The Dark Ecdysis

[Kinslayer]

The mist of the Carnage Jungle clung to Jao like a second skin, a damp shroud that mirrored the suffocating weight of his own soul. Here, leagues away from the jagged spires of the Mek mountains and the pristine, sun-bleached shores of the Big Blue, the world existed in a perpetual, green-tinged twilight. The twin suns of Edo were distant memories here, their light fractured and stolen by a canopy so dense it seemed woven from living thorns and ancient, grasping roots. This was not a place of life as the sane understood it; it was a crucible of evolution, a place where the natural order was distilled to its most brutal essence.

Kill or be killed.

The mantra of the jungle was the mantra of his people, the Shi clan. It was the first lesson a shinobi learned, and the last one they ever forgot. Predators and prey. There was no other classification. The Shi had not merely survived in this world; they had mastered its lessons. From the shadow-stalking panther, they learned the art of patience, the silence of the wait. From the viper in the grass, they learned the economy of motion, the precision of a single, fatal strike. They had taken the raw, merciless laws sculpted by the Great Serpent Edo and refined them into an art form, becoming one of the most feared and revered names on the continent.

And like any other creature nearing the end of its life, it was to its place of origin that it returned.

Jao was not at the end of his natural life. He was young, his body honed by years of brutal training. But the boy who had been the Serpent’s Heir was dead, strangled by the very power he had sought to control. Something inside him had withered, a vital spark extinguished and replaced by a cold, coiling dread. He sat upon an amber throne, a crude seat of hardened sap and petrified wood, carved long ago. His fingers, resting on the throne’s arms, traced the sticky, ancient resin. He glared at his own hands, clean of visible stain, yet seared with a phantom filth that no water could ever wash away.

He had done it all for the Shi. That was the lie he had clung to, a flimsy shield against the storm of his own actions. He had sought power, any power, to vindicate his clan’s name, to secure their freedom, to ensure their right to exist and thrive. Any price was acceptable for such a noble cause. But as the adrenaline of his final confrontation faded, leaving only a hollow ache, that justification felt thin, brittle. He was racked not with the certainty of a savior, but with the gnawing questions of a monster.

The memory was a physical blow, striking the nape of his neck with the force of a phantom hand. It was an unwelcome guest, an oppressive darkness that seeped into his bones, hardening them with frost.

Eridin’s face, contorted in a mask of horror and rage. The glint of the cannon hefted in his hands. His eyes, once blazing with faith and hope for Jao, now blazed with a vengeful fire that burned Jao from the inside out.

“How many, Jao?!” Eridin bellowed, his hands already working to reload, his eyes blazing with a vengeful fire.

Jao’s own breath hitched in his throat. The pain in Eridin’s eyes was a wound deeper than any blade could inflict. This was the man who had mentored him, fought alongside him, who had been willing to cast aside his own moral code for the belief that Jao was worthy of the legacy he carried. The faith he had placed in Jao was a gift, and Jao had returned it with ash.

A tyrant. That’s what he was. A tyrant wearing the face of a boy who once cared, a hollow vessel for a power that twisted everything it touched. Perhaps he was more like Ains than he ever wanted to admit. Perhaps the seed of the Nether Serpent was not just an invader, but a part of him he had nurtured with his own ambition. He could not deny...the pleasure that took over him with every kill, every spec of vengeance taken.

“HOW MANY MORE OF YOUR FAMILY ARE YOU WILLING TO KILL?!”

Eridin’s scream echoed through the cavern of his memory, as sharp and clear as the day it was uttered. The cannon roared, a burst of charged energy aimed directly at Jao’s head, a desperate attempt to end the nightmare.

“KINSLAYER?!”

The word, even now, was a molten slag on his tongue. Its proverbial sting was like venous acid, eating away at the last frayed threads of his sanity. He stared at his hands again, and though they were clean, he could feel it—the phantom warmth of his grandfather’s blood. Yin’s blood. It had been so warm, so shockingly real as it bubbled from the wound in his chest. The scent filled his nostrils, a cloying mix of metal and rust, the smell of iron dying in his palms. He watched, in his mind’s eye, as that vibrant crimson darkened, congealing into a black, tarry substance that stained his soul, a stain that would never fade.

Yin’s death was a sin Jao knew he could never absolve. His grandfather was the one who had seen past the shadow of the Nether Serpent, who had humanized him when all others saw only a monster. He had placed his trust, his very life, in Jao’s hands. He had believed in him when Jao barely believed in himself.

And how did I repay his trust?

The question hung in the stagnant air of Dominance, the ancestral temple that now served as his throne room and his prison. It was here, in this sacred heart of the Shi clan, that he had found Ain’s hidden legacy—the Black Dragon’s Fang. The blade housed the soul of Kuroi Ryu, a pact of immense power. But that pact had been broken, nullified by Aphonis the moment he seized control during the fusing of souls. Another promise shattered. Another part of his identity, stolen.

