The mountain does not test the worth of the tree. It simply stands, indifferent to the storm, the drought, the axe. It is the tree that must decide if its roots go deep enough.
Mount Fujikasane was a place of whispered dread.
It was said that the mountain was perpetually shrouded in wisteria, the fragrant purple blooms that lined its lower slopes a natural barrier against the Hollowed. But at a certain elevation, the wisteria stopped, and the true forest began—a dark, ancient tangle of cedar and pine where the sun barely penetrated and the Hollowed that the Vanguard had captured were released to roam.
It was here, in this man-made hell, that the Gauntlet of Thorns took place.
Kaito stood at the base of the mountain with a dozen other aspirants. They were a ragged group—boys and girls, men and women, their faces a mixture of fear and grim determination. Some clutched simple iron swords, their blades dull and unadorned. Others, like Kaito, carried only a wooden practice blade. None of them carried a Sunstone Blade. That honor was reserved for those who survived.
A stern-faced woman with a scar running from her brow to her jaw addressed them. She was a member of the Vanguard, her own Sunstone Blade glinting at her hip, the metal the color of a pale, dawn-lit sky.
"Seven days," she said, her voice carrying without effort. "That is how long you must survive. The mountain is stocked with Hollowed—weak ones, freshly turned, but hungry nonetheless. There is no honor here. There is no mercy. There is only survival. Those who make it seven days will be granted a Sunstone Blade and a place in the Vanguard. Those who do not… will feed the forest."
She gestured to the path, a dark wound in the wisteria. "Go."
The group moved forward, a hesitant tide. Kaito walked at the center of the pack, his wooden sword in his hand, the empty box on his back—a talisman, a reminder. Genzo had offered to keep Yuki during the trial, but Kaito had refused. She was his burden, his purpose. He would not leave her behind.
The first day was an exercise in terror.
The forest closed around them, the wisteria's perfume fading, replaced by the damp, earthy scent of decay. The light filtered through the canopy in sickly, green-grey shafts. Every rustle of leaves, every snap of a twig, sent a jolt of adrenaline through Kaito's veins. He moved as Genzo had taught him—quietly, patiently, his senses stretched to their limit.
He saw his first Hollowed on the second day.
It was not the massive, twisted creature that had destroyed his family. This one was small, almost child-like, its skin a mottled grey, its eyes wide and vacant. It was crouched over the body of another aspirant, a young man Kaito had noticed the day before, his iron sword lying useless beside him. The Hollowed was eating, its jaws working with a wet, mechanical rhythm.
Kaito's first instinct was to run. His second was to attack. He forced himself to do neither.
He watched. He waited. He remembered Genzo's words: Water adapts. It flows around obstacles.
The Hollowed finished its meal and loped off into the trees. Kaito let it go. His goal was not to hunt. It was to survive.
The third day brought hunger. He had brought no food, relying on the mountain's sparse offerings—bitter roots, unripe berries, water from a cold, clear stream. His stomach cramped, his head ached, but he kept moving. He found a shallow cave, its entrance hidden by a fallen cedar, and made it his base. He slept in short, terrified bursts, waking at every sound, his hand never leaving the wooden sword.
On the fourth day, he heard the screams.
They came from the east, a chorus of terror that echoed through the trees. Kaito froze, his heart hammering. He could run. He could hide. That was the smart thing to do. That was what Genzo would have advised.
But the screams were human. And they were dying.
He moved before he could talk himself out of it, his body slipping into the quiet, fluid gait Genzo had drilled into him. He wove through the trees, following the sounds, until he reached a clearing.
It was a slaughter.
Five aspirants lay dead, their bodies torn and scattered across the blood-soaked earth. In the center of the clearing stood the one responsible—a Hollowed unlike any he had seen.
It was massive, its body a grotesque fusion of human and arachnid. Four powerful arms, each ending in a serrated blade of bone, sprouted from a torso that was too wide, too thick. Its face was flat and featureless save for a gaping maw filled with rows of needle-like teeth. It was feeding on one of the bodies, its arms working with terrifying efficiency.
This was not a weak Hollowed. This was a predator. And it was between Kaito and the only safe path down the mountain.
His mind raced. He could not fight this thing. It was too fast, too strong. His wooden sword would be splinters against those bone blades. But if he waited, it would finish its meal and move on. It would hunt. It would find him.
