The owl extended its wing toward Hayato.
He hesitated for not evena second.
The moment their hands touched, a searing heat shot through his body. It wasn't just pain—it was loss.
Something inside him, something essential, was being taken.
His veins felt like they were set ablaze, his bones groaning.
Behind him, a glowing Mandala bloomed into existence.
The owl flinched—recognition flashing in its many eyes.
But it said nothing.
Hayato could barely breathe.
His chest pounded violently, a deafening rhythm that felt as though it might tear him apart.
A force unlike anything he had ever known crashed into him, flooding his body—human and animal abilities, spanning countless lifetimes, centuries of strength all at once.
Then came the memories.
Hayato blinked.
And when he opened his eyes, he was no longer himself.
He felt the weight of armor pressing down on his shoulders, the grip of a blade in his hands—familiar, yet foreign.
The air smelled of blood, thick and suffocating, and the sky above him burned with the glow of fire of houses burning down.
He was someone else.
A warrior.
A man feared and revered in equal measure.
"Tōda-sama!" a voice called from behind him.
He turned, instinct guiding his movements, and saw men—his men—kneeling in deference.
Their armor was stained, their eyes hollow from endless battle.
"The city has fallen, my lord. None remain."
For a moment, silence.
Then—screams.
Not of warriors, but of people.
Women.
Children.
The old and the weak.
"No, please! Spare us!"
"My baby! My baby!"
"We have done nothing! Please—"
Their voices were there, but they weren't.
His ears heard them, but his mind refused to listen.
He couldn't listen.
This was war.
This was all he knew.
His sword dripped with the lives he had taken, its steel darkened with dried blood—so much so that it had taken on a spirit of its own and turned its shiny steel into a permanent black spiritually and physically.
A demon forged in carnage.
He had asked his lord to end this war.
He had begged.
He had knelt, the greatest warrior of his time, willing to throw away pride for a single wish: peace.
"We cannot stop now," the lord had said, voice laced with arrogance. "We are too close to victory."
Victory.
What victory was there in this?
"Then I will end it by Myself."
That had been the last thing he said before his sword turned against those it once served.
The same blade that won wars now cut through allies, lords, entire bloodlines.
He burned it all.
The castle, the city, the very ground they stood on.
But now—standing in the midst of an already doomed city, his blade poised to strike down another life—his body halted.
A baby.
Wrapped in cloth, eyes barely open, its tiny chest rising and falling. Unaware of the massacre.
Unaware of him.
His hands trembled.
For the first time—he hesitated.
What have I done?
The screams, once distant, came crashing in.
The smell of blood was no longer just a scent but a suffocating force wrapping around him, clawing at his lungs.
His knees hit the ground.
His sword slipped from his grasp.
He was a monster.
And so, the last battle he fought was against himself.
With the same blade that had carved history in blood, he turned it upon his own flesh.
As the fires consumed him, he welcomed them.
And then—
Hayato blinked.
And he was no longer a warrior.
He was small.
So small.
His limbs weak, his fingers tiny as they reached up toward the sky.
The world around him felt distant, muffled, but his eyes—new and untainted—focused on something unnatural above.
A second sun in the sky..
He babbled, pointing at it, unaware. Unafraid.
Then—nothing.
The world turned white.
Heat beyond anything mortal consumed the land, and in an instant, everything that was ceased to be.
Darkness.
Then—light.
Hayato gasped, lungs burning as he found himself somewhere else.
His body was different again—older, but frail.
His hands, once small and innocent, were now slender, trembling, and covered in bruises.
He was a woman.
The floor beneath him was cold, hard, and unforgiving.
Shadows loomed over him—no, him?
Her?—and a voice, thick with rage, echoed in the dimly lit room.
"You think I don't know?!" the man snarled, his breath reeking of alcohol.
"You think I'm a fool?!"
Pain exploded across his—her—cheek as a fist struck.
Again.
And again.