By slaying him… Father…

The memory of his father, Yang, was a fresh agony. For months, Jao had fought to prove himself. He had trained relentlessly, won impossible battles, and demonstrated a control over the Nether Serpent that defied his father’s deepest fears. He had chased power with a single-minded devotion, convinced that every victory, every sacrifice, was a step toward securing the Shi’s future. He had defied the very tenets of their existence, believing the end justified the means.

And the result? His father’s worst nightmare made manifest. Yang had lost his father. He had lost his son to the darkness, not once, but twice. Jao had taken everything from everyone—his family, his clan, his enemies—and had given them nothing in return but greater hatred, deeper pain. His hubris had been the key that unlocked Aphosis's cage. His ambition had been the fuel for the serpent’s fire. So fixated on saturating himself with more power, rather than finding a way to keep the Djynn in check.

Sacrificing the last bit of his humanity to do so.

"Perhaps...I was barely human to begin with."

Now, sitting in the suffocating silence of the jungle, the truth was as undeniable as the predatory rustle in the undergrowth. He was not a savior. He was a plague. The Shi name, once a banner of honor, was now a curse he had authored.

He would carry it no longer. He didn't deserve it. And thus Jao-Den took his his final breath, a deep, stark inhale,

Yet it was Kinslayer who exhaled...

[Kinslayer]

A sudden, sharp throb behind his eyes interrupted the spiral of guilt. It was a familiar sensation—the prelude to a battle not of steel, but of spirit.

“Weakness,” a voice hissed, slithering through the corridors of his mind. Its tone was like dry scales dragging over stone. “You sit in the shadows of your failure, mourning a ghost. This is why I had to take the reins. You hesitate. You pity. I was becoming content with letting you stay in control… when I thought you would devour the Dragon’s soul. It was a ruthless but effective tactic. I was proud.”

Jao clenched the armrests of the amber stone throne until the grooves cracked. “Silence,” he spat, voice raspy from disuse.

“Silence?” Aphosis laughed, a low vibration that rattled through every bone in Jao’s body. “But instead you offered it sanctuary, a being of black and blight that nearly swallowed Edo in plague… and you would reason with it? I showed softness. And if you would do so for Kuroi… then you might have done so for the Owaki. I could not allow your… humanity to cost us everything.”

“Us? You are a leech.” Jao’s words came out as ragged breaths. He closed his eyes and summoned every ounce of mental steel he possessed, picturing a cage—walls of will so bright they banished all shadow. Slowly, he wove the dark, coiling mist of the djinn into that cage. He heard its furious snarls receding, but Aphosis’s presence lingered like an oil stain on marble.

“And so you are Kinslayer now—an interesting moniker. Considering it was I who took Yin’s life,” Aphosis purred.

Jao snapped upright, violent enough to jolt the throne-room’s hanging banners. He could not stay here in Dominance—a mausoleum of his failures. His grandfather’s ghost haunted every corner; his father’s disappointed gaze followed every draft. “No,” he said, voice low, trembling. “It was my own weakness—my hubris—that gave you space for agency.”

“Martyr,” the serpent mocked. “How long will you endeavor to bear the sins of others? Even now… even mine.”

Jao’s chest constricted. He would not speak. The serpent coiled tighter, ringing his mind with venom. “You fail to see what I offer. Just as Ains did, just as Tero before him. What I offer is something beyond agency.”

“Descension,” Aphosis breathed. “Together we can become something adjacent to divinity—deeper. A power that dwarfs any dream Edo could muster. We will rival the old gods themselves.”

Kin's fingers found the medal Yin gifted him before he left the first time. It was an anchor, a memory of better days, when kinship still meant something. “Together?” he whispered. “We both know how quickly you would betray me.”

Aphosis seethed. “You see my intervention as usurpation. But even your grandfather’s death was not wanton malice—merely necessary pruning. The bonds you clung to were shackles, preventing you from reaching the true depths of your power. Your trepidation of evolution—I corrected it. Now you are bound by nothing… by no one.”

Kin's pulse hammered in his ears. “So what? I should be thanking you? Groveling at your feet in gratitude?”

“It would be a start.” The serpent sounded amused. “Listen, boy. Look at all we’ve accomplished: the dissolution of the Owaki. Now the Yaarou stand in our path, and their Shion’s name already inspires an army. If you face her now… You will surely perish.”

His jaw clenched. Aphosis’s temptation was seductive: an end to pain, a carnival of violence that burnt grief to cinders in its fire. Predator or prey—the logic was simple. He was tired of being prey. Since the Owaki fell, all the shinobi clans had stirred. His endeavors had unbalanced Edo’s already fragile power structure, and every hand reached out for the spoils.

Yet Yin’s last smile haunted him. His grandfather’s dying breath as he called Kin by his given name, urging the boy to fight the demon within. To yield now would kill Yin again.

