The cave walls were filled with murals depicting the ancient history of the Forgotten Shore, its cryptic knowledge shrouded by dull shadows, inside which lingered a watching presence. Vale—Chrollo's Echo—stood guard, ever vigilant.
In the darkness sat Chrollo, his mind in turmoil. His Nen mastery had reached a satisfying point. He had already gotten the hang of Zetsu, Ten, Ren, and Gyo from the four basic principles. Only Hatsu remained. He hadn't tried crafting his own Hatsu yet—after all, he wanted to confirm how Bandit's Secret would function with the Nightmare Spell.
Summoning his runes:
Name: Chrollo Lucilfer
True Name: Seraph of the Silent Abyss
Rank: Dreamer
Soul Core: Dormant
Soul Fragments: [??/1000]
Memories: [Vowbound Ring], [Dirge of the Hollow Choir], [Ever-Dying Lantern], [Shroud of the Vanishing Star], [The Hollow Satchel], [Fang of the Severed Oath], [Fangpiercer], [Mawtouched Carapace]
Echoes: [The Eclipsing Shade - Seraphine Vale]
Attributes: [Mark of the Forgotten King], [Fated], [Phantom Heart]
Aspect: [Born of Nen]
Aspect Rank: Divine
Aspect Abilities: [Bandit's Secret], [Black Flame], [Heavenly Eye], [Danger Sense], [Berserker], [Self-Regeneration]
Flaw: [Soulless]
The aspect abilities had not disappeared from his runes—yet the same could not be said for the Hatsu variations of these abilities. They had vanished, possibly due to the original holders of those Hatsu having perished.
Chrollo was puzzled by this outcome. He had fully prepared himself for the loss of his Hatsu, yet the spell had treated the Aspect Abilities as similar—yet distinct—entities from the Hatsu.
Still, they existed.
He summoned a few black, flickering embers—his [Black Flame] activating. Its presence was hot, yet strangely cold. And once more, he conjured Bandit's Secret.
Opening it, the previously disappeared [Black Flame] had returned. However, the passage now included information he had previously ignored—details about the former holders, now replaced with his own overview.
"Hmm… so I can truly make these Hatsu my own?"
A small grin took root on Chrollo's face, faint but undeniable.
"Well, that aside… the main objective right now should be conjuring a Nen beast capable of sustained flight—large enough to carry me… and possibly others. If Nephis and her cohort could skip the long journey from the city to the First Lord's resting place, I could shorten this arc significantly."
His thoughts were clear in their objective, yet scattered in the process—flashes of ideas weaving through the static hum of his mind.
Taking a slow breath, Chrollo laid the foundation of his plan. He would begin with something small. A bird—the only species he could visualize with any real clarity. A sparrow.
Simple, familiar.
A creature of freedom. A whisper of motion.
He closed his eyes, reaching inward. Nen pulsed softly from his core—subtle, restrained. He drew it forth, channeling it outward with precision, guiding it just beyond the edge of his skin, where it shimmered like barely-there smoke. Still connected, yet separate. His presence stretched with it, like the drag of a thread unwinding from a spool.
In his mind's eye, he sculpted the image: tiny talons, delicate wings, a sharp little beak. Each feather etched into memory by long hours spent watching them hop across rooftops. He visualized the air folding around its wings, the beating rhythm of flight, the sense of independence… but also the burden of purpose.
The aura around him trembled, condensing.
A shimmer flickered before him. Something took shape.
Not yet whole—an outline, a translucent ghost of his intent.
The sparrow blinked into existence for a heartbeat, wings twitching. Its eyes were dark and hollow, more essence than entity. Then, without warning, it collapsed into drifting particles of Nen, scattering like ashes caught in a slow breeze.
Chrollo opened his eyes slowly.
"…Tch."
He hadn't failed—not completely. The form had begun to manifest. That was more than he expected on the first attempt.
"Too shallow," he murmured. "There wasn't enough weight to it. It lacked will."
He sat back, letting the residual Nen return to him like ebbing tides.
