The rebel cavern, a desperate hive carved into the weeping stone foundations of Elara Veyns residence, thrummed with a tension thicker than the subterranean chill. Dampness wept from the walls, carrying the scent of wet rock, unwashed bodies, stale fear, and the faint, persistent metallic tang emanating from the obsidian communion stones worn against every chest like frozen hearts. Haruto's 'Web' moved like ghosts through the gloom: a gaunt spice merchant cataloguing shadows with darting eyes; a scarred laundress folding ragged cloth with unnerving silence, knuckles white on the fabric; a soot blackened chimney sweep flitting between support beams, leaving smudges like charcoal tears. Ryota radiated stoic readiness: a grizzled bear ready for war as silent ice escaped on damp slate, fingertips leaving trails in condensation.
Shiro leaned against a cold stone pillar, the rough surface biting through his thin shirt. He traced the sharp edges of his communion stone, its subtle thrum resonating deep in his bones, For Kaya. For Justice. For Ashes. Each pulse synced with the angry, deep seated ache in his fused wrists. The pain wasn't just memory; it was a living entity. With every shift in weight, every clench of his fist around the bone knife's hilt, white hot agony lanced up his forearms. It felt like the exposed bone fragments within the scar tissue, the brutal legacy of his desperate power, were grinding like broken glass against each other, a constant, fiery reminder of the trap they inhabited.
Nearby, Kuro sat hunched on a splintered crate, head bowed, every breath a deliberate, agonizing battle that scraped like gravel in his chest. Sweat beaded on his ashen brow despite the chill. His right sleeve was rolled high, revealing the corrupted arm. The frost tendrils, beaten back to mid forearm by their cavern connection, pulsed with sullen defiance beneath grey tinged skin. They quivered, hibernating serpents tasting the fear and fury saturating the air. The static buzz was a constant, maddening counterpoint to the grinding agony in his ribs, a cosmic termite gnawing relentlessly at his nerves. The crimson light of his Twin Star scar on his left arm flared weakly in response to Shiro's proximity, a guttering candle against the encroaching glacial dark. He clenched his left fist, knuckles whitening, tendons standing out like frozen cables. He focused on the clean ache of that self inflicted liberation scar, a talisman against the insidious cold whispering promises of numb surrender directly into his marrow. Hold. Don't let it taste the rage… Don't feed the void inside…
Suddenly, Mira gasped. A sharp, pained intake of breath sliced through the chamber's hum. The ragged crow on her shoulder flapped once, a harsh snap, and let out a low, grieving KRAA. Mira's face drained of all colour Her hand flew to her communion stone. Instantly, its obsidian surface flared urgent crimson, casting stark, leaping shadows that painted scenes of horror only she could fully translate. The crow shrieked again, layered with distant avian screams.
"They… Akuma," Mira choked, voice shredded. Her fractured lens reflected: frost rimed flagstones, polished black boots, the cruel glint of thin metal. Black cloaks, not Frostguard, but darker, edged in void chill black thread. At their head, Volrag, leader of the Black Cloaks, a hulking figure in snarling wolf helm armour radiating lethal menace. Beside Akuma, held upright by two Temple guards, was Aki. Shiro's sister. Her thin frame was dwarfed, face pale and drawn with illness and terror, eyes wide and unfocused. Shallow breaths puffed visibly in the frigid air. Akuma leaned close, star pupiled eyes boring into hers, his lips moving in a venomous whisper that made Aki flinch, a whimper echoing psychically through Mira.
Shiro's blood turned to ice water. The bone handled knife slipped from nerveless fingers, clattering like snapping bones. He saw Aki's terror, felt Akuma's proximity. The phantom scent of burning pitch flooded his senses. 'Aki…' His voice was a raw scrape tearing at his throat. The vision triggered a memory detonating with visceral force:
The Obsidian Throne Room. Cold biting deeper than the Frostway. Akuma's voice, oiled venom, dripping into Shiro's soul as he knelt in chains before Ryo.
"But worry not, little rat," Akuma continued, straightening slightly, his gaze flicking towards the fading frost window image of Aki's shack, where the swirling void figure still lingered. "You won't be motherless for long. Aki's been playing surrogate, hasn't she? Teaching you her filthy star lore? Carving her useless hopes into wood?" A slow, sadistic smile spread across Akuma's thin lips. "I think I'll return the favour. Before the frost takes her completely… I'll carve her."
Shiro's world narrowed to that smile, those star pupiled eyes promising unspeakable violation. His muscles locked, a silent scream trapped in his frozen chest. NO.
