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Author Note:
' ' = When thinking in mind.
Italic = World Whisper.
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---The Hollow Fortress---
High above the drifting clouds, suspended in the blue void like a forgotten moon, a colossal fortress floated with absolute stillness. Its sheer size was so immense that, were it visible to human eyes, it would eclipse a full quarter of the sun's light and swallow entire landscapes beneath its shadow. Mountains would shrink into insignificance beneath it. Cities would vanish in its silhouette. It was a moving continent disguised as a structure, a leviathan of metal and silence that did not belong in any world shaped by human hands.
Yet despite its scale, despite the impossible weight it imposed upon the sky, no one below ever raised their head in alarm or awe. The fortress did not exist to the naked eye. Its advanced cloaking field wrapped around its massive form, bending light and perception until its presence dissolved into the atmosphere itself.
If the most unfortunate observer somehow pierced the veil, they would not see a fortress at all, but a perfect sphere made of countless silver hexagonal plates locked so tightly together that not even air could find a gap. That silver shell, smooth and unnatural, radiated a silent menace — something too precise, too symmetrical, too cold to be anything but alien.
Within that floating monolith, the story only grew stranger. The entire fortress, a structure capable of housing tens of thousands, was devoid of a single living human soul. No footsteps echoed in its halls. No voices murmured across its control rooms. No heartbeat existed within the miles of reinforced corridors. It was a kingdom with no king, a castle whose throne-room lay empty, a mechanical heaven populated entirely by drones.
These drones, shaped like metallic insects with multi-jointed limbs, glided soundlessly across every passageway. They cleaned floors that no one walked on. They maintained engines that burned for no master. They monitored systems with no organic operator to oversee. And in one of the fortress's lower laboratories, dozens of them were gathered. Their silver limbs clacking with mechanical precision as they worked on the grisly cargo Kaelthorn had sent from the world below.
In that lab, the air was cold enough to sting human skin. Rows of sterile tables stretched from wall to wall, each one holding a different specimen: Kabane flesh torn open like diseased fruit, organs pulsing faintly with leftover viral energy, riblike membranes, strips of hardened heart-cage material, clusters of nerve tissue still crawling with residual infection.
The drones moved among the tables with frightening efficiency. Scalpel-arms slid beneath tissue layers. Laser cutters hummed as they sliced through bone and cartilage. Mechanical hands lifted organs delicately, as if handling fragile jewels, before transferring them to transparent cylinders filled with swirling crimson-gold analysis fluid.
The sound of their work was a symphony of metallic whirs, steady beeps, slicing vibrations, and the occasional wet sound of tissue being separated into component parts. In any normal world, such a sight would demand the highest secrecy — an abomination of bio-engineering that governments would kill to possess or destroy. In this fortress, it was Tuesday.
Data streamed across hundreds of wall-mounted screens like rivers of luminous code. Information was extracted faster than any human scientist could comprehend. Viral structures were reconstructed molecule by molecule. Genetic anomalies were isolated, magnified, broken apart, and rebuilt. Every screen reflected decades — centuries — of biological advancement compressed into mere days of automated labour. While the world below still struggled to understand the basic properties of the Kabane virus, this fortress had already peeled back most of its secrets like layers of an onion.
And yet, in one corner of the lab, a particular screen remained eerily unchanged.
Unlike the others, which pulsed with ceaseless data flow, this one held a clean, minimalistic display — the kind that did not require motion to feel threatening. A simple list was shown, nothing more, nothing less.
.
.
.
Virus / Infection Record
Omega
Antidote: 100% — Developed
Cure: 0.11% — In Progress
.
Kabane Virus
Antidote: 7.28% — In Progress
Cure: N/A — Stalled
.
.
.
Omega — the parasite responsible for the Infected plague in the previous world Kaelthorn had traversed. A bacteria so complex, so maliciously efficient, that even understanding its reproduction cycle had taken humanity more than a decade. Yet Kaelthorn had cracked its antidote completely.
.
***A/N: In canon, the main cast found that a microorganism in the river near their school can neutralize the Omega Bacteria. Kaelthorn, on the other hand, took a different approach. He took his time to understand the bacteria on a deeper level before successfully creating the antidote.
.
Too bad, the world never lived to witness its salvation. His own perception had been compromised before he could announce it. The end came swiftly and unfairly. Only the fortress retained the knowledge now — a silent gravestone to a world that never heard the cure to its own doom.
The Kabane virus, on the other hand, resisted progress like a stubborn beast. Even with Kaelthorn's foundational work, the fortress could only push the antidote development to 7.28%. The cure remained marked as N/A — Stalled, a grim testament to the virus's complexity.
Without Kaelthorn's direct presence, the automated system worked at a slower pace. Not inefficient — the fortress was never inefficient — but lacking the intuitive leaps and adaptive reasoning that only Kaelthorn's mind and blood could provide. Still, the process advanced inch by inch. Every molecule broken down. Every invasive mutation cataloged. Every weakness recorded.
But then, something changed.
Just one screen away from the viral records, another monitor displayed a map — a live topographical scan of the world below. The fortress constantly tracked Kaelthorn's location, projecting a pulsing golden marker where he currently stood: Yashiro Station. It scanned energy signatures, unusual movements, heat spikes, and anomalous biological activity.
The golden marker pulsed calmly.
Then the pulse stuttered.
Then it jumped sharply —
— and the fortress reacted.