Maybe it wasn't just about form, but function, emotion, belief. Nen beasts weren't conjured from imagination alone. They were born from the user's essence. From their desires, their fears, their instincts.
He leaned forward again, eyes sharpening with renewed resolve.
"Alright then," he said quietly, more to the watching shadows than himself. "Let's try again."
What does a sparrow mean?
Freedom. Flight. Living without bounds… yet fragility. Weakness. Light, yet heavy. Unburdened, but easily broken.
These thoughts churned in Chrollo's mind, echoing beneath the rhythm of his breath and the hum of his aura. He sat cross-legged within the dim hollow of the cave, the murals around him whispering silent stories. His Nen pulsed outward, stretching like mist through the stale air, thin and persistent. It resisted. Always, it resisted.
"What could I do to make this process easier…?"
His voice broke the silence only barely. He already knew the answer.
"A restriction… right?"
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips—half-born from frustration, half from fascination. That was Nen's paradoxical beauty: give something up, and you are granted more.
"This conjured pure-flight sparrow… can only be summoned when I chant its name. No —a full phrase?" he mused, fingers weaving through the air in idle motion.
He repeated the idea again and again in his head, like a mantra. Slowly, like a sculptor shaping clay, he formed the shape of a rule—its edges sharp, its cost clear.
With every attempt, he failed. And failed. And failed again.
But with each failure, his Nen grew more compliant—no longer writhing, but shifting in response. It began to move like silk between his fingers, not unlike water catching the form of a mold. The resistance gave way to rhythm.
Time lost meaning.
He didn't know how long he had been sitting there—minutes? Hours? Days? The shadows in the cave did not change. Vale stood in silent vigil behind him, the only other heartbeat in the space aside from his own. In this stillness, his mind wandered into loops of repetition, deepening grooves into the ritual he was crafting.
And then—finally—his will took form.
A tiny pulse of light shimmered in the air before him, and from it emerged a sparrow, no larger than his hand. Its wings fluttered, jerking as if unsure of how to fly. Its beaked head turned in slight, uneven arcs—confused, blind, half-alive.
Chrollo's breath hitched.
It was imperfect—but real.
"Now," he muttered, voice dry, "to maximize your size..."
He stared at the bird, memorizing its dimensions, its flickers of movement, its fragmented will. "I need you to be roughly as big as a small van. A true mount."
Again, the wheel turned. Nen stirred.
"What restriction could work… hmm. Alright. Only within the bounds of the Forgotten Shore. Only within its region can this bird take flight. Furthermore… only after chanting the full summoning phrase and performing an elaborate hand ritual may it be summoned."
The moment the words left him, something shifted.
His aura thickened, becoming viscous, weighty, like oil suspended in the air. It coiled tighter around him, threading through his limbs and fingertips. The resistance faded further, replaced by a malleable pressure—less volatile, more obedient.
He inhaled, summoned his Nen once more, and repeated the restrictions in his mind with exacting precision. Intent sharpened.
And this time, he moved.
Hands cut through the air—stiff, clumsy, drawn from his broken understanding of Kali Arnis. But over time, those awkward angles became arcs, and those broken strikes turned to a strange kind of dance. Flow formed where before there had only been effort.
The steps became part of the ritual. The ritual became part of the Nen. A full-body expression of will.
Each time he performed the sequence, the sparrow became more tangible—its feathers less spectral, its wings less hesitant. Its confusion was still there, but there was now recognition in its movements.
Chrollo's sweat dripped onto the stone below, his body sore, his breathing steady. Yet he felt closer than ever.
Time had lost its edge. There was no longer a now, or a later—just the space between attempts and refinement. In that space, Nen breathed.
And Chrollo?
He was nearly there.
The sparrow would fly soon.
At last—it was complete.
The sparrow no longer flickered or dissolved mid-motion. No more faltering. No more phantom limbs. It stood resolute, wings half-spread, body sleek and massive. Fully formed. Fully his.
It had taken what felt like a small eternity—a time outside time—of repetition, refinement, dancing in the dark until the steps became meaning. His Nen, once volatile and scattered, had become obedient through the weight of intent and restriction. A pact sealed not by blood, but by belief.
