Hito-mane Extermination: Kaleidoscope

"Wake up to reality"

-Madara Uchiha, from Naruto

                                   ...

The warehouse fell silent, and nobody spoke. The only sound left was the quiet drip of water echoing somewhere beneath the cracked concrete floor. Ryuzuki stood exactly where he had been, his expression unreadable. The moonlight spilling through the broken windows reflected across the water surrounding his feet, making it difficult to tell where his body ended and the darkness began. For the first time since meeting him, no one knew what to say.

Asumi was the first to break the silence. "...Is that how you lost your arm?" Her voice was quieter than usual. Ryuzuki looked down at the empty sleeve hanging from his shoulder. The silence answered before he could. Asumi lowered her eyes. Nobody pressed him any further. Even Tatsuchi, who usually demanded answers from anyone who kept secrets, remained quiet for a moment. But only for a moment. "Prometheus," Tatsuchi said, and Ryuzuki slowly lifted his gaze toward her. "You said you saw something inside of the cave. What was it?"

His brown eyes remained fixed on hers, utterly still. Eventually, he shook his head. "...It doesn't matter.” Tatsuchi frowned. "It clearly does." "It doesn't," his answer came without hesitation. "What I saw wouldn't help you. It would only distract you."

Tatsuchi folded her arms. "Try me."

Ryuzuki let out the faintest sigh, his voice never rising. "You think strength prepares you for everything. It doesn't. If you walked into Prometheus today, you wouldn't come back. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't describe it. It would be like solving a complex puzzle through the view of a kaleidoscope." Zhenyu frowned. "So what are we supposed to do?" Ryuzuki looked past him, toward the desert stretching endlessly beyond the broken down warehouse. 

"Wait."

Nobody liked that answer, Tatsuchi least of all. "I'm not waiting around." "I didn't ask you to." Ryuzuki's expression remained perfectly calm. "I’m asking you to survive." Another heavy silence followed. Finally, he continued, "If you truly intend to help, then someday you'll have to see Prometheus with your own eyes. But not yet. You aren't ready." Tatsuchi almost laughed. "You don't know me well enough to make that decision."

"No," Ryuzuki agreed. "I know enough." For the first time, she had no response. His confidence wasn't arrogant; it was absolute, as if he'd already seen exactly how that conversation would end. After a long pause, Tatsuchi spoke again. "...Then tell me how to get there." Ryuzuki looked down at the water beneath him. "The cave is never unguarded. You won't simply walk inside. You won't be able to see the guards, but believe me, they'll be able to see you."

"Then how would I get inside?"

"There is..." He paused briefly. "...a boy." Everyone looked confused. "A child?" Asumi asked. Ryuzuki nodded once. "He appears every blood moon. He enters the cave. He leaves the cave. No one stops him. No one even acknowledges him. I don't know what they're doing but I know it isn't right." Zhenyu blinked. "...That's suspicious."

"It is."

"Do you know who he is?"

"No."

"Have you made contact with him?"

"No."

"Have you attempted to follow him at least?"

"I've tried." His expression hardened slightly. "But I always lose him before I can get back." The space grew quiet again. "So," Tatsuchi said, "Blood Moon." Ryuzuki nodded. "The next one. Watch. Learn. Follow him if you must. It's the only way you'll enter Prometheus unnoticed." Tatsuchi didn't truly look convinced at his words. “ How would simply following the boy make us unnoticeable by the guards?” Ryuzuki let out a deep sigh. “You're just going to have to trust me on it.” Zhenyu immediately reached into his pocket, his phone lighting up the dim warehouse as he opened the calendar. He scrolled for several seconds, then stopped. "Huh."

"What?"

"It's still about two weeks away." Asumi sighed. "So we wait." Ryuzuki slowly turned away. "You stay alert. The Blood Moon isn't the only thing moving." His words lingered longer than anyone wanted them to. "I'll be nearby. If something finds you before then... I'll know." Nobody asked how. Before anyone could speak again, Ryuzuki stood up and took a single step backward. The moonlight caught his silhouette for a fraction of a second, perfectly still. Then, sudden motion. His foot sank effortlessly beneath the shallow water. Then his leg. His torso. It was as though the darkness beneath him had liquefied into a bottomless, pitch black abyss, swallowing him whole without a single splash. Within seconds, he vanished completely. The surface never rippled. Only a heavy, ringing silence remained.