A violent spike in power readings erupted on the scan. One spike. Then two. Then dozens. The calm screen ruptured into flashing red panels.
One blinking alert appeared.
Then another.
And another.
Within seconds, the entire wall flooded with warnings.
DANGER!!
DANGER!!
DANGER!!
The drones paused mid-dissection.
Every mechanical eye refocused.
The fortress hummed — a deep, resonant vibration, like a god awakening from slumber.
Something at Yashiro Station had triggered the danger threshold.
Something powerful.
Something hostile.
Something that demanded the fortress's attention immediately.
And high above the clouds, the silent metal sphere that could blot out the sun…
began to shift.
.
.
.
---The Iron Fortress---
The Iron Fortress rolled to a gradual halt, its steel wheels grinding softly as it stopped a considerable distance outside the gates of Yashiro Station. The air was unnervingly still in the stretch of land between the train and the looming endpoint of the rails.
Yashiro stood in the distance like a silent monolith, its walls tall and dark, its gates unmoving, the entire structure giving off a faint impression of abandonment despite its size. With no telegraph response and no visible activity, the station felt less like a sanctuary and more like a tomb waiting to be confirmed.
Since they had already decided that a scouting team must verify the station's integrity before moving closer, there was no point in letting idle time slip through their fingers. The Iron Fortress, battered and overworked after days of travel and multiple encounters with Kabane swarms, needed immediate maintenance.
So the engineers — everyone except Yukina — spread out to the other carriages, cracking open hatches and examining steam pipes, tightening bolts, aligning valves, patching armor plates, and checking the engine's stability after the strain of their journey.
Each clang of metal and hiss of steam mixed with the tension in the air, creating an odd blend of routine work and unease. Ayame and the chiefs moved through the passenger carriages, counting ration crates, checking on injured survivors, and trying to maintain morale.
The Bushi cleaned their steam guns with meticulous care, checking pressure levels, swapping out rods and steam canisters, rehearsing reloads. Each man and woman carried the unspoken understanding that an attack could happen at any moment — and that entry into Yashiro might very well decide whether they lived through the week.
But metal walls could not contain curiosity, nor fear, nor human mouths.
Despite the Bushi's insistence that no one mention Kaelthorn's presence, word eventually escaped — slipping through whispers in narrow corridors, half-heard conversations in crowded carriages, and hushed murmurs exchanged over ration bowls. It didn't take long for every person aboard the Iron Fortress to learn that a third Kabaneri had boarded their train.
At first, the news spread like sparks in dry grass. A new Kabaneri meant a new weapon. A new symbol of hope. Someone powerful enough to reduce Kabane numbers, someone who might even compensate for lost Bushi. The crowd buzzed with the thrill of imagining another superhuman protector walking among them.
That was before they learned the rest of the truth.
When word reached them that Kaelthorn had no intention of helping, joy twisted into disappointment, and disappointment sharpened into resentment. Voices rose, quiet conversations turned heated, and within hours, Kaelthorn — who had not spoken to them, not taken anything from them, not harmed a single soul — became the target of countless muttered complaints.
Some accusations were spat from fear.
Some from frustration.
Some simply from the human instinct to blame what they could not control.
Passenger 1: He's ungrateful. We give him passage, and he gives us nothing.
Passenger 2: He could at least take turns fighting… He's mooching off us!
Passenger 3: What kind of Kabaneri refuses to help? Why even board the train?
Their anger grew with every rumor, feeding off one another in cramped spaces, amplifying like an echo trapped in steel.
Ayame, upon hearing these rising grievances, made multiple attempts to calm the situation. She moved from compartment to compartment, addressing crowded groups with quiet firmness, explaining Kaelthorn's earlier intervention at Hayatani Station, his refusal to consume their limited rations, and his utter lack of disruption during their journey.
Her words eased some tension — temporarily — but human hearts rarely let go of resentment so easily. Even as they nodded, even as they agreed on the surface, their eyes carried a different story.
Deep down, most were still frustrated.
How could they not be?
They knew he was strong — likely stronger than Mumei and Ikoma.
They knew he was capable — the engine-room Bushi felt his presence like a physical weight.
They knew he could change their odds in a fight… if he chose to.
But he chose not to.
And humans hated that most of all: having a weapon within reach, yet being unable to wield it.
Had Kaelthorn been a normal passenger, they wouldn't have cared.
Had they never known he existed, resentment wouldn't have formed.
But now that his presence was exposed — now that they knew a potential savior was sitting in the engine room doing nothing — the bitterness began to coil around their hearts like smoke.
When they tried to find fault in him, they couldn't.
He took no food.
He took no water.
He asked for nothing.
He harmed no one.
He occupied no bed.
He didn't even walk through the carriages to cause discomfort.
His existence did not cost them anything.
And that was what frustrated them the most.
Because when a man does nothing wrong, there is nothing tangible to blame.
And humans desperately crave something — someone — to take responsibility for their fear.
Thus, Kaelthorn became a scapegoat without ever lifting a finger.
They whispered behind walls.
They cursed behind closed doors.
They scowled whenever they walked past the engine.
They blamed him for their anxiety, their limitations, their helplessness.
Even though Kaelthorn never heard them.
Even though he stayed in the engine room at all times.
Even though he ignored every attempt to offer him food.
Even if he had heard their complaints…
…he would not have cared.
From Kaelthorn's perspective, their opinions held the same weight as dust on metal floors — present, but irrelevant.
