He stepped through the gate and walked straight into a mountain.
A heavy arm clamped over his shoulders, dragging him down with the weight of a falling beam.
"Junior Brother!"
The shout rattled his teeth. Roeyachi looked up. His Senior Brother's grin took up half the sky, bright teeth flashing in a face mapped with scars from a hundred friendly brawls. "Word is you're finally going on a hunt."
Roeyachi sighed. He wished he could say yes.
"I will," he said, flicking the scroll with his free hand. "But Master has me running... errands."
Swipe.
The scroll vanished.
To his left, a shadow detached from the pillar. His Senior Sister held the parchment, eyes scanning the seal with the precision of a hawk sizing up a mouse.
"Assassination contract," she said, tapping the black wax. "Been years since the Sect issued one of these."
She leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper laced with orchids and arsenic.
"If you want... Eternal Fragrance could stop his heart by sundown. No blood. No risk."
She wasn't joking.
Roeyachi stared at her, feeling the pull of the abyss. In another life, he would have taken the easy road. He would have let her kill for him. But in this one, he reached out and plucked the scroll from her fingers.
"No. This, I must do alone."
"Hah!"
A palm the size of a war shield slammed into his back, nearly buckling his knees. "That's my Junior Brother!" The giant roared, staring at the horizon like gold might drop from it. "A man has only his blade and the world as his enemy!"
"Don't stuff his skull with your barbarian habits."
The voice came low, directly in front of him.
Roeyachi blinked. He hadn't seen her approach. She had appeared between one breath and the next. Pure instinct moved before thought; he bent, scooped the tiny figure up, and deposited her on his shoulder.
She didn't squeal. Years of protest had taught her it was futile. She simply adjusted her robes and rested an elbow on his head like it was her personal throne.
The Senior Brother watched this, radiance of injustice pouring off him.
"Junior Brother… why do you only treat her like that? What about the rest of us?"
Roeyachi looked him up and down—measuring the barrel chest, the oak-stump legs, the sheer, immovable mass of him.
"Structural limitations."
A sharp, bell-like laugh escaped the woman on his shoulder. The Senior Brother blinked, then scoffed, giving Roeyachi a shove that felt like being nudged by a bull.
"You know that's not what I meant," he grumbled, though his mouth twitched. "This is about camaraderie, not… physics."
Roeyachi let the sarcasm bleed out of his smile. He looked at Veramon, measuring the giant's clumsy sincerity against the reality of the last decade.
Ten years of his life had been tithed to the Master—days swallowed by training, nights by silence. His seniors had always hovered just beyond the bars: voices in the corridor, footsteps that stopped short of his door, laughter that faded whenever he appeared.
Today the bars were gone.
"Then," Roeyachi said, eyes sliding toward the arena, "want to test that theory?"
A reckless smile bloomed across his Senior Brother's face. "Now that is a language I understand!"
The axe appeared in a blur of heavy steel—a double-headed monstrosity that looked less like a weapon and more like siege equipment. He didn't wait; he marched toward the western archway, the stone floor vibrating under his stride.
Thwack.
A flash of steel cut the air. Roeyachi stopped, looking down at the short sword planted point-first in the stone between his boots.
"Take it," the Senior Sister said, tone cool as moonlight. "Since Master left you otherwise defenseless."
Roeyachi adjusted the girl on his shoulder. "How did you know she took my gear?"
"Who else could strip you so completely?"
A quiet beat passed. The steel hummed in the stone.
"Thank you."
He pulled the blade free. Not enchanted, but balanced. Silent Moon steel, sharp enough to shave the wind.
A nod, and they moved.
---
The Tournament Hall was less a building and more a wound carved into the mountain.
Steps cut into living stone led down into a circular pit, the earth beaten flat by generations of battered egos. Iron pillars ringed the arena, rusted to the color of dried blood.
Veramon didn't bother with the stairs. He leaped from the top step.
BOOM.
He hit the center in a low crouch, dust exploding outward. He rose with a grin, swinging the axe in a lazy arc that made the air groan.
"Come down, Junior!" he barked. "Let's see if that assassin speed works on a shield-breaker!"
Roeyachi set the girl down on the viewing ledge. She smoothed her robes, sitting with the serene confidence of a queen watching an execution.
"Try not to break him," she called. "Master needs him for the errand."
"I'll only break the unnecessary parts!"
Roeyachi stepped off the edge.
He didn't drop; he glided, cheating gravity to land in a silent crouch that disturbed no dust. He rose, the borrowed sword held in both hands, shifting into a formal pre-duel stance.
