[Seno Estate — Stone Arena | Day 9]
The chains rattled like broken bells as Hayato was dragged into the arena. Stone walls sweated damp, the floor stained dark where dozens had bled before. Torches hissed in their brackets, their smoke curling upward to vanish in the vaulted ceiling.
Above, the elders sat in their crescent, masks gleaming faintly. The clan head leaned forward.
"He has endured hunger. Let us see if he has teeth."
The guards shoved him into the center. Shackles still bound his wrists, links dragging, until a single sharp twist freed them and left the boy swaying under the light.
The gate across the arena groaned open. A rogue ghoul stumbled forward, tail sliding out behind him in a thick, scaled arc. His wrists bore scars of long bindings. His eyes darted between the elders and the boy before him.
"You promised me freedom," the rogue rasped. His gaze softened for a moment when it fell on Hayato—bare feet, ribs showing, wrists raw. "…This is a test? He's just a child."
The clan head's voice echoed down. "Win, and you leave. Die, and you never mattered."
The rogue's tail twitched uneasily. He didn't step forward. Not yet.
But Hayato lifted his head.
His eyes glowed faint red in the firelight, fever-bright. His kagune twitched out in fits: plating crawled jagged down his arm, shards sputtered and fired uselessly into stone. His breath came in ragged bursts, his lips peeled back in a soundless snarl.
The rogue froze. His face hardened. "…Not a child."
The shackles dropped from Hayato's wrists with a clang.
"Begin," an elder hissed.
The rogue lunged first, tail whipping in a wide arc. Hayato raised his plated arm late; the strike cracked across his ribs and staggered him. Pain bloomed down his side, but his body moved anyway, shards snapping wide and clipping the rogue's shoulder.
The man hissed, stumbled, then recovered. "You're not ready for this, boy—"
But when Hayato blinked, the rogue's face melted. Bastion towered before him, armored jaws clattering, kakuja silhouette splitting the torchlight.
"Get up," the vision growled. "Survive. Tear him apart."
Hayato roared and surged forward, plating slamming into the Bikaku tail. The clash rang out like steel on stone. His shards fired wild, some biting into the rogue's chest and arm, others ricocheting uselessly.
The rogue snarled, shoved him back, tail sweeping again to send Hayato crashing into the wall. Blood sprayed from his lip, his head ringing.
And in that moment, she appeared.
His mother—eyes soft, tired, hollow with grief. She reached for him, voice breaking. "Stop, Hayato. Please. This isn't who you are. If you listen to him, you'll become what he was."
For a heartbeat, the boy in him surfaced. His chest heaved. His eyes burned. He wanted to step toward her, to remember warmth instead of fire.
But then Bastion's voice thundered again, drowning her out.
"Strength is survival. Nothing else matters. Do you want to die weak? Do you want to be hunted like me?"
Hayato's fists clenched. His plated arm twitched. His mother's voice trembled.
"Don't—please, don't—"
He turned from her.
And she began to fade, her outline swallowed by the dark, her hand vanishing before it could touch his cheek.
Hayato's snarl rose with the sound of her fading.
"I choose strength."
The rogue saw it in his eyes. Whatever softness had been there was gone.
The boy came at him like a storm. Shards spat from his back in a scatter that carved the stone. His plated arm crashed against the Bikaku tail again and again, driving the rogue back step by step. His movements weren't clean—they were fevered, reckless—but they didn't stop.
The rogue grunted, teeth bared. "You're… insane!"
Hayato's fist caught his jaw, the plating splitting skin. The man staggered, tail flailing desperately, whipping into Hayato's thigh. He dropped to a knee but surged up again, teeth clenched, eyes blazing.
Visions overlapped in his mind: Bastion's kakuja striking, his mother screaming as she vanished. He didn't care which was real. He chose the roar. He chose the hunger.
His plated arm slammed into the rogue's chest, splintering ribs. The shards stabbed into the man's shoulder, burying deep. Blood sprayed hot across Hayato's face.
The hunger surged.
