The days blurred.
Orin walked until his legs ached, then walked a little more. The road wound through low, rolling hills, past scrub and dry grass and patches of trees that grew thicker the farther he got from Drill City. He kept the city at his back and Hachi somewhere ahead, even if he couldn't see it yet.
Sometimes he passed farmers bringing carts of grain toward the city. Sometimes a caravan rattled by with hired guards watching the tree line. They gave him the kind of once-over soldiers reserved for people carrying too many weapons and not enough company.
He kept his hood up and eyes down.
The world felt bigger without walls.
The tech-crystals and tram stones of Drill faded behind him, swapped for open sky and the distant shapes of Monari moving along ridgelines—large forms against the horizon that didn't bother coming closer. Wards carved into old boundary stones pulsed faintly when he walked past, warning sigils against approaching packs.
His body healed whether he wanted it to or not. The last deep ache in his ribs faded. The long cuts across his torso shrank to tight, pale lines. Only his hands still looked as rough as they felt, knuckles scarred, fingers bearing faint, stubborn stains that even river water hadn't fully washed away.
Inside his vest, Sonny's letter rode against his heart. The old sun-disc charm Sarah had given him rested just above it, a thin warm weight when the day grew cold.
He touched both more than he wanted to admit.
By the time the road veered closer to the Beastland fringe, the air had changed. It smelled wilder out here—damp earth, old trees, the faint metallic tang of too much life in one place. Low growls drifted now and then from the distant underbrush. Birds went silent in sudden pockets, then burst into frantic flight.
Orin stayed on the road, but his hand hovered closer to his cleavers.
He tried not to think about how it had felt when his hands weren't hands at all.The sun was bleeding into the horizon when he finally stepped off the packed road and headed toward a stand of dark pines clustered along a shallow rise. Their branches overlapped enough to break the wind, and a scatter of rocks nearby promised at least one flat surface to sit against.
He circled once, scanning for tracks and old scat. Something four-legged and heavy had passed through days ago, but the smell was faded. No fresh prints. No claw marks on the trunks.
It would do.
He dropped his pack, gathered fallen needles and broken branches, and coaxed a small fire to life. It burned low and steady, just enough to give off light and heat without advertising itself to half the forest.
He ate in silence—dried meat, hard bread, a little water. His mind kept jumping back to the Vrexus, to blood, to Sonny's hand on his cheek, to the way Lisa's voice had sounded when she told him he wasn't a monster even as she bled out.
Every time the memories sharpened, he forced his focus back to small things.
The crack in the rock he leaned against. The way the flames curled around the wood. The rough edge of the Solara charm under his fingers.
Eventually, he let the fire burn down to a bed of embers. Shadows thickened beyond its glow. Night insects picked up, a rough chorus. Somewhere far off, something big called once and then was quiet.
Orin lay on his side, cloak wrapped around him, bedroll thin against the ground. Sleep came in fits—snatches of darkness broken by flashes of claws and blue-silver eyes in a stranger's face.
He didn't know how long he'd been out when his eyes snapped open.
The embers still glowed a deep, quiet red. The air had gone tight, like the moment before a storm. The hairs along his arms lifted.
Someone was watching him.
His hand found the hilt of one cleaver. He stayed still, breathing slow, listening.
Nothing moved.
No branch cracked. No animal snorted. The insects still sang. But something in the black beyond the fire felt… fixed. A weight. A presence.
He pushed himself up slowly, back tightening, eyes scanning the dark.
That was when he heard it.
You wake faster than you walk, little hybrid.
The voice wasn't in the trees.
It was in his head.
Orin's heart slammed against his ribs. He twisted, dropping into a half-crouch, blade drawn and ready, instinctively searching for a mouth that matched the words.
There wasn't one.
The shadows just outside the circle of ember-light rippled.
Then something stepped forward.
A massive feline shape slid out of the dark, as if the night had decided to walk.
Black fur drank in what little light there was, broken only by faint, dark stripes that shifted when it moved. Its shoulders were broad, powerful, muscles rolling smoothly under its coat. Each paw landed without a sound, claws hidden for now. Its tail moved with slow, deliberate control, not a twitch wasted.
Two eyes burned gold in its face, sharp and focused. They didn't shine like animal eyes catching firelight; they glowed from within.
Orin had seen Monari before. He'd fought lesser ones. This was different.
The creature stopped just beyond the widest reach of the dying embers. Big enough to dwarf him even while standing still. It regarded him with an attention that felt uncomfortably close to a person's.
Better, the voice said again, inside his skull. Deep, layered, resonant. You drew steel this time without hesitating.
Orin swallowed, grip tightening on the cleaver.
"You're real," he said before he could stop himself.
One ear flicked. The beast's mouth didn't move.
You talk to your own thoughts often?
"Not when they insult my walking," he muttered.
It felt wrong hearing another presence in his head. Wrong and… oddly familiar, like catching the scent of smoke from a fire he'd stood next to once, long ago.