"Oh yes," Akuma murmured, pupils dilating with obscene anticipation. "All that skin… covered in her precious little stars. Makes for a unique tapestry, don't you think? A testament to wasted devotion." He picked up the bone handled knife, Shiro's own skinning knife, taken as a trophy, turning it over in his gauntleted hand. The blade caught the torchlight with a dull, predatory gleam. "Maybe I'll start small. Send you… tokens. A fingertip first? The one she used to trace constellations on your heretic planks?" He mimed a delicate slicing motion, the gesture infinitely more horrifying than any shout. "Then another. And another. Let her watch. Let her understand the cost of defying the Temple. The cost of coddling… defective things."
The memory slammed back into Shiro with the force of a glacier calving. He saw Akuma's hand hovering near Aki's face in Mira's vision, superimposed over the mimed slicing motion from the throne room. The phantom sensation of the cold blade on Aki's skin, the imagined scream… It wasn't just threat; it was prophecy unfolding. The air thickened, choking him, saturated with the phantom stench of burnt hope and his own crushing, impotent rage. His communion stone burned like a brand against his sternum, its frantic pulse syncing with the terrified flutter he knew pounded in Aki's frail chest. A low, guttural growl started deep within him, vibrating the stone pillar. "IF HE LAYS A HAND ON HER!" The roar ripped free, raw and primal, shaking dust from the ceiling. "I'LL SKIN HIM ALIVE! I'LL FEED HIM HIS HEART WHILE SHE THE STARS WATCH OVER ME!" The agony in his wrists flared into white hot conflagration, spikes of fire driving up his arms, mirroring the inferno in his soul. He lunged forward, a beast unleashed, the bone knife forgotten on the floor.
Simultaneously, Kuro surged to his feet. Not with a snarl, but with a wordless, guttural roar of pure, incandescent fury that shook the very foundations of the warren. Agony, white hot and blinding, detonated through his shattered ribs, but it was vaporized by the tsunami of rage seeing Aki, small, helpless, Shiro's sister, in that monster's grasp. The memory of Shiro's broken expression in the throne room as Akuma spoke those vile words fused with the current vision. "AKUMA! YOU TOUCH A SINGLE HAIR AND I'LL UNRAVEL YOU FROM THE INSIDE OUT! VOID TAKE YOUR SOUL!" Spittle flew from his cracked lips. The reaction in his corrupted arm was immediate and terrifying: the frost tendrils EXPLODED into violent motion, coiling and lashing like enraged vipers beneath the grey tinged skin, flaring with a sickly, triumphant blue white light that cast his contorted face in a hellish glow. The static buzz surged into a deafening, skull splitting roar, a physical pressure threatening to burst his eardrums. He could feel it, the Blight feasting on his volcanic rage, gulping down the volatile energy, mapping the neural pathways his fury scorched. His left hand clenched into a fist, the Twin Star scar blazing crimson, mirroring Shiro's own incandescent mark. Their shared fury resonated, a feedback loop of agony and white hot hate. Kuro took a staggering step towards the passage, his good hand scrabbling for the jagged shard of black ice at his boot, his corrupted arm jerking violently, almost independently. "I'LL CARVE YOUR EYES OUT AND MAKE YOU EAT THEM! I'LL FLAY THE STARS FROM YOUR FLESH AND…"
"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTHS AND USE WHAT LITTLE FUCKING INTELIGENCE YOU HAVE!"
The command cracked like a thunderclap, amplified by resonant power that vibrated the stone underfoot and made lantern flames gutter wildly. Corvin materialized into the space between Kuro and the exit, hood thrown back, his sharp face contorted with furious urgency. His Grey corvus shaped eyes weren't just churning; they were supernovas of dark stars, radiating ancient, terrifying authority. He projected his words like physical blows.
"OPEN YOUR EYES! THAT'S VOLRAG!" Corvin roared, raw voice stripping away distortion. He stabbed a finger towards the lingering psychic image. "Ryo's personal executioner! He doesn't just kill; he Savors suffering, feeds it directly to the Blight! He craves you charging up there!" He took a step closer to Kuro, invading his space. "Look at yourself, Prince! Your ribs are fucking kindling held together by spit and defiance! That arm?" He gestured contemptuously at the violently writhing frost tendrils, the grey translucence visibly creeping past the elbow towards the shoulder. "It's not a weapon; it's a conduit for the enemy! A cosmic termite nest waiting for a spark to burst!" He whirled on Shiro, who was panting like a wounded animal, knuckles white, wrists radiating visible waves of heat from the scarred agony. "And you! You think those arms of yours can swing a blade? Every ounce of rage you burn is gas poured on the fire inside Kuro! You're feeding the frost gnawing his marrow!" Corvin's voice dropped, laced with brutal, clinical truth. "The power you unleashed in the Academy? Lethal? Yes. A storm that could shred Volrag. But it's a wild beast. Unbroken. Uncontrollable. Not like this. Charging out now? It's not courage. It's suicide. You'd be dead before you crossed the plaza, and you'd deliver yourselves gift wrapped to the that fucker Ryo. You are NOT READY."
