The scent of blood still clung to the back of Kyro's throat.
Even though a full day had passed since the massacre, he could feel the coppery tang in his mouth with every breath. The wind whispered through the blackened trees like ghosts mourning the dead, rustling the ashes that once belonged to his village, his people. His family.
He stood alone at the edge of the clearing where their house used to be. The charred skeleton of the building still smoked, its rafters clawing at the sky like the fingers of a dying man. Beneath a collapsed beam, something white caught his eye. Bone. Small. Child-sized.
Kyro's knees gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
"Yua…"
His little sister's name broke from his throat like a wounded animal's cry. He tried to dig through the rubble with his bare hands, clawing at ash and splintered wood until his fingers bled. The heat still smoldered beneath the surface, but he didn't care.
He had to find her.
"Stop," a quiet voice said behind him.
Kyro whirled around, face smeared with soot and grief. A girl stood at the treeline, half-shrouded in a long black cloak. The sunlight filtered through the canopy above her, casting mottled shadows across her pale face.
"I said stop," she repeated, stepping forward.
He didn't recognize her. She looked around his age—sixteen, maybe seventeen—with raven-black hair tied back in a braid, and eyes too old for her face. Her gaze held no pity. Only understanding.
"Who are you?" he rasped.
"Someone who buried her own family once," she said, kneeling beside him. "There's nothing left here but ghosts. Come."
"I'm not leaving them," he snapped.
"You already did," she said softly. "The moment you survived."
The words struck him harder than any blade. Kyro stared at her, something in her voice—low and resolute—telling him she understood in ways no one else could. Her hands, gloved and calloused, reached into the ashes and gently pulled something free.
A necklace. His mother's.
Kyro's lip trembled.
"I took what I could. Before the fire spread," the girl said, offering it to him. "I came back when I saw the smoke."
"You watched?"
"I waited," she corrected. "To see if any survivors would crawl out of the fire."
He snatched the necklace and gripped it in his fist. It burned cold in his hand.
"What do you want from me?" he whispered.
She studied him for a long moment. "You're not dead yet."
"That's your answer?"
"It's all the answer you need."
Kyro looked away. He was tired. Bone-tired. But a small flame inside him, barely more than a flicker, refused to go out. It was the same flame that kept him alive when the demon tore through the village, the same one that pushed him to crawl out of the wreckage when everything screamed at him to give in.
"Who are you, really?" he asked.
"My name is Rika," she said, standing. "I hunt the ones who took everything from us."
His heart stilled.
"You mean—"
"Demons," she said. "Monsters wearing human skin. There's a place you can go. A man who trains people like us. If you want to die here, I won't stop you. But if you want to learn how to fight—how to kill them—you come with me."
Kyro looked down at his hands, scraped raw. The pain was dull now. It didn't matter. He closed his fingers around the necklace.
A choice.
Stay here. Let grief swallow him whole.
Or follow this stranger into a world of blades, blood, and vengeance.
He stood.
"I'm coming."
The journey to the mountain took two days.
They moved through the forest in silence, the only sounds the crunch of leaves beneath their boots and the distant calls of nightbirds. Kyro's stomach twisted from hunger, but he said nothing. He didn't want to show weakness—not to her. Not to the memory of Yua.
At night, Rika lit no fires. She said the scent would draw them in. Instead, she showed him how to sleep with one ear open, how to press his back to stone so nothing could sneak up behind him. She moved like a shadow, and Kyro could barely keep up.
On the morning of the third day, they reached the foot of the mountain.
A staircase carved into stone wound upward, disappearing into the mist.
"This is where we part," Rika said. "You climb alone."
Kyro frowned. "Why?"
"Because the one who waits at the top won't train anyone who needs to be carried."
He looked up at the endless steps. Cold wind swept down from the peak, smelling of snow and pine.
"You think I'll make it?" he asked.
Rika's eyes flicked to him, and for the first time, she smiled—barely. "I think you already have."
She turned and vanished into the trees.
Kyro took his first step.
Each stone felt heavier than the last. The mountain tested him with every breath, every aching muscle. He slipped. Fell. Bled. But he climbed. When his legs screamed for rest, he remembered Yua's laugh. His mother's hands. His father's calloused voice.
At last, near sunset, he reached the summit.
A shrine stood at the top. Silent. Weathered. Its torii gate hung with rusted charms and prayer scrolls. A man sat cross-legged before it, wrapped in a faded haori. His face was hidden by a straw hat.
He didn't speak.
Kyro collapsed to his knees before him.
"Train me," he said. "Please."
Silence.
Then, the man's voice, soft but like iron:
"Only the forsaken seek blood. But blood alone will not save you."
Kyro raised his head.
"I don't want saving."
The man stood.
"Then I will teach you how to kill a god."
End of Chapter 2