The sterile air of the laboratory hummed with the quiet thrum of advanced machinery, a sound that grated against the ancient soul of the shinobi arts. Moroha Chikage stood before the containment cylinder, a monument of glass and steel filled with a viscous, amber-colored goo. Suspended within was Jao, motionless. But Moroha was not deceived. Even through the dense gel and reinforced plasteel, he could feel the power radiating from the man, a thrumming, predatory stillness that promised violence. Jao was a caged tiger, and the bars were beginning to bend.
Tendrils of Moroha’s own power, the Kurenai Joki, a crimson vapor as beautiful as it was lethal, coiled around his arms and drifted lazily through the air. It was the ultimate failsafe, the pride of the Chikage clan, a mist that could bewitch the mind and, more importantly, shield the soul from the predatory gaze of the Shi. It had served him flawlessly during his infiltration, turning guards into allies and allies into distractions. It had worked against Yin and Yang, the patriarchs of this den of snakes. It would work against Jao. Moroha was certain of it.
"You got a reeeal nasty aura about you," Moroha said, his voice laced with the casual arrogance of a man who had never known true defeat. He turned from the tank, his gaze sweeping across the consoles and server racks that lined the chamber. "There's no faking it, the shadows course through you."
He had to admit, he was impressed. He’d always regarded the Denkoushi as underdeveloped Neanderthals, primitives blessed with special eyes and little else. Yet this facility, hidden deep within Basilisk Way beneath the Mek Mountains, defied that prejudice. The seamless integration of arcane arts and bleeding-edge technology, the silent, deadly sentinels he’d disarmed—it was a level of sophistication he hadn’t thought possible.
It explained his grandmother Zua's cautious interest in them and clarified how they had managed to topple the mighty Owaki clan. But this tech… it wasn't of Edoan origin. The design philosophy was alien, impossibly efficient. They had help, Moroha concluded, filing the thought away for later.
He spun on the ball of his foot, a fluid, practiced motion, and faced the tube once more. "Listen, we have two ways we can go about this. The easiest way is if you don't try anything funny, and I won't have to hurt you. Which would mean doing things the hard way." The threat was delivered with a smirk, a flourish of unshakeable confidence. "So? What’s it gonna be—"
In the space between one heartbeat and the next, everything changed.
Jao blinked. A single, deliberate motion. The violet gleam that had been a passive threat beneath his eyelids ignited, shifting to a burning, malevolent crimson. Moroha’s Crimson Vapor was already tightening its ethereal shield, prepared for the familiar psychic pull on his soul. But this was different. This was not a pull; it was a cascade.
The Serpent's Hym; A Cold Sin Weeps
Re: The Serpent's Hym; A Cold Sin Weeps
The very air grew heavy, pressing down with the weight of a collapsing mountain. The unseen realm, the barrier between what was and what could be, groaned audibly under the strain of a sudden, overwhelming authority. It was the power of Subjugation, a dreaded sub-ability of Jao’s unique dojutsu. Where the standard Danketsu was a sniper’s rifle aimed at a single soul, Subjugation was an artillery strike, an area-of-effect that shattered the will of all within its range. Moroha's Kurenai Joki, designed to deflect a single, targeted assault, was now battered by a psychic monsoon.
His confidence evaporated, replaced by a cold, numbing shock. He felt the cascading force of Jao’s will, a torrent of cursed, dark magic that bypassed his soul and slammed directly into his mind. It was a violation so profound, so absolute, that his body locked in place. He was a statue, a puppet whose strings had been seized by a new, infinitely more powerful master.
It will be my way…
Jao’s voice was not a sound, but a command imprinted directly onto Moroha’s consciousness. Moroha's fingers typed in the precise alphanumeric sequences required to disable the containment field, codes Jao had spent months patiently decrypting from the inside, subtly manipulating Eridin's A.I.O.N.S. nanites to feed him data.
"So that is how you accomplished this… like a true shinobi," Jao’s thoughts echoed, laced with a cold, academic curiosity as he sifted through the surface memories of the tactical brilliance of Moroha's infiltration. The mist-controlled guard caused a diversion, the transfer to Anna, Eridin’s cousin, using her intimate knowledge to cripple the power grid and sever the sentinels from their master network. Cunning. Admirable, even. And utterly futile.
