, a single, perfect tear captured as an ice diamond on her cheekbone, the intricate lace of her collar frozen mid flutter, the faint pattern of her silk stockings visible beneath the hem of her gown. The despair etched there felt personal now, another searing crime laid at Ryo and Nyxara's feet, fuelling his own desperate fire.
Reaching the monstrous, ice encrusted rose trellis was like approaching the jaws of some frozen beast. Haruto, releasing Kuro slightly to Juro, edged forward, his slender blade probing the thick, layered ice and the shadows behind it. He found not a door, but a section of the ancient, vine choked stone wall that had partially collapsed inward, hidden by decades of frozen rose growth. Behind it, blackness yawned, deeper and colder than the garden's gloom. The scents shifted abruptly: damp earth, the rich decay of centuries of root rot, and the deep, mineral chill of buried stone, replacing the cloying lilies and void cold. The baying of the Hounds was momentarily muffled by the thick wall, but the hungry, frustrated edge was unmistakable, coming from multiple directions now, some close behind, others echoing from ahead, confirming Mira's warning.
"Down," Haruto ordered, already slipping through the narrow, jagged gap, his form swallowed by darkness instantly. "It's steep. Loose rock. Careful."
Ryota went next, broad shoulders scraping ice as he maneuverer through. He turned immediately inside, reaching back to help guide Kuro through the treacherous opening. Juro braced from behind, half lifting, half pushing the prince. "Easy now, Princeling. Mind your head. Almost through." Kuro stumbled as his feet found uncertain ground within the darkness, his corrupted arm brushing against the razor sharp, frozen thorns of the trellis. As he did, the thorns near his touch seemed to shiver, tiny, hairline fractures spiderwebbing through the ice encapsulating them with unnerving speed. It wasn't much, but it was movement in a place defined by stillness, a chilling demonstration of the power whispering beneath Kuro's skin, reacting to the Blight's source nearby. Kuro flinched violently, pulling his arm away as if scalded by molten metal, a fresh wave of horror, revulsion, and self loathing washing over him. "Don't touch me I fucking hate this fuck!" he hissed, the command directed as much at his own treacherous limb as at his companions.
Shiro went last, pausing at the threshold. He looked back one final time at Nyxara's Garden, at the petrified figures caught in eternal terror, the dead star tree weeping silver poison, the beautiful, frozen horror under the skeletal branches. It was another collar; he realized with cold fury. Not binding a Hound, but binding a moment, a place, a memory of Kaya's light and Elara's joy, twisted into a monument of despair for the worlds corruption. Ryota's words echoed: "Uses her love for the sky..." Nyxara used it to sustain her blight, to create her collection. He touched the starlit chains scar on his forearm, feeling its warm pulse resonate fiercely with the crystal, a spark of defiance against the consuming cold. We shatter chains. All of them. He turned his back on the garden, on its silent screams, and plunged into the earthy, suffocating darkness after the others.
The descent was immediate and brutal. A steep, earthen ramp slick with frozen mud and loose rubble sloped sharply downwards. The air was thick, stagnant, and bitingly cold, smelling of ancient decay and wet stone. The faint glow from their scars and Ryota's eyes was the only light, casting long, dancing shadows that made the rough walls seem alive. Shiro's boots skidded, sending fresh jolts of agony up his arms as he instinctively threw them out to brace himself. Kuro groaned with every jarring step Juro and Haruto guided him down, his breaths ragged gasps. Above them, the frustrated snarls and scrapes against the garden wall underscored the razor thin margin of their escape.
"Steady, princeling" Juro murmured, his own breathing laboured under Kuro's weight. "Almost... flat ground."
They reached the bottom of the ramp, spilling into a wider, low ceilinged space. The air was even colder here, smelling intensely of frozen earth, ancient wood rot, and something else, a faint, lingering sweetness beneath the decay, perhaps the ghost of the spices Elara Veyne once stored. The ceiling was a chaotic lattice of thick, ancient roots, woven together and encased in layers of hoarfrost, hanging low enough that Ryota had to stoop. Crumbling stone shelves lined the walls, some holding desiccated husks of plants or shattered ceramic jars. The only light came from their own pulsing scars and Ryota's Polaris gaze, illuminating a scene of frozen dereliction.
The cloaked figure slipped silently through the gap last, blending instantly into the deep shadows near the wall, a silent observer. The faintest gleam within the hood, the swirling Corvus constellation, remained fixed on Kuro's struggle.
"Which way?" Ryota growled, his voice echoing slightly in the confined space, his eyes sweeping the cavern. "Mira?"
Mira raised her fractured lens, peering through the complex prisms. The crow shrieks layered over her voice again. "Left... follow the wall... there's an archway... blocked partially by roots... but passable. Leads to the tunnels..."
They moved along the left wall, shuffling through ankle deep frozen mud that crunched underfoot. The baying above was growing louder, more frantic. They could hear claws scrabbling furiously at the opening they'd just used, ice cracking and stone shifting under the assault. They're forcing their way in.
"Faster," Haruto urged, his voice tight. He reached the archway Mira indicated. Thick, gnarled roots, thick as a man's thigh and sheathed in ice, partially blocked it, forming a natural barrier. Haruto began to hack at them with precise, powerful strokes of his starlit blade. Chunks of frozen wood and ice splintered off.
