The battlefield didn't just fall silent.
It inhaled. Backwards.
Everything that had been alive—burning, thrashing, howling—seemed to retreat into a terrible stillness, like the world itself had skipped a breath and didn't know how to exhale again.
The last of the Flame Shikibans fell in heaps of blackened metal and scorched bone. Their armor, once glowing with cursed sigils, now crumbled against the cracked stone. But they didn't just die—they unmade. Their bodies broke down not by fire alone, but by something more ancient, more exacting. Something that didn't simply kill, but consumed.
Black fire rose from their remains.
It didn't flicker. It didn't waver. It slithered, coiled—hungry.
And Reika felt it before she saw it.
Her katana, still trembling in her grip, pulsed once. A low, almost inaudible hum. The edge of the blade crawled with violet veins of flickering flame, as if awakening from a long, dreamless sleep. The black fire twisted as if sensing her, pulled forward—not toward her, but toward the weapon.
It flowed in like water pulled into a drain, vanishing into the sigil etched into the steel.
Then—
CRACK.
A jagged fracture split down the spine of her blade, glowing amethyst and sharp like lightning frozen mid-burst.
Reika stumbled back, heart pounding. The air was thick, heavy, humming with invisible tension, like the atmosphere before a storm. Her hand clutched the hilt tighter on instinct, though her mind screamed at her to let go.
VRRMMMM.
A whine—mechanical, high-pitched, familiar in a way that had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with instinct—cut through the silence. A cold light burst from the blade's sigil, casting holographic glyphs into the air.
Reika froze.
The sky in front of her now shimmered with a translucent interface. Layers of ancient characters and digital code twisted and aligned, like something out of a dream half-remembered. A voice followed, soft but metallic, like it belonged to no one and everyone at once.
[INTERFACE LOG: KAGESHIKI DATABASE — RYUJIN PROTOCOL ACTIVE]ACCESS LEVEL: OBLIVION-CLASSVISUAL FEED: ACTIVE_02 :: [RYUJIN-PURPLE]──────────────────────────────────────────────
▸ ABILITY CODE: SHADOWFLAME DRAGON — RYUJIN-PURPLE▸ TIER: TYPE-∞ [ORIGIN THREAD]▸ CLASS DESIGNATION: FORBIDDEN BLOODLINE — "FIRST FLAME REINCARNATE"
═══════════ ENTITY PROFILE ═══════════☐ MANIFESTATION CLASS: PRIMAL SPIRITUAL DRAGON ENTITY☐ ENTITY NAME: RYUJIN-PURPLE☐ BEHAVIORAL TRAIT: RAGE-REACTIVE / EMOTION-SENSITIVE☐ BOND TYPE: TRAUMA-SOUL LINK (INSTINCTUAL RESONANCE)☐ PHASE STATE: UNSTABLE→ AUTONOMOUS FUNCTIONALITY: ENABLED UNDER EXTREME DURESS→ BREATH TEMPERATURE: ∼21,000°C [UNVERIFIED]
═══════════ WEAPON SYNC MODULE ═══════════☐ KATANA NAME: SHINSOUMEI☐ FORGE TYPE: MYTH-GRADE | UNKNOWN ALLOY | PRE-RECORD ERA☐ SOUL CAPACITY: STORES DEFEATED ENTITY ECHOES
▶ CURRENT SYNC: 54% — STABLE▶ SOUL LINK STATUS: ACTIVE▶ EMOTIONAL SURGE MODULE: ENGAGED
═══════════ SYSTEM ALERT ═══════════
EVOLUTION THRESHOLD BREACHED — DURING ACTIVE COMBATABILITY CLASS: OBSCURED-TIER ENTITYPRIOR MANIFESTATIONS: 1ARCHIVAL STATUS: BANNED — UNSUITABLE FOR STANDARD CATALOGING
──────────────────────────────────────────────[END SEGMENT / DATA STREAM CONTINUES…]
The words didn't just appear. They landed—right into her mind, bypassing her ears, her skin, her language.
She read the name once.
Then twice.
Reika Kagetsu. Kageshiki No. (0)₂.
Her throat caught.
She had just been promoted to rank eight after Kyoto. Eight. That was days ago.
And now—
She stared at the projection, wide-eyed, her pulse climbing toward panic.
The interface didn't care about her confusion. It moved on, clinical and detached, outlining weapon data, manifestation thresholds, system warnings.
She couldn't hear her breath anymore.
Just the sound of her heartbeat, drumming too loud in her ears.
She wasn't supposed to be this.
Was she?
There were warnings embedded in the data—terms that stuck out like splinters in her mind. "Emotional overload," "phantom burn," "host soul displacement." There were percentages and cooldowns and activation limits. Nothing about this was meant for a seventeen-year-old girl who'd only survived because she was too stubborn to stay down.
And yet… here she was.
A part of her knew this wasn't sudden. This wasn't new.
This was inevitable.
The system spoke again.
"EVOLUTION THRESHOLD BREACHED MID-COMBAT. ABILITY CLASS: OBSCURED-TIER ENTITY. PRIOR MANIFESTATIONS: 1. STATUS: BANNED."
It ended with a sound—like glass melting into silence.
And just like that, the interface blinked out. Gone, as if it had never been.
Only Reika remained, the katana still pulsing in her hand.
Shinsoumei. Her blade had a name now. A soul.
And a voice that was slowly becoming part of her own.
She stood there, in the aftermath of a war that hadn't yet realized it was over. Her legs shook—not from fear, but from the weight. The sheer pressure of what had just shifted in her life.
Her lips parted. Her voice came out in a whisper.
"(0)… two?"
Her mind fought to process it. Rank (0)₂ was myth. Reserved for war gods and living legends. People who moved like fire and fought like storms. She wasn't any of those things. She was just a girl who didn't know how to die properly. Who kept surviving even when everything said she shouldn't.
She blinked hard.
Don't cry.
Her body felt distant, dreamlike, like she wasn't fully in it anymore. The katana shimmered in the corner of her vision—obsidian kissed by nebula fire. It was beautiful. And terrifying.
And alive.
Was this always inside me? she wondered. Or did something break loose today that shouldn't have?
Behind her, the battlefield held its breath.
Then—
A sound.
Not wind.
A breath.
Low. Deep. Vast.
She turned—slowly, afraid and awestruck—and saw it.
Not with her eyes. But with something older. Deeper.
The shape of the dragon—Ryujin—loomed behind her, wrapped in black and purple flame, not fully formed, but present. Memory and myth layered in fire, coiling around her soul like it had known her before she had ever drawn breath.
She didn't scream.
She didn't fall.
But for the first time since she was small enough to hide behind the kitchen table, Reika wanted to cry.
Not from pain. Not even from fear.
But from the terrible, aching truth that she didn't recognize herself anymore.
Was she Reika Kagetsu—the orphan girl who ran barefoot through freezing snow, away from the sound of her mother's final breath?
Or was she Kageshiki No. (0)₂?
She looked down at her hand—at the blade.
It didn't feel like a weapon anymore.
It felt like a question.
And a memory that wasn't hers.
"Ryujin…" she whispered, barely audible, "was it always inside me?"
No answer came.
Only silence.
Heavy. Absolute.
Reika closed her eyes, took one long, steadying breath, and then opened them again. The battlefield before her was quiet. Charred. Still.
But something was coming. Something always came.
So she stepped forward.
One foot. Then the other.
No smile. No tears.
Just the eyes of a girl learning to carry the weight of the divine.
And behind her, the dragon stirred.