"You're a Monari," he said. "A big one."
Those golden eyes narrowed a fraction.
And you are more than you pretend to be. We are both something obvious tonight.
Orin's jaw clenched. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with."
The creature's head tilted, the motion slow and measured.
If I wanted you dead, the voice replied, almost bored, you would not have heard me speak.
That didn't make Orin relax.
"What do you want, then?" he asked. "You followed me out here?"
The beast's gaze dipped, taking in the weapons at his back, the scars along his torso, the way his hand shook just slightly on the hilt.
I watched you in the forest, the voice said. When you tore the Vrexus apart and your own pack with it. I wanted to see whether you would crawl or walk when the blood dried.
Cold slid through Orin's stomach.
He kept his expression still. "You were there."
Very much so.
"You just watched?"
You were loud, the Monari said. Power waking, blood screaming, bones changing. Hard to ignore. I was curious whether that power belonged to something fragile or something worth remembering.
Orin's teeth ground together. "You could have stopped it."
Yes.
The single word landed like a stone.
He stared, anger spiking through the numbness he'd been walking in for days.
"But you didn't."
No. The golden eyes didn't blink. You were being tested. Interrupting another's trial is rude.
"Tested?" The word came out raw. "They're dead. Sonny, Vince, Vice, Lisa—they're all dead because of me. And you call that a test?"
You call it only that, the voice replied, not unkindly, not apologetic. It was also a beginning. The first time your blood stopped pretending.
Orin tightened his grip until his knuckles ached. "I'm not like you."
The air seemed to deepen, the world narrowing to the circle between them.
For the first time, something like interest sparked in those gold eyes.
No, the Monari said quietly. You are not like me. You are more.
Orin blinked. He hadn't expected that.
"More?" he scoffed. "I couldn't control anything. I killed everyone that mattered."
More is not the same as better, the voice said. More is… potential. Depth. Hunger. Power layered on power. You are a hybrid shaped by hands that thought they understood you. They were wrong.
The beast took a single, unhurried step closer. Orin fought the urge to retreat.
You carry blood that is not wholly human, not wholly Monari, it went on. You carry something older threaded through both. You tasted the Vrexus and did not break. You changed and lived. That is rare.
Orin's stomach twisted. "You saw—"
Every bite, the Monari said. You fed like us even as you grieved like them. You think that makes you wrong. It only makes you unfinished.
Orin's throat burned. His voice dropped, rough. "What are you?"
The creature considered the question for a heartbeat.
In your terms? the voice said at last. I am Kahn-Ra. Black Tiger of the Northborn. Old enough to remember when your kind first started drinking our blood and calling it a path to strength.
Black Tiger. The name fit the way he moved—coiled grace, blunt power, the sense of something that could go from stillness to violence faster than thought.
"Kahn-Ra," Orin repeated, tasting the weight of it.
You may call me Kahn-Ra, the beast allowed. If you must call me anything at all.
The title—Black Tiger, Northborn—meant little in detail, but the way Kahn-Ra said it made clear that whatever he was, he sat near the top of the food chain.
Orin's grip on his cleaver loosened a fraction.
"You said I was being tested," he said. "By who? You?"
The world, Kahn-Ra replied. The blood. Yourself. Call it what you like. You survived. That answer matters more than who asked the question.
The unfairness of it made his jaw ache.
"So what now?" he asked. "You show up, tell me I passed some twisted test, and disappear?"
Silence stretched for a moment. The night sounds pressed in around it—rustle of wind in pine needles, distant calls, the faint crackle of ember.
No, Kahn-Ra said eventually. Now I watch.
Orin frowned. "Watch?"
You are heading toward Hachi, the Monari said. Toward people who will poke at your power, try to shape it, fear it, use it. They will not know what you truly are. You do not know what you truly are. That mix is… interesting. Dangerous. Worth seeing through.
"So I'm entertainment to you," Orin said flatly.
You are a story that hasn't ended yet, Kahn-Ra said. Most never get past their first chapter. You clawed your way into the second. I am curious whether you reach the third.
"And if I don't?" Orin asked. "If I break? If I lose control again and kill more people?"
Gold eyes held him, unblinking.
Then someone will have to decide whether you are worth saving, Kahn-Ra said quietly. Or worth ending. It is better if that someone is me than a crowd with torches and trembling hands.
A chill crawled down Orin's spine.
"So you're my judge now."
No, Kahn-Ra replied. You judge yourself far harsher than I ever could. I am only… insurance. And an audience.
Orin let out a rough, humorless breath. "That's not as comforting as you think it is."
I did not say it to comfort you.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
The fire sank lower, embers dimming. Kahn-Ra's massive shape looked cut out of the night, more absence than presence.
Orin swallowed. "Why tell me any of this? You could have followed me without me ever knowing."