The body he inhabited was too weak to fight back, too drained to resist.
A desperate plea left her lips, but it was drowned out by the sound of a metal cap twisting open.
A sharp scent filled the air.
Gasoline.
Panic.
"Please—!"
The match struck.
Flames roared.
Skin melted.
Agony unlike anything imaginable swallowed the body whole.
Darkness.
Then—
Hayato blinked—
And this time, he had four legs instead of two.
His ears twitched at the crackling sound around him, his nose overwhelmed by the thick, choking scent of smoke.
Heat pressed against his fur, singeing the tips as flames crept closer, consuming everything in their path.
He tried to move but felt a sharp pain in his paws.
He looked down—his claws were broken, raw and bleeding from desperately scraping the wooden floor.
A small cry reached his ears.
The baby.
It lay helpless in its crib, wailing as smoke filled the air, its tiny arms reaching for something—anything—to save it.
The dog—he—panicked.
Barked.
Barked until his throat was raw.
No one came.
He turned back, sniffing wildly for a way out, for an escape—but there was none.
Flames danced closer, licking the edges of the crib.
No. No, no, no—
He forced his broken claws into the floor again, digging, pulling—his body screaming in pain as he dragged the crib away from the flames, inch by inch, paw by paw.
Wood splintered under his frantic movements.
His breath came in ragged gasps.
His vision blurred.
And finally—
The crib was safe.
But he wasn't.
The fire reached his hind legs first.
He let out a pained yelp but did not move.
He had no strength left.
The last thing he saw was the baby's face—teary, innocent, unaware.
Then—
The flames consumed him.
Hayato blinked.
He was no longer a dog.
Now, he was standing in a crowd—a sea of people, voices raised, fists clenched. The air was thick with anger, with desperation. Banners waved above his head, words of defiance painted in bold, shaking letters.
He could hear the chants—"Justice! Freedom!"—a unified roar that filled the streets.
Then—chaos.
A loud bang. Screams. People shoving, running—riot police charging in.
Hayato barely had time to turn before he saw it—
A bottle, spinning through the air, its ragged cloth tail lit with fire.
Time slowed.
He raised his arms—too late.
The Molotov shattered against his chest, glass slicing into his skin, fire erupting over his body.
He screamed. Screamed for help.
But no one stopped.
Feet trampled past him, bodies shoved and scrambled to escape. Someone almost stepped on him. He reached out, his fingers curling into the pavement, but the fire burned through his nerves, through his skin—
And then—darkness.
—
He opened his eyes.
But this time, the world was seen through small, beady eyes.
Wind ruffled his feathers. His body felt light, fragile.
He was a bird.
But his wing—his wing was broken.
He tried to fly. Nothing.
The ground trembled beneath him.
A deep, monstrous rumble filled the air, shaking the earth, cracking it open.
And then—fire.
Not the kind that burned from a bottle, not the kind that clung to flesh.
This was something greater.
A volcano had awakened.
A towering column of fire and smoke burst into the sky, swallowing the sun, turning the world into a suffocating hellscape.
Ash rained down like snowfall, coating his feathers, searing his lungs. He tried to move, to hop, to escape—
But where?
The heat was unbearable. The air itself seemed to catch fire.
With one last desperate glance at the sky he could never return to, the little bird collapsed—
And everything went black.
This flurry of incomplete moments—each one ending in flames—continued, over and over, until Hayato began to forget the first ones.
The lives blurred together.
He was a soldier in World War I, his trench caught in an explosion, his body turned to ash.
He was a slave, shackled and trembling, forced to stoke the fires of a great forge—until, one day, he was thrown into it for disobedience.
He was a student, walking home after dark when hands dragged him into an alley.
Raped...And then —burned alive to silence his screams.
So many deaths.
Too many.
Some only had the memory of their final moments, their terror frozen in time.
Others had long, drawn-out memories, stretching through years of suffering before the flames finally took them.
