Malrik stood with one hand behind his back, golden eyes staring out through the towering window as sunlight streaked across the floor in molten gold.
Across from him, Kuro sat silently in a chair, one leg bent, arms loosely folded. His one visible eye was distant, yet razor-focused.
The silence between them wasn't awkward—it was deliberate. Heavy.
"We'll need to act fast," Malrik said finally, his voice sharp but low. "If this is what we fear, then we can't afford delays."
Kuro didn't blink. "Delays are what let them fester last time."
Malrik turned to face him, the lines on his face sharpened by memory. "Then we don't let it happen again."
They discussed tactics, containment zones, psychic signal scans, celestial barrier fail-safes—details that only men like them could understand, or dare to carry. As the conversation deepened, Malrik's tone shifted, just slightly.
Malrik exhaled, stepping back to the center of the room. "We'll need to pull resources. Redirect surveillance, inform deepwatch satellites. This is no longer speculation."
"Good," Kuro muttered. "But you don't need me for that."
Malrik turned, his golden eyes narrowing. "I'm calling a summit. We need the others."
Kuro didn't flinch—but the faint twitch in his jaw said enough.
"I'm done here."
"Kuro—" Malrik's voice softened, almost pleading. "You know they need to hear this from you."
Kuro looked away, jaw tight, silent.
Malrik stepped closer, voice low. "Please."
The word hung in the air like an anchor. Rare. Heavy. Real.
Kuro didn't respond right away.
Then, with a quiet sigh and the faintest shake of his head, he whispered, "…Fine. But I'm not playing nice."
---
Hours Later – The Sovereign Council Room
The room was a cathedral of power. Vast, circular, and lined with silver flame braziers that cast shifting reflections across the polished onyx floor. The ceiling arched high above, its center marked with the sigil of the Empire—now eerily still in the tense atmosphere.
One by one, the Monarchs had arrived.
Thalor, broad-shouldered and stone-eyed.
Zephyra, elegant as a breeze yet sharp as frost.
Vorun, cloaked in shadows darker than night.
Elari, serene and unreadable.
Solene, radiant and composed.
Varion, coiled with quiet heat.
Zevarion, eyes crackling with sparks and pride.
Each of them bowed their heads respectfully to Emperor Malrik as he stepped forward.
Malrik Vortan stood before them, crimson-trimmed coat flowing like a banner of war. His golden eyes swept the room, meeting each Monarch's gaze with the gravity of an emperor who had summoned them not for ceremony—but for survival.
"I didn't call this meeting lightly," he began, his tone cold and deliberate. "I understand the tensions between your dominions. I understand the weight of pulling you all from your strongholds. But this… this is beyond border disputes. Beyond power struggles."
He paused.
"There's something stirring beneath our world. A presence we buried. A force we once fought."
The silence stretched—until it cracked beneath two words.
"The Nexomorphs."
That single name shattered the air.
All seven Monarchs stiffened—centuries of discipline faltering as pure, primal fear surfaced.
"That's impossible," Solene said softly. "We eradicated them."
Elari frowned. "Is this a confirmed threat… or another political whisper?"
Malrik allowed a slow, dangerous smile to form.
"…Kuro."
The door opened behind him.
And the room shifted.
A pressure—cold, suffocating,rolled through the chamber like black fog. Every Monarch turned as the aura flooded their senses, suppressing breath and thought alike.
Kuro walked in without a word.
Long coat billowing faintly with each step. His katana glinting faintly at his side. His expression unreadable.
But the weight of his presence crushed everything.
He didn't look at the Monarchs. He simply moved to Malrik's side and stood there, as if the room was empty.
Thalor scowled. Vorun's eyes narrowed.
"You dare show such blatant disrespect in this council?" Thalor's voice was stone and thunder.
"Leak your aura like that again—" Vorun began, but didn't finish.
Because Kuro turned his head.
And with one cold glance, he unleashed.
The chamber trembled. Darkness swirled. Every brazier flickered wildly. The floor itself cracked.
In response, Thalor's aura erupted like a tectonic quake. Vorun's shadow slithered through the marble like oil.