With a final keystroke, the console flashed green. A hydraulic hiss filled the chamber as the amber goo began to drain, revealing Jao’s lean, muscular, bio-mechanical form. The sedative that had kept him inert was losing its potency, and Jao could feel his vigor returning, accelerated by nanites in his bloodstream that were actively devouring the foreign chemicals. He flexed his index finger, pointing it at the glass wall of his prison. For a breathtaking instant, the tip of his finger glowed with condensed power, and then the reinforced plasteel shattered, exploding outwards in a shower of crystalline shards.
Jao landed on his feet, stumbling for a moment before righting himself. From the base of his spine, a stream of liquid metal flowed, coalescing slowly into a segmented, nano-plated tail. The appendage, wicked and serpentine, slithered through the air and coiled around the throat of Moroha’, lifting him effortlessly off the ground.
"The simplicity of the mortal mind will always baffle me less than their blatant arrogance," Jao’s voice, a low and menacing baritone, now filled the room. His burning crimson eyes bored into Moroha. "Oh? A Chikage. I have not sampled your ilk in eons. I thought you had all died out, like the vermin you are."
Through the terror, a spark of Moroha’s defiance remained. His eyes glared back, a final act of rebellion. "No, I suppose not. Vermin are nothing else if not resilient," the tail tightened. "Did you think you could capture me… without ever setting foot in this place?"
Jao’s lips curled into a predatory smile. He understood. This was not Moroha. This was merely a vessel, a meat puppet animated by the Crimson Vapor. A remote instrument. But an instrument was still connected to the musician.
Jao’s eyes, burning with mystic might, flowed seamlessly from crimson back to their venomous violet. In that moment, he displayed a mastery of his Dojustu that defied all known conventions of the Shi clan. The attack wasn't on the host. It was on the connection itself. The scarlet thread of mist that bound the guard to the true Moroha, hidden leagues away in the land of Edo, became a conduit for Jao’s true power—the soul-stealing gaze of the Dankestu Mugen. Like a hacker being able to trace an IP address. Shocasing the techno arcane evolution taking place within Jao. Defining naten as if it were a binary code.
Miles away, in a darkened safehouse, the real Moroha Chikage was confronted.
The sensation was not pain, but the unraveling of will, a shredding of self. It was the feeling of being dragged into a black hole. He felt the essence of the Nether Serpent, Aphosis, reach across the impossible distance and sink its ethereal fangs into him. It was a vastness he could not comprehend, a void within an abyss, a conscious universe of eternal pandimounim. His meticulously constructed arrogance, his lifetime of training, his identity as the proud Chikage heir—it all crumbled into dust before this absolute, cosmic horror.
Panic, pure and primal, seized him. This was not a battle of shinobi arts; it was a struggle against oblivion itself. With a guttural cry of terror and exertion, Moroha performed the most desperate act of his life. He severed his own Anthem. He took a "knife" to the very fabric of his power, violently cutting the Kurenai Joki’s connection to its host.
The feedback was excruciating. It felt like abruptly tearing off a limb, a psychic recoil that threw him across his room and left him gasping on the floor, drenched in a cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He was alive. He was free. But he was terrified. For the first time, Moroha Chikage knew fear. Despite the trouble in his hand, where one would expect a scowl, there would be a smirk....
"How... exhilarating...."
Back in the laboratory, the light in the guard’s eyes extinguished instantly. The body went limp, a discarded doll, and fell to the floor as Jao’s nanite tail uncoiled. Jao, now fully possessed by the ancient will of Aphosis, savored the lingering taste of absolute terror on the psychic winds. It was a shallow victory; the prey had escaped the trap, but the fear he had instilled was a worthy appetizer.
Just then, the heavy blast doors at the far end of the chamber hissed open. Two figures entered, their silhouettes framed by the harsh hallway light. One was an old man, his face a mask of hardened resolve, an aura of biting cold emanating from him. The other was younger, his body already shimmering as the nanites of his SLAYER exosuit began to crawl over his skin.
Yin and Yang. Grandfather and Father.