And the Iron Fortress continued waiting outside Yashiro Station, unaware that the silent fortress in the sky had already begun to move.
.
.
Time passed in the engine room in a way that felt neither fast nor slow — it simply was, a suspended weight between breaths. Yukina continued her routine checks, brushing her fingers over levers, tightening bolts, watching gauges twitch under her scrutiny. Steam hissed in brief sighs from the pipes, and the rhythmic churning of the locomotive formed a heartbeat beneath her feet. It was during one of these moments of mechanical familiarity that she finally spoke, breaking the quiet that had grown almost sacred over the past days.
Yukina: By the way, there was something I wanted to ask for a long time.
Her voice was steady, but the words carried a subtle hesitation, as if she were unsure whether the question warranted asking. She turned slightly, glancing over her shoulder at the silent figure leaning against the far wall — Kaelthorn, unmoving as ever, mantle draped over him like a shadow made tangible.
Yukina: Where does Mr. Tass buy your clothes? I have never seen such attire before. Not only is it attention-grabbing, but it also suits Mr. Tass too.
Kaelthorn didn't shift, didn't open his eyes, didn't straighten his posture. His answer came out level and minimal, as always.
Kaelthorn: I created it myself.
Yukina blinked, genuinely surprised.
Yukina: No wonder. So it's custom-made.
She studied him more intently, as though his still posture would suddenly reveal hidden details.
Yukina: So Mr. Tass even knows how to make clothes.
Kaelthorn: …I guess.
Yukina hummed, giving him a thoughtful, almost piercing look before returning to her controls.
Yukina: Have Mr. Tass thought about spreading your work? I am sure if you do, most nobles won't bat an eye spending their fortune to buy your designs. It won't be long before you become one of the richest.
Kaelthorn's voice remained cold, unchanging.
Kaelthorn: Not interested.
To Kaelthorn, wealth was an anchor to a world too fragile to matter.
Gold, currency, noble coffers — useless abstractions.
He had witnessed the world fall even when wealth was abundant.
What good was riches when the world itself was stacked like firewood waiting for a spark?
Wealth could not buy survival.
Wealth could not buy meaning.
Wealth could not buy power worth having.
And the nobles Yukina mentioned?
If given a choice between protecting their people and indulging their vanity, they would always choose the latter.
Such pattern repeated almost all the time.
Yukina: Hmm?
Her voice shifted, suddenly sharp, eyes narrowing as something flickered at the edge of her vision. Because the engine room was at the very front of the Iron Fortress, and because she often lifted her gaze toward the rails ahead, Yukina had an unobstructed view of Yashiro Station.
And she had seen something strange.
She leaned forward slightly, brows knitted in confusion.
'Yukina: Was that my imagination?'
A moment passed before she rose from her seat. She moved toward the ladder with controlled urgency, climbed it, and unlocked the upper hatch.
The moment she pushed it open, a gust of cold wind slammed into her, snapping her hair and clothes backward. Lanterns in nearby carriages flickered from the sudden draft. Her emergence instantly drew the attention of the Bushi stationed outside.
Bushi 1: Is something the issue, Yukina-san?
Yukina kept her eyes fixed ahead.
Yukina: I think I saw some… light.
Bushi 2: Light?
Confusion rippled through them. Yet, Yukina remained steady, lifting her binoculars to her eyes.
Yukina: Did any of you see an unusual glint of light from Yashiro Station?
Bushi 3: Huh? …I don't think so.
They exchanged uncertain glances.
Bushi 4: Could it be a signal from the scouts?
Yukina shook her head immediately.
Yukina: No. The color was different from anything they carried.
Bushi 5: What color was it?
Yukina: Some kind of purplish-blue.
The Bushi stared at her, dumbfounded — some even looked mildly offended. Purple? Blue? Both? Who would mix colors in a distress signal?
But none of them had seen it. And with only one witness, no confirmation, and no precedent for such a sight, Yukina reluctantly dismissed it as imagination — or exhaustion.
She returned inside, sealed the hatch, and resumed her work. But a tension had formed between her eyebrows, a crease she could not smooth away.
.
.
Night did not simply fall over the halted Iron Fortress — it descended like a shroud, settling into every seam of metal, every bolt and railing, every breath taken within the carriages. It was an oppressive darkness, thick and heavy enough to feel like a second skin.
The lanterns inside the train swayed with the tremors of distant wind, their light stuttering across the walls like struggling, dying souls. Shadows stretched long and distorted, twisting over the floors as if they were alive, reaching toward the people who tried to sleep, tried to breathe, tried to pretend that everything was still under control.
Anxiety had weight tonight. It pressed against chests. It crawled down spines. It clung to thoughts like cold, wet cloth. Everyone felt it — because everyone knew the truth that no one wanted to say aloud.
The scouting team — Mumei, Ikoma, and the handful of Bushi sent with them — had been gone far, far too long.
And not a single signal had come back.
What began as unease soon curdled into fear.
Fear simmered into whispered arguments.
Arguments sharpened into panic — subtle, suppressed panic — the kind that made men pace in tight circles and women clutch their children a little closer.
Ayame and the chiefs gathered again in one of the carriages, their voices sharp but hushed, as though even speaking too loudly might attract some unseen doom.
The lantern light illuminated their strained expressions. Some of the chiefs demanded that they send a second rescue team — "We can't abandon them," one insisted. Others argued violently for immediate withdrawal from the area, insisting Yashiro Station was already lost and that every minute of hesitation brought them closer to tragedy.