I could have, the beast agreed. But secrets rot when they stay buried too long. Better you walk knowing eyes are on you than sink into the lie that you are alone.
Something in that scraped against the empty place in Orin's chest.
He looked away, out into the dark beyond Kahn-Ra. "I don't want a leash."
A low, dry sound echoed in his head that might have been amusement.
Pup, Kahn-Ra said, not unkindly, if I tried to leash you now, it would snap the first time you pulled. I am not here to drag you. I am here to see what you do when you stand on your own legs.
Orin's mouth twisted. "You have a strange idea of help."
That is because you still think help means being spared from yourself, the Monari answered. You will learn otherwise.
He didn't have words for that. Didn't know if he wanted to.
He sank back to sit on the edge of his bedroll, blade still in hand, muscles tight. Kahn-Ra watched him for a few more breaths.
Then the great beast did something Orin didn't expect.
He shrank.
It began at the paws—massive, silent feet drawing in, body compressing as if the night folded him down. His shoulders narrowed, back shortening, tail curling tighter. The black fur stayed, but the sheer bulk of him melted away, lines softening, angles shifting.
In a handful of heartbeats, the towering Black Tiger that had stepped from the dark was gone.
In his place, sitting neatly near the cooling embers, was something the size of a small wildcat.
Short black fur, faint ghost-stripes barely visible when the light caught them just right. Golden eyes far too sharp for such a compact frame. Ears pricked. Tail wrapped around his paws with deliberate neatness, as if the whole thing amused him.
The weight of his presence didn't shrink at all.
Orin stared. "That's… cheating."
The small version of Kahn-Ra blinked once, slow.
Walking beside you as I was would cause panic in every village from here to Hachi, the voice said, unchanged, still echoing inside Orin's head with the same depth. This shape invites fewer spears.
"It also looks like someone's house cat," Orin muttered.
Kahn-Ra's tail flicked, the only sign he'd heard the insult.
Do not let the size mislead you, he said. Teeth are teeth, no matter how much fur sits around them.
Orin rubbed his face with his free hand. Exhaustion pulled at him, heavier by the moment. The argument, the shock, the memories pressing in from every side—it all stacked together.
"So that's it?" he said. "You're just going to… follow me now?"
For a time, Kahn-Ra replied. Until you bore me. Or impress me. Or die. Whichever comes first.
"That's very reassuring."
You humans cling too hard to reassurances, the Monari said. Cling to your choices instead.
Orin let his hand drop, studying the small black form sitting so calmly by his campfire.
No matter how he tried to frame it, the fact remained: diamond-level or not, Monari or not, something powerful had decided to walk in his shadow. It made him feel exposed—and, in a way he hated to admit, slightly less like the only strange thing in the world.
He sighed. "Fine. Do what you want. Just don't talk when other people are around. They already think I'm odd."
Then stop answering me aloud, Kahn-Ra replied. Think your replies. I will hear them.
Orin blinked. "You can—"
You are already shouting loud enough inside your head to make it through stone, the Monari said dryly. You only need to point the noise.
Orin frowned, focusing for a moment on a single word, directing it at the cat-shaped Monari.
…Like this?
Kahn-Ra's eyes narrowed, a hint of approval there.
Better, he said. You might yet learn.
Orin exhaled slowly. "Wonderful. Now I can argue with you without everyone thinking I've lost my mind."
They will still think it, Kahn-Ra said. Just for different reasons.
That almost pulled an actual laugh out of him. Almost.
The weight of the last days pushed back down before it could escape.
He laid the cleaver within reach and stretched out on his bedroll again, the fire little more than a faint red glow now. His eyes burned with tiredness, but sleep hovered just out of reach.
Golden eyes watched him from the shadow of a rock.
Sleep, Orin, Kahn-Ra said—not an order, not quite a suggestion. You will need your strength. There are more trials ahead than the one you already survived.
Orin stared at the dark above him for a moment longer, then let his eyes close.
If a Black Tiger of the Northborn wanted to sit guard while he slept, he wasn't in any state to argue.
He drifted eventually, the edges of his consciousness blurring. Somewhere in the space between waking and dreams, he felt the faintest brush of presence—steady, alert, coiled—and the sound of distant, wild things giving the small rise a wide berth.
When dawn came, thin and gray, Orin woke to find Kahn-Ra already up, small form perched on a rock, tail flicking lazily.
The fire was dead. The world around them was quiet.
Orin rolled his shoulders, checked his gear, and stamped the last ash into the dirt. He slung on his pack, adjusted the weight of his weapons, and started back toward the road without needing to say anything.
A soft pad of paws sounded behind him in the grass.
He didn't look back.
He didn't have to.
Something old and dangerous and unexpectedly invested had decided to walk his path with him.
Orin fixed his eyes on the distant line of the horizon, on a future filled with trials he didn't yet understand, and kept moving toward Hachi Academy with a Black Tiger's shadow trotting at his heels.