Author's Note:-
Hey everyone,
First of all—thank you. Seriously. Thanks for reading, for sticking with the story, and especially for taking the time to comment on the previous Poll. I read everything, and I really appreciate the feedback and discussions you guys bring.
Now about the poll—most of you suggested keeping Gingka canon-accurate, and I've taken that to heart.
Your other suggestions have been equally valuable—some of you caught things I didn't even realize I was building toward. This story is better because you're engaging with it.
Now, before we get into Chapter 23, I need to confirm something:
I've changed something.
I'm not going to spoil what. You'll know when you read it.
All I'll say is: trust the process.
This chapter shows:-
Shows realistic trauma response
Demonstrates PTSD symptoms
As always—leave your comments, complaints, and suggestions. I'm all ears. Whether you love it, hate it, or just want to theorize about what's coming next, I want to hear from you.
Hope you like this chapter.
***
CHAPTER 23: NOTHING
GINGKA POV
My heart stops.
Then breaks.
The scroll is blank.
Completely, utterly, perfectly blank.
I stared at the empty parchment, blinked, and then stared even harder.
Nothing changes.
Just yellowed paper the color of old teeth. No diagrams. No ancient seals. No technique descriptions in faded ink. No secret that's been passed down through three hundred years of Hagane bladers protecting this mountain like it's sacred ground.
Nothing.
My brain can't process it. Keeps trying to make sense of what I'm seeing. Looking for patterns in the blank space like if I stare long enough words will appear or invisible ink will activate or—
I flip it over.
Check the back.
Still nothing.
Turn it back. Hold it up to the moonlight streaming through broken shrine doors. Looking for watermarks. Hidden text. Anything that explains why the legendary scroll is just—
Empty.
"No."
The word comes out confused. Small.
Maybe the ink faded? Three hundred years the ink could've—but no that doesn't make sense because Dad said it was protected with sealing techniques and even if ink faded there'd be indentations from writing or—
Or maybe I'm reading it wrong?
My hands start shaking.
Maybe you wet it first? Heat it? There's some Hagane family secret about activation that Dad forgot to mention?
I'm turning the scroll over and over. Checking every inch. Running my fingers across the surface looking for texture or raised bumps or—
Nothing.
Still nothing.
Always nothing.
"No no no this can't—"
I'm on my feet. Don't remember standing.
This has to be wrong. Has to be some kind of test or puzzle or—
I shake the scroll. Hard enough the parchment rattles.
Nothing falls out. No hidden compartment. No secret technique tucked inside.
Just empty paper mocking me.
"There has to be something!"
My voice cracks. Echoes off cedar walls that smell like abandonment.
I hold the scroll up to the moonlight again. Tilting it different angles. Desperate for some sign I missed something.
The parchment is pristine. Unmarked. Like it was made yesterday instead of three centuries ago.
Like it was never meant to have anything written on it at all.
The thought makes my stomach drop.
No.
No that's not—
"Dad climbed this mountain."
I'm talking out loud now. Voice rising.
"His dad before him. Generation after generation protecting this scroll with their lives and it's just—"
I stop.
Look at the blank parchment in my shaking hands.
Feel something in my chest start to crack.
"It's empty."
The words taste like grave dirt.
The realization hit me with the weight of a collapsed building.
I hold the scroll higher. Right up to the moon. Shaking it. Turning it. Checking one more time because there HAS to be—
"IT'S NOTHING!"
The roar tears out of my throat. Echoes off mountain peaks. Comes back to me multiplied by stone and distance and three hundred years of lies.
Nothing nothing nothing nothing—
"THERE IS NO SECRET! IT'S JUST PAPER! JUST WORTHLESS FUCKING PAPER!"
I'm screaming at empty air. At the scroll. At my father's legacy and his father's legacy and every Hagane blader who climbed this mountain believing the same lie I believed.
That there was power waiting.
That external strength would save us.
That we just had to reach high enough and the answer would be there.
My face twists. I can feel it happening. Feel my expression doing something ugly and broken and desperate.
Like Tai Lung when he opened the Dragon Scroll and found nothing.
Like every person who ever reached for salvation and found emptiness instead.
"THREE HUNDRED YEARS!"
I'm shaking the scroll so hard now it tears. "There has to be something!"
I screamed, my voice cracking against the cedar walls that smelled of abandonment.
"THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF HAGANE BLADERS PROTECTING NOTHING!"
I shredded the ancient paper splitting down the middle, watching the pieces fall into the dust.
I throw both pieces.
They hit the far wall. Fall into dust that hasn't been disturbed since Dad stood in this exact spot and saw this exact scroll and—
Did he know?
The thought stops me cold.
Did Dad know the scroll was blank?
Did he climb this mountain and open that box and see nothing and just—what? Pretend? Tell himself it was a test? Convince himself the power was real even when the evidence said otherwise?
Or did he believe?
Did he actually think there was something here and he just couldn't see it and maybe his son would and—
I don't know which is worse.
My legs gave out and I hit the stone floor, feeling the same shattering sensation I felt when Storm Pegasus broke in my hands.
I can't feel it. Can't feel anything except understanding crushing down like a collapsed building.
There is no secret technique.
No forbidden power.
No legendary move waiting to save me.
Just me and Storm Pegasus and whatever pathetic strength I already have.
Which wasn't enough against Ryuga.
Won't be enough next time.
Will never NEVER be enough because there's no external power that's going to fix what's broken inside me.
The air in the shrine grew colder, or perhaps the cold was radiating from within my own chest; at that point, I could no longer tell the difference. I pressed my forehead against the freezing stone, and in that silence.
