The silence of the Kujō estate was not peaceful, but detached, like the calm before a choice—to freeze forever or to explode. The holdings sprawled across the slopes of the Izumo hills, clinging to the earth with stone roots and wooden ribs. It was not just a house, but a complex organism: numerous buildings with massive curved roofs of dark cedar bark, wide verandas, and paper shoji screens cut through with the geometry of wooden lattices. Everything was built in a strict hierarchy, subservient not only to utility but also to the flows of magical energy draining from the mountains like subterranean rivers.
The gardens did not blaze with bright colors. They were gardens of stone, moss, and meticulously pruned dwarf pines, where every boulder, every curve of a sand wave was part of a frozen, silent philosophy of shadow. Narrow covered galleries wound between pavilions, and in the very center of the complex, in a stone bowl carved by the clan's forefathers, lay a pond. The water in it was black and still, like polished obsidian, reflecting only the gray sky and the sharp silhouettes of rooftops. Periodically, bubbles of ancient gases rose to the surface. Decorative koi carp did not live here. Only a colorless, blind fish, adapted to eternal darkness, could survive in this water.
Walking along the gravel path, paying no attention to the frozen beauty, was Kiyoya Kujō. His steps were silent, his platinum hair a bright spot against the estate's muted tones. He passed the main reception hall, walked through an inner courtyard where a single charcoal brazier smoldered in a stone lantern, and approached an inconspicuous, almost hidden structure by the rear wall—the treasury-repository.
The door was made of solid, time-blackened iron. Its surface had no handle, only a complex relief pattern resembling a tangle of roots or a nervous system. Kiyoya drew a key from the folds of his teal kimono. It was not a metal tool, but a rod carved from black jade, its tip pulsing with a microscopic Scar—the unique energetic signature of the clan head. He inserted the key into a barely noticeable depression at the door's center.
A low, deep hum, like the yawn of a waking mountain, sounded. The pattern on the door lit up with blue light along its lines, and the massive leaves silently swung inward, revealing a dark opening and a stream of cold air smelling of ozone and centuries of dust.
Kiyoya descended a steep stone staircase. The basement walls were lined with smooth basalt slabs, still bearing protective runes carved by ancestors, but their glow was dim, nearly extinguished. He emerged into a vast underground chamber, lit only by a few magical crystals in niches. The air vibrated with residual power once stored here.
And he froze.
Stark wooden shelves, arranged along the walls and in the hall's center, stood empty. Shelves meant for dozens, if not hundreds of artifacts, gathered dust, unburdened. Copper hooks for weapons protruded lifelessly from walls. There were no gleaming staves, no armor inscribed with Scars, no scrolls of forbidden techniques. Not even a simple tsuba or a pair of shuriken.
The repository of the Kujō clan's magical tools had been emptied. Completely clean.
Kiyoya's face remained impassive. Only a corner of his mouth twitched in a barely perceptible grimace of irritation—not rage, but the annoyance of a man discovering someone had dared disturb the perfect order of his domain. He slowly surveyed the emptiness, his amber eyes gliding over dusty shelves as if reading an invisible report of betrayal. He didn't search for anything. Simply turned and walked back to the stairs, leaving the massive basement doors wide open. Let the draft blow out this dust and the smell of decay.
He ascended into the world of weak daylight and headed for the main training hall—a large, spacious pavilion with sliding walls opening onto one of the inner stone gardens. There, with his back to him, at the very edge of the tatami, stood a man.
Kujō Ryō.
His posture was straight, almost provocatively flawless, like a soldier on parade devoid of any inner discipline except pride. A snow-white kosode of dense, almost paper-like silk clung to his torso. Wide, wing-like sleeves hung motionless. A deep V-neck on his chest, audacious and out of place in this austere setting, exposed his collarbones and part of his muscular torso—a demonstrative statement of disdain for conventions and his own invulnerability. The panels were wrapped left over right, like on a corpse—a hint so blatant it bordered on cheap theatrics. The kosode was cinched by a tight, dark-gray obi tied in a strict, martial knot at the back. Black hakama concealed his legs. At his waist—elegant but sturdy scabbards holding a katana.
Hair black as pitch was gathered into a tight, impeccable motodori bun at the nape. His forehead and crown were cleanly shaven in the sakayaki style—a nod to samurai roots he seemed not to respect but used as part of his intimidating image. As he slowly turned, Kiyoya saw a face with high cheekbones and thin brows, almost always calm. Only in the corners of his mouth, thin and pale, lurked the eternal shadow of a contemptuous, frozen smirk. But the eyes... the eyes were his most expressive feature. Dark, almost without luster, like two lumps of anthracite, they absorbed light and, it seemed, any attempt to understand what went on inside. They reflected not strength, but a cold, calculated cruelty and a resentment aged into a toxic concentrate.
They looked at each other. The air in the hall grew thick and heavy.
