The Weight of Cold

I pushed Ricky off, brushing the snow off my shoulders, and planted my feet firmly on the ice. My chest heaved, every breath sharp and cold, but the adrenaline still burned through me. I looked at him, eyes blazing despite the biting wind. “Ricky… I… I can’t do it. My Sisqar—nothing’s improving. I can’t control ice, can’t make anything like you can. No matter how hard I try, it just… won’t happen.”

Ricky froze for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. He crouched slightly, leaning on his knees, trying to read my expression through the sweat and snow. “What do you mean, Ruu? You’ve been training with me for months. You’re strong. You should at least be able to… something.”

I shook my head sharply, letting out a sharp exhale that fogged in the icy air. “I’ve been training. Every day, since the first light of dawn, for the past three months! Hours of drills, focusing, forcing myself through the cold, pushing my body past every limit… and nothing! I can’t even make a simple spike or freeze a patch of ice properly. It’s useless. I’m useless.” My voice cracked slightly at the end, raw with frustration. The snow around us stirred in the cold wind, the sky above gray and heavy, pressing down like it knew the weight of my failure.

Ricky blinked, like he wasn’t sure what to say. “Ruu… that’s—”

Before he could finish, a small shadow shifted beside me. Luna had stepped closer, her presence quiet but firm. She didn’t speak immediately; she just tilted her head, studying me with those unreadable eyes beneath the cloth covering her face. Then, softly, she spoke: “It’s… okay. Don’t push yourself too hard, Ruu. Control, endurance—it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. You’re… getting stronger, even if you can’t feel it.”

I threw my hands up, letting the cold sting my palms as I clenched them into fists. “Three months, Luna! I’ve been training every day for three months! Dawn to dusk, through every biting cold, every ice drill, every spike test… and nothing changes! Nothing! I’m hitting my limits and I’m still stuck at square one!” My voice broke, echoing across the frozen field. My legs were trembling, my body shaking from exhaustion, and yet the frustration inside me roared louder than my physical fatigue.

Ricky didn’t move. He just stared, silent. His chest rose and fell, and the snow swirled around us in a small, chaotic circle, almost like it was waiting for something to break. I could feel the tension in the air thickening, the ice beneath our feet groaning faintly under our weight.

Then, from the edge of the clearing, a familiar voice rang out, breaking through the cold tension like sunlight piercing fog: “Oni-chan! Breakfast is ready! You’ve been training since before dawn. Come eat now!”

I turned my head, and there she was—Sora. Her figure stood framed against the snowy outskirts of the training field, her breath visible in the cold air, eyes warm and sharp at the same time. I felt a pang of guilt and exhaustion hit me all at once. My stomach growled even as my chest still heaved from the drills. I wanted to argue, to stay here and keep pushing, keep testing my useless Sisqar, but… hunger and exhaustion were undeniable.

I glanced at Ricky, who shrugged faintly, probably understanding without words, and then at Luna, who gave me a quiet nod as if to say it’s okay to step back. Slowly, I let my shoulders drop and said, voice rough but resigned, “Okay… yeah… I’ll eat. But just know, I’m not stopping after this. As soon as I finish, we continue.”

Sora smiled, her eyes flicking between me and Luna. “Good. You need strength before you can push further. Dawn to dusk training is pointless if you collapse halfway through.”

They went ahead of me. I was a bit slow, still very exhausted. I told them to go on ahead.

As I turned away from the ice field, my legs stiff and sore from the endless drills, I couldn’t stop my thoughts from circling back to the same damn thing over and over again. Three months. Three months of dawn-to-dusk training, and what did I have to show for it? Blisters, aching joints, a body that had toughened against the cold, sure—but not the power. Not the control. Not the ice that should have been mine.

It was like chasing smoke with my bare hands. No matter how hard I clenched, no matter how much blood I spilled into the snow with every fall, the result was the same: nothing. Nothing but exhaustion. Every morning I told myself today would be the day, today I would finally feel it spark, that invisible thread of Sisqar finally igniting inside me—but the day always ended the same way. My fingers numb, my breath burning in my lungs, and the ice mocking me, refusing to obey.

And what scared me more than failure was the thought that this wasn’t just training for training’s sake. We couldn’t stay here forever. This village, this tiny frozen speck on the map—it was just a stop, a shelter, a thin wall between us and the kind of world that would swallow us whole the moment we let our guard down. Nananganggal was just the start. Just one monster, one shadow in the dark, and it had nearly torn everything apart. If the world was filled with more creatures like that—and worse—and I couldn’t even manage to conjure a damn ice spike, then what good was I?

What good was all this training?

I thought about Ricky, how easily he made walls of ice rise and fall, how he could twist it to his will like it was nothing. I thought about Luna, precise and deadly, the way she carried herself like she already belonged to another level of existence, untouchable. And then there was me—sliding around like a fool, pulling dirty tricks just to stay alive in sparring matches. Was that all I was capable of? Surviving by scraps, by tricks? Was this really my limit?

My jaw tightened as I forced my steps forward through the snow, the crunch under my boots too loud in my ears. My breath came out heavy and ragged, and for a moment, it felt like the whole world was just pressing down on my chest. I wanted to scream, to punch the ice until my knuckles shattered, to demand an answer from whatever force governed this Sisqar power. Why me? Why now? Why give me nothing but dead silence inside when I needed it most?