Kuro stumbled again, his legs giving out completely this time. Juro and Haruto barely kept him upright. "Can't... hold..." Kuro gasped, his eye rolling back slightly, the static buzz rising to a deafening roar in his head. His corrupted arm jerked violently, fingers splaying wide. A visible pulse of sickly blue white light shot through the veins beneath the translucent skin, radiating cold that made the air around his hand shimmer unnaturally. The roots Haruto was cutting near Kuro seemed to recoil, the ice encasing them fracturing with audible pings.
"Kuro!" Shiro hissed, lunging closer despite his own agony. "fucking Focus! Fight it don't let this be the end of the saga!"
Kuro's head lolled. "T-trying... so cold... inside... whispers..." His voice was a broken whisper. His right hand twitched again, fingers curling into a claw like shape. The pulse of light intensified.
Haruto cleared the last of the obstructing roots with a final heave. "Clear! Go!" He gestured into the dark tunnel beyond the archway, a narrow, brick lined passage sloping downwards into deeper blackness. Ryota ducked through first, Starbreaker held ready. Juro and Haruto hauled Kuro towards the opening.
Above them, a cacophony erupted, a triumphant snarl followed by the sound of heavy bodies crashing through the gap and landing with heavy thuds on the cavern floor behind them. The scraping of claws on frozen earth, the guttural panting, the hungry growls vibrating through the stone, the Shadow Hounds were inside the cavern.
"GO!" Ryota roared from the tunnel entrance.
Juro pushed Kuro through the archway, Haruto right behind him. Shiro scrambled after them, turning just as he crossed the threshold. In the dim, pulsing light, he saw them, two massive, shadow wreathed forms, eyes like burning coals, already surging across the cavern floor towards the archway, jaws gaping wide, filled with rows of needle sharp, ice coated teeth. The stench of ozone and void cold washed over him.
Mira was still outside the archway. She'd been scanning the cavern one last time with her eyes. She turned, her eyes wide behind the fractured glass, as the first Hound lunged.
"No!" Shiro screamed, throwing himself back towards the archway, his ruined arms screaming in protest. He was too slow, too broken.
Ryota moved. A blur of fury and starlight, he surged past Shiro, Starbreaker a comet trailing Polaris fire. He met the first Hound's lunge head on. The massive blade slammed into the beast's shoulder with a sickening crunch of shadow stuff and ice. The Hound howled, staggering back, but the second beast was already swerving around its companion, jaws snapping towards Mira.
Mira stumbled backwards, tripping on the uneven ground. The Hound's maw filled her vision, death and cold incarnate. She raised her hands defensively
A figure moved from the deep shadows beside her. The cloaked one. They didn't draw a weapon. Instead, their gloved hand, bearing that heavy ring with the dark stone, shot out. Not towards the Hound, but towards the ceiling directly above the charging beast. They snapped their fingers.
There was no sound. But a massive, ice encrusted root hanging directly above the second Hound shattered. Not just broke, it exploded inwards with terrifying force, as if detonated from within. A cascade of frozen shrapnel and heavy, icy debris rained down, hammering onto the Hound's back and head. The beast roared in surprised agony, driven to its knees, momentarily buried under tons of frozen wood and ice. The cloaked figure grabbed Mira's arm, yanking her backwards towards the archway with surprising strength, shoving her through towards Shiro.
"Move!" The voice from within the hood was low, distorted, impossible to place, neither male nor female, young nor old. It held an unnatural resonance, like stone grinding deep underground.
They tumbled through the archway into the tunnel. Ryota disengaged from the first Hound, which was already recovering, shadow knitting its wound. He backed through the archway, Starbreaker held defensively. The cloaked figure followed last. As they passed through, the figure raised their ringed hand again towards the archway's top.
Another silent command. Another internal detonation. The stone lintel and the frozen roots framing the archway imploded, collapsing in a roaring torrent of rock, ice, and frozen earth. The tunnel entrance vanished behind a choking, impenetrable wall of debris. The furious howls of the Hounds were instantly muffled, replaced by the grinding, settling sounds of the collapse and their own harsh breathing in the sudden, deeper darkness of the tunnel.
Silence descended, thick and heavy, broken only by the dripping of meltwater somewhere and Kuro's ragged, pained gasps as Juro and Haruto lowered him to the cold cavern floor.
Shiro stared at the cloaked figure, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Who the fuck are you?" he demanded, his voice hoarse. "Why help us?"
The figure didn't turn. They stood facing the collapsed entrance, head slightly tilted, as if listening. Within the deep hood, the faint Corvus constellation swirled slowly. The ring on their finger gleamed dully in the faint light from their scars.
"Answers come later, Shiro Aratani," the distorted voice replied, still without turning. "If we survive the descent. The collapse won't hold them long. And the Blight... it stirs below. Can you not feel it? The root of the corruption. The source of the freeze." They finally turned their hooded gaze towards the group, lingering for a moment on Kuro, who lay trembling on the ground, his corrupted arm pulsing with that sickly light against the dark stone. "Kuro... his time grows shorter with every step down. The deeper we go... the stronger it becomes within him."
Kuro groaned, curling slightly on his side, clutching his corrupted arm with his good hand as if trying to physically hold the spreading horror back. The blue white veins pulsed brighter, casting ghastly shadows on his ashen face. A fresh tremor wracked him, independent and violent. He looked up, his storm grey eyes wide with a terror deeper than any Hound could inspire. "Fuck Shiro..." he choked out, the word thick with static and despair. "It's... waking up... inside me. I can feel it... like a termite ready to feast."
Above them, through tons of rubble, came the first muffled, determined scrape of claws on stone. The Hounds were digging. And deep within Kuro, the sentient frost stirred, its cosmic hunger sharpening the further they go towards the barracks what waits for them well only one way to find out…