They saw their prodigal son, their greatest weapon and most terrible curse, standing free amidst the wreckage of his prison. They saw the lifeless body of Chikage’s puppet at his feet and felt the oppressive, dark energy brimming from him—a soul freshly devoured and hungry for more.
There were no words. There was no need for them. This was the moment they had dreaded and prepared for since the day Jao was born.
Yin slid into a low, coiled stance, his hands open. A visible frost immediately began to crawl over his knuckles, crackling softly in the silence. Rhyme Style, the art of cold, the master of a thousand freezing palms.
Beside him, Yang’s transformation was completed. The sleek, black plates of the SLAYER suit locked into place, and the vents on his gauntlets began to glow with the promise of incandescent heat. Sinder Style, the embodiment of fire and fury.
Cold and heat. Father and son. Two generations of the Shi clan, standing against the third. They prepared themselves for a fight that would not only define their own fates, but the fate of their clan and of Edo itself.
Before them, Jao smiled. A true, horrifying smile.
His confidence evaporated, replaced by a cold, numbing shock. He felt the cascading force of Jao’s will, a torrent of cursed, dark magic that bypassed his soul and slammed directly into his mind. It was a violation so profound, so absolute, that his body locked in place. He was a statue, a puppet whose strings had been seized by a new, infinitely more powerful master.
It will be my way…
Jao’s voice was not a sound, but a command imprinted directly onto Moroha’s consciousness. Moroha's fingers typed in the precise alphanumeric sequences required to disable the containment field, codes Jao had spent months patiently decrypting from the inside, subtly manipulating Eridin's A.I.O.N.S. nanites to feed him data.
"So that is how you accomplished this… like a true shinobi," Jao’s thoughts echoed, laced with a cold, academic curiosity as he sifted through the surface memories of the tactical brilliance of Moroha's infiltration. The mist-controlled guard caused a diversion, the transfer to Anna, Eridin’s cousin, using her intimate knowledge to cripple the power grid and sever the sentinels from their master network. Cunning. Admirable, even. And utterly futile.
With a final keystroke, the console flashed green. A hydraulic hiss filled the chamber as the amber goo began to drain, revealing Jao’s lean, muscular, bio-mechanical form. The sedative that had kept him inert was losing its potency, and Jao could feel his vigor returning, accelerated by nanites in his bloodstream that were actively devouring the foreign chemicals. He flexed his index finger, pointing it at the glass wall of his prison. For a breathtaking instant, the tip of his finger glowed with condensed power, and then the reinforced plasteel shattered, exploding outwards in a shower of crystalline shards.
Jao landed on his feet, stumbling for a moment before righting himself. From the base of his spine, a stream of liquid metal flowed, coalescing slowly into a segmented, nano-plated tail. The appendage, wicked and serpentine, slithered through the air and coiled around the throat of Moroha’, lifting him effortlessly off the ground.
"The simplicity of the mortal mind will always baffle me less than their blatant arrogance," Jao’s voice, a low and menacing baritone, now filled the room. His burning crimson eyes bored into Moroha. "Oh? A Chikage. I have not sampled your ilk in eons. I thought you had all died out, like the vermin you are."
Through the terror, a spark of Moroha’s defiance remained. His eyes glared back, a final act of rebellion. "No, I suppose not. Vermin are nothing else if not resilient," the tail tightened. "Did you think you could capture me… without ever setting foot in this place?"
Jao’s lips curled into a predatory smile. He understood. This was not Moroha. This was merely a vessel, a meat puppet animated by the Crimson Vapor. A remote instrument. But an instrument was still connected to the musician.
Jao’s eyes, burning with mystic might, flowed seamlessly from crimson back to their venomous violet. In that moment, he displayed a mastery of his Dojustu that defied all known conventions of the Shi clan. The attack wasn't on the host. It was on the connection itself. The scarlet thread of mist that bound the guard to the true Moroha, hidden leagues away in the land of Edo, became a conduit for Jao’s true power—the soul-stealing gaze of the Dankestu Mugen. Like a hacker being able to trace an IP address. Shocasing the techno arcane evolution taking place within Jao. Defining naten as if it were a binary code.