But all of them burned.
The memories kept changing, slipping through his mind like sand in a storm—until they didn't.
This one stayed.
Hayato found himself in a world far older than any he had seen before.
The air was thick, untouched by time, and the land was harsh—a frozen wasteland stretching beyond sight.
There was no language, no words, only instinct and survival.
A woman sat before him, breastfeeding an infant.
Her hair was wild, her body lean and scarred.
He felt warmth in his chest—an attachment beyond words. Without speaking, he leaned down and pressed his lips against her forehead.
A gesture of understanding. Of trust.
Then, he turned away, gripping the heavy spear at his side.
He needed to find food.
There was none left.
The winters had lasted years, and the world was cold and cruel.
The easiest food source was other humans.
The body he inhabited was inhumanly strong.
He could shatter stone with his bare hands, tear through the hide of an ancient beast with his teeth.
Once, he had fought an elephant (prehistoric) with his fists—and won without a sweat.
For years, he had kept his mate alive by hunting animals—there were still some left.
But as the winter dragged on, the creatures fled or died.
And when there were no more beasts, he had turned to hunting humans.
He did not need food.
His body did not weaken, did not wither, but his mate and child did.
And so he fed them—however he had to.
It would not last much longer.
Others had begun to fear him.
The few remaining had fled, abandoning this frozen land.
He now had to travel for hours just to find something—anything—that could be eaten.
And as he marched through the ice, he wondered—how much longer could this go on?
He didn't know what it was but it all changed with a single, deafening sound.
It shattered the sky.
The world trembled as ash rained down, swallowing the sun in a choking veil of gray.
The endless winter had begun.
But none of that mattered now.
He had been searching for hours—nothing.
No beasts.
No humans.
Not even bones.
The land had gone still, empty, silent.
He had failed.
Frustration boiled inside him, rage twisting in his gut.
He clenched his fists and struck the frozen mountain before him.
Once. Twice.
A hundred times.
He punched and punched, his roars swallowed by the howling wind.
He didn't care that his knuckles split open.
That his flesh tore away.
He didn't want to return to his mate empty-handed.
He didn't want their child to starve.
So he kept going.
Kept hitting.
Until the mountain was nearly gone.
And only then—only when he finally stopped—did he notice.
His hands, broken and raw, had begun to heal.
Skin reformed over exposed bone, knitting itself back together.
Stronger. Whole.
He could feed them.
Without hesitation, he dug his fingers into his own arm and tore away a chunk of flesh.
It hurt—but pain meant nothing to him.
He wrapped the meat in elephant fur, his expression blank as he turned back toward home.
And so the years passed.
The winter never ended.
But something had changed.
Ever since his mate had eaten his flesh, she had become stronger.
Faster. And over time, she had stopped needing food at all.
His child was the same.
And as they grew, their need for meat vanished.
The blood of animals was enough—just a few drops could sustain them for weeks.
And so, finally, after years of wandering and hunting, they did something unthinkable.
They stayed.
They built a home.
Everything had been going so well.
His child had grown strong, and his mate was swollen with life—their family was about to grow.
For the first time, he had thought, perhaps this would last.
Then tragedy struck.
The first sign was the tremors. The ground quaked, the trees shuddered, and the air grew frigid.
Then came the beast.
A tiger unlike any other.
Its fur was ice itself, shimmering like frost beneath the gray sky.
It came with hunger.
It came with wrath.
And it tore into their home.
He fought, of course.
He always fought.
But this time—his strength wasn't enough.
No matter how many times he struck the beast, it did not break.
No matter how many times he roared, it did not falter.
Then—agony.
Claws ripped through his stomach, gutting him and clawing out his organs.
He fell.
Darkness swallowed him.
---
When he awoke...
The world was silent.
His body still hurt, but it had healed. It always did.
Yet as he sat up, something felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Too still.
His breath hitched.
His eyes fell on his mate.