The fact that detouring through another mountain pass meant ten days without reliable food or water was conveniently ignored — fear made people blind to anything beyond survival.
Ayame's voice trembled when she argued for rescue.
Because she knew Mumei.
She knew Ikoma.
Without those two, the survivors of Aragane would not be alive to even have this argument.
She owed them her gratitude — her life.
But gratitude meant nothing to the chiefs.
Not tonight.
Not when fear had them by the throat.
Kabaneri or not, they argued, Mumei and Ikoma were still half-Kabane. Still monsters. If forced to choose between rescuing hybrids or protecting humans, the choice was obvious to them. The cruelty in their logic made Ayame's jaw tighten, but she was outnumbered and cornered. Slowly, helplessly, she compromised.
They would wait for one final hour.
If there was still no signal, they would turn back… and leave the scouting party behind.
As that hour began counting down, tension thickened into something suffocating.
In the engine room, engineers scrambled through final checks, tightening bolts, examining gauges, ensuring every part of the Iron Fortress could handle an immediate reversal. Their movements were frantic, but not chaotic — controlled panic honed by exhaustion. Yukina watched them with a quiet ache in her chest. She wanted to speak. She wanted to protest. She wanted to say that leaving Mumei and Ikoma behind was wrong.
But orders were orders.
She had no power to change them.
So she swallowed her objections and continued her work in silence.
Minutes slipped by like sand in a broken hourglass.
The scouts remained silent.
The last remaining fragments of hope crumbled into resignation.
Yukina's hand finally closed around the main lever. With a deep, steadying breath, she pulled it back. Steam valves groaned open, hissing like serpents. The Iron Fortress shuddered, the wheels beneath them creaking and groaning as the massive body of the train prepared to reverse along the rails.
But then—
Yukina froze mid-motion.
Her lungs stalled.
Her eyes widened, straining toward the horizon.
Because she saw it again.
The light.
The impossible, purplish-blue light she had glimpsed earlier — faint, distant, uncertain — was back.
But this time, it was clearer.
Brighter.
Sharper.
Almost crystalline in the darkness.
A heartbeat later, it clarified into a shape — not stationary, not flickering.
It was rising.
It was swelling.
It was moving.
The Bushi on the roof turned in unison, their faces drained of color as the radiance intensified behind Yashiro Station. It was not a reflection. Not a lantern. Not a flare. No man-made signal glowed like that. This was something else — something wrong.
It grew brighter still, blooming into a sphere of impossible light. It was the color of corrupted starlight, the color of something that should not exist in a world like this. It reminded Yukina of a sun being born in the wrong sky, tearing its way through the horizon with reckless, apocalyptic force.
Her heart went cold.
Because the light was not simply increasing.
It was approaching.
It was coming straight for them.
Fast.
Behind her, Kaelthorn — silent, immobile for days — opened his eyes.
Golden crimson burned in the dim light.
And every instinct inside him roared like a beast awakening:
Danger.
Immediate.
Catastrophic.
Yukina spun toward him, breath catching in her throat.
Yukina: Wa—
She didn't even finish the word.
Because the purplish-blue light slammed into the Iron Fortress with a force that defied logic, physics, and sanity.
B A N G !!!!!!!!!!!!!
The world shattered.
The Iron Fortress — the pride of three stations, the armored colossus that had survived waves of Kabane, Wazatori, and entire station collapses — was torn from the rails as if it weighed nothing. One moment it was grounded, steady, massive. The next it was airborne, flung upward like a kicked toy.
Metal shrieked — a high, tortured scream that drowned out human cries. Windows burst into shards. Lanterns exploded, their flames scattering like tiny meteors. The people inside were lifted off their feet and hurled into walls and floors and ceilings. The sound of bones breaking, bodies hitting steel, screams cut short — all of it merged into a single horrifying cacophony.
Carriages snapped loose mid-flight, ripped apart by sheer force. Some were thrown into the trees, others vanished into the dark sky, others spiraled like dying comets trailing sparks. The Iron Fortress itself twisted in the air, an impossible ballet of destruction, before gravity finally reclaimed it.
It fell.
It crashed into the forest with catastrophic violence. Entire rows of trees were uprooted as the colossal train plowed through them, carving a deep, brutal scar across the earth. The carriages rolled — and rolled — and rolled — each revolution crushing more trees, pulverizing soil, ripping apart metal, and turning everything inside into chaos.
When it finally stopped — after hundreds of meters of devastation — the battered remains of the train lay broken and scattered in the dark.
But the nightmare wasn't over.
A heartbeat later, the explosions began.
BOOM!!!
BOOM!!!
BOOM!!!
Fire roared into the sky, turning night into an inferno. The heat was immense, but the flames felt cold — cold with the knowledge of loss, with the certainty of death. This was not warmth. This was obliteration.
No one — not even in their darkest nightmares — could have imagined the Iron Fortress, symbol of humanity's resistance, being flung into the sky like a rag doll…
and annihilated in mere seconds.
.
.
.
CRACKLE!
The first thing Kaelthorn heard was not the pounding of his heart nor the ringing in his head — it was the faint, eerie sound of fire eating through metal. A slow, hungry crackling that echoed off the mangled walls like the breath of some unseen beast.
The world returned to him piece by piece, first as muted vibrations under his ribs, then as a spreading throb across his limbs, until the pain flooded in all at once, sharp and cold and merciless. His body screamed, every nerve alight, as though the very act of being alive was a violation.