Miles away, in a darkened safehouse, the real Moroha Chikage was confronted.
The sensation was not pain, but the unraveling of will, a shredding of self. It was the feeling of being dragged into a black hole. He felt the essence of the Nether Serpent, Aphosis, reach across the impossible distance and sink its ethereal fangs into him. It was a vastness he could not comprehend, a void within an abyss, a conscious universe of eternal pandimounim. His meticulously constructed arrogance, his lifetime of training, his identity as the proud Chikage heir—it all crumbled into dust before this absolute, cosmic horror.
Panic, pure and primal, seized him. This was not a battle of shinobi arts; it was a struggle against oblivion itself. With a guttural cry of terror and exertion, Moroha performed the most desperate act of his life. He severed his own Anthem. He took a "knife" to the very fabric of his power, violently cutting the Kurenai Joki’s connection to its host.
The feedback was excruciating. It felt like abruptly tearing off a limb, a psychic recoil that threw him across his room and left him gasping on the floor, drenched in a cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He was alive. He was free. But he was terrified. For the first time, Moroha Chikage knew fear. Despite the trouble in his hand, where one would expect a scowl, there would be a smirk....
"How... exhilarating...."
Back in the laboratory, the light in the guard’s eyes extinguished instantly. The body went limp, a discarded doll, and fell to the floor as Jao’s nanite tail uncoiled. Jao, now fully possessed by the ancient will of Aphosis, savored the lingering taste of absolute terror on the psychic winds. It was a shallow victory; the prey had escaped the trap, but the fear he had instilled was a worthy appetizer.
Just then, the heavy blast doors at the far end of the chamber hissed open. Two figures entered, their silhouettes framed by the harsh hallway light. One was an old man, his face a mask of hardened resolve, an aura of biting cold emanating from him. The other was younger, his body already shimmering as the nanites of his SLAYER exosuit began to crawl over his skin.
Yin and Yang. Grandfather and Father.
They saw their prodigal son, their greatest weapon and most terrible curse, standing free amidst the wreckage of his prison. They saw the lifeless body of Chikage’s puppet at his feet and felt the oppressive, dark energy brimming from him—a soul freshly devoured and hungry for more.
There were no words. There was no need for them. This was the moment they had dreaded and prepared for since the day Jao was born.
Yin slid into a low, coiled stance, his hands open. A visible frost immediately began to crawl over his knuckles, crackling softly in the silence. Rhyme Style, the art of cold, the master of a thousand freezing palms.
Beside him, Yang’s transformation was completed. The sleek, black plates of the SLAYER suit locked into place, and the vents on his gauntlets began to glow with the promise of incandescent heat. Sinder Style, the embodiment of fire and fury.
Cold and heat. Father and son. Two generations of the Shi clan, standing against the third. They prepared themselves for a fight that would not only define their own fates, but the fate of their clan and of Edo itself.
Before them, Jao smiled. A true, horrifying smile.
Re: The Serpent's Hym; A Cold Sin Weeps
Emergency lights cast long, dancing shadows that clung to the rubble like grieving spirits. Here, in the ruins of their sanctum, a family was tearing itself apart.
“We don't have to do this, Jao...just give us a bit more time, we will save you.”
Yin’s voice, usually a calm and resonant monolith, was strained. He stood poised, a statue of grim determination carved from a winter's storm. Frost wept from his knuckles, swirling in miniature blizzards around his hands, a physical manifestation of his desperate wish to quell this conflict without violence. His stance was solid, the culmination of a century of martial discipline, yet every fiber of his being recoiled from the prospect of striking his own grandson.
Across the chamber, Jao’s wicked smile, a mask worn by the entity coiling within him, faltered, collapsing into a grimace of pure contempt. A faint, black aura, like heat shimmer over asphalt, began to bleed from his bio-mechanical frame. The hairs on Yin’s nape prickled with a primal dread.
“Save me?” Jao’s voice was a discordant harmony of his own youthful timbre and a deeper, ancient resonance. The shock and confusion in the question were genuine, a splinter of the boy they knew piercing through the monstrous facade.