And something breaks.
Just—shatters.
It was the same jagged sensation of Storm Pegasus breaking in my hands while Ryuga laughed, the same crushing impact of my ribs hitting the concrete at the Dark Nebula facility—the total destruction of every belief I had ever held about power and the way the world worked.
The sound that comes out of me doesn't sound human.
It's too raw. Too broken. Something being torn out of my chest and dragged up through my throat and it HURTS and I can't stop it and don't want to stop it because maybe if I scream loud enough the universe will hear and take pity and—
Nothing.
The universe doesn't care.
I'm alone in a freezing shrine with my father's empty legacy and no answer except the one I can't accept:
That I have to find strength inside myself.
Or not find it at all.
I lost track of how long I stayed there, kneeling on the stone and breathing in three hundred years of dust and disappointment.
Eventually, however, the mountain's chill seeped so deep into my bones that staying still was no longer an option.
Legs numb. Hands numb. Everything numb except the hollow burning thing where hope used to live.
I stand up looking at the torn scroll one last time.
Useless and empty, the pieces lay in the dust, mirroring my own hollow state.
As I turned toward the door, I left it wide open; I would let the wind and the weather claim what was left.
After all, none of it mattered anymore.
***
The descent is a slow-motion collapse.
Each step jars my knees, sending shocks through legs that feel like dead weight. It's a rhythmic pulse of failure: I am walking away with less than nothing. Emptiness I could have handled—it meant the answer was simply somewhere else. But a blank scroll is proof the answer doesn't exist.
My boot slips on loose shale. I slam against a tree, the bark shredding my palm until blood wells up, thick and hot against the mountain grit. I stare at the red smear.
Suddenly, I'm back in the rubble.
I hear the screech of Storm Pegasus being devoured. I see Ryuga's distorted, mocking face as L-Drago's purple lightning wraps around my throat like a garrote. The memory is a physical blade twisting in my chest.
I keep walking. One leaden foot after the other.
The wind dies, leaving me alone with my breathing—the shallow, frantic rasp of a hunted animal. I lean against a trunk, waiting for my heart to stop hammering against my ribs. It doesn't.
The image of L-Drago's jaws closing around Pegasus hits with the force of a physical blow. I double over, retching. Nothing comes up but a string of bile and a raw, dry heave that leaves my throat tasting like copper. I wipe my mouth with a shaking, bloody hand and straighten up.
Keep walking.
By the time the trees thin, the despair has crystallized. It's no longer a feeling; it's a physical state. Cold. Sharp. My aura feels like broken glass wrapped around my lungs, cutting me every time I breathe.
In the distance, I see them. Madoka pacing. Kenta fidgeting. Benkei standing like a shield.
Their hope is a weight I can't carry. I can't handle their concern, or the way they look at me like I'm something that can still be saved. Most of all, I can't handle failing them, too.
My jaw clenches until my teeth ache. I don't stop. I just walk into the light.
***
Madoka saw me first. Relief flooded her face, a look so pure it made something in my chest twist.
"Gingka!"
She runs toward me. Kenta right behind her. Benkei trailing behind in a joyful wake.
They were all smiling—bright, eager, and expectant.
Like I'm returning victorious instead of empty-handed and hollowed out.
"Did you get it?" Madoka's eyes sparkled. "Is the scroll—did it have the technique?"
"Get out of my way."
The words were flat, freezing the air between us.
Madoka skidded to a halt three feet away, her smile faltering."What?"
"I said move." I don't slow down. Don't look at her.
"Gingka, wait—" Her hand reaches for my arm.
My reaction was fast, violent, and purely instinctive. I lashed out, my hand snapping up between us. Madoka flinched back so hard she nearly fell, her arms coming up in a desperate defensive posture, eyes wide with terror.
I froze, my hand still raised, seeing a stranger reflected in her shocked expression.
I lowered my arm slowly, but I didn't apologize. The guilt was there, but the rage was louder. "Don't touch me."
"Gingka—" Madoka's voice shakes. "You're scaring me."
"Good."
The word tastes like poison.
"Maybe you should be scared. Maybe you should all be scared because you think a toolkit is going to stop Ryuga? You think friendship is going to matter when L-Drago tears everything apart?"
I pushed past them, my aura cutting like a blade. "The scroll was a lie. This village is a lie. You're all just distractions."
"Gingka, please—" Kenta's voice cracks. "You don't mean that. You taught me that blading is about—"
"What I taught you was WRONG!"!" I spun on them, the roar ripping from my lungs.
Kenta recoiled as if I'd struck him.
"Friendship doesn't matter when you're bleeding in the rubble! Joy doesn't matter when your bey is shattered! Blader spirit doesn't—"
My voice breaks.
"None of it MATTERS! I climbed that mountain looking for power and you know what I found? NOTHING! Just blank paper and three hundred years of Hagane bladers believing the same lie!"
Kenta's eyes are filling with tears. "But you said—"
"I was wrong!" The words rip out. "About everything! About blading and friendship and finding strength through bonds! It's all bullshit designed to make you feel better when you LOSE!"
"Gingka, stop." Madoka's voice is small, her face crumpled with hurt. "Please just—"
"Stop what? Telling the truth? You fix beys, Madoka. You don't understand what it's like to feel your partner shatter while you're still connected! To feel every hit like it's happening to your own body!"
I gesture wildly at all of them.
"None of you understand! You didn't kneel in front of Ryuga while reality collapsed! You didn't have to apologize to your dead father for being WEAK!"
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
Kenta's face collapsed inward, his hero-worship dying in real-time.
Benkei placed a heavy, protective hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes fixed on me with something