Lying motionless in a pool of blood.
Her head was gone.
His hands trembled.
He forced himself to look away, to search—where was his child?
Then, in the wreckage, he saw a small figure.
Alive.
His child had survived.
But at that moment, he didn't feel relief.
Just an emptiness so vast it threatened to consume him whole.
The next day, it returned.
The beast came again, its icy presence sending shivers down his spine.
He wanted to fight—but something inside him... snapped.
For the first time in his existence, he ran.
With his child clutched tightly in his arms, he pushed off the ground—and soared.
The air rushed past him, his instincts screaming in terror, but his body adapted.
His muscles remembered the way birds moved, the way the wind carried them.
And so, he flew.
He did not know how long he traveled, only that the ocean stretched forever beneath him.
His wounds ached, his breaths were ragged, but he would not stop.
Not until he found safety.
Eventually, he did.
A settlement.
A group of humans.
He landed before them, towering over their fragile bodies.
They cowered.
But when he bared his teeth, when he struck down the strongest among them with a single blow, they bowed.
He became their leader.
He took a mate— for the sake of his child.
Someone to care when he could not.
Yet even here, in this land where winter was no longer bone-chilling, something was missing.
Even here, where the cold did not bite so deeply, the sun never shone.
He felt... empty.
So, one day—he left.
Soaring once more, he sought out the beast.
And he found it.
The Tiger of Ice, rampaging through another settlement—but only killing the women.
Something inside him snapped again.
With a furious dive, he slammed into the beast, locking his arms around it.
And then—he flew.
Higher. Faster.
The tiger thrashed, claws raking against his flesh, but he did not let go.
Higher. Faster.
The cold burned his skin.
His bones creaked under the pressure.
But still—he did not let go.
Until—
CRASH.
The two slammed into a mountain, rock and ice shattering from the force.
The beast roared, clawing at him, its fangs seeking his throat.
They fought.
Again.
But this time, the tiger did not hold back.
With a single, earth-shaking roar—
The world froze.
He felt his body solidify, ice creeping into his flesh, his veins, his very bones.
Then—shatter.
Darkness swallowed him once more.
His eyes opened again.
The world was harsher than before.
The wind howled like a wounded beast, and the snow fell heavier than ever. The cold had grown merciless—as if the very sky itself wished to erase all who still lived.
But he did not care.
He shot up into the sky once more, soaring above the dead land.
When he reached the ocean, his breath caught.
A thin path of ice stretched across the water—leading directly to where his son had been left.
The beast had been there.
A roar of fury tore from his throat as he pushed himself faster than ever before.
Then, for the first time—he felt it.
His flesh. Burning.
The cold had never harmed him before. He had walked through blizzards, swam through frozen rivers, fought beasts with ice in their veins. But now—his skin was peeling away, his blood freezing before it could leave his body.
Still, he did not stop.
When he finally landed near the village, the air was thick with the scent of death.
He walked forward.
There were no screams. No cries for help.
Only the frozen corpses of women, their bodies lined up like fallen warriors.
All of them.
Dead.
The beast had done this.
Even without words, without the concept of language—he understood what had happened.
The Tiger of Ice was not just killing for hunger.
It was hunting.
It was wiping them out.
And now—humanity stood at the edge of extinction.
"The Everlasting Winter of Toba" had destroyed them, whittling them down to only a thousand souls.
And now, the beast had begun killing women.
The only ones who could ensure that humanity continued to exist.
That was when he swore.
Not in words.
Not in prayer.
But in a way that only the strongest of his kind could.
He pledged his life to bringing down the beast.
To ending this unending winter.
To slaying the calamity that had brought humanity to its knees.
Soon after.
The Beast Was Here.
He could feel it.
Even before he saw it—he knew.
The air was thicker, heavier.
The cold gnawed at his skin, deeper than ever before.
The sky, always grey, seemed to darken.
Then—he saw it.