He lay sprawled on what should have been the floor but now felt wrong — too cold, too uneven — and when he opened his eyes, the world swayed sideways, confirming the truth: the engine room had fallen onto its side.
Even with the agony coursing through his muscles, even with bones grinding and wounds pulsing, Kaelthorn did not flinch. His expression remained a mask of cold, controlled stillness. Already, the pain was receding.
His physiology — strengthened, restructured, reforged by Kabane blood — worked tirelessly to knit together torn muscle, re-align fibers, seal ruptured vessels, harden fractures, and expel damage. Golden light pulsed faintly beneath his skin with each beat of his transformed heart, repairing him faster than any normal living thing could hope for.
He understood one thing clearly: had this been before his evolution, his body would have been shattered beyond repair. Bones crushed into dust, organs liquefied by the impact, consciousness lost forever in the violent tumble.
But he lived.
And now he rose.
Slowly, methodically, he planted his palms on the overturned wall beneath him and pushed himself upright, pain rolling off him like steam off heated steel. Once standing, he surveyed the room, his gaze — calm, analytical, uncompromising — taking in every ruinous detail.
The engine room, once the beating heart of the Iron Fortress, was now a twisted coffin of metal and fire.
The entire carriage had toppled onto its side. The wall that Kaelthorn used to lean against was now the floor beneath his boots.
Everything else — the console, the machinery, the pipes, the chains, the lantern brackets — had been broken, snapped, or crushed under the force of impact. Levers were bent like melted wax. The console had split open, wires spilling out like exposed veins. Fire crawled up its shattered frame, casting an unstable orange glow that flickered across the ruined chamber, making the shadows writhe.
Deep cracks ran through the metal walls, jagged and wide enough that slivers of the outside world bled through — trembling trees, the glow of distant flames, the black sky. Even the ceiling had split open, as though the train had been squeezed by invisible hands. Cold air seeped through those cracks, mixing with smoke and heat, turning the atmosphere into a choking, suffocating haze.
The hatch above was dented inward so deeply it resembled an iron fist pressed into it. The door leading to the next carriage had been warped into a crooked, twisted shape — welded shut by sheer force. No escape. Not for anyone trapped in here. If Kaelthorn had been human, he would already be dead or dying. And the others… had not been as fortunate.
The stench of blood filled the room — metallic, heavy, overwhelming. It coated the walls in splatters and streaks. It seeped across the floor in thick pools. Pieces of flesh clung to the twisted machinery. Organs were smeared across broken panels. Limbs jutted at unnatural angles. One body hung from what used to be the ceiling, stuck grotesquely in a ruptured grate, blood dripping in steady rhythm onto the wall-now-floor below. Another had been crushed beneath a fallen metal beam, only half of its torso visible — the rest flattened into something unrecognizable.
Teeth were scattered like white pebbles.
An eyeball rolled gently with the shifting heat.
A tongue lay plastered against the wall, already drying.
It was carnage. Pure, unfiltered, undiluted carnage.
Anyone else would have collapsed into horror — vomiting, screaming, clawing at their own face to forget the sight. The air itself felt thick with despair and death, the heat of the fire only making the suffocating dread worse.
But Kaelthorn walked forward without hesitation.
His boots crushed something soft beneath him — an organ, maybe a lung — releasing a wet squelch. Warm blood clung to the soles of his footwear, trailing behind him in dark streaks as he moved steadily across the tilted chamber. Not once did he slow. Not once did he avert his eyes.
He made his way to what used to be the driver's seat — now embedded sideways into the wall. There, slumped in a disturbingly limp posture, was Yukina.
Her strawberry-red hair hung in tangled strands across her face, matted with dried and fresh blood. Her body dangled like a broken marionette, arms bent backwards at impossible angles, legs twisted as though someone had wrung them like cloth. Her neck was snapped, head lolling to the side, and her mouth hung slightly open as though frozen mid-breath. Her eyes — once alert, calm, quietly resolute — were wide open, staring blankly into nothing, the last fragments of life stolen in an instant.
Blood soaked her entire body. It dripped from her hair. It pooled beneath what remained of her seat. It streaked across her cheeks like macabre tears.
She had been the only one on this train who spoke to him without fear disguised as duty.
And now she was just another corpse in the pile.
Kaelthorn did not bow his head. He did not close her eyes. He did not whisper words of mourning.
He simply observed her, expression unreadable, golden-crimson eyes reflecting the flames devouring the engine room.
And then he turned away.
The fire crackled louder.
The room groaned as metal weakened.
Outside, explosions still echoed in the night.
The Iron Fortress — and nearly everyone in it — was gone.
And Kaelthorn stood alone among the dead.
.
.
.
SHIN!!
The sound rang through the ruined engine room like a razor slicing through steel. Kaelthorn's blood threads—now far beyond anything they once were—unfurled from his fingertips in thin, luminous arcs of crimson-gold.
They cut into the fractured metal wall with surgical precision, widening the already-damaged crack. Sparks scattered like dying fireflies as the steel groaned in protest. Then, pulling his threads back, he inserted both hands into the torn gap.
Metal—dense, reinforced, and once meant to withstand the crushing pressure of derailed impacts—had no strength left against him.
His fingers tightened, sinking into the cold steel like blades.
And then he pulled.