Nobody moved, and nobody even looked away from the empty space where he'd just been standing. "...Well," Zhenyu finally muttered, breaking the freeze. "...he's definitely gotten better at dramatic exits." Asumi snorted despite herself. "I'll give him that." The tension in the room eased just enough for everyone to breathe again, not much, just enough. Tatsuchi quietly reached down and picked up Shinkoku, the familiar weight settling comfortably against her side as she stood. No one paid much attention at first until she turned toward the exit.

"...I'm heading out." Zhenyu glanced over. "Where?" She adjusted the sword on her hip. "I'm practicing. Air slashes." It was simple and direct, exactly what everyone expected her to say. Yet, something about it felt completely off. Normally she'd have smirked, made some comment about everyone else slowing her down, or maybe even challenged Zhenyu to catch up. Instead, nothing. She didn't even look at him. She simply started walking. As she reached the warehouse doors, she stopped, barely long enough for her fingers to tighten hard around Shinkoku's sheath. Her eyes drifted toward the distant northern horizon, somewhere far beyond the endless dunes, before she continued onward. The heavy doors creaked shut behind her, sealing the quiet inside.

Zhenyu stared after them for another second. "...She's weird." Asumi raised an eyebrow. "You just figured that out?" "No, I mean..." He scratched the back of his head. "Didn't she seem... quieter?" Asumi thought about it. "...Maybe. But after everything Ryuzuki told us..." She shrugged. "I probably wouldn't be talking much either."

Zhenyu thought for a moment "...Yeah." That explanation made enough sense, at least to everyone still standing inside the warehouse. Far beyond the town, Tatsuchi continued walking alone beneath the cold, moonlit sky. She never once looked toward the rocky cliffs where she usually trained since their arrival in this place. Instead, ensuring she was completely isolated, she quietly unfolded a weathered piece of paper from inside her coat.

The paper caught the pale moonlight, revealing an old and weathered RSVP letter to the head of the Tomidoru Clan, Loki. The dates of when it was sent out and what event it was supposed to be for had been violently crossed out. Only one single name remained untouched at the bottom.

Ichirou Kuroainaru.

She stared at the name for several seconds, her grip trembling slightly, before folding it away again into her pants pocket. "...There has to be someone," her voice was barely louder than the rustle of the desert wind. "Someone has to know." Without another word, she continued to walk deeper into the sleeping desert. Behind her, the warehouse lights grew smaller and smaller until they were nothing but dust. Hadn't her father or mother told her about a twin brother? What is? Why does nobody seem to know anything except for Itaka? Are her parents hiding anything else from her? And for the first time since leaving the Phoenixis, she wasn't searching for answers about her bounty, she was searching for her brother. 

After Tatsuchi left, the warehouse fell into a quiet that felt far too heavy for the thin concrete walls. Zhenyu broke the silence first, exhaling a long breath through his nose as he watched the exit. "Training again... she never chills," he muttered, shaking his head. Asumi leaned her shoulder against a rusted support beam, her arms crossed over her chest. "You really think that’s all she’s doing?" Zhenyu glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow. "What else would she be doing?" Asumi didn’t answer right away. Her eyes drifted toward the open desert outside, her gaze distant as if she were trying to see past the horizon. "I don’t know... but it didn’t feel like training."

A beat passed between them, the quiet drip of water beneath the floorboards filling the gap. Then Zhenyu shrugged the thought away, tilting his head toward the open sand outside. "Whatever. Sitting here won’t fix anything. Let's shake the rust off." Asumi smirked, her posture loosening. "Finally, something we agree on." They moved outside together, stepping into the vast, open desert stretching behind the warehouse. The night wind was dry and cutting, carrying that lingering, oppressive heat that never truly left the sand, even hours after sundown. Zhenyu loosened his grip on his hilt, rolling his shoulders, while Asumi drew her blade halfway from its scabbard, testing its familiar weight in the moonlight.

At first, the spar was casual. They moved seamlessly from testing their blades into fluid hand-to-hand combat drills, the sound of colliding knuckles and shifting boots matching the rhythm of the wind. There was no intent to kill, no serious pressure behind their movements. It was purely about timing and breaking the tension. "You’re slower than last week," Asumi teased, deflecting a predictable downward strike and stepping out of his reach.

Zhenyu scoffed, recovering his stance instantly. "You’re just lucky I’m being nice. I'm practically letting you win." Asumi's smile tugged at her lips. "You? Nice? That’s a total lie and you know it." Their blades clashed again, the flat of the metal binding for a split second before both of them stepped back simultaneously, giving each other space without even realizing it. As the minutes wore on, the fight became less about the physical exchange and more about talking through their movements. 

