The temple had grown quiet—not in peace, but tension. A crucible of whispers and wary glances. Since Shiro’s arrival, the frost on the wind no longer felt like blessing but omen. His powers, steadily sharpening under Gekko’s guidance, stirred unease among the monks.

  None felt it more keenly than Tetsuya.

  He moved alone beneath the moonlight, staff slicing the air in practiced arcs, his breath misting in rhythm with each strike. Frost clung to his brow. Not from the night—but from memory. The spar. The humiliation. Shiro’s instinctual control of the pendant’s energy had left more than bruises.

  It left a scar.

  “Dangerous,” he muttered, pivoting hard. Again. Again. “He’s dangerous.”

  But the walls whispered louder.

  The pendant chose him.

  His potential is boundless.

  He is the future.

  Tetsuya’s grip tightened. Even Gekko—his father—seemed enthralled by Shiro. The boy with no name, no past, no right to stand above him.

  That night, Tetsuya slipped into the meditation chamber, where moonlight painted ghostly lattice patterns on the stone. He knelt beneath them, clutching his staff like a lifeline.

  “Why him?” he whispered. “Why not me?”

  Frost prickled the floor.

  “You’re right to ask,” came a voice, smooth and broken like ice cracking underfoot.

  The air split open.

  From the darkness crawled a hollow—not monstrous in mass, but terrible in design. Bone-white mask etched with jagged cracks. A sinewy body that shimmered with shadow. Eyes that cut through doubt and dug into the heart.

  “You’ve seen it,” it rasped. “Shiro’s not a gift. He’s a warning.”

  Tetsuya staggered to his feet. “You—what are you?”

  “A truth the monks bury. A truth your father ignores.” The hollow glided around him like smoke. “Shiro will ruin everything. And still, Gekko praises him.”

  “He—he doesn’t listen to me. He used to—but now…”

  The hollow leaned close, breath cold. “He betrayed you. Chose a stranger over his own son.”

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  Tetsuya’s voice trembled. “I warned them…”

  “They won’t listen,” the hollow whispered. “But you can stop what’s coming. Take the pendant. Without it, he’s nothing. Do it, and protect the temple.”

  Tetsuya hesitated.

  “Don’t be afraid,” it cooed. “You’re not weak. You’re just… waiting to become what you must.”

  By dawn, he stood before Gekko in the sanctum, voice tight with fury.

  “Shiro is unstable,” he said. “You saw what he did—half the courtyard frozen. What if next time it’s a monk?”

  Gekko’s expression held firm patience. “He is learning. He needs guidance, not fear.”

  “Guidance?” Tetsuya snapped. “You’ve made him your legacy. You left me behind.”

  Gekko’s tone grew sharp. “This is not about you.”

  “It’s always been about him,” Tetsuya growled, voice cracking. “And you let it happen.”

  That night, the hollow returned.

  “It’s time,” it said, talons resting on Tetsuya’s shoulder. “Let me give you the power to protect what they refuse to see.”

  Tetsuya nodded.

  A shudder of black energy coiled through him as the hollow merged with his form. His staff shimmered with dark frost. His eyes—once warm—turned cold and sharp as glass.

  The courtyard was quiet.

  Until the pressure came.

  Monks stumbled away as Tetsuya strode through the archway, his aura pulsing with corrupted energy.

  “Tetsuya?” Shiro rose, startled. “What’s wrong?”

  “You,” he spat, his voice warped. “You never belonged here.”

  Gekko appeared, alarmed. “Tetsuya—stop. The hollow’s poisoned your mind!”

  “No,” he hissed. “You did.”

  And with one strike, he drove his staff into Gekko’s chest.

  Time stopped.

  “Father!” Shiro’s scream tore through the silence.

  Blood bloomed across the frost. Gekko collapsed.

  Shiro fell to his knees beside him. The pendant around his neck ignited with a piercing light—responding not in rage, but grief. Controlled. Steady.

  He stood.

  “Tetsuya,” Shiro said, voice shaking, “I won’t let you destroy what remains.”

  The clash began.

  Frost and shadow danced through the courtyard, turning sacred ground into a frozen storm. Tetsuya’s hollow-enhanced power struck with violent precision. Shiro countered, not with wrath—but with restraint. For every blow, a memory of what he fought to protect.

  In the end, Shiro prevailed. With a burst of focus, he shattered Tetsuya’s weapon and pinned him with a ring of ice.

  “Why?” Shiro asked, barely above a whisper. “Why would you do this?”

  Tetsuya’s voice was no longer his own. “Because you are the storm…”

  The hollow peeled away from his body, chuckling as it slipped back into shadow.

  “Well done,” it purred. “But your path only darkens. The storm has only begun.”

  Tetsuya’s body crumpled.

  By morning, the temple was silent.

  The courtyard was no longer a place of training—it had become a burial ground.

  Shiro stood alone, breath clouding in the cold as he gazed at the mounds of earth. Gekko’s staff lay gently on the soil, his final legacy. The pendant shimmered faintly, a weight he now understood too well.

  “I’m sorry,” Shiro whispered, voice hoarse. “I should have stopped it.”

  That night, he lit the pyre. The flames rose, crackling through the stillness, fighting back the creeping chill that would not leave.

  The monks had become his family.

  Now, they were memories.

  He would not let their deaths be in vain.

  At dawn, Shiro stood at the temple gates, a satchel on his back and a wound in his soul. He looked once more at the stone walls now cloaked in frost.

  Then he turned away.

  The world waited. And within it, answers.

  What are the hollows?

  Why do they seek me?

  And what is this storm that brews inside?

  The pendant pulsed, faint but steady.

  The path ahead was his.

  And he would walk it.