*Blackfall's Reach***
*Some hunters don't follow tracks. They follow blood.*
Dead Tempo shuddered.
Not with sound—
but with **pressure**.
Aru felt it while practicing the slow steps Eidolon drilled into him. The beat he had learned to invite wavered, thinning like breath in cold air.
He stopped.
Eidolon looked up instantly.
"You felt that."
Aru nodded.
"Someone's pulling on me."
Eidolon's jaw tightened.
"Not you. The **bond**."
A ripple crossed the ravine, bending the dead air into visible waves. Gold sigils bled into the sky like wounds reopening.
"They shouldn't be able to do that here," Aru whispered.
"They can if they use blood," Eidolon replied grimly.
---
## **THE HUNTER ARRIVES**
The sigils collapsed inward.
From their center stepped a figure wrapped in black and silver—his cloak perfectly still despite the distortion around him.
Soren Blackfall.
His boots touched Dead Tempo's soil.
And for the first time in centuries—
The land **answered**.
Aru staggered.
The beat in his chest surged violently, uninvited.
"Still alive," Soren said calmly, surveying the wasteland.
"I hoped you would be."
Eidolon moved in front of Aru instantly.
"You shouldn't exist here," Eidolon snarled.
Soren's eyes flicked to him.
"And yet," Soren replied, "neither should you."
Recognition sparked.
"So the ghost still walks," Soren mused.
"How nostalgic."
Aru clenched his fists.
"You murdered him."
Soren tilted his head, almost curious.
"Ah. You're past grief. Good."
His eyes sharpened.
"That means you'll make a better weapon."
---
## **BLOOD CONDUCTING**
Soren raised his hand.
A black feather dissolved into smoke between his fingers.
The air screamed.
Dead Tempo cracked.
Aru felt it—
his chest burning as Kairo's rhythm flared violently inside him.
"No—!" Eidolon shouted. "He's hijacking the echo!"
Soren smiled thinly.
"Blood remembers," he said.
"And brothers echo louder than friends."
Aru screamed as power flooded him—
raw, uncontrollable, agonizing.
He stumbled forward as the ground detonated beneath his step.
Stone vaporized.
The ravine split wider.
"STOP!" Eidolon roared. "You'll tear him apart!"
"That's the point," Soren replied coldly.
---
## **THE SECOND BEAT**
Aru dropped to one knee, choking.
The beat was too loud.
Too fast.
Kairo's rhythm screamed through him like a wound refusing to close.
*If the bond answers, you stop.*
Eidolon's rule cut through the chaos.
Aru slammed his palms into the earth.
"ENOUGH!"
He didn't push the beat.
He didn't amplify.
He did something new.
He **answered back**.
A second rhythm formed—
not Kairo's.
Not the Crown's.
His own.
Slow.
Uneven.
Alive.
**Thum… thum…**
The two rhythms collided—
—and instead of exploding—
They **aligned**.
Aru gasped as the pain vanished.
The power stabilized.
His eyes lifted.
Eidolon stared in shock.
"He… separated the bond," Eidolon whispered.
"Without breaking it."
Aru stood.
Not burning.
Not bleeding.
Balanced.
Soren's smile finally faltered.
---
## **CLASH**
Soren struck.
A blade of condensed harmony tore through the air.
Aru stepped.
Just one step.
The attack shattered harmlessly past him.
He moved again.
Each motion precise. Economical.
Not rage.
**Control.**
Soren leapt back, eyes blazing.
"So," he murmured,
"you've learned to stand without the corpse holding you up."
Aru's voice was quiet.
"You're wrong."
He stepped forward.
"I didn't let him go."
The ground pulsed beneath his feet.
"I learned how to carry him without dying."
---
## **RETREAT**
The sky cracked open as Crown sigils flared violently.
Soren clicked his tongue.
"Troublesome," he muttered.
He stepped backward into shadow.
"This isn't over, Conductor," Soren said.
"You've only delayed the inevitable."
Aru met his gaze.
"I'm coming for you."
Soren smiled.
"I know."
Then he was gone.
---
## **AFTERMATH**
Dead Tempo settled.
Eidolon exhaled shakily.
"You just unlocked the **Second Beat**," he said.
"A self-origin rhythm."
Aru looked down at his hands.
The beat inside him was steady now.
Still painful.
Still grieving.
But no longer devouring him.
He looked toward the horizon.
"Soren won't stop," Aru said.
Eidolon nodded.
"Good."
Aru turned to him.
"Why 'good'?"
Eidolon's eyes hardened.
"Because now," he said,
"you're finally strong enough to survive the war he's bringing."