“No,” Kin said firmly. He gripped the hilt, steeling himself. “You cannot beguile me, serpent. The boy you once manipulated is dead. In this heart of metal and flesh, there is no fault left for you to fracture. No weakness for you to exploit. Not anymore.”

Darkness and chaos warred inside him, tearing at the freshly formed scars of his mind. But the pain was not despair—it was something adjacent to healing. An emotional calcification, hard and unmoving. Maybe it was the nanites stripping away the last vestiges of vulnerability. Or maybe it was the clarity of his purpose.

“What is even left for you?!” Aphosis sneered, distant now, like a voice echoing in an empty hall. “You cannot go back to the Shi. The world fears you. They hate you.”

Kinslayer drew a slow breath. “If I am to be a monster… then it will be one of my own making.”

He tapped a sequence on the holoprojector hovering above his wrist. The AIONS—his armored assist in every battle—whirred to life around him. Plates of black cerametalum slid into position along his arms, shoulders, and chest. Their soft, electric hum filled Dominance, vibrant with promise and purpose.

“I suggest you get comfortable, Aphosis,” Jao murmured, eyes cold. "And enjoy the last few days of self you have left."

With that, he turned away from the shattered throne. The corridors beyond were dim, lit by flickering lanterns and the pale glow of the nanite veins beneath his skin. Each step was an affirmation: he would not hide behind clan walls or ancestral legacy. He would not allow the djinn’s power to define him.

In the silent halls, he passed a shattered mosaic of the Three Great Clans—Owaki, Yaarou, Shi. Their emblems now fractured, scattered like bones in the dust. There was a time when he wondered what this nation could have been like if unity were the true goal of their shinobi world. A thought now that swam at the bottom of an abyss of reality. There...there could be no mutual accord with those who saw him as less.

And so they have all opted for destruction instead, and he would be its harbinger. After all...it was the entire reason he existed now. He would create a world where his family would be safe, he would create an order where no one ruled over another, by destroying the system itself...content now with the death he must sow to do so. The Shi remained bound to their Yaarou captors....once he found he had to quell the serpent within him, his sights would turn.

[Kinslayer]

Just as Kin turned away from the mosaic depicting the fall of his ancestors, he felt a tingling sensation in his right temple—a sharp, insistent prick of ice and static. When he first arrived at this forgotten stronghold, Dominance, he had set up a perimeter of sentries. Not men, but extensions of his own AIONS—that took the form of snakes, sculpted from nanites and shadow. They lay dormant in the roots of trees, coiled in the hollows of rocks, their optic feeds a constant, silent stream of data flowing into his consciousness. He would not be caught unawares again. The Chikage clan’s infiltration of the Shi compound, the act that had freed him from his coma, had taught him that trust was a luxury he could no longer afford.

The tingling intensified. A dry, sibilant voice, not a sound but a thought, slithered through his consciousness.

"Optic Feed," he commanded, his voice sharp and clear.

He swiped a hand through the air, and a translucent, blue-hued interface shimmered into existence before him. The tactical map expanded, a three-dimensional rendering of the forest surrounding Dominance. Icons flickered to life—the snake sentinels, each a node in his web of surveillance. He focused on the outermost ones, hidden high in the canopy.

The feed flickered, then stabilized. The AIONS in his eyes worked in tandem with the interface, enhancing the image, sharpening the pixels until the dense foliage resolved into perfect, terrifying clarity.

There. Moving through the undergrowth with an unnatural grace. About one hundred or so shinobi. They moved not as a group, but as a single, fluid entity, a river of shadow and steel flowing over roots and rocks, silent as death itself. Their discipline was absolute, their synchronicity lethal. They were a small army, and they were converging on his position.

Kin leaned closer, his breath fogging the lower edge of the display. He zoomed in on one of the figures, his AIONS processing the visual data. The ninja wore a dark, form-fitting garb, meticulously designed for stealth and mobility. And on the back of each shoulder, embroidered in a thread that seemed to absorb the light, was an emblem.

A cat. A sleek, predatory feline in mid-pounce.

A cold dread, entirely separate from Aphosis's creeping influence, washed over him. He knew that emblem. The Nekochrona. The Cat Clan. Renowned for their agility, their ruthlessness, and their unwavering loyalty to the highest bidder. Former lap dogs under the direct rule of the Owaki, who bought them out eons ago. They were assassins of the highest caliber, and their presence here could mean only one thing: they had been hired to finish the job the Chikage had started, it seems. To kill or capture the Serpent's Heir.

"...."

As he processed the threat, the fatigue of his internal battle vanished, replaced by the cold, sharp focus of the hunter. Unfortunately for them, compassion would find no purchase here for them today.