He leaned forward, jaws opening, the scent of marrow driving the knife deeper into his stomach. Bastion's voice thundered: "Feed!"
His mother's voice was gone.
Hayato's teeth sank into the rogue's shoulder. Flesh tore. The man screamed, tail thrashing wildly, slamming into the floor and walls as he tried to shake free. Hayato bit down harder, swallowed the rancid flood, and felt the fire rush through his veins.
The rogue's strength collapsed. His body sagged. Hayato let him fall with a thud, blood pooling fast beneath him.
Hayato rose slowly, chest heaving, crimson smeared across his mouth and chin. His kagune flickered unstable, shards hovering jaggedly around him like broken glass caught in a storm.
He didn't look at the rogue. He looked up at the elders.
The chamber was silent for a long breath. Then whispers rippled, like serpents hissing.
"He chose."
"He shed weakness."
"He becomes sharper with every bite."
"He may surpass the one they called Bastion."
The clan head's voice rang, calm but edged. "He is ours."
Hayato's breath tore ragged in and out of him, fever burning, the taste of rot thick on his tongue. His vision swam, and for the first time, no mother appeared to soften it. Only Bastion's armored grin, looming in the shadows, jaws clattering in approval.
Hayato bared his own teeth back, bloody and defiant.
I choose strength.
The chamber stayed quiet long enough for the sound of Hayato's breathing to echo against the walls. His chest rose and fell hard, his plated arm trembling faintly with each pulse of fever-hot blood. The rogue lay crumpled at his feet, twitching once before going still.
The elders whispered above, voices slithering through the torchlight.
"He fed."
"He endured."
"He is not broken."
Hayato stared at the stone beneath him, chains dragging from his wrists. He braced himself for more—more days in darkness, more blows, more rot thrown at his feet. That was what this was supposed to be. Punishment until he cracked.
But the clan head stood.
"Bring him forward."
The guards yanked his chains and dragged him beneath the dais. Hayato stumbled once, then straightened, chest heaving. He refused to bow his head, even as the iron bit deeper into his raw skin.
The clan head's mask tilted, empty eyes fixed on him. "You thought this was punishment alone." The voice was calm, heavy, final. "It was more. We cut you down to see what would remain. What remained is sharper than what was."
Hayato's breath caught. His chest still burned, his stomach churned with rot, but he forced his voice steady. "…What are you saying?"
The leader ignored the question. "Our clan has many branches. The strongest are the Jacks—twelve blades, chosen and numbered, used when the family demands blood. They do not question. They do not hesitate. They do not break."
An elder leaned forward. "One of the twelve fell. His number is vacant."
The clan head's voice sharpened, ringing against stone. "You are punishment. You are replacement. From this moment, you are Jack Twelve."
The words sank in like a chain around his neck. Hayato stared up at the masked faces. A hollow shock spread through him—not pride, not relief. Just the crushing weight of being stripped of name and self.
"Do you understand?" the leader asked.
Hayato's lips parted, then closed. He forced the answer out like iron dragged across stone. "…Yes."
The guards stepped aside. From the shadows at the edge of the chamber, they emerged: eleven figures, masked and silent. Their movements were precise, practiced, heavy with the kind of discipline that had been beaten into them for years.
They surrounded him, not with welcome, but with the inevitability of a noose closing.
One tilted his mask toward him. "Another child," the voice muttered.
"Another tool," another corrected.
Their eyes cut through him. No warmth. No hate. Just recognition of a number to fill a hole.
The clan head raised his hand. "From this night, the Jacks are whole again. Twelve stands among them. The chains of punishment are the chains of duty now."
The guards unlocked his wrists. Iron clattered to the ground. The grooves in his flesh throbbed, blood seeping fresh, but he did not rub them. He stepped into the gap they left for him.
The circle of masks closed.
Hayato's heart pounded, hot with fever and hunger. He felt the echoes of his mother's voice, fading, and his father's armored grin, looming. He looked straight ahead, into the void of the clan head's mask, and said nothing.
Inside, the words rang louder than any chain.
I am not Hayato anymore. I am Twelve.