The embers of battle still clung to the wind.
Charred bodies were buried. Bists lay scattered in melting blood. Squad Umbra had barely survived. Yet silence screamed louder than death.
Kaizen stood alone atop the crumbled wall of the southern post. His hands trembled, not from pain—but from something darker.
Within him, the power of his Veinborn blood surged like molten fire.
Ayaka approached from behind. "Kaizen," she whispered. Her voice tried to hold warmth, but the fear she hid didn't escape him.
He turned slowly, his eyes flickering red for just a moment. "I didn't choose this..."
"I know," Ayaka stepped closer. "But they won't understand. Not after what you did."
He remembered it all. The screams. The way the Bist general had crumbled before his awakening. The fear in his allies' eyes. Even Captain Kora had looked at him as if he were the monster.
Behind them, the others were whispering.
Kain and Sora stood by a tent, silently watching. Jubei paced with a hand on his blade. Tension split the air like a blade at the throat.
That night, Umbra was summoned to the command barracks.
General Tsura sat in the shadowed chamber, her eyes tired. "Kaizen Ryouma. Your existence now poses a larger question. Are you one of us, or one of them?"
Kaizen didn't answer.
"We can't trust what we don't understand," Jubei growled.
"Enough!" Ayaka shouted. "He saved you. He saved all of us!"
Tsura raised a hand. "We're assigning Kaizen to Special Protocol Unit—Codename Revenant."
Gasps echoed.
"You'll be evaluated by an elite splinter squad. Until then... you are to be kept under constant surveillance. Ayaka Himari, you're to be confined for insubordination."
Ayaka's breath hitched, but she didn't resist.
Kaizen stepped forward, voice shaking with restrained rage. "Don't touch her."
Tsura's gaze was unwavering. "Disobey, and you'll be marked as a rogue."
Chains wrapped around his wrists like cold betrayal.
---
Two nights later. A dark shadow visited Kaizen's cell.
It wasn't a soldier.
It was Krovar.
The Bist general who had once knelt before Kaizen.
"You think you're special," Krovar hissed through the bars. "But there's another. Stronger than me. Loyal to none."
Kaizen's gaze narrowed. "Who?"
"Zar'Zahil," Krovar whispered. "The Shard-Eater. He's coming for the truth you were never told."
Then he vanished into shadow.
---
The next morning, the alarm bells rang.
A hidden facility in Sector 9—an archive tied to the origin of the Veinborn—was under attack. Kaizen, bound with suppression cuffs, was escorted alongside Squad Umbra to investigate.
But what they found chilled them.
The facility was destroyed.
Bodies hung like trophies. Symbols written in blood glowed faintly on stone.
On one wall, scratched in bone and blood:
"The Crown is false. The war begins now."
Ayaka stared, lips trembling. "What does it mean?"
Kaizen stepped forward. His cuffs broke apart on their own.
He didn't speak. He just stared ahead—where a single, enormous clawed footprint had melted into the floor.
Zar'Zahil had arrived.
And he had declared war.
To be continued...