He looked down at the mask on the altar. The black resin seemed to drink the faint light of the chamber. The voice of his grandfather, Yin, echoed in his memory, not as a whisper from the serpent, but as a true recollection, a piece of his own soul. The words had been spoken long ago, during a lesson on philosophy and combat, but now they held a devastating new weight.

It is not the form of a thing that matters…

Kin reached out, his fingers hovering just above the smooth surface of the mask. He had fought against the grain of his own truth for so long. He had been Jao, the Serpent's heir. Shadowfang, the Number five of an elite squad of shinobi. He had... tried to be a grandson, a son, a clansman. But each identity had shattered, leaving him raw and exposed. He had begun to forget the one thing he had always known, the one truth that had defined his existence since the moment Aphosis had bonded with his soul.

He closed his eyes, and the second part of the maxim completed itself, a truth solidified in the crucible of his grandfather's death.

…It is its nature.

Darkness. It was his certainty, his closest companion and greatest mentor. The sun had sullied his resolve. The gift of sight had been a curse. Since gaining it, he had found it so hard to keep his eyes on the prize, distracted by the ghosts of who he wished to be instead of accepting who he was. He could not fight his nature. He would fight it no longer.

He would not succumb to Aphosis. He would not let the serpent dictate his actions or consume his soul. But he would not deny the power that was his birthright, the power that came from the same wellspring as the serpent's own. He would handle it. He would master it. He didn't care whether he would live to see Edo transformed. His own concern with his life...his own freedom was mute at this point.

So long as he kept his vow

To free his family from Tynarny, to see the current regimes crumble, nothing else concerned him.

But he would not deliver his people from one tyrant into the hands of another. It is for this reason that he fought to maintain agency. It was for this reason that he would not allow the Nether Serpent to have its way.

With a resolve that felt as solid as the stone around him, Kin grabbed the mask. He lifted it from the altar. It was cool to the touch, surprisingly light. He brought it to his face, and as he placed it on, the nanites within his own body went to work. They scanned the mask's structure, its unique material composition, and its subtle enchantments. Then, they began to assimilate, devouring the physical object and integrating its data into their own matrix. In seconds, the mask dissolved, not into nothing, but into him. He felt a phantom pressure on his face and knew he could now recreate it at will, a symbol of his reforged identity.

Kin's flesh became a matte black as a series of sleek plating covered him in a dark exo suit. His mask seemed to digitize upon his face. His eyes gleamed a piercing violet in the dark as he made his way to the entrance to greet his guest. Leaving Jao's name to crumble in the past...

[Kinslayer]

The optic feed from the AION serpents, once a vibrant tapestry of their movements, had been rendered useless. It mattered little. Kinslayer had seen their numbers, a mere hundred Shinobi, a pathetic gambit against the one who had meticulously and brutally erased entire lineages. If they believed such a quaint force could fell him, then their foolishness outstripped even his generous initial estimation. As the massive, iron-bound doors of Dominance, the ancient temple that had once been his clan’s sanctuary, groaned open, light recoiled. It found no purchase within, swallowed by a hollowed bleakness, a saturation of shadow so profound it rendered the shinobi who now lined the perimeter from all sides as mere blurred silhouettes.

A haunting silence, thick and oppressive, followed the doors’ sheepish surrender. It was punctuated only by the somber, echoing cadence of Kinslayer’s own steps as he exited the now-empty halls. He halted at the threshold, just beyond the temple’s imposing entrance, where the overgrown Carnage Jungle pressed in, its tendrils like grasping claws. From this vantage point, the figures waiting for him were more sharply defined than the indistinct shadows he’d glimpsed on the feed. They wore sleek, black suits, shimmering with an intricate weave of enchantments or technology – the combined defense against the encroaching B’halian threat, he surmised. Many clans had adapted, their evolution or extinction dictated by the B’halian Empire’s sheer, terrifying presence. The shinobi here bore masks that concealed the lower halves of their faces, their forms a blend of what he assumed were both male and female bodies. Their heads were shrouded in hoods, from which pointed ears, mirroring those of felines, protruded.

"Pfft, don't tell me this runt is him? The Serpent's Heir?"

Roughly twenty meters away, just beyond the encroaching brush of the Carnage Jungle, stood a woman. She was backed by the hundred Shinobi of the cat clan, her arms folded in a posture of casual indifference. Her hunt for a nigh-cosmic deviant seemed no more significant than another mundane Tuesday. Unlike the others, her face was a study in defiance, brazen and exposed. She was clearly not human; her eyes, pools of piercing feline yellow, like that of poisoned honey, scanned him with an unnerving intensity.

Her hair, a cascade of dusky twilight, flowed behind her, and a pair of sleek black ears twitched atop her head. Her attire differed from the others, its intricate stitching denoting a status, a nobility within her lineage. The Ninneko clan, then. It made a grim sort of sense. The scramble for the now vacant seat of High Nobility was inspiring other clans to send their heirs, their claims to power solidified by rites of passage and displays of strength. Each desperate to shed their low-born status and stand alongside the Yaarou atop the Edoan power structure.