He thought of Yuki. He thought of the vow he had made. He thought of Genzo's words: Water adapts. It carves through mountains, not with force, but with persistence.
He looked at the clearing. The terrain was rough, littered with rocks and the fallen bodies of trees. The Hollowed was powerful, but its size would be a disadvantage in the tight spaces between the trunks. It was fast, but it was also distracted, its attention consumed by its feast.
Kaito took a breath. He centered himself, feeling the cold, familiar calm of the Flowing River Style settle over him. He was not a sword. He was water. He would flow around this obstacle, or he would carve through it.
He moved.
Not toward the Hollowed, but around the edge of the clearing, using the shadows of the fallen trees for cover. He was silent, his steps placed with the precision of a lifetime spent moving through mountain forests. The creature's back was to him, its four arms busy with its meal.
He was halfway across when his foot found a loose stone.
It was a tiny sound, a whisper of rock against rock, but in the silence of the clearing, it was a thunderclap.
The Hollowed stopped. Its head, flat and featureless, swiveled toward him. The gaping maw opened, and a sound emerged—a high, keening shriek that seemed to drill into Kaito's skull.
It lunged.
Kaito dove, rolling behind the trunk of a massive cedar. One of the Hollowed's bone-bladed arms sheared through the bark, sending splinters flying. He scrambled to his feet, his wooden sword raised.
First Form: Flowing River—Still Waters.
He had practiced this form a thousand times. It was a defensive stance, a calm center from which to observe and react. He held it now, his breathing steady, his eyes fixed on the creature's movements.
It was fast. Incredibly fast. But it was also predictable. It attacked with its arms in sequence—left, right, left, right—each blow powerful enough to shatter stone, but leaving a brief, measurable gap between swings.
Kaito moved in that gap. He did not attack. He simply existed in the spaces the Hollowed's fury created. He flowed around the bone blades like water around stones in a stream. He was not trying to win. He was trying to survive long enough to find an opening.
The minutes stretched into an eternity. The Hollowed's shrieks grew more frantic, its blows more wild. It was tiring. Kaito could see it in the slowing rhythm of its arms, the slight drag in its movements.
He saw his opening.
A massive root, exposed by erosion, lay behind the Hollowed. In its fury, it had backed itself against it, its four arms momentarily tangled in the thick, gnarled wood.
Kaito moved.
He surged forward, not with the patient flow of the river, but with the sudden, explosive force of a waterfall. He leaped onto the root, using it as a springboard, launching himself into the air above the creature's head.
Second Form: Flowing River—Catar's Fall.
It was not a perfect technique. His form was sloppy, his grip on the wooden sword too tight. But the principle was sound—a descending slash, using the momentum of his fall to add force.
The wooden sword came down on the Hollowed's neck.
It was not a Sunstone Blade. It could not sever the creature's head, could not kill it. But the force of the blow, channeled through the sharpened edge of the wood, was enough to crack bone. The Hollowed's head snapped forward, its spine bending at a sickening angle. It let out one last, gurgling shriek, and collapsed.
Kaito landed beside it, his chest heaving, his arms trembling. The creature lay motionless, a deep fissure running across the back of its neck. It was not dead. But it was stunned. It would not move again for hours.
Kaito did not wait to see how long. He turned and ran, his legs pumping, his lungs burning. He ran through the dark forest, not stopping, not looking back, until he reached the wisteria line.
He stumbled out of the forest on the seventh day, his clothes torn, his body covered in bruises and shallow cuts, his wooden sword splintered and useless in his hand.
The stern-faced woman was waiting for him. She looked at the state of him, at the empty clearing behind him, and for the first time, a flicker of something like approval crossed her scarred face.
"Name?" she asked.
"Kaito Mori," he gasped, falling to his knees.
She reached into a satchel at her side and withdrew a blade. The scabbard was black, unadorned. When she drew the sword, the metal caught the light of the setting sun and transformed. It was no longer cold steel. It was the color of a sunrise—a deep, burning orange that seemed to hold a fire within it. A Sunstone Blade.
"Welcome to the Nocturnal Vanguard," she said, and placed the sword in his trembling hands.
Kaito looked at the blade, at the fire trapped within it. He thought of his family, of Genzo, of the vow he had made.
He was no longer a charcoal burner's son. He was a swordsman.
And his hunt for the First Hollow had begun.