A low, thunderous screech tore through the air as the wall peeled apart. The crack stretched wider and wider under his strength until the metal warped outward like a ruptured carapace. Only when it was large enough for his body to pass through did Kaelthorn release his grip.
SWOOSH!!
Cold night wind flooded in—a violent, razor-sharp gust that lashed against his skin and set his mantle billowing behind him like a dark, torn banner. Kaelthorn stepped out onto the outer hull of the carriage, the entire structure still smoldering beneath his boots. Flames rippled along the warped plates, reflected in the polished gleam of his golden-crimson eyes.
From his elevated vantage, he could see multiple fires burning across the forest—scattered far, separated by vast distances, each one marking where another carriage had been thrown and violently torn apart. Columns of flame reached toward the sky like pillars erected by a wrathful god, their light trembling against the darkness. But these were not signs of life.
These were death signals.
These fires, in the cold of this night, held no warmth, no hope—only stark, merciless despair. And as Kaelthorn looked across the ruined landscape, the night answered with a horrorscape of its own.
One by one, golden lights flickered into existence across the forest floor.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
They shimmered faintly in the dark like floating embers—until they began to move. Then the truth became unmistakable:
Kabane.
An ocean of them.
Drawn by the flames.
Drawn by the wreckage.
Drawn by the overwhelming scent of blood that soaked the earth.
Like predators attracted to a wounded animal's last breath, the Kabane swarmed in from every direction. Their glowing heart-cages lit the forest in scattered pulses.
Soon, they encircled the scattered iron husks of the train like vultures circling fresh corpses. Even the burning carriage beneath Kaelthorn's feet became surrounded—Kabane slamming their fists against the metal, scratching at it, climbing it like frenzied insects desperate to reach the meal inside.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
The rhythmic pounding vibrated through the steel frame.
One Kabane—more reckless than the others—scaled the warped edge of the carriage and crawled upward, its snarling face emerging over the lip. It spotted Kaelthorn standing there, unmoving, looking off into the distance toward Yashiro Station. He did not turn. Did not acknowledge the creature. His focus was elsewhere entirely.
And then—
SHIN!!
A flash.
A thin line of blood.
A severed head arcing through the air.
PLAT!
THUD!
The decapitated corpse toppled backward, creating a short trail of blood across the slanted metal surface before it fell off the side and hit the ground below.
The other Kabane paused, stunned by the sudden death of one of their own.
Then instinct took over.
They roared—dozens of cries melding into a single monstrous chorus—and surged toward him as one, frenzy overtaking survival instinct. Even the slower ones forced their limbs to move faster, driven by the sudden scent of violence.
Kaelthorn still did not look at them.
Only his left hand moved, fingers shifting beneath his mantle.
SHIN.
SHIN.
SHIN.
SHIN.
SHIN.
Five glints of crimson-golden light erupted in the dark.
Five sprays of blood.
Five heads rolling across the burning carriage.
Another wave surged.
Another flash.
Another massacre.
And the killing continued—a quiet, effortless, surgical execution performed without even a glance.
Minutes passed.
And in less than five minutes, the assault ended.
Kaelthorn retracted his blood threads, the thin, luminous lines folding back into the pale skin of his hand. The night wind whispered against them as though fearful to disturb their edge.
He had not moved.
Not shifted.
Not turned.
Yet around him stretched a field of carnage so vast it swallowed the ground.
Thousands of Kabane corpses piled upon one another, blood cascading down the sides of the carriage like a crimson waterfall. Their severed heads littered the forest floor, a grotesque mosaic of death glowing faintly with extinguished heartlight.
Even the blood-soaked earth was hidden beneath the layers of bodies.
Kaelthorn finally lowered his gaze, but his expression didn't flicker with emotion—not disgust, not exhaustion, not pride. Only his eyes had changed: now glowing so intensely with golden-crimson radiance that firelight and moonlight both seemed pale in comparison.
The space around him warped subtly, air trembling with a distortion that felt unnatural. Shadows shivered, as though recoiling from his presence. Insects had gone silent. The forest held its breath.
Even the wind seemed hesitant.
Only then did Kaelthorn turn toward the hole he'd torn in the engine room's wall. He descended into its darkness, disappearing for a moment.
A minute passed.
Then he emerged again.
He stood atop the carriage one final time, giving the ruined chamber a last glance—silent, unreadable. Then he stepped forward.
And something unseen shifted.
As his foot descended toward the ground, an invisible force rippled outward from him like a silent command—and every Kabane corpse blocking his way slid aside, pushed away by an unseen pressure. The bodies rolled, shifted, and tumbled away from his path as though the world itself refused to let blood touch his feet.
Kaelthorn showed no reaction.
He simply walked forward.
And with every step, more corpses moved aside.
A path carved itself open.
A faint golden-crimson aura flowed from his body, soft but unmistakable in the darkness, swaying like a flame that refused to die.
He entered the forest without looking back
His silhouette faded, swallowed by the trees, leaving behind only silence—
a silence born from slaughter,
from fear,
and from something the world was not yet ready to understand.
.
.
.
Even after Kaelthorn stepped into the forest's depths, the consequences of his slaughter echoed behind him like a lingering storm. The mountains of corpses he had left on and around the burning carriage created a scent so potent that even the Kabane swarming other wrecked carriages turned their heads.
Hunger, instinct, and the primal pull of blood drew them away from their ongoing frenzy. The horde split, some abandoning the shattered remains they had been clawing at, and moved toward the site of Kaelthorn's massacre.