Unfortunately for them, Kinslayer’s entire existence, his singular purpose, was the eradication of that very order. It was his place, his calling, the advent of change for Edo. He was an agent of chaos. Their desperate clamoring, their plans to use him as a stepping stone for their own ascension, would end in catastrophic failure, just as it had with the Chikage.

“I have to admit, I’m a bit disappointed,” Zanzamushi Ninneko mused, her voice a low purr that sent a shiver down Kin’s spine. “I thought you’d be taller…bigger.” A casual shrug followed, her folded arms sliding into the gesture. “Though I guess it makes little difference. You’ll be dead soon enough.”

“This is your only warning,” Kinslayer said, his gaze unwavering, locked onto her. “Turn back…now.” She was either incredibly brave or hopelessly stupid to engage in a staring contest with the bearer of power capable of stealing souls. She must possess some trick, some safeguard for her spirit. It was logical that, after the Shi clan's long oppression, some had learned to counteract their doujutsu. The Yaarou had their rites, the Chikage their mist; he’d been curious about the Ninneko clan’s countermeasures. Not that it truly mattered. Kin’s ocular prowess had evolved beyond that of his predecessors, a lesson that had nearly cost his last would-be assailant his life.

It didn't matter either way

Power like his was beyond countermeasures.

“Huh? And miss out on the chance to sock it to those Yaarou bitches?” Zanza retorted, a flicker of amusement in her eyes. She shifted her weight, a simple movement that caused the katana at her side to gleam. “Sorry, champ. But failure here means we have nowhere to turn back to.” Her gaze sharpened, her entire demeanor shifting from casual indifference to the steely resolve of a commander. “Prepare yourself, Nether Spawn, and pray to whatever gods you hold dear. For I, Zanzamari Ninneko, lay claim to your life on behalf of the Cat clan.”

“Well… Yin,” Kinslayer thought to himself as Zanza’s lips curved into a faint smile. Then, he raised a hand and offered a slow, deliberate wave.

Behind her, the jungle erupted. Not with a hundred, but with two hundred more shinobi, their garbs bearing the same distinctive cat emblem. They had been waiting in reserve. The initial force had been a feint, a probe designed to test his defenses, to analyze his positioning and draw him out. Zanza’s surprise at his boldness was evident in her expression. She must be quite sure of herself, she’d thought.

“I tried.”

The final vestiges of the grief he’d carried for his grandfather’s death evaporated, snuffing out like a candle in a sudden gust. The change was swift, stark, rippling through his demeanor and his aura. He stepped forward, and the darkness followed.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically.

Literally.

Trailing him like an endless stream of shadows, the regal coattail of a monarch cloaked in night. Yet looked like the temple itself exhaled a black breath.

Her hand went up, carrying a kunai in it, yet she held it with the poise of an orchestra's maestro. Zanza’s smile faltered, replaced by a grim understanding. “First Verse!” she commanded, her voice ringing with authority.

"Don't let him take another Ste-"

But her words were swallowed by a sudden, violent hiss. The air crackled with energy, and the ground beneath Kinslayer’s feet began to glow with an incandescent orange. The Ninneko, the explosive specialists, had revealed their hand. Their forms blurred as they ignited their specialized weaponry, a symphony of volatile magic and alchemical fire sired by a series of explosive tags. Yet, as the first explosive rounds arced towards him, they too found themselves caught in the rapidly expanding vortex of pure shadow spilling from Dominance. The darkness, no longer content to merely reside within the temple’s ancient walls, began to cascade outwards, a hungry tide of oblivion, enveloping Kinslayer in its suffocating embrace, just as the first explosives detonated.

[Kinslayer]

The explosion was a grand display of the Ninneko family’s expertise in explosives—a blooming lotus of orange and violent crimson that should have reduced any mortal to ash. But for Kinslayer, it was merely an invitation.

As the echoes of the blast rolled through the vine-choked ruins of Dominance, the ancestral heart of the Shi clan, Kin stood amidst the roiling heat. He didn't move. He didn't even flinch. The lengths of preparation the Ninneko had gone through were impressive; they had bypassed the AIONS security measures with a surgical grace that defied logic. This led Kin to a cold, singular conclusion: they were being fed information by a source whom he himself had once trusted.

And being that there were fewer suns in the sky than folks he could truly rely on, the list of suspects was infinitesimally small.

The Shrouds had betrayed the Shi.

No

They had betrayed him.

He doubted, however, that this was done willingly. For generations, the Shrouds had assisted the Shi’s rebellion, standing to gain nothing but prosperity by the destruction of the rival Owaki family. Lady Rhea was a woman of calculated risks, not suicidal whims. They must have forced her hand. She had granted the Cat Clan the secret coordinates of Dominance within the Carnage Jungle, likely under the duress of some hidden lever. But he was sure that she was also sure that, despite the cunning of the Ninneko, they would fall before him. Just as every single adversary who dared to err against him had thus far.