The clash of auras sparked like stars colliding.
"Enough!" Malrik's voice cracked across the room like divine judgment. "This is a war council. Not a pissing contest."
He turned. "Kuro."
Kuro exhaled and dialed it all back in an instant.
The pressure lifted—but the Monarchs still stared at him with quiet hostility.
Without another word, Kuro stepped forward and began to speak.
He explained the pub. The moment he felt it. The way his instincts, long silent since the first war, screamed. The scent—rotten void and scorched time. And worst of all… the hollow pulse. The Nexomorphs' signature frequency.
His briefing stretched on for hours. Strategic plans were drafted. Emergency alert grids restructured. Vanguard units repositioned. And the word "containment" was whispered more than once.
No one left that chamber the same.
---
Not far from the central stronghold where the high council convened—beyond the ridgelines and past the old barracks—lay a place untouched by rank or power.
The Silent Verge.
It wasn't a battlefield, nor a monument.
It was silence—preserved.
A sacred valley blanketed in wild white grass and smooth obsidian stones, each marked by a single name and a single phrase. No statues. No crowns. Only words and memories.
Here, only those who had given their lives in moments that changed the fate of worlds were honored. Not by title—but by what they'd protected.
And here—beneath the bending limbs of an ancient windwood tree—stood Kuro.
He wasn't cloaked in defiance or steel. He didn't posture or breathe menace. He just stood still, his coat gently brushing the petals that drifted like snow.
At his feet: a single grave.
"Raien.My foolish little brother.You were never meant to fight.But gods, you were brave."
The headstone was carved with intricate precision, its edges weathered by time, yet unmarred by neglect. Beside it was Raien's katana, blade sheathed in rust, wrapped in red thread. It hadn't been moved in over a decade.
Kuro's fingers hovered over the weapon—but didn't touch it.
He lowered his head.The man feared across battlefields—the one whose fury rendered entire planets extinct—now looked as though a breeze could knock him over.
Behind him—boots crunched the gravel.
Thalor.
"You're still clinging to ghosts?" he spat, fists clenched. "All that power—and you waste it mourning the past."
Kuro didn't respond.
"You think your reputation gives you the right to walk into meetings, leak that cursed aura and spit on everything we stand for?"
Silence.
"You're not a Monarch. You're a weapon. You should've stayed in the shadows, where broken things belong—!"
Kuro's hand moved to his katana—not Raien's, but his own.
The air thickened. Wind howled through the Gravefield like a warning.
Thalor's eyes narrowed, his own core pulsing beneath his skin—until—
"Thalor."
A voice, gentle as breath and sharp as lightning.
Zephyra.
She stepped into the fading light, eyes glinting with stormlight.
"Leave."
He looked at her, jaw clenched. "He—"
"I said leave."
A crackle of wind pulsed around her. Not power. Authority.
Thalor cursed in stone-tongue, then turned away, disappearing into the long grass.
Zephyra remained.
She turned her gaze to Kuro.
But this wasn't the Kuro she knew from courtrooms and combat. This wasn't the blade that struck terror.
This was the boy who once cried in silence when no one else could hear him.
The boy who knelt by his little brother's grave every year and never spoke a word.
Kuro didn't look at her. He didn't move.
His hand had dropped away from the katana. But his shoulders trembled—barely.
Zephyra's eyes softened.
She stepped forward.
Closer.
Closer still.
And then, without a word, she wrapped her arms around him from behind—gently, carefully, like cradling something fragile.
Kuro didn't pull away.
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, let his head rest back against her shoulder.
The tension in him melted—not shattered—but slowly eased.
"...You never let anyone see you like this," she whispered, voice catching. "Not even me."
"I didn't want to be remembered… like this," he replied, barely audible.
"I remember you," she said, tightening her arms. "All of you. Even the parts you buried with him."
A long silence.
Then—his hand found hers.
And in the stillness of the Gravefield, beneath the watch of countless souls who gave everything, two hearts stitched by old wounds found something whole again.
A warmth. A promise.
Not of forever.
But of now.
Just now.
Just them.
And for Kuro, that was enough.