He stepped back as the great sparrow beat its wings once—dust and debris recoiling in waves around it. The ceiling above trembled slightly. Too narrow. Too shallow. This cavern—though it had housed the long-dead rites of the First Lord—was never meant to hold something so alive. well—excepting those horrors laying further in the depths.
With a smooth motion, Chrollo lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. The massive bird shattered into light, its form compressing inward, feathers and aura sucked into a single egg-like core no larger than a clenched fist. Black with red veins and shaped like cracked porcelain, it floated gently down into his open palm.
That was the form it would take when sealed—its dormant state.
He looked toward his Echo [Seraphine Vale].who had stood behind him silently this entire time, as she always had. Watching. Waiting. Lending him her poise and shadow. Without a word, he closed his other hand, and her image began to fade into the usual shimmers of light that the nightmare spells echos and memories form from and turn to . No drama. No farewell. Just quiet dismissal, like the turning of a page.
Now, only he remained.
And it was time.
****
Stepping beyond the narrow embrace of the cave—the chamber that had sheltered him for days… weeks… months, perhaps—Chrollo paused. Not to marvel, not to gasp, but simply to exist again under open sky.
Time had become a blurred thread, wound too tightly and fraying at the edges. He had no measure of it. Only the desperation that had gnawed at his ribs and driven him to sculpt Nen into shape, over and over again, until meaning finally clung to it like flesh to bone.
Now, before him, the Forgotten Shore stretched out—a greyed and silent wasteland.
Ashen dust blanketed everything. The coral fields that once reached into this land had been stripped bare. Nothing remained.
The mist had passed, for now. It moved in rhythms he did not understand, ebbing and advancing according to some cruel internal tide. He was lucky. Or perhaps… [fated].
He did not dare assume which.
From within the folds of his coat, Chrollo drew the obsidian egg—the vessel of his creation. It pulsed with a faint, hollow glow, threads of red weaving through its dark surface like veins of forgotten memory.
He took a breath, lowered his head, and spoke the phrase.
"Within the forgotten lies freedom.
Where nothing lies, dreams take flight.
To fly is to be chained—
Let contradiction breathe.
Come forth, pure glass—tarnished sparrow."
Nen surged from him, coiling around the egg. It shimmered, translucent and alive. The shape pulsed, expanded, broke.
Feathers burst from the shell like ink in water. Obsidian wings unfurled. The sparrow emerged with quiet grace, stepping out into the ashen light of the world like a thought made real. Its body absorbed color—a void-black so deep it bent light—but its eyes remained luminous and aware.
They locked onto him. Not hostile. Not affectionate.
Just present.
"Alright, buddy," Chrollo murmured, a rare, dry smile on his lips. "Let's take a flight, why don't we?"
He climbed gently onto its back, careful not to disturb the balance of its form. The sparrow was massive—no larger than a six-seater car—but delicate in its own way, the weight of its conjured essence balanced on the rules he had etched into his own soul.
From his [Hollow Satchel], he retrieved a length of rope. Not to bind. Never to restrain. Just enough to tether.
He looped it softly around the sparrow's body, loose enough to avoid pain, snug enough for trust. Then he secured the other end around himself. A lifeline between creator and creation.
The sparrow flexed its wings—broad and sharp as honed blades—casting long shadows across the grey earth below. Even the artificial sun above, high and static, seemed dimmed by the creature's presence.
Swaaah.
Swaaah.
Two beats of its wings, and they lifted from the deadened soil. Windless, weightless, ascending as though gravity had quietly agreed to let them pass.
Chrollo leaned forward, letting the breath in his lungs fall away. The Forgotten Shore appeared beneath them, the maze of blood-red coral now fully visible, stretching like veins through charred skin. At its edges, the living world stopped. The land beyond was erased—flattened, scoured clean by the mist's silent hunger. What he called home for his solitude.
High above, with only the whisper of wings and his thoughts for company, he whispered:
"How far did the story progress…? Hope I'm not too early."