Then came the chuckle. “Mmmmhhahaha.” It was quiet, yet it filled the cavernous space, a dry, menacing rattle that scraped against the soul. “Now you wish to save me? After I've become the epitome of what you cultivated me for. Curated me for bloodshed, for retribution.”
He took a step, the metal plates of his feet grating on the broken floor. “Ten THOUSAND years the Shi have been shit beneath the heels of Edo lords. Yet I, without an ounce of clemency, brought about the end of that oppression. Liberation.”
“By murdering civilians?” Yang, Jao’s father, stepped forward, his voice a low growl of pain. “There were… children in that estate, Jao. You nearly cut down a mother in front of her own son. Is that the price you are willing to pay? Time and time again…”
Jao's brow twitched. A flicker. A ghost of the boy who once wept over a wounded bird. The Nether Serpent had coiled itself around Jao’s will, but the boy’s spirit spark yet with defiance.
“And what of MY mother?!” The question was a scathing hiss, slithering from his lips with a venom that was both Jao’s and the serpent’s. The memory, once solely Jao’s, was now a shared agony, a weapon sharpened by Aphosis’s ancient malice. Yin’s eyes narrowed, a missing piece of the puzzle slotting into place with dreadful clarity. The entity wasn't just possessing Jao; it was devouring him, merging their histories into a singular, twisted narrative of betrayal and vengeance. Much like how the souls the Shi consumes lose their semblance of individuality and become a medley of arance energy for the Shi.
“You… you didn’t see what they had done to her,” the boy-thing seethed, his fists clenching so tight the nanites on his knuckles whined. “You did not see the pain in her eyes; the light fading from it as I myself had to slay her.”
“You… were the one… who?” Yang’s words were a choked whisper. The weight of it crashed down upon him, a sudden, suffocating deluge of regret. Suzaku. His wife. He should have been there, but in the chaos, the final moments… The cruel cyclicality of fate was a bitter poison. Twice now, his lineage was cursed with matricide. But his son’s burden was absolute.
Permanent.
“I released her from aching sorrow,” Jao declared, his voice regaining its chilling certainty. “As has been my goal for my entire clan… for Edo entirely. Eons ago, Edo once begged and prayed for my intervention when they faced annihilation. I was betrayed then, just as you all have betrayed me now.” He was speaking as Aphosis now, looking at them through his host’s eyes, seeing not family, but the latest in a long line of disappointments.
Of blades in its back.
“So no… I don't need saving, grandfather. No…”
The black aura around him exploded outwards, thickening and solidifying. The A.I.O.N.S., forged from Ophidian, infused with the infernal energy of the Nether Serpent, writhed around his body like living ink. They were no longer just technology; they were extensions of a dark god’s will.
“I. Am. Salvation.”
The declaration was punctuated by an impossible burst of speed. Jao was a blur, a black comet streaking across the ruined chamber. His hand was extended, nails elongating, sharpening, morphing into five serrated blades that screamed through the air.
“We don't have to do this, Jao...just give us a bit more time, we will save you.”
Yin’s voice, usually a calm and resonant monolith, was strained. He stood poised, a statue of grim determination carved from a winter's storm. Frost wept from his knuckles, swirling in miniature blizzards around his hands, a physical manifestation of his desperate wish to quell this conflict without violence. His stance was solid, the culmination of a century of martial discipline, yet every fiber of his being recoiled from the prospect of striking his own grandson.
Across the chamber, Jao’s wicked smile, a mask worn by the entity coiling within him, faltered, collapsing into a grimace of pure contempt. A faint, black aura, like heat shimmer over asphalt, began to bleed from his bio-mechanical frame. The hairs on Yin’s nape prickled with a primal dread.
“Save me?” Jao’s voice was a discordant harmony of his own youthful timbre and a deeper, ancient resonance. The shock and confusion in the question were genuine, a splinter of the boy they knew piercing through the monstrous facade.
Then came the chuckle. “Mmmmhhahaha.” It was quiet, yet it filled the cavernous space, a dry, menacing rattle that scraped against the soul. “Now you wish to save me? After I've become the epitome of what you cultivated me for. Curated me for bloodshed, for retribution.”
He took a step, the metal plates of his feet grating on the broken floor. “Ten THOUSAND years the Shi have been shit beneath the heels of Edo lords. Yet I, without an ounce of clemency, brought about the end of that oppression. Liberation.”
“By murdering civilians?” Yang, Jao’s father, stepped forward, his voice a low growl of pain. “There were… children in that estate, Jao. You nearly cut down a mother in front of her own son. Is that the price you are willing to pay? Time and time again…”
Jao's brow twitched. A flicker. A ghost of the boy who once wept over a wounded bird. The Nether Serpent had coiled itself around Jao’s will, but the boy’s spirit spark yet with defiance.
“And what of MY mother?!” The question was a scathing hiss, slithering from his lips with a venom that was both Jao’s and the serpent’s. The memory, once solely Jao’s, was now a shared agony, a weapon sharpened by Aphosis’s ancient malice. Yin’s eyes narrowed, a missing piece of the puzzle slotting into place with dreadful clarity. The entity wasn't just possessing Jao; it was devouring him, merging their histories into a singular, twisted narrative of betrayal and vengeance. Much like how the souls the Shi consumes lose their semblance of individuality and become a medley of arance energy for the Shi.
“You… you didn’t see what they had done to her,” the boy-thing seethed, his fists clenching so tight the nanites on his knuckles whined. “You did not see the pain in her eyes; the light fading from it as I myself had to slay her.”
“You… were the one… who?” Yang’s words were a choked whisper. The weight of it crashed down upon him, a sudden, suffocating deluge of regret. Suzaku. His wife. He should have been there, but in the chaos, the final moments… The cruel cyclicality of fate was a bitter poison. Twice now, his lineage was cursed with matricide. But his son’s burden was absolute.
Permanent.
“I released her from aching sorrow,” Jao declared, his voice regaining its chilling certainty. “As has been my goal for my entire clan… for Edo entirely. Eons ago, Edo once begged and prayed for my intervention when they faced annihilation. I was betrayed then, just as you all have betrayed me now.” He was speaking as Aphosis now, looking at them through his host’s eyes, seeing not family, but the latest in a long line of disappointments.
Of blades in its back.
“So no… I don't need saving, grandfather. No…”
The black aura around him exploded outwards, thickening and solidifying. The A.I.O.N.S., forged from Ophidian, infused with the infernal energy of the Nether Serpent, writhed around his body like living ink. They were no longer just technology; they were extensions of a dark god’s will.
“I. Am. Salvation.”
The declaration was punctuated by an impossible burst of speed. Jao was a blur, a black comet streaking across the ruined chamber. His hand was extended, nails elongating, sharpening, morphing into five serrated blades that screamed through the air.
Re: The Serpent's Hym; A Cold Sin Weeps
Yin met the charge. He didn’t try to match the speed; he was a mountain, not a storm. With a sharp exhalation of frosted air, he slammed his palms together. A wall of opaque, diamond-hard ice erupted from the floor, forged from the pool of frosty vapors that seeped from his hands, inches from his face. Jao’s claws tore through it, sending shards exploding in every direction, but the momentary delay was all Yin needed. He flowed around the ruined barrier, his movements economical and precise, striking at Jao’s elbow and knee with open-palm thrusts that carried the biting cold of a blizzard’s heart. Each impact left a filigree of frost on the dark metal, a testament to his Rhyme Style mastery. Jao hissed, the cold slowing the nanites’ response time by a crucial millisecond.
"Don't you see what it's doing to you, Jao-den?" Yang roared, his grief transmuting into furious power. “Ephemral Art: Ageis” Nanites surged from the emitters on his own combat suit, flowing over him in waves of incandescent crimson. In seconds, he was clad in a sleek exo-suit that pulsed with contained heat, shimmering like a desert mirage. "Sinder Style: Conflagration Fist!"
He intercepted Jao’s follow-up strike, his superheated gauntlet clashing with the Ophidian claws. The impact sent a shockwave of steam and screaming metal echoing through the hall. Yang’s face, visible through his visor, was a mask of anguish. Each block, each parry, was an argument, a plea. He was fighting the monster to save the boy.
Jao, caught between grandfather and father, spun like a dervish. The liquid nanites on his back formed three serpentine tendrils, each lashing out independently. One spat a concentrated beam of compressed dark naten at Yin, who slid across a self-generated slick of ice to evade it. The other two whipped at Yang, who decapitated them with extreme prejudice, using the twin blades conjured from his suit, endowed with hyper-compressed heat.
“I know your passion for your people, Jao,” Yin called out, his voice steady even as he weaved through a barrage of razor-sharp Ophidian shards Jao had launched from his shins. “That you would stand a man before a titan if it meant protecting the land you love!” He saw a feint Jao used, a subtle weight shift he himself had taught the boy on a snowy peak years ago. A pang of pride, swiftly drowned by sorrow.
“And just as we know this, Aphosis knows this as well!” Yang continued, his Vermillion Aegis glowing brighter as he absorbed and redirected the kinetic energy of Jao’s blows, returning their force doubled fold. “It is sowing chaos amid those emotions, lacing your loyalty with lament!”
“Fight it, Jao! Fight!” they roared in unison.
“ENOUGH!”
The shriek that tore from Jao’s throat was inhuman. His eyes—those deep, familiar pools—flashed open, revealing the swirling, obsidian vortex of the Dankestu. The world seemed to tilt, the color draining away as an unseen force tried to tear their soul from their gullets.
"!!!"
The duo caused their eyes to bloom with cursed might, as well as forcing a tug of war between the three of them to occur. A temporary countermeasure to the endless art Jao possessed. A band-aid on a gaping, infested wound. It would not hold.
Jaophosis—capitalized on their defense. “This. Boy. Is. MIIIIINNNNEEE!!” The voice was a chorus of damnation. The three serpentine tails at his back merged and then split again, forming a writhing hydra of six. They struck as one.
"Don't you see what it's doing to you, Jao-den?" Yang roared, his grief transmuting into furious power. “Ephemral Art: Ageis” Nanites surged from the emitters on his own combat suit, flowing over him in waves of incandescent crimson. In seconds, he was clad in a sleek exo-suit that pulsed with contained heat, shimmering like a desert mirage. "Sinder Style: Conflagration Fist!"
He intercepted Jao’s follow-up strike, his superheated gauntlet clashing with the Ophidian claws. The impact sent a shockwave of steam and screaming metal echoing through the hall. Yang’s face, visible through his visor, was a mask of anguish. Each block, each parry, was an argument, a plea. He was fighting the monster to save the boy.
Jao, caught between grandfather and father, spun like a dervish. The liquid nanites on his back formed three serpentine tendrils, each lashing out independently. One spat a concentrated beam of compressed dark naten at Yin, who slid across a self-generated slick of ice to evade it. The other two whipped at Yang, who decapitated them with extreme prejudice, using the twin blades conjured from his suit, endowed with hyper-compressed heat.
“I know your passion for your people, Jao,” Yin called out, his voice steady even as he weaved through a barrage of razor-sharp Ophidian shards Jao had launched from his shins. “That you would stand a man before a titan if it meant protecting the land you love!” He saw a feint Jao used, a subtle weight shift he himself had taught the boy on a snowy peak years ago. A pang of pride, swiftly drowned by sorrow.
“And just as we know this, Aphosis knows this as well!” Yang continued, his Vermillion Aegis glowing brighter as he absorbed and redirected the kinetic energy of Jao’s blows, returning their force doubled fold. “It is sowing chaos amid those emotions, lacing your loyalty with lament!”
“Fight it, Jao! Fight!” they roared in unison.
“ENOUGH!”
The shriek that tore from Jao’s throat was inhuman. His eyes—those deep, familiar pools—flashed open, revealing the swirling, obsidian vortex of the Dankestu. The world seemed to tilt, the color draining away as an unseen force tried to tear their soul from their gullets.
"!!!"
The duo caused their eyes to bloom with cursed might, as well as forcing a tug of war between the three of them to occur. A temporary countermeasure to the endless art Jao possessed. A band-aid on a gaping, infested wound. It would not hold.
Jaophosis—capitalized on their defense. “This. Boy. Is. MIIIIINNNNEEE!!” The voice was a chorus of damnation. The three serpentine tails at his back merged and then split again, forming a writhing hydra of six. They struck as one.
The team