"Lay claim to my life?" Kin mused, his voice a low vibration beneath his black dragon mask.

He found it almost insulting. Whatever information the Ninneko possessed was minuscule in its effectiveness. What shinobi in their right mind would attack a Shi ninja with heat and flame? Aside from their infamous soul-stealing gaze—the Danketsu—the Shi were the world-renowned masters of Netsu, an Ephemeral Art centered around thermal manipulation.

And none had shared as intimate a bond to the scorching hell of flame than Kinslayer himself.

The shadows that engulfed him did not disperse from the force of the grand explosion. Instead, the darkness became viscous, like boiling tar, swallowing the blaze. It bubbled and pulsed, reclaiming the energy of the Ninneko’s assault and redefining it into a weapon of his own. The hulking mass of darkness began to interweave with streams of Ophidian, the liquid metal that Kin commanded with the ease of a conductor leading an orchestra.

The mass of darkness, flame, and scalding metal began to writhe and congeal. As the dust of the explosion waned, two massive, piercing red eyes stared from behind the veil of dispersed smog. They did not belong to Kin.

"You’re off to a terrible start if this is how you plan to go about it," Kin said.

"Sinder Style: Dark Mater; Kuro Kiri"

The smoke cleared, revealing a monstrous incarnation of darkness and molten metal: a massive serpent whose mouth dripped Ophidian, melting the earth beneath into slags of glass. Several Ninneko clan members stepped back, their knees buckling as they bore witness to his arts. There was a litany of ways Kin could deal with these upstarts—most notably by opening his eyes and ending them with his Dojutsu—but he needed to test the limits of this body, a vessel finally under his absolute control.

Perhaps it was hubris, but he resolved to win this entire battle without the use of his eyes.

"So the rumors were true," Zanza mused, her voice cutting through the hiss of the metal serpent. The heiress of the Ninneko stepped onto a crumbled pillar, her eyes barely widening as the scalding beast rose behind her target. "Fire really doesn't work on the Shi."

She did not look afraid. She looked like a dealer who had just seen the final card and knew she held the trump. “Adjust tactics!” she ordered, flicking a dozen kunai like a maestro raising a second violin. “Verse Two. Extinguish the heat!”

The three hundred Ninneko charged as one, a tide of ceramic and seals replacing the roar of fire. The first wave of shinobi’s garb shivered, revealing a series of kunai wrapped in paper tags adorned with naten power sigils. The tags pulsed a cold blue.

Kuro Kiri roared to life, the molten serpent moving with speed and finesse that belied its size. Its massive head thrusts forward, carving a trench of molten metal and slag. The first wave of Ninneko leaped over the beast, their bodies flinging like acrobats, while the second wave slammed into the serpent’s side with the force of a living comet. The impact launched them skyward, their bodies scattering like shards of glass. Yet where bone should have cracked, and flesh should have melted, only shallow abrasions and faint winces appeared.

“They all survived?” Kin whispered to the nanites humming beneath his skin, his voice a low rumble that resonated through his own marrow.

He half‑expected some to claw their way to safety, badly wounded. Instead, the entire horde remained virtually unscathed, their faces set in a cold, calculated grin. Zanza stood atop the crumbling pillar, smirking as the first wave, instead of throwing their kunai, used their weight to accelerate their fall, each aiming to skewer Kin’s serpent.

“How foolish… they must have a death wish,” Kin muttered, watching the tail of Kuro Kiri coil around him like a protective sheath. The tail thrashed, deflecting the rain of kunai. The blades sank into the molten “flesh” of the beast, but rather than igniting the metal into searing fire, they sizzled with a muted hiss, the nanobound sentinels absorbing the impact and instantly repairing the wound.

A faint scent drifted on the wind—paper, ozone, the sharp tang of frost. Zanza leaned forward, whispering, “Ohohoho! Got you exactly where we want you.” The paper tags on the kunai began to glow, not with flame but with an icy blue light.

“Hyōton,” Kin breathed, the word forming like a prayer. Ice.

The Ninneko’s preparation was deeper than Kin had assumed. Their initial assault was a ploy, a test to gauge his abilities and lull him into a false sense of security. Each kunai now pulsed with Ephemeral Art: Hyōton: Hitsugi‑Toge, or Direct Freezing; Coffin Spike. The tags detonated, not in an explosion, but in an implosion that sucked every bit of heat within a two‑meter radius into a vacuum of frost.

The serpent’s lower half, still molten, began to crystallize. The ice spikes erupted in a chorus of blue, each blast flashing a flash‑freeze that turned liquid Ophidian into a brittle, glass‑like substance. The first wave had unleashed over a hundred consecutive bursts, creating a pseudo‑void of frost that froze the serpent’s lower half solid.