The truth was—I was scared. More than I wanted to admit. Because if three months of this wasn’t enough, then how much longer would it take? A year? Two? What if no matter how long I tried, nothing would change? What if I was just broken, incomplete? That thought dug into me like rust, eating away at whatever hope I tried to hold on to.

But fear or not, I knew one thing with absolute clarity: we couldn’t stay here. The village was safe, yes, but safety was a lie. Safety was just borrowed time. The world outside was crawling with vile things, worse than the nananganggal, worse than anything these villagers could imagine. Monsters, spirits, men with power sharper and crueler than any blade. And we… we were just kids, training in the snow, pretending that time was on our side.

It wasn’t. Time was an enemy just like everything else.

I clenched my fists hard, the veins in my arms straining, blood rushing hot against the cold air. “We can’t stay here,” I whispered to myself, though no one could hear me. “We have to move on. We have to get stronger, faster than this. If we don’t… we’ll be eaten alive.”

Images swirled in my head—the nightmarish face of the nananganggal, its jaws unhinged, its claws tearing through the air. The way fear froze my veins in that moment, how close we all came to death. And if that was just one creature… what about the others? The things people whispered about but never saw? The stories of villages burned in a single night, travelers ripped apart on lonely roads, entire towns vanishing without a trace. I didn’t doubt it. Not anymore.

And here I was, barely scraping through sparring with Ricky, barely standing on my own two feet after hours of training, barely even touching the edge of what Sisqar should be. What would happen if one of those nightmares came for us tomorrow? What could I do?

The answer gnawed at me, cruel and relentless: nothing.

I forced myself to swallow the bitterness of that thought and dragged my feet back toward the house. My stomach churned more from exhaustion than hunger, but food was food, and if I didn’t put something inside me I’d collapse before sunset. The smell of hot broth clung to the air the moment I stepped in. Sora handed me a bowl without a word, her eyes scanning me like she already knew the storm brewing inside my chest. I didn’t bother explaining. I sat, ate, forced each mouthful down, my mind somewhere else the entire time.

Ricky didn’t stay long. He was already preparing for the hunt, sharpening his weapons, strapping leather across his chest like it was just another day for him. For me, every day was a war with myself. For him, every day was survival as natural as breathing. He clapped me on the back and said something about resting, about not pushing too far. But the second his back turned, I knew I wasn’t going to listen.

When he was gone, I stepped outside. The cold hit me like knives, biting deep into my skin even through the layers of cloth. That was the point. I untied the knots one by one until the heavy fabric slid off, leaving me in nothing but the ragged pants that barely clung from navel to knee. The wind slapped against my bare chest, cruel and merciless, and I welcomed it. My skin prickled, my muscles tensed, every nerve screamed for warmth.

I sat down on the snow, legs crossed, back straight, fists resting on my thighs. The ground burned cold, seeping up through my bones. My teeth clenched so tight I thought they might crack, but I forced myself to breathe slow, steady, even as my body trembled. This was Sisqar. Not fire, not heat, not passion. Endurance. Silent, stubborn, unyielding.

Minutes blurred into hours. My breath fogged the air in uneven bursts, sometimes calm, sometimes ragged. The numbness spread from my fingers to my arms, from my toes to my thighs. Pain came in waves, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull, sometimes unbearable. Every instinct begged me to move, to cover myself, to run inside where warmth waited. But I stayed. Because if I couldn’t endure this—just cold, just snow, just air—then how the hell was I supposed to endure the things out there? The monsters, the shadows, the endless hunger of the world beyond this village?

By the time the sun had climbed higher, my lips were cracked, my skin burning red. My breaths had turned shallow. I opened my eyes, squinting at the sky, and let out something between a laugh and a curse. This was pathetic. Three months, and still nothing. No ice forming at my fingertips, no control over the cold, not even a flicker of change in the air around me. Just pain, always pain.

I pushed myself up finally, legs stiff and unsteady, and started trudging back toward the house. The snow crunched underfoot, my knees weak, my body aching in a way that felt carved into the bone. Just before I reached the steps, a voice cut through the stillness.

“Ruu.”

Ricky stood there, face shadowed, his axe strapped across his back. His expression was different this time, serious, heavier than usual. “We need to move. East side of the forest.”

I frowned, still trying to catch my breath. “Why? What happened?”

He looked past me for a moment, like he was measuring how much to tell. Then his jaw tightened. “The hunters found something. Every animal in that area—boars, wolves, even birds—slaughtered. Not killed for food. Brutally torn apart. It’s not natural. We can’t ignore it.”

My chest tightened, but not from the cold this time. Images of the nanananggal flashed in my head again, claws dripping, eyes gleaming with hunger. If something worse was out there… if something was butchering beasts for sport or territory…

Ricky’s eyes landed on me. “I’ll go with a few others to check it. But it’ll be dangerous.”

I didn’t hesitate. My voice came out hoarse, almost broken, but steady. “I’m coming with you.”

He raised an eyebrow, maybe ready to argue, maybe about to remind me I could barely hold my ground in training. But I met his gaze without flinching. My body might have been shaking from cold and exhaustion, but my resolve burned solid.

Because I couldn’t keep running, couldn’t keep hiding behind excuses. This world wouldn’t wait for me to catch up. If I didn’t move now, if I didn’t face whatever nightmare was lurking out there, then I’d never move forward at all.