They traded short, calculated combinations, then broke apart to speak, like two rivals who couldn't help but bicker even when things were serious. It was a shared distraction from the weight Ryuzuki had left behind. Zhenyu tilted his blade lazily, resting the blunt edge near his shoulder. "Ever notice how everything went completely downhill the second we got on that Titan Bridge Train?" Asumi laughed, a genuine sound that broke the desert stillness. "You mean when you looked like you were about to throw yourself off the side? You were clinging to the railing inside like your life depended on it."

"It did! Heights are an entirely different type of scary for me, Asumi." They both laughed lightly, the thick layer of tension that had built up inside the warehouse finally easing. As the spar continued, their conversation naturally shifted into a recap of everything that had transpired since they arrived in the desert. They spoke of the Dry Bone Gang, the scattered desert villages, and those first real fights, the ones that weren't supposed to happen so early in their journey. Asumi flicked her blade forward in a sudden, sharp arc, forcing Zhenyu to take a quick step back to keep his balance. "Still crazy how those guys thought they could take us on."

"They lasted like five seconds," Zhenyu snorted. "Barely even five. And Tatsuchi didn’t even look impressed." That earned a small, fond laugh from Asumi. "She never does. Even when she’s completely exhausted, she acts like she just warmed up." Zhenyu shifted his weight and mimicked her voice poorly, making it stiff, robotic, and overly serious. "'I’m fine. Leave me alone.'" Asumi immediately burst out laughing, lowering her guard for a brief moment. "She does NOT sound like that!"

"She does in my head. It's the ultimate brooding rival voice." Their blades connected again, much slower this time. The pressure between them faded entirely, and the humor began to bleed out of the air as the reality of their situation crept back in. Asumi lowered her weapon, her expression shifting into something much more somber.

"Zhenyu..."

"Yeah?"

"If skinwalkers are really hiding in the town..." She hesitated, her eyes dropping to the sand before she forced herself to continue. "What does that mean for my home town in the desert east of here, Nogoyi?" The name landed heavily between them, far more than anything else they had discussed. Zhenyu’s fighting stance loosened entirely, his tip lowering toward the ground.

Asumi looked past him, staring out toward the eastern horizon. "It’s one of the only real, modern cities left in eastern Harpyra. Lights. Markets. Real streets. Moving vehicles. People actually living normal lives... just like Pyyrocore." Her voice tightened, cracking slightly. "My family is there." Zhenyu didn’t interrupt. He simply stood there, listening to the wind. "I keep thinking..." she continued, her voice growing quieter, almost swallowed by the vastness of the desert. "If Kokohama was like that... what if my home is already gone too, and I just don’t know it yet?" A long pause stretched between them. The silence of the desert felt immense, nearly suffocating. Finally, Zhenyu exhaled a long breath. "We don’t know that," he said, his voice firm but grounded. "Ryuzuki only confirmed that the incident is isolated to Kokohama. That’s it. Don’t build a dead city in your head without proof. It's the only thing that keeps people from losing it."

That earned a small, tired smile from her, the anxiety in her eyes retreating just a fraction. The air shifted again, turning lighter, more focused. Asumi adjusted her grip on her hilt, flashing him a curious look. "Enough heavy talk. Let me ask you something else. Your Zyn Technique... can you feel it coming back at all?" Zhenyu didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he slowly straightened his spine, his expression turning serious. He lifted his sword and, with a deliberate, heavy motion, planted the tip deep into the sand. The moment the steel pierced the earth, the desert reacted. 

A low, resonant hum vibrated beneath their boots. Fine metallic particles and iron bits, hidden deep within the shifting grains of sand, began to tremble violently. At first, they were almost invisible, but within seconds they rose like black dust answering a silent command. They spiraled upward in a tight vortex, drawing directly toward the buried blade and hanging onto the steel. Zhenyu exhaled slowly. "Magnetic Dust Coating." Layer after layer gathered in a frantic rush, forming a jagged, uneven metallic edge that grew outward from the original blade. It didn’t look refined or polished; it looked entirely violent, like a shard of weaponized obsidian that looked like it would shred anything it came in contact with.

"I've been practicing on my own," Zhenyu said, keeping his eyes locked on the glowing, serrated weapon. "It should only be a few more weeks before I'm fully up and back at it." He clenched his jaw, forcing his hand to tighten on the hilt. The magnetic field that seemed to surround him intensified for a fraction of a second, the black particles humming fiercely, but then the flow flickered. The connection snapped.