“!!!” Kin roared, the sound reverberating through his masked visage. The nanites strained against the cold, their circuitry momentarily flickering.

"Don't let up! Second Wave. Hyōton: Saihyō-Dama

Zanza commanded

Saihyō-Dama, or "Ice Dust Bombs," were ceramic explosives filled with naten-infused vapor that, upon release, not only cause a devastating expulsion of force but also a perilous fog known as Hyōton: Hakumu or the White Out Fog. Which is exactly what occurred. After the tail knocked away the first wave, the second wave that had recovered from the attack of the Serpent's head accosted the tail protecting Kin. Within their hand were the Ice Dust bombs. They didn't concern themselves with friendly fire, nor held any concern for their own lives. Like true shinobi, they only cared for their mission. The bombs detonated, ejecting a blast of force that shattered the frozen section of the serpent, sending shards of dark glass scattering like meteors. The freezing fog descended, a blinding veil of swirling ice particles that obscured vision and muffled sound while slowly encrusting the target in burning frost.

[Kinslayer]

The White Out Fog rolled in from the released Ice dust bomb, creating a dome that enveloped Kin. It was more than a mere obcuring of vision; the chilling vapor clung to flesh and sullied metal. It was a slow, inevitable defeat if he did not find a way to gain the advantage. The Ninnecko had proven themselves to be more formidable than he originally given them credit for. No doubt a testmate to Zanza's battle powers and warrior intellect. He had been a mouse in their cat games from the start to now. Each choice he made seemed to have already been predicted, measured, and then counteracted with the utmost efficiency.

"Third Verse!"

The cry split the humid air like a blade through silk, and with it, the final wave of three hundred Ninneko shinobi plunged into the artificial fog, a rolling shroud of mist forged from nanite-cooled breath and arcane ice dust. It was their masterpiece: sound muffled, vision erased, heat siphoned into the void beneath their boots. The jungle groaned under the sudden cold, vines cracking like frostbitten bones.

Kinslayer stood at the heart of the storm, blind. His thermal sight, normally painting the world in shifting gradients of heat and shadow, was gone. The fog had turned his weapon into a liability. Heat was life to him. It fueled his Nestu that let him liquefy the rare metal Ophidian woven into his limbs, making it flow like blood, strike like serpents. But here, in this frozen void, even that was strained.

Yet he did not tremble. Just witnessed, observed, learned, approaching the precipice of understanding.

The Ninneko moved not as individuals, but as one organism—a family in every sense. Their technique, their principles were deeper than a lack of concern for their lives. They trusted one another with their lives, their suffering, their souls. They were united in purpose, in spirit, in legacy.

Zanza, their heiress, led them with feline grace, her voice a whisper in the fog—"Final Verse!"

And then came the bombs.

Ice dust, supercharged with naten, erupted in synchronized pulses. Azure constellations bloomed in the dark, freezing the air into jagged crystals. The three hundred converged, kunai and wakizashi flashing, each strike designed to chip away at Kin’s defenses, to trap him in an unending cycle of cold and pain.

He took the blows.

A kunai buried in his thigh. A slash across his ribs. Another across his collarbone. Blood steamed slightly in the cold, instantly crystallizing. The AIONS nanites in his bloodstream flared, sealing wounds, burning through frost—but it was slow. Too slow. The cold was winning.

And then he felt it.

Not pain. Not fury.

Envy.

They moved with such precision, such unity—not because they were reckless, but because they trusted. They leaned on each other. They shared.

He had spent his life alone.

He had forsook his own clan—the Shi—not out of ambition, but necessity. To contain the Djynn within him, to survive, to protect those he once loved, he had cut himself off from every bond. He had carried agony like armor. His pain was his, eternally. No sharing. No relief. Just solitude, sharp as a scalpel.

And now, watching them, infuriated him.

He wanted to shatter their bond.

"So that’s your trick?" Kin rasped, stepping forward through the mist, blood dripping from his fingertips. "The Anthem of the Ninneko allows you to mitigate damage."

A giggle cut through the fog.

"Hehe… that was a rather crude summary."

Zanza emerged, her eyes glowing like moonlight on snow. Her hands covered her mouth, but her voice danced with amusement.

"Did you know that a group of cats is called a clowder? Hence the name of our technique. The Clowder’s Bond allows us to telepathically link and dilute physical pain across the group, turning a broken bone into a minor bruise shared by twenty. It uses naten to disperse not only pain but actual damage. The more of us present, the less we sustain."

She laughed—high, cruel, victorious.

"There are three hundred of us. There is nothing you can do. Even if you managed to use those eyes of yours, there’s no way you could take all our souls at once. Ohohoho!"

The shinobi around him renewed their assault, stabbing, slashing, driving him back toward the crumbling edge of Dominance—the ancient Shi temple, now a moss-covered ruin swallowed by the Carnage Jungle. His body was failing. The cold was seeping into his core.