"The repository is empty," Kiyoya's voice sounded even, without raising its tone, like a weather report. "There isn't even a beggar's tanto. Explain."
Ryō didn't blink. His lips, holding the smirk, merely trembled slightly.
"Many from our clan," he began just as calmly, drawing out the words, "have recently felt... a need. For tools. A temporary one. They borrowed artifacts. Everything will be returned within a week. Such were the agreements."
"Agreements," Kiyoya repeated, and something other than indifference sounded in his voice for the first time. A light, caustic note. "I don't give a damn about your agreements and those who made them. I am the head. I need weapons now. Today. To slaughter one particularly clever magical vermin. I'd rather not dirty my hands with such filth."
Something in Ryō's eyes, those coal-black hollows, jerked. The eternal shadow of the smirk by his mouth became slightly sharper.
"The head..." he whispered, and in that whisper was a mountain of ice and poison. "I should have been the head. I'm twenty-six. I've passed all the stages. I am a professional Majutsushi like Kagetori-kun, not some... upstart playing director."
The silence that followed these words was louder than any scream.
Kiyoya slowly, almost lazily, tilted his head to the side, examining Ryō like a curious but ugly exhibit.
"Didn't come out right in the face," he uttered simply, without malice, as if stating that grass is green.
That was the last straw. The shadow of the smirk on Ryō's face vanished, washed away by a wave of pure, black rage. He didn't even draw his katana. He vanished.
Not with Kiyoya's speed, not with the grace of the "Chronometric Imperative." This was a surge of pure, animal aggression, acceleration to several dozen Machs in fractions of a second. The air where he stood cracked like a gunshot. To an ordinary eye, he simply moved, leaving behind a trembling silhouette and a shockwave mashing the tatami into the floor.
His blade, drawn like lightning in motion, shot towards Kiyoya's throat—a straight, deadly, reckless strike designed to behead in one motion.
Kiyoya didn't vanish. He didn't even step aside. He simply tilted his head back, a centimeter. The blade, capable of cutting steel, whistled a millimeter from his skin, cutting only the heavy, tension-charged air.
In that same instant, as Ryō's body shot past by inertia, Kiyoya raised his leg. The movement wasn't fast, but precise, measured, like the strike of a metronome. He didn't kick with a swing. He placed the sole of his waraji against Ryō's chest, right in the center of the white kosode, and straightened his leg.
A dull, bony thud, like a sledgehammer hitting a sandbag, sounded.
Ryō's body, still hurtling forward with monstrous speed, received a counter impulse, breaking physics. He was thrown backward like a rag doll. He flew across the entire hall and slammed back-first into a massive wooden column supporting the corner of the roof. The impact was deafening. The wood of the centuries-old cedar cracked with a roar like thunder. The entire pavilion wall shuddered, paper shoji screens fluttering. Ryō collapsed to the floor at the column's base, blood spraying from his mouth.
But he wasn't out of the fight. A Majutsushi of his level, with a body enhanced to hypersonic capabilities, could withstand this. Rage, mixed with wild humiliation, was stronger than pain. Even before fully touching the ground, he had already activated his Kokurō, "Cocoon of Eternal Night," representing absolute sovereignty over the concept of light's absence, negative space, and all that is hidden.
He didn't stand up. He dissolved into the shadow cast by the cracked column.
Technique: "Cloak of the Shadow Lord."
The shadow under the column billowed, stretched towards him, and enveloped his figure like a second skin. It wasn't just an absence of light. It was a dense, viscous substance, negative space given will. Any energy, any light, any intention directed at him drowned in this bottomless void, losing power and form. It was absolute defense, a constant and passive barrier.
And from this shadow, right behind Kiyoya, who still stood in the same spot, Ryō materialized. His katana, still in hand, described a lightning-fast arc aimed at the base of Kiyoya's skull—a strike ignoring the "Cloak," for it emanated from within it.
Kiyoya moved forward without turning. Not with acceleration, but with a simple, quick step, as if walking away from a bothersome interlocutor. The blade passed harmlessly again.
Ryō jumped back several meters, his face beneath the "Cloak of the Shadow Lord" twisted with rage. Shadow swirled around him, making his outlines blurry, unreal.
"Enough dancing!" he hissed, his voice sounding as if from the depths of a well. "Let's end this!"
The shadow around him thickened, turning into an almost tangible sphere of absolute darkness. It absorbed not only light but also sound, and seemingly the very possibility of attack. Inside this cocoon, Ryō was invulnerable. His next strike, "Blade of the Severed Shadow," was to be decisive. He coated his katana in a sheath of tempered negative space. Even if the steel blade shattered, this blade of pure darkness would retain its form and sharpness, capable of cutting anything.
He charged forward, leaving a trail of fading light and silence in his wake. The strike was terrifying in its simplicity—a vertical cleave from top to bottom, leaving no chance for parrying.