Fortunate for them — or unfortunate, depending on perspective — Kaelthorn was long gone.
He had already slipped into the forest, walking silently, leaving only carnage and stillness in his wake. The path ahead was clear; every Kabane in the region had rushed toward the destruction he created. They were predictable creatures, drawn to noise and blood like moths to flame. And tonight, there had been more flame and blood than they'd ever seen.
Halfway to Yashiro Station, Kaelthorn stopped.
Not because of danger, but because of necessity.
In one fluid motion, he leapt upward, landing atop a tall tree with ease that defied gravity. Branches rustled around him as he ascended higher, settling on the highest point — a vantage where the moonlight washed over him like pale frost.
Now, his golden crimson eyes were no longer glowing with their earlier intensity. His aura, once radiating crimson-gold pressure that had bent the very air around him, had subsided completely. Only stillness remained.
Settling against the trunk, Kaelthorn finally began to inspect his belongings.
The first thing he withdrew was his customized phone — or what remained of it.
Its form barely held together, riddled with deep fractures running through the casing. The screen was shattered beyond recognition, slipping away piece by piece. Under the slightest tilt, fragments rained from his hand, falling through branches into the darkness below.
A useless lump of dead metal.
Next came the portable laptop. If the phone had died, then this machine had been obliterated. The casing was cracked in several places. The motherboard was exposed like a torn-open ribcage, wires hanging loosely, components sparking weakly before dying. The screen — fractured in tens of places — had separated from its hinges entirely. Keyboard keys clung on by threads, some falling off the moment he lifted the device.
Also useless.
The third item was the solar power charger. A smouldering chunk of warped metal. Its panels were bent and broken; pieces rattled like pebbles. The fact that it hadn't exploded when the Iron Fortress was violently thrown was a miracle in itself.
Another loss.
Then came the fourth item — his specialized binoculars. They had been designed for versatility: thermal vision, night vision, digital overlays, long-distance zoom, and multi-spectrum scanning. Expensive. Valuable. Nearly irreplaceable.
Completely destroyed.
One lens was shattered, the pieces clinging by the thinnest sliver of plastic. The moment it fell, Kaelthorn caught it between two fingers—but even saving it meant nothing. Inside the device, broken wires sparked faintly, emitting a soft, dying buzz that told him everything he needed to know.
Useless.
Next, he pulled out his pocket watch.
Its glass face was cracked, but the hands moved steadily, unfazed by the chaos. The quiet ticking sounded almost louder than the forest wind. A small miracle — but ultimately just a tool for time.
He continued checking.
The seventh, eighth, and ninth items he retrieved — the Desert Eagle, his Kabane dagger, and the small drone — all remained intact. Their durable designs had shielded them from destruction. The metal gleamed softly in the moonlight, unmarred.
Last were the grenades. Four in total.
He had taken special care of these while the Iron Fortress was tumbling through the air. One mistake, one miscalculation, and they would have detonated, turning the engine room into a fiery tomb even for him. But his calculations had been flawless. All four remained safe and functional.
He gathered everything in silence.
Then exhaled.
A small, barely audible sigh — not of sorrow, but of acknowledgement. Losing his technological tools was an inconvenience, not a setback. Adaptation was something Kaelthorn excelled at. If anything, this clarified his priorities.
He placed everything away except the drone.
Small. Smooth. Compact. Almost unassuming. Yet it was arguably the most important item in his possession at this moment. He pressed the only button hidden on its frame.
BUZZ!!
The wings rotated, spinning faster and faster until the drone lifted from his hand. It ascended smoothly into the sky, stabilizing at a height where it could scan from afar. Then its camera blinked thrice, locking onto Kaelthorn's exact coordinates.
Only then did it turn and fly away, vanishing into the dark sky.
Kaelthorn leaned back against the trunk, settling into a stillness so deep that he might have been carved from the night itself. His gaze drifted toward the horizon — toward the charred columns of flame rising from where the Iron Fortress had fallen. Survivability calculations flowed through his mind, clean and emotionless.
Only Kabaneri could survive that impact.
Only if the train absorbed the brunt of the blast.
For others, the survival chance: less than one percent.
And survivors, if any existed, would not be in good condition.
He watched the distant fires flicker like dying stars.
Fifteen minutes passed.
A sharp wind sliced through the trees, rustling the canopy beneath him. Kaelthorn lifted his head. A shadow drifted overhead. And then he saw it—a larger drone approaching, sleek, silent, and unmistakable. The smaller drone he had sent earlier flew alongside it, guiding it.
The message was clear.
Rescue operation initiated.
This was the protocol for one situation only: When Kaelthorn had lost all direct means of contact with the Hollow Fortress.
The small drone's sole purpose was to deliver that message. A beacon with wings. A signal flare without light. And once the fortress confirmed his location, it dispatched the rescue drone — a machine far more than it appeared on the surface. Behind its smooth plating lay hidden compartments, advanced weaponry, survival tools, and systems designed exclusively for one thing: Protecting Kaelthorn at any cost.
The forest wind howled in anticipation as the machine descended.
Kaelthorn, eyes half-lidded, continued watching the approach with the same calm neutrality as always.
He had expected this.
Prepared for this.
And now, the next stage would begin.
.
.
.
Kaelthorn did not immediately descend from the tree. Instead, he remained perched calmly upon the highest branch, one arm resting loosely against the trunk as the cold night wind brushed along the edge of his mantle. The enormous rescue drone hovered before him, its metallic frame humming with a low, resonant vibration that stirred the surrounding leaves. Its central camera shifted with a soft mechanical whirr, locking onto Kaelthorn's face.