But in her arrogance, Zanza had given him a gift.

She had shown him the flaw.

Kin dropped his hand. Not in surrender. In recollection.

He saw Iwa, the last heir of the Owaki, the Wind Hawk. He remembered the way the man had summoned gales that could flay stone, how his soul had screamed as Kin had devoured it, absorbing his techniques, his power, into the Djynn’s endless gullet.

Kin’s Dankestu—the Endless Technique—was unique. He did not merely copy. He consumed. He became.

And now, he would destroy.

"I see…" Kin murmured, voice low, calm.

The AIONS pulsed beneath his skin, arcane circuits flickering to life. He lifted a hand. Chanleld what littel ehat remaine din his body into them. Made the signs swifter than his opponent could strike him.

And then—

"Ephemeral Art; Kaze no Ugoki, Gouging Talon!"

A wall of wind erupted around him—not as a barrier, but as a collapse. The air imploded, then exploded outward in a spiraling vortex of gale-force blades. The ice fog shattered. The charging Ninneko were thrown like chaff, their formations broken, their weapons torn from their hands. Trenches gouged the earth as the wind scythed through stone and root alike.

Zanza staggered back, eyes wide.

"Wind Style Ephemeral Arts?! How—When—?!"

Kin stepped forward, rolling his shoulders. The warmth was returning. The fog—their fog—was gone.

"Compliments of the Owaki," he said, cracking his neck. "Count your blessings, Zanza. I’m not really craving cat today."

He flexed his fingers.

"But I agree… It’s time to end this farce. You were great entertainment."

Then—darkness.

Not the absence of light. Not mere shadow.

True darkness. Primordial.

The kind that hung in the breath of gods.

Kin’s body pulsed, veins blackened as the Djynn's essence stirred. Shadows pooled at his feet, thick as oil. Then, from his skin, millions of AIONS nanites sloughed off—tiny, metallic, self-replicating sentinels. They didn't fall. They sank into Kin's shadow. One of his most basic abilities as a Darkness Djynn's vesel was the power to manifest in shadows around him. And what were Kin's traits and abilities were also those of the AIONS coursing through him.

"Ephemeral Art...."

One by one, copies emerged.

Not illusions. Nor mere reflections.

Manifestations. AIONS constructs, forged from shadow and nanite, wearing Kin’s face, his stance, his hunger. He had taken a page from the Owaki's twisted book. The Voidkyn, diabolical clones forged from DNA scalped from his mother's womb and his own blood. Though he had rid the world of that menace, he could not ignore the genius in the attempt. He was a one-man army...if he could be called a man at all anymore.

Each arose from behind a Ninneko.

Each reached forward.

And with biomechanical precision, each gripped a throat.

Not one. Not ten.

Three hundred.

Simultaneously.

The Clowder’s Bond activated—agony surged through their network—but this was not damage. This was force. Pure, unmitigated physical pressure applied to three hundred throats at the same moment. The pain could not be diluted. It had no time to disperse. The neural feedback overloaded their link.

Zanza screamed—only to find her own windpipe locked in Kin’s hand.

The real Kin.

He had never left the shadows behind her.

"Black March," he whispered.

She stared up at him, eyes wide with horror. Victory had been hers. The bounty, the glory, the end of the Serpent's Heir's legacy, his threat to Edo—within grasp.

And now, she was just another prey.

One by one, the Sentinels tightened their grip. Not to choke. Not to subdue.

But to annihilate.

And then—fire.

But not flame as the world knew it.

From the palms of each Sentinel, neon cyan and purple flames crawled forward—the Void Pyre, the fire of oblivion, born of the soul of a being once known as the Blight of Edo, the black Dragon itself, Kuroi Ryu. It did not simply burn flesh; it devoured resistance, consumed souls, turned matter into ash without mercy. There would be no afterlife. Only darkness...only Void.

The first Ninneko ignited as did the sentinel holding it.

Then the next.

Then all of them.

Screams rose—utter agony, pain congealed, combined. Three hundred pillars filled the air of the jungle schorcing the very air.

Bodies crumbled, not into corpses, but into piles of fine, grey ash. No blood. No bones. Just absence.

The Clowder’s Bond shattered in an instant—not broken… deleted.

By the time the last pyre died, three hundred shinobi were gone in an instant.

Only Zanza remained.

In his hand.

Her face was pale. Her breath was ragged. Her eyes—once bright with pride—now hollow with understanding.

This was not a man.

This was annihilation given form.

Kin looked down at her, the last remnant of a proud clan, now reduced to a trembling whisper in the dark.

"The weak are so privileged..." he said, voice quiet, almost gentle. "Able to clamor together. Never concerned about how the power might burn those close to them. You had trust. Companions...love"

He lifted her higher.

"I envy you."

Then—his grip tightened.

But not to crush.

Not yet.