Kiyoya watched this advance of absolute darkness. And smiled. Widely, almost friendly.
He didn't dodge. He took a step forward.
At the moment the shadow blade was centimeters from his crown, his hands flickered. This wasn't a parry. It was a catch. He seized Ryō's blade with his bare hands. Not the steel, but the very sheath of "tempered shadow."
And with a force inconceivable to the mind, bent it over his knee.
The sound wasn't of ringing metal, but of tearing reality—a dry, painful crunch. Ryō's katana, enhanced by his own Kokurō, didn't break in half. It... folded. Like a sheet of paper. The shadow sheath retained its shape, but that shape was now a useless, bent angle. The steel blade inside groaned but held.
Ryō froze in silent shock, his eyes behind the "Cloak" widening. His absolute defense, his tempered shadow... had been overcome not by strength, but by something more fundamental. Reaction speed surpassing the very thought of a counterattack. Pinpoint, incredibly precise pressure at the single point where the shadow's structure was vulnerable—at the moment of its maximum tension, the instant of the strike.
Kiyoya released the bent blade and, while Ryō was still processing what happened, delivered a light, almost playful finger jab to the center of his forehead, straight through the "Cloak of the Shadow Lord." The fingers met no resistance. They passed through the shadow like smoke and touched skin. It wasn't a wounding blow, but a humiliating flick leaving a red mark on his forehead.
"And you're really quite weak," Kiyoya said, his voice full of sincere, almost fatherly disappointment. "I thought you'd be at least a bit stronger, you were going to be clan head. Or did you lose on all fronts? Neither the face nor the technique... Poor thing."
These words hit their mark where blows could not. They pierced the armor of the "Cocoon," the "Cloak," and all professional composure. In Ryō's eyes, those coal-black hollows, a wild, insane fire of long-accumulated resentment flared. He flung the bent katana aside. Its shadow blade held but was powerless.
"SHUT UP!" his scream was hoarse, broken, devoid of all dignity. ""Claws of the Excising Void"!"
He thrust his hands forward. From the shadow enveloping him, something erupted. Not tentacles, not clumps. These were crawling, silent streams of absolute non-being. They didn't glow, didn't smoke. They simply... canceled everything they touched. The air in their path stopped vibrating, lost its properties. They moved towards Kiyoya, and where they touched the wooden tatami floor, they left not holes, but perfectly smooth, glossy hemispheres—as if matter in that spot had been neatly cut out of reality itself and removed. The process was quiet and thus a thousand times more horrifying.
The "Claws" reached Kiyoya, coiled around his arms, legs, torso. The shadow they consisted of didn't squeeze; it began to erase. The edge of his teal kimono, touching one of the "claws," simply vanished, leaving behind a perfectly even, clean cut. Another moment—and the same fate would befall his flesh.
Kiyoya looked at these tendrils of non-being binding him. And sighed. Boredly.
Then his body... lost clarity. It didn't become transparent. It became shadow. Exactly like Ryō's "Claws," like his "Cloak." He dissolved into a clump of pure, negative darkness, and the "claws," deprived of a material target, helplessly passed through the void, causing no harm.
And a few meters to the right, from the shadow cast by a weapons rack, Kiyoya rematerialized. Whole and unharmed. His face bore no trace of strain. Only that same weary, caustic smirk.
Ryō froze. His "Cloak of the Shadow Lord" wavered and dispersed, unable to hide what had happened to his face. All his features, all his cold arrogance, slipped away, revealing naked, animal terror. His pupils, already dark, dilated to the limit, absorbing all light in the hall. He stared at Kiyoya, at this man who had just done to his greatest techniques what he himself did to students in training—devalued them, bypassed them, showed their worthlessness.
"You..." he rasped, his voice the whisper of a madman. "How?..."
Kiyoya slowly brushed non-existent dust from the sleeve of his impeccable kimono.
"You're quite dim, Ryō," he said softly, almost regretfully, like a teacher noting a careless student's mistake. "We're from the same clan. Or did you think only you, the great professional, were granted the right to rummage through the family's dirty laundry? In our... shared shadowy archives?"
He took a step forward. One. Just one step. But in that step lay the entire abyss between them. Between the one who played with shadows, and the one who was their true, unrecognized master.
"Don't sweat it," Kiyoya finished, and his amber eyes shone with cold, impersonal light, like two chunks of ice reflecting a bonfire's flame. "You're already a corpse. You just haven't fallen yet."
And Ryō, the professional Majutsushi, hypersonic assassin, master of shadowy extermination, retreated. Not physically. Inwardly. His entire world, built on strength and right, collapsed in an instant. He stood, weaponless, with empty hands and eyes full of the realization of his own uselessness. And in that silence, broken only by his ragged breathing, it became clear—the battle was over, having barely even truly begun. The winner had been determined from the start. The author had simply tweaked the final lines of the script.