Corvin's tirade, laced with expletives and undeniable truth, hit them like a physical avalanche. Kuro stumbled back, the violent momentum of his rage interrupted, the roar dying to a ragged, blood flecked gasp. The frantic writhing of the frost tendrils lessened, though the sullen light and the terrifying creep remained. Shiro flinched as if struck, Corvin's words, "feeding the fire inside Kuro", striking a nerve deeper than any blade. He saw the grey translucence advancing on Kuro's arm, felt the grinding, glass shard agony in his own wrists intensify in screaming sympathy. The sheer pain of their shattered bodies, Kuro's grinding ribs, the invasive cold chewing his nerves, Shiro's, burning nerve shredded wrists, screamed in agreement with Corvin's damning assessment. The bone knife lowered, his hand trembling not with fury now, but with the effort to contain it and the overwhelming physical torment.
Before the stunned silence could solidify, Ryota moved. Not with haste, but with the deliberate, grounded authority of a war general stepping onto a critical battlefield. He didn't shout. He simply planted himself, a solid wall of scarred plate and grim resolve between the Twin Stars and the passage Corvin blocked. His Polaris eyes, burning with their own contained inferno, locked onto Kuro, then Shiro. His voice, when it came, was the calm, terrifying rumble of tectonic plates settling into position. "Stand. Down." The command brooked no argument, echoing with the weight of command he'd wielded under Kaya's banner. "Corvin speaks the tactical truth. Volrag and the Black Cloaks are Ryo's elite butchers. That plaza is a killing jar designed for exactly this: to draw you out enraged, broken, and alone." He swept a gauntleted hand, encompassing their battered state, Kuro's heaving chest, grey tinged arm, Shiro's clenched, scarred fists held protectively close. "Look at you. Charging now isn't defiance. It's tactical idiocy. It plays directly into Ryo's strategy. It wastes the lives gathered here. It betrays the oath we swore over blood and ice. It spits on Kaya's legacy." He placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on Kuro's uninjured shoulder, the weight grounding, commanding. "Your fury is just. Your pain is our pain. But today, this fight," he nodded towards the psychic image of the Plaza, now fading, "is not won by blade alone. Not yet. Discipline. Control. That is how we honour Aki now. That is how we honour Kaya"
Haruto stepped beside Ryota, his aristocratic composure replaced by cold, lethal certainty. "Akuma expects rage. Volrag feasts on it. They expect recklessness. They expect you to break formation, to abandon strategy for blind vengeance." His sharp gaze swept over Shiro and Kuro, analytical, assessing their wounds, the volatile energy crackling between them, the dangerous pallor of Kuro's arm. "Deny them. Your fury must be colder than the Frostway, sharper than Volrag's axe. Directed. The Observatory is the true battleground. The only strategic point where striking Ryo's heart and severing the Blight's root is possible." He glanced at Corvin, a flicker of grim respect passing between them. "His sight confirms it. The Warrens freeze because of the desecration above, because of the her stirring in the depths we approach. Stopping Akuma now might pause a symptom. Ending Nyxara , Ryo ends the disease. We target the source."
Juro pushed forward, his knives lowered but ready, face etched with street smart pragmatism. "Listen to them." he urged, voice rough. "Wanting' to rip that star eyed freak apart? Burn Volrag to ash? FUCK, yes. Every fibre. But walking into that Black Cloak ambush? With you two held together by spit and stubbornness?" He shook his head, gaze flicking to Kuro's corrupted arm and Shiro's tightly clenched, trembling hands. "That isn't vengeance. That's just dying stupid. We fight them. We end 'em. But we do it smart. We do it when it cripples Ryo. When it buys the Warrens the time we win for them. When we can actually win."
Mira wiped her tears, smudging grime. The crow on her shoulder remained watchful. "The crows see the trap," she whispered, gaining strength. "They see the Black Cloaks hidden like wolves in the archways. They see the Hounds in the service tunnels. Charging now… it's a path of shadow leading only to frozen screams." She touched her communion stone, its crimson flare fading to a steady, determined pulse. "Aki… she breathes. She fights the cold inside her. We fight for her future. For the chance to bring her home. Not just mourn her past."