The Tiger of Ice.
It stood atop a frozen peak, watching him with glowing blue eyes.
This time, he did not hesitate.
He had grown stronger.
He could feel it.
The more he desired, the more powerful he became.
And right now, his desire burned hotter than the sun.
For Vengeance.
For survival.
For the future of his kind.
He launched himself forward, the ice beneath his feet cracking as he shot toward the beast like a spear.
The Tiger lunged to meet him.
Their collision shattered the silence of the frozen world.
The first punch landed.
The impact sent shockwaves through the ground.
The beast's massive jaw shattered. Bone splintered, fangs snapped, and blood—dark and thick like frozen tar—splattered across the ice.
The Tiger roared, but he did not stop.
He struck again. And again.
Faster.
Harder.
His fists blurred as they slammed into the beast's skull, each punch sending cracks running along its icy flesh.
His hands burned.
His fists were alight. Flames coiled around his knuckles, licking at his skin, refusing to harm him.
He had burned before.
But now, the fire did not hurt him. It answered him.
He drove a flaming fist straight into the beast's chest.
The Tiger howled as its body convulsed, the fire melting through its frozen hide.
For the first time—it was losing.
And then—the cold fought back.
The beast roared upwards, its fury matching his own.
The world shifted.
The wind turned vicious.
The snow rose in the air, twisting into jagged spears of ice.
Then—they fell.
A rain of frozen death.
He dodged.
Barely.
The first shards missed him, shattering against the ground. But then—a searing pain.
His left hand—gone.
A blade of ice had cleaved it clean off.
Blood gushed from the wound, freezing in the air before it could hit the ground.
The pain was unbearable.
But he did not scream.
He did not falter.
He charged forward once more.
A voice echoed in his head.
End this beast. Now. Or humanity is doomed.
The thoughts rang through his mind like thunder.
He knew this creature was not just a beast.
It was more.
It was the winter itself.
The never-ending cold.
The death of the land.
The end of mankind.
And it would not stop until every last human was gone.
He clenched his remaining fist.
He could still fight.
He was still growing stronger.
But something was wrong.
His hand… was not healing.
For every ounce of power he gained, something was taken away.
His wounds no longer closed.
The pain stayed.
The beast changed too.
Its form twisted, shifting from a massive tiger into something more human-like.
It stood on two legs now, towering over him.
Its body was still covered in ice, but its claws had shortened into fingers—fingers that could now grip, strike, and fight like him.
It had adapted.
It had learned.
The man launched forward.
His fist, burning with fire, slammed into the beast's chest.
The ice cracked.
But the beast did not fall.
It roared, a freezing blast of wind exploding from its mouth.
The man tried to move, but the cold wrapped around his legs, freezing him in place.
Then the beast's fist came down.
It hit like a falling mountain.
The ground beneath them shattered. The ice groaned and cracked, splitting into deep chasms.
The man gasped, blood spilling from his mouth.
He was losing.
This battle… he would not survive.
But it didn't matter.
Even as the cold wrapped around him.
Even as his body broke.
Even as death reached for him with open arms—
He burned.
Not just his strength. Not just his blood.
He burned his entire existence.
Flesh. Bone. Memory. Name. Soul.
All of it became fire.
A blaze that ripped through the sky,
splitting the clouds of snow apart,
chasing winter into retreat.
A fire so bright it lit the world like a second sun.
A fire that whispered to the last humans left:
"You are not done."
He left no body.
No grave.
No words.
Just the warmth that saved them.
He was the first hero.
The light before the dawn.
His fire overshadows the brightest star in human history.
And when death embraced him at last—
He did not fade.
He became the Owl.
The silent watcher of mankind.
Eyes open in the dark, Guiding those who wander the bleak limbo.
And then—The vision ended.
Hayato gasped.
His chest rose sharply.
Sweat clung to his skin.
He was back.
Back in his own body.
=========================
Power Stones and Reviews please