Instantly, the technique collapsed. The magnetic field fell, and all the iron bits from the sand dropped from the blade, scattering harmlessly back into the dunes like dust, leaving the ordinary steel bare once more. Zhenyu let out a frustrated sigh and scratched the back of his head, looking slightly embarrassed. "Yeah... still got a long way to go."

Asumi smirked, her tension fully dissipating. "That’s rare. You're actually admitting it." Zhenyu chuckled a bit. "Don’t get used to it." They reset their stances and continued to spar, but the pace changed. It grew slower, more controlled, a peaceful slice-of-life moment amidst the chaos. The sun began to drop lower on the far horizon, stretching their long, dark shadows across the endless desert floor. Eventually, the spar faded entirely, ending not with a victor or a conclusion, but in pure, mutual exhaustion. When they finally returned to the Inn, Tatsuchi was still out. Nobody said a word, they decided to rest tonight and Asumi fell face flat into her bed. Zhenyu told her goodnight as he walked down the hall to his room. They were all waiting for what was to come. Two weeks should be enough to prepare. And Asumi had questions for Ryuzuki. 

Far beyond the town, the desert was entirely empty, devoid of life except for the howling wind. A line of dead skinwalkers lay sprawled across the sand, its body ruined and freshly cut down, signifying to anyone watching that a brutal fight had just ended. Standing above the corpse was a man whose presence completely commanded the empty wastes. His outfit was layered and explicitly structured for travel and combat, He wore a high collared, pitch black jacket that billowed slightly with every step, its scarlet and vermilion lining flashing like a warning sign. Beneath it was a sleek white, form-fitting dress shirt, buttoned halfway down to reveal tattoos, paired with dark, tailored trousers that tucked into sturdy metal shin guards. A thick belt sat low on his hips.. Around his neck, a mismatched collection of scars that looked like he'd been strangled. On his feet, he wore simple slip-on shoes.

His face and hands were entirely obscured by a complex arrangement of paper talismans and tight fabric bindings, leaving only his long black hair and a single visible eye exposed to the elements. The eye caught the pale moonlight, shining a cold silver, faintly tinted with an ominous red hue at the bottom. From his back, a cluster of thin, exposed wires snaked downward, reaching directly into the sand. He tilted his head slightly, staring down at the carcass with an arrogant, lazy amusement. "Oh? So that’s all the desert has to offer?" His voice carried a chilling, theatrical lilt, a cadence that was deceptively playful right up until the moment it cut like glass. He spoke with a casual, mocking drawl, as if treating battle like an amusing afternoon game was normal to him, his tone dripping with an arrogant amusement that would make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. He chuckled softly, a sound completely devoid of warmth. "How thoroughly disappointing and weak."

He stepped forward, casually nudging the heavy mass of the corpse aside with the toe of his shoe like it was nothing more than roadside trash. He slowly reached down and began to unravel the thick layers of talismans wrapped along his right forearm. As the paper fell away, it revealed extremely pale, unearthly white skin underneath. He plucked out a jagged, blood stained kunai and spun it around his finger for a bit before settling in his palm. With a slow, deliberate movement, he drew a dark edge across his own palm, cutting it open. As the blood welled, a distinct, pitch-black bracelet manifested smoothly around his wrist.

He lifted his gaze up toward the three moons hanging high above the night sky, his single exposed eye narrowing. "Two weeks...?" He scoffed, his voice dripping with playful malice and irritation. "Two weeks is far too much time to grant them. Almost hard to believe that the daughter of such a man really thinks it has the luxury of waiting. I want to hurry up and see how they fare in a real fight, with real consequences." 

He raised his bleeding hand high, pointing his palm directly toward the moonlit sky. And in an instant, everything seemed to become fractured. The entire sky suddenly shattered into a broken mirror pattern. The empty air cracked with a violent, concussive force, splitting into thousands of mirror-like fragments that began to rotate and shift constantly, like a massive kaleidoscope patterned being pasted above the area.

Then, the final effect shifted and locked into place. The shattered sky froze completely, suspended like a broken mirror that refused to fall, the cracks holding reality in a tight, fractured vice. Just then, some of the paper talismans wrapped around his face to catch fire, burning away into instant ash. While his full face remained hidden, the uncovered portion shifted into a sharp, mocking grin that said he was entirely certain of his victory.

His silver eye gleamed with absolute malice as he looked at the frozen skies. Above him, the shattered sky rippled. A dark coat of crimson began to bleed across the surface of the three moons, staining the night in a deep, unnatural gore as the blood moon began early. He grabbed his hand into a fist as the kaleidoscope pattern dissipated into thin air.

"Mangekyou!"