Corvin's fierce gaze held Shiro and Kuro. The storm in his eyes hadn't lessened, but the fury had banked into intense focus. "The Barracks sn't retreat. It's the anvil. The place where the poison festers. Where we can shatter the machine feeding frost to the Warrens. Going there isn't walking into his trap; it's springing ours." He took a deliberate breath. "But we go together. We go prepared. Not as rage blinded fools, but as the storm given form. Channel that fire. Bank it. Temper it. Let it forge your resolve into unbreakable steel, not burn the bridge before we cross it. Akuma dies. Volrag falls. But they die when we choose. When it breaks Ryo's grip. When it buys the Warrens the dawn we steal from the void."
The combined force of their words, Ryota's unshakable command, Haruto's icy strategy, Juro's gritty pragmatism, Mira's fragile hope, and Corvin's furious wisdom, acted like a dam against the flood of primal rage. Kuro's trembling subsided, though fury still burned in his storm grey eyes, banked now, smouldering like coals under ash. He looked down at his corrupted arm, the grey pallor creeping towards his bicep, the static buzz a constant reminder of the cosmic termite within. He consciously unclenched his fist, forcing a slow, deliberate breath that scraped his damaged ribs. The frantic crimson pulsing of his scar dimmed to a steady, watchful ember glow. Shiro's grip on nothingness relaxed. The white knuckled fury dissolved, replaced by a terrifying, icy calm that settled deep within, focusing the maelstrom into a single, diamond hard point of lethal intent. He met Kuro's gaze across the dim space. The shared understanding was wordless, brutal, absolute: Akuma would pay. Volrag would fall. But Ryo would burn first. And it would be calculated. Final.
The silence deepened, charged now with lethal purpose, heavy as the mountain above. Kuro's breaths, though ragged, were measured. Shiro stood tall, the agony in his wrists a constant, fiery companion, a reminder of the cost and the power bound within his scars.
Ryota surveyed his ragged command, the Web fading into deeper shadows, the Twin Stars battered but resolute, Corvin a watchful sentinel. He hefted Starbreaker, the massive blade catching the dim light. His voice, crisp and authoritative, cut the silence. "Haruto. Final inventory on the void ice charges for the lower vault supports. Juro, Mira, verify the secondary egress past the collapsed ice smelter. Report in five." He turned fully to Kuro and Shiro, his Polaris gaze holding them with the weight of command and shared history. "The Veyne's Barracks. Ryo's desecration. Our crucible. We move in five minutes. Stow the rage. Sharpen the mind. The war for the sky begins now." He turned towards the dark, rubble choked passage Mira indicated, the throat leading deeper into the frozen earth, towards the palace's roots and the festering heart of the Blight.
As Juro and Mira moved towards a side tunnel, Haruto began issuing quiet orders to his Web operatives. Shiro bent stiffly, wincing as the movement sent fresh fire up his arms, to retrieve his bone knife. Kuro pushed himself upright, testing his weight, a grimace etching his face as his ribs protested. He met Shiro's eyes again, a nod passing between them, a pact reforged in cold fury.
Suddenly, Mira gasped again, stumbling back from the tunnel mouth she'd been approaching. Her crow let out a panicked shriek. The fractured lens dropped from her fingers, shattering on the stone floor. Her eyes were wide, fixed on the darkness beyond.
"They're… inside!" she whispered, voice trembling with fresh terror. "Not Hounds… Something else… Cold… So cold… It's already in the tunnels!"
Before anyone could react, the temperature in the warren plummeted. Hoarfrost exploded across the stone walls with audible cracks, jagged white veins spreading like lightning. The lantern flames guttered and died, plunging the chamber into near total darkness, broken only by the erratic pulse of the Twin Star scars and the icy constellations swirling in Ryota's and Corvin's eyes. Breath misted and froze instantly in the air, falling like diamond dust. A wave of absolute, soul numbing cold rolled forth from the passage, carrying with it a sound like a million frozen voices whispering in unison, echoes of the Frostway's suffocating dread, the Garden's petrified screams. And beneath it, the faint, unmistakable scrape scrape scrape of crystalline claws on stone.
Shiro and Kuro froze. Not from the cold, but from a jolt of shared, visceral memory. The Frostway's sentient embrace. The weeping black ice walls. The subsonic baying vibrating through stone, felt in the roots of their teeth. The beginning of their nightmare. The scars on their forearms blazed in unison, crimson light flaring so brightly it etched their grim, determined faces in stark relief against the encroaching dark. They turned towards each other, their gazes locking across the frozen space. In that moment, the path ahead, the enemy at their backs, the source of the cold before them, it all crystallized into a single, inescapable truth. A truth they voiced together, their voices low, grim, and perfectly synchronized, cutting through the whispering void:
"It ends where it began."
The scrape of claws grew louder, closer. Something moved in the absolute blackness of the tunnel mouth. Something old. Hungry. And intimately familiar.