The world was quiet.
Snow whispered across a battlefield soaked in blood, and shattered ice glittered like broken glass. The trees stood still, frozen in time, their branches heavy with silence. Everything was hushed—except the sound of her breathing.
Reika stood alone, surrounded by corpses. Four Shikiban lay at her feet, their twisted bodies barely recognizable, steam rising from their wounds. The air was thick with death and the bitter sting of frost. Her hands trembled at her sides, bruised and bleeding, but her grip never loosened.
Every inch of her ached. Her ribs screamed with each breath. Her vision flickered at the edges, darkening like curtains drawing in. She had nothing left—no strength, no healing, no power to call upon.
And yet she stood.
The silence broke. A deep crack echoed through the air.
From the wreckage, he rose.
The Shikiban leader.
His silver hair clung to his bloodied face, glowing faintly under the moonlight. His bones snapped back into place, his body healing in unnatural, sickening motions. The wind turned sharp, biting into Reika's skin, and her instincts screamed danger.
He shouldn't be alive.
Not after the final attack. Not after what she did.
But there he was—grinning, cracked lips curling into a smirk that radiated cruelty.
"You're impressive," he rasped, voice like shards of ice grinding together. "But not enough."
The frost beneath her feet spread wider, veins of ice creeping toward her toes. She didn't flinch. She just breathed—slowly, deliberately. Blood slipped down her fingers. Her eyes burned with exhaustion, but deeper still, something else had awakened.
Her soul didn't want to stop.
She reached to her waist. Her twin knives were nearly dulled from overuse—chipped, scratched, tainted with black blood. But she pulled them free anyway. There was no fear left in her.
Only instinct.
Only defiance.
Grey fire flickered to life along the edges of the blades.
It wasn't ordinary flame.
It pulsed with emotion, wild and unstable, born not from technique, but fury. Desperation. The will to survive no matter the cost.
She gritted her teeth as the knives grew hot in her hands. Her fingers twitched. The fire spread, licking up her arms, wrapping around her like a cloak of defiance.
Pain surged through her chest—white-hot, searing.
But she didn't scream.
She let the pain in.
Let it dig into her bones.
She merged with it.
The fire expanded, swallowing the knives. Steel melted into molten streaks of grey. Her entire body shook, knees nearly buckling from the transformation. But she didn't fall.
When the light died, a single weapon remained in her hand.
A katana—sleek, blackened at the hilt, with a translucent blade outlined in fire. Runes glowed faintly along its edge, and the air around it twisted as if reality itself couldn't bear its presence.
The Shikiban narrowed his eyes.
He could feel it too.
Power. Ancient. Devastating.
Not borrowed. Not inherited.
Reika's own.
He raised his weapon—a spear etched in frozen bone—and charged. The frost around him erupted, shards firing outward like arrows.
Reika moved.
Her blade met his with a sound like thunder cracking through glass. Sparks exploded as steel collided, the force of their clash sending shockwaves across the battlefield.
She ducked beneath his swing, pivoted, and slashed across his back.
He roared, spinning to counter—but she was already gone.
She moved like a ghost. A storm wrapped in flesh.
Every strike was memory. Every dodge was vengeance.
His attacks were brutal, elegant, forged from centuries of killing.
Hers were raw, desperate, instinctual—but they landed.
Over and over again.
He summoned frost—she burned through it.
He leapt into the air—she followed, blade carving arcs of light across the sky.
Their powers clashed with the violence of gods. Snow turned to ash. Trees splintered into oblivion. The ground shattered beneath their feet.
Still, she pressed forward.
Still, he fought back.
Until finally—he hesitated.
Just a second.
But it was enough.
Reika twisted her grip, fire surging through the katana. She moved like lightning—vanishing, then reappearing behind him. Her blade cut through his side, clean and brutal.
He staggered.
Blood poured down his leg.
His breath came ragged, lips trembling as the frost around him began to fade.
"Impossible…" he muttered. "How are you still standing…?"
She raised her blade, pointing it at his heart.
Her voice was quiet—but it struck harder than steel.
"I have nothing left to lose."
Grey fire burst around her, spiraling upward like a storm. The ground cracked beneath her feet, and the air itself seemed to tear apart as her energy surged for the final time.
He lunged.
She did too.
Their blades collided in a shockwave that flattened the trees and split the sky.
Time froze.
Then shattered.
The Shikiban's spear cracked.
Then broke.
Then turned to dust.
Reika's katana drove through his chest, the runes flashing white-hot.
His mouth opened in shock.
A final breath.
A final curse.
Then silence.
He fell backward, crumbling into ash before he hit the ground. The last of his frost dispersed with a sigh, melting into the snow.
Reika stood motionless.
Her katana fell from her hand, sinking halfway into the ice.
She dropped to one knee.
Not in weakness.
But in release.
It was over.
The silence returned. Not empty. But full—heavy with the weight of victory and the cost it demanded.
Snow fell again, slow and soft.
It landed on her shoulders like a crown.
Her breath fogged the air. Her fingers twitched. Blood still dripped from her side.
But her eyes remained open.
She was still here.
Alive.
Changed.
She looked down at her hands—trembling, bruised, glowing faintly with the last of the fire.
She had survived.
No—she had won.
And yet, something inside whispered that this wasn't the end.
This was the beginning.
The fire in her blood had only just been born.