A moment later, a grid of faint blue lines swept across his features as the device initiated its first layer of security authentication. When the scan concluded, secondary and tertiary verification sequences followed—biometric resonance checks, neural wave pattern matching, and encrypted passphrase analysis—each one flashing briefly across the drone's lenses like microbursts of lightning.
Only after all systems gave perfect clearance did the drone descend, stabilizing itself in midair with controlled, precise rotations of its rotors. Once positioned directly in front of him, a holographic panel bloomed into existence—thin, translucent, yet filled with dense layers of code scrolling like cascading streams of light.
A keyboard of floating geometric glyphs materialized beneath it. Kaelthorn raised one hand and began entering commands with effortless speed. Each keystroke emitted a crisp, crystalline click as if he were tapping the very structure of data itself.
He checked the current status of everything he had left in his fortress: antidote synthesis rates, cure progression models, reconstructed viral map overlays, and multiple deep-analysis reports generated from the dissected Kabane samples.
Line after line of high-density information passed before his eyes. Hidden calculations continued in the background—simulations running on parallel cores, automated mutation projections, and long-term viral evolution predictions. The progress bar for the Kabane antidote was rising steadily, albeit more slowly due to his physical absence.
Then he came across the part he had expected—and had been waiting to confirm.
The moment that purplish-blue light appeared earlier, the fortress had detected a spike of power so massive that its algorithms had classified it as a "Priority-One Hostile Anomaly."
If Kaelthorn had failed to establish contact within twenty hours, the fortress would have mobilized its full emergency protocol: a large-scale rescue operation involving offensive drones, barrier projectors, atmospheric disruptors, and orbital-level firepower. The thought didn't concern him—he had built those systems—but it did confirm one thing: whatever that light was, its power output was unmistakably abnormal for this world.
Hours passed as Kaelthorn combed through report after report, checking diagnostics, updating commands, and issuing new instructions tailored to the current situation.
When he finally entered the final sequence, a compartment on the drone's underside opened with a soft hiss of decompressing air. He placed all the destroyed devices into it—the shattered phone, the crippled laptop, the broken binoculars, the ruined solar charger—and added his cracked pocket watch for repairs. Once everything was stored securely inside, the drone retracted its compartment and began to rise again.
BUZZ!!
Before leaving, its scanners swept the surroundings in a widening arc, checking every movement, every heat signature, every ripple of air. Only when it determined that Kaelthorn faced no immediate threat did it ascend higher, collect the small locator drone, and then streak across the sky like a silver comet returning home.
Kaelthorn leaned back against the trunk once more, letting the cold breeze brush past his pale face. He waited in silence, unhurried, as the long minutes trickled by.
Eventually, the horizon shifted.
A faint warmth touched the world.
Dawn.
The first rays of sunlight filtered between the branches, painting the drifting smoke and ash with hues of gold and orange. Kaelthorn's eyes reflected the morning light for just a second—until he heard the approaching hum again.
BUZZ!!
This time the drone that descended was subtly different—reinforced plating, a slightly altered wing geometry, internal systems humming with new upgrades. It hovered before him and repeated the multi-layer security scans.
Once verified, the holographic screen reappeared, and Kaelthorn quickly entered the authorization sequence. The moment the command was executed, the drone's compartment opened to reveal the items he requested.
First was the pocket watch he had sent earlier—its glass repaired, metal polished, the gears inside ticking with rhythmic precision. He retrieved it and slipped it away without a word.
Second was a small blue earpiece—sleek, almost weightless. He placed it into his left ear where it vanished beneath the shadow of his high collar.
Third came a single ocular lens—transparent, barely detectable. He pressed it gently into his left eye, the device calibrating instantly to his iris pattern.
Fourth was a tiny flat disc, glossy and dark, no larger than a button. Kaelthorn affixed it to the pointed tip of his high collar, where it blended seamlessly into his attire.
Fifth was a small cylindrical device—minimalist, compact. It rested neatly between his index finger and thumb before he stored it with meticulous care.
Sixth was a long flat stick—strange, lightweight, but clearly engineered for specialized use. He slid it away without hesitation.
And finally, the seventh item: the same mobile drone he had deployed earlier, now fully restored and recalibrated.
He gathered everything, dismissed the panel with a flick of his finger, and typed the final command. The compartment closed and the drone ascended once more, engines humming steadily as it rose above the trees. After a last scan of the environment, it turned and flew toward the distant sky, shrinking into a fading silver dot before disappearing altogether.
Kaelthorn watched until it was gone—until even the faintest glimmer was swallowed by morning light. Only then did he shift his gaze toward the distant direction of Yashiro Station, where smoke still drifted lazily into the sky.
He dropped from the branch.
THUD!!
His boots met the forest floor, displacing dust and ash. Behind him, the burning remains of the Iron Fortress crackled softly in the new sunlight—an epitaph of shattered steel and extinguished hope.
Kaelthorn gave it a final glance.
Then he turned away.
His golden-crimson eyes narrowed slightly, reflecting a faint glimmer of interest—not emotion, never emotion—as he began walking toward the ruined station.
It was time to uncover the truth.
Time to see exactly what secret lay within Yashiro Station—
Especially the origin of that eerie purplish-blue light.
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*A/N: Please throw some power stones.
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