"I am Roeyachi, disciple of the Silent Moon Master. I challenge you to an honorable duel."
Veramon mirrored the gesture, hefting the siege-axe as if it weighed nothing. "I am Veramon, disciple of the Silent Moon, son of the Head Elder. I accept your challenge."
The ritual snapped shut.
Roeyachi's posture shifted. Ceremonial grace vanished, replaced by a low, sharp center of gravity.
Veramon didn't match it.
"Tell me, brother," the giant said, posture suddenly loosening. "Who is it you are meant to kill?"
"A bandit."
Above them, the senior sisters shared a brief, silent glance. Too calm a tone for an unblooded blade.
"I see."
Veramon didn't pry. Men grow through wounds, not warnings.
So he chose the path he knew best.
His stance broke. The grounded fortress of the 'Shield-Breaker' dissolved. Shoulders slumped. Feet shuffled too close together. He choked up on the axe handle, robbing the weapon of its reach.
It looked sloppy. Amateurish.
It looked dangerous.
"I've fought many bandits in my younger days," Veramon said, dropping the boisterous roar for a calm, instructional tone. "I know how they move. Desperate. Dirty. No rhythm."
He grinned. It wasn't his usual smile. It was a jagged, hungry sneer.
"Before you face the bandit… your blade will learn, too."
He lunged.
No telegraph. No roar. Just a sudden, jerky explosion of violence that abandoned form for pure, chaotic speed.
Roeyachi saw an axe split the sun.
What followed wasn't a meteor shower to sunder heaven and earth, but a single, jagged tear in the sky plunging down where his feet had just been.
BOOM.
Stone shattered. Shrapnel screamed through the air, pinging off his borrowed blade as he scrambled backward.
He landed several meters away, breath ragged, sweat stinging his eyes. His legs burned from cheating gravity twice in ten seconds. He looked up to see Veramon wrenching his axe from the crater with a sound like grinding teeth.
"Nice dodge," Veramon said, a broad smile stretching across his face as he hefted the massive weapon onto his shoulder.
"I thought you said you were acting like a bandit?" Roeyachi rasped.
"I am."
Roeyachi's brow furrowed. He remained silent, watchful, as Veramon began to circle. The feeling of a hawk tightening its spiral did not escape him.
"A clumsy bandit," Veramon replied, his gaze locked on Roeyachi, "still knows how to hide a knife behind his back. Trust your eyes too much, Junior, and that will be the last time you use them."
Right.
Just because the movement was sloppy didn't mean the strike would be. Trusting a bandit's posture was no different from inviting a wolf into your home and being surprised when it bit.
Roeyachi straightened, bringing his hands together in a formal bow. "Thank you for the lesson, Senior Brother."
Veramon nodded, approval flickering in his eyes. And as he did, something in the arena changed.
The oppressive, mountain-like pressure that radiated from the giant began to recede. It didn't vanish—it compacted. It folded inward, locking away the terrifying cultivation of a True Disciple.
To Roeyachi's spiritual sense, Veramon's blazing aura dimmed. It shrank from the level of a seasoned warrior down to something rudimentary, feral, and contained.
He wasn't just moving like a bandit now. He was becoming one—his power restrained to mirror the crude, desperate strength of the outlaws who haunted the wilds.
"Now," Veramon said, his voice shedding its boisterous tone for a rougher, hungrier edge. "Shall the real hunt begin?"
Roeyachi responded by shifting his grip, angling the blade so the sharp edge faced away from his brother.
"Did I not just teach you not to underestimate your opponent?" Veramon asked, his head tilting.
"I was trained to kill, not prolong a life," Roeyachi replied, his voice flat. "If I use the edge, the spar ends too quickly."
"I don't mean the blade, brother." Veramon's eyes dropped pointedly to Roeyachi's ankles, hidden beneath the hem of his trousers. "I mean those."
Roeyachi went still.
"They cannot be removed."
"He really is underestimating you, Senior Brother," the little queen observed from her throne, her tone a blend of amusement and mild pity.
A low chuckle rumbled in Veramon's chest.
"Ha. Then let's teach our Junior Brother the difference between a blademancer… and a soulmancer."
Before the last word faded, a spiritual pressure—cold and needle-sharp—tingled down Roeyachi's spine. The air above Veramon's left shoulder shimmered.
A white, translucent Wind Crystal materialized from the void. It hovered there, humming with a silent, gathering storm, its facets drinking the dim light of the pit.
Veramon grinned, the axe in one hand, the magic in the other.
"Dodge this."