Snow drifted through the open shōji doors of the ancient Shinomori shrine, falling in slow, silent flakes that seemed almost reverent as they crossed the threshold. The cold air moved like a living thing, swirling around the carved wooden pillars and polished stone floors, carrying faint scents of cedar, ink, and old incense. Every sound was softened by the snowfall—every breath, every shift of the wind—leaving only the impression of sacred stillness.
The shrine was vast despite its simplicity. Lanterns hung from beams of blackened wood, their light flickering softly against murals painted centuries ago: battles waged under storm-filled skies, clan heads standing among blizzards they commanded, kitsune familiars rendered in curling strokes of silver and winter blue. Rows of ancestral tablets rested atop carved stands, each marked with flowing kanji, each representing a life once dedicated to this clan of silent guardians.
And at the very deepest part of the shrine—beneath the highest beam, before the oldest altar—knelt the last of them.
Shinomori Ayame.
Her posture was flawless, spine straight and elegant despite the weight that pressed upon her. Pale skin, untouched by time or cosmetics, glowed faintly in the cold light; it was the kind of beauty admired for centuries by noble courts, but on her it seemed almost ethereal. Her hair fell in a long, silken cascade to her waist—pure white, threaded with faint strands of icy blue that shimmered whenever the wind breathed across them. Frost seemed to cling to the tips of her hair, though it never melted, even near the lantern flames.
Her eyes—storm‑grey, sharp, always perceptive—were lowered now in solemn respect. Yet even in stillness they carried a warrior's vigilance. Decades of training lived in those eyes, a discipline drilled into her from childhood. Beneath her lashes, shadows formed from sleeplessness and strain, subtle but undeniable.
Ayame's kimono draped around her in layers of deep blue, embroidered with silver threads forming lotus petals and curling frost patterns. Though it was ceremonial clothing, meant for prayer and reflection, her silhouette still betrayed an athletic build—toned arms, strong shoulders, the quiet coiled strength of someone who had fought and bled more than her years should allow. Hidden beneath the fabric were scars: one great diagonal wound across her chest, reminders of battles fought too young, and countless smaller ones earned through duty she never asked for.
Before her stood the wooden and ice‑crystal tablet honoring her grandmother—the last clan head before Ayame. Its frosted surface caught the lamplight like captured starlight.
Ayame's fingers brushed the edge of it, tracing the carved characters with reverence.
Her heart felt heavy. Heavier than the snow pressing upon the rooftops outside.
I never got to mourn you properly, she thought. There was no time for grief. Only duty.
A quiet breath escaped her. Vapor curled into the cold air like a ghost.
To her right, a massive presence lay curled upon the shrine's polished floor. A white kitsune—nine‑tailed, fur shimmering like fresh snow and eyes glowing a serene ice‑blue—watched Ayame with silent understanding. Each tail flowed like a banner of living frost, occasionally flicking in response to shifts in Ayame's emotions. Its size dwarfed even a grown man; its power hummed faintly in the air.
The creature had been her companion since childhood. Her healer, her protector, her last link to a past she barely remembered.
The kitsune lowered its head, resting its muzzle near Ayame's knee.
Ayame exhaled softly. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was gentle—nothing like the icy steel she projected when outside these sacred walls.
"I wish you were still here with me," she whispered, leaning closer to the tablet. "So that you could wear the title of clan head instead of me. Even though the thought is selfish. Even though it changes nothing."
The faintest smile rose on her lips—tender, mournful, fragile.
"Just once," she murmured, "I want to be a girl, not a symbol. Not a weapon. Just Ayame."
The shrine seemed to breathe around her, ancient and solemn, its silence offering no answers.
Her kitsune responded instead—pressing its warm, broad forehead to her shoulder with a low, comforting rumble.
Ayame closed her eyes briefly. Her hand rose to stroke the creature's fur. Cold at first touch, then warm beneath the surface, the familiar's presence soothed her in a way nothing else ever could.
At least I am not completely alone, she thought.
But the moment did not last.
The air shifted.
Not the gentle sway of winter air, but a sharp disruption—like something slicing through the heart of the wards themselves. Ayame's breath caught. That feeling… it was wrong. Violating. A presence where there should have been none.
Her eyes snapped open, and in one graceful, fluid motion she rose to her feet. The cold around her thickened, frost whispering across the floorboards. She didn't remember standing—her body simply reacted, trained beyond conscious thought.
Beside her, the kitsune surged upward with a low growl, nine tails fanning like spears of moonlit ice. Its hackles rose, fur bristling with frost as it positioned itself half a step behind her—ready to strike if she commanded.
Ayame scanned the shadows of the shrine, senses sharpened to a needlepoint. Her storm-grey eyes narrowed. Someone is here. Someone who shouldn't be.
Impossible, she thought, heart tightening. No intruder has ever passed this deep. I am the only one permitted here. These wards should be impenetrable.
A flicker of movement caught her attention.
A shape formed at the edge of the hall—silent, deliberate, as if the darkness itself had peeled away to reveal it. A figure clad entirely in black stepped forward, mask covering every inch of the face, clothing etched with nothing recognizable.
No clan crest. No spiritual aura she could place. No hesitation.
Ayame's pulse slowed.
Fifteen years old. Sixteen at most. And already she understood death better than most warriors did at fifty.
The intruder raised a hand, preparing a spell.
Ayame didn't allow it.
Her own hand rose, fingers steady as sculpted ice.
Her lips moved—not shouting, not chanting, just a soft breath of an invocation spoken in a dialect older than this shrine. The air vibrated, compressed around her palm, and a potent chill rolled across the floor.
A split-second later, blue lightning erupted.
The bolt did not simply strike. It screamed, ripping through the silent hall like a falling star. The flash illuminated every mural, every lantern, every ancestral tablet. It hurled itself across the space with the speed of judgment.
The intruder reacted too slowly.
The lightning slammed into him—piercing clean through chest and spine. The force lifted him off the ground, sending him crashing back into the far pillar with a bone-shuddering crack. His limbs twitched once as the electricity seared through nerves and bone.
And then he went still.
The smell of burnt cloth and scorched flesh mingled with incense.
Ayame held her stance for three long breaths, eyes locked onto the intruder's corpse, waiting for signs of illusion or trickery. Only when she was certain he was dead did she let her arm fall to her side.
Her expression didn't change—not outwardly.
But her heart…
A faint tremor passed through her.
He never even saw it coming.
The thought was cold. Mechanical. Terrifying.
Her magic had acted before she even fully processed the threat. She wasn't sure if that was skill… or instinct shaped by too much blood too young.
At fifteen—sixteen now, perhaps, though she had long stopped marking birthdays—she had killed more intruders, more assassins, more clan enemies than she wanted to remember.
She swallowed, throat tight.
Is this all I will ever be?
Her storm-grey eyes flicked to the charred corpse.
And how did you even get in? No one should be able to breach the inner shrine. Not unless they knew our wards… or were sent by someone who does.
A whisper of dread slid under her skin.
Something far greater was moving in the world.
A soft thud sounded beside her.
Her kitsune had stepped closer, its massive body brushing against her side. It nudged her gently—warmth pushing against her cold worry. She turned to it, and the harsh lines of her expression softened.
Ayame exhaled slowly.
She reached up and placed a hand on the creature's head, stroking the soft, cold fur.
"Thank you," she murmured.
The kitsune's tails fanned out behind it in quiet reassurance.
Ayame took one last look at her grandmother's tablet.
Then, with a controlled breath, she stepped forward, placing one hand on the kitsune's back and climbing onto it with the ease of someone who had ridden it since childhood.
The creature rose gracefully, carrying her without sound.
Snow parted around them as they moved toward the exit of the shrine, leaving the intruder's corpse cooling on the frozen floor behind them.
Ayame didn't look back.
But the weight in her chest grew heavier with every step.
If the wards failed here, she thought grimly, then something far worse is coming.
Snow still clung to Ayame's sleeves as her kitsune padded out of the shrine, the soft crunch of its paws sinking into fresh powder almost inaudible beneath the hush that lay over the compound. The bitter wind followed her like a loyal shadow, tugging at the strands of her white hair, making them ripple like banners of winter.
Her mind, however, was not on the cold.
The corpse of the masked intruder still lingered in her thoughts—the way he had appeared so deep within forbidden grounds, the way her magic had acted without hesitation, without mercy, the ease with which she had ended his life. The shrine was the most sacred and well-guarded place within the Shinomori estate. Only her private quarters bore heavier wards and older seals.
How did he breach it? How could anyone?
Ayame's jaw tightened slightly, her storm-grey gaze sharpening with cold irritation. The unease that had pricked at her spine since sensing the intruder now coiled around her chest. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong. And she doubted it was an isolated incident.
The kitsune lowered itself so she could dismount, but Ayame shook her head and remained seated atop its broad back.
They had barely reached the inner courtyard when movement flickered at the periphery of her vision—shadows shifting between pillars. Frost crackled faintly along her sleeves as her magic stirred, ready to strike again.
Then she recognized the silhouettes.
Twenty Shinomori Sentinels emerged at a brisk, uniform pace, their navy armor glinting under the winter light. Masks covered their lower faces, and their eyes—sharp, disciplined, unwavering—locked onto their clan head the moment they approached.
When they saw Ayame's expression—hard, cold, and thinned with annoyance—they stopped as one.
And then, without hesitation, every one of them dropped to one knee.
The sound of their armor touching the ground was a single, echoing note.
The captain of the group bowed his head deeply. "Reporting," he said, voice steady despite the ice in the air. "We have a guest in the council chamber, Clan Head. A goblin emissary sent from France. He bears a letter bearing the seal of the Lestrange family's main line."
Ayame's eyes narrowed.
A goblin envoy. From France. To the Shinomori.
Her irritation deepened—not at the goblin, but at the timing.
First an assassin. Now a foreign envoy. Something was moving in the world beyond her borders, and it was moving faster than she liked.
She exhaled through her nose, frost curling from her lips. "Call the elders to the council chamber," she ordered, voice steady as frozen steel. "I will go as well."
"Yes, Lady Ayame." The Sentinels bowed again.
Without waiting for further words, Ayame nudged the kitsune with her knee. The massive fox leapt forward into a smooth glide, its nine tails trailing like white flames as it carried her across the courtyard.
They passed beneath tall archways, across stone bridges dusted with snow, and through long corridors lined with ancient scrolls and carved wooden beams. Servants and lower-ranked retainers bowed deeply as she passed, their eyes respectfully averted. Word had already begun to spread—Lady Ayame was leaving the shrine with the war-furrow carved between her brows.
The compound's center—a large fortress-like structure reinforced with magic older than most clans—sat like a heart of stone and ice. The council chamber lay within its depths.
Ayame dismounted the kitsune once they reached the entrance. Her boots touched the ground lightly, the soft crunch of snow muffled beneath her steps. The fox walked behind her, towering and silent, its presence a comfort even as the air thickened with anticipation.
Two Sentinels opened the sliding doors as she approached.
The council chamber was already full.
Elders from the branch families knelt around the long table—men and women with hair of silver and dark steel, faces carved with lines of battle and hard-earned wisdom. They rose immediately upon her entrance and bowed deeply, foreheads nearly touching the floor.
Even the goblin emissary—short, sharp-featured, dressed in traveling armor lined with plates of rune-etched metal—bowed his head slightly in respect.
The room's tense anticipation solidified when Ayame walked to the head of the table. She moved with measured grace, kneeling in her designated place as her kitsune curled behind her, resting its massive head in her lap.
The gesture—so familiar, so protective—helped her focus.
Ayame lifted her gaze to the goblin. Her voice was quiet but carried a weight that commanded obedience.
"Speak," she said. "What matter is so urgent that the Lestrange family sends a goblin envoy to us?"
The goblin straightened. "Honored one," he began, tapping a claw lightly against the satchel at his side, "I do not know the full contents of the letter. But when the Lestrange approached us at Gringotts, they requested immediate delivery to your clan… and said only this: they pray for aid."
Several elders stiffened.
The air in the room shifted—slow, heavy, dangerous.
No one spoke.
Even the kitsune's ears twitched in solemn understanding.
A letter calling for aid—using goblins as carriers—meant only one thing.
War.
The goblin stepped forward and placed the letter on the table before Ayame.
She reached out and picked it up.
The wax seal was crimson, stamped with the Lestrange crest—a coiled serpent entwined with blackthorn branches. It was slightly fractured, rushed in its pressing. Beneath it, a metallic imprint glinted faintly: the sigil of Gringotts, marking the letter as carried in absolute priority.
Ayame broke the seal.
The crack echoed like a warning.
She unfolded the parchment.
The room held its breath.
To the Honored Heir of House Shinomori,
Lady Shinomori Ayame,
May this letter reach you swiftly and without interference.
We send it by Gringotts envoy, for no method in Europe remains more secure.
We write to you not only as the main line of the Lestrange family of France,
but as the descendants of those who once stood beside your ancestors in the snows of Isère,
bound by oath and blood through the Pact of Silent Guardianship.
It is under that pact—older than many nations, older than our Ministries—that we now call for your aid.
France burns.
Our Aurors and Enforcers fall faster than we can bury them.
Our ancestral lands in Savoy and the Western Alps are under siege.
The forces of Gellert Grindelwald grow by the hour, and his followers have swept across our borders with a ferocity unseen since the Goblin Rebellions of old.
He has seized magical strongholds, broken wards thought unbreakable,
and begun slaughtering families who refuse to bend the knee to his twisted vision.
His reach extends further each dawn, and now even Paris trembles.
We have held as long as we can.
But we can hold no longer.
By the honor of our houses—by the vow sworn generations ago—
we beseech you:
Send the Silent Guardians.
Send your strength, your storm,
and the legacy your name commands.
The ancient alliance between Lestrange and Shinomori was forged so that
neither family would stand alone when the shadows rose again.
We fear those shadows are here.
And we fear we may not survive them.
May the spirits watch over you,
and may the storm answer our plea.
— Lord Adrien Lestrange
Head of the Lestrange Main Line, France
From the Ancestral Estate at Montcorbeau
The chamber remained utterly silent.
Ayame read the letter a second time. Then a third.
Every line seemed to press down on her chest, emotions clashing inside her like colliding storms.
Rage—that someone dared attack a Shinomori ally.
Responsibility—the pact invoked was ancient, sacred, unbreakable.
Exhaustion—she had fought too many battles already for someone her age.
Dread—that this war would demand of her the same mercilessness she had just shown in the shrine.
Her fingers tightened around the parchment.
She lowered her head, letting her long white hair curtain part of her face. The kitsune nudged her side, sensing the turmoil beneath her composed exterior.
Finally, Ayame let out a slow breath.
She lifted her gaze, meeting the eyes of the elders.
"The Lestrange family invokes our oath," she said quietly. "They call for aid against a man named Gellert Grindelwald… in the name of France itself."
Murmurs rippled softly through the chamber.
The eldest of the branch leaders bowed his head. "What shall we do, Lady Ayame?" he asked, though the answer was already known.
The Shinomori never abandoned an ally.
Ayame said nothing.
She held the letter a little tighter.
Her storm-grey eyes lowered again, as if sinking into the never-ending weight of the responsibility placed upon her too young.
She did not speak.
Not yet.
The whole room waited—silent, expectant—as Ayame drifted deep into thought, the burden of an entire clan pressing upon her slender but unyielding shoulders.
For several long breaths, the council chamber remained frozen in absolute silence.
Ayame did not move. She sat perfectly still, the Lestrange letter held lightly in her slender fingers, her gaze lowered—not in defeat, but in contemplation sharpened to a dangerous point. Her white hair draped forward like a curtain of snow, hiding most of her expression.
But her kitsune felt it.
A shift—a tightening of emotion beneath that still surface.
The great fox's ears flicked, its nine tails curling slowly around Ayame in a cocoon of soft frost and ancient magic. It sensed the choice forming inside her, the way storm clouds gather before lightning.
The elders exchanged uneasy glances. They had seen their clan heads face war before, decades and centuries in the past. They had seen leaders make choices with clarity, with wisdom, with wrath.
But this—this quiet, trembling moment held something else.
A girl of fifteen. A woman forged by duty. A warrior shaped by blood and winter. A clan head before her time.
What decision could such a soul carry without breaking?
Ayame's fingers loosened around the letter.
She inhaled.
And lifted her head.
Her storm-grey eyes were no longer clouded. No longer weighed down by doubt and exhaustion.
They were steel.
Cold, sharp, honed to a deadly edge.
Magic pulsed in the chamber instantly—an unseen wave that pressed into the floorboards and rattled through the lantern frames. A thin crack raced across the nearest wooden beam as frost burst across its surface.
Several elders gasped quietly.
A few lowered their gazes, not in fear but in recognition.
This was not a child making a decision.
This was a Shinomori heir stepping fully into the mantle of her ancestors.
Ayame rose slowly to her feet, the kitsune lifting its head from her lap and standing with her. The air grew colder with every second she remained silent.
She looked first at the goblin envoy.
His eyes widened.
Then she turned her gaze upon the elders—one by one.
Each time her eyes met theirs, they felt weight settle on their shoulders, a pressure that grew tide by tide. Breath thickened in their lungs. Frost crept across the polished floorboards, racing outward in a spiderweb of glittering white.
The temperature plunged.
Ozone filled the air.
A faint crackle—like distant lightning—echoed behind her.
Every person in the chamber realized then: this was Ayame's magic.
Unfiltered. Uncontrolled. Unrestrained by the fear or doubt that normally softened it.
And it was terrifying.
The elders—battle-hardened veterans of clan conflicts, monsters of discipline in their own right—found themselves bowing their heads without meaning to.
The goblin envoy tensed, claws curling instinctively into the wooden floor.
Ayame waited until the air stilled. Until she felt every gaze, every breath, every heartbeat in the room focused solely on her.
Then she spoke.
Softly.
Barely above a whisper:
"A Shinomori protects."
Her grandmother's mantra. The words that had shaped her childhood. The words that had become her burden.
She let them hang in the air for a heartbeat.
Then her voice rose—calm, steady, but carrying all the force of a winter storm breaking over a battlefield.
"A Shinomori. Protects."
Lightning cracked behind her. The lantern flames flickered violently, bowing toward her as if pulled by gravity.
Ayame inhaled, shoulders lifting with quiet resolve.
And she delivered her judgment.
Her voice turned soft again—but final. Irrevocable.
"Prepare the Sentinels."
No elder dared breathe.
"At least one hundred twenty. Only elites."
The goblin envoy's jaw dropped.
The elders stiffened, shock breaking momentarily through their stoic discipline.
A force that large had not been mobilized in generations. Not since the first war of their age.
Ayame's next words were a death sentence for someone.
"We leave for Europe at dawn."
Her kitsune stood taller behind her, a growl of pure ice rumbling through its massive chest.
Ayame turned away from the council table and walked toward a recessed alcove in the far wall. There, an enormous bell hung suspended between two carved pillars—its surface engraved with runes and alchemical sigils so old that even the elders no longer remembered who crafted them.
It was the Storm Bell.
Forged of enchanted metals. Powered by a living core of bound lightning. Once used only by clan heads.
And only for war.
Ayame reached it.
She placed her palm against its cold surface. Her magic surged inward, rippling through the metal.
For a heartbeat, she saw another hand there—older, lined with age, steady as a mountain. Her grandmother's. The last time this bell had rung, Ayame had been a child hiding beneath the council table, listening to the winter of the Northern War begin.
There had been more voices then. More lives. More Shinomori.
Now there was only her.
She turned back to the chamber, meeting every gaze.
Her voice rang clear:
"As of now, by order of the Clan Head…"
Frost raced across the floor. The lights dimmed. The walls groaned.
"…the Shinomori declare war on the man called Gellert Grindelwald."
A collective inhalation swept the room.
Ayame continued:
"All forces are ordered to enter a full war state."
She drew her arm back.
And struck the bell.
The sound was not a sound.
It was a force.
A shockwave of thunderous, crystalline chimes exploded outward, rattling every bone in every body. Light burst from the runes on the bell, flooding the chamber with white-blue radiance.
The shockwave swept out of the building, leaping over rooftops and racing across the Shinomori compound like rolling thunder. Wards flared to life, glowing stark white along miles of perimeter walls.
And further still, the bell's magic surged across the landscape.
Through forests. Across rivers. Over mountains.
Until it reached the heart of Japan's magical capital—dozens of kilometers north.
There, sorcerers, merchants, warriors, and children all paused and looked to the sky as frost-laced thunder echoed overhead.
They knew that sound.
Everyone did.
Every magical Japanese did.
The Shinomori—the oldest clan in Japan—had declared war.
And the last time that happened, the Northern Empire had fallen in a single winter.
In the council chamber, the air remained heavy with magic. Slowly, the elders rose to their feet.
One by one, they bowed deeply.
Deep enough to press palms and foreheads to the frost-covered floor.
"Clan Head," they intoned. "We hear and obey."
Ayame offered no dismissal. She merely turned her gaze away, already thinking ten steps ahead.
The elders filed out, voices low and urgent as they issued orders to runners, strategists, and external branches.
Soon only Ayame, her kitsune, and the goblin envoy remained.
Ayame turned to him.
The goblin swallowed hard. His pallid green skin seemed to pale further, and he bowed deeply in the old goblin warrior salute.
Ayame's voice softened—but held the weight of ancient treaty.
"Deliver this message to your King."
The goblin straightened.
Ayame continued:
"By ancient oath, I—Ayame Shinomori—call upon the goblin clans."
Ice crackled beneath her feet.
"They are to prepare to seize all assets belonging to the man named Gellert Grindelwald."
The goblin stiffened in shock.
"And to ready their legions for war."
A pulse of storm magic rolled off her.
"Let them lie in wait… and hope I do not call them to the battlefield."
The goblin stared—wide-eyed, breath caught, awe-struck by the magnitude of what she was invoking.
Ayame did not wait for his reply.
She turned, her hair swaying like a silver-blue waterfall. Her kitsune stepped beside her, towering and fierce.
Without another word, she exited the chamber.
Leaving behind frost, thunder—and a goblin who understood that the world had just shifted.
And that a storm named Ayame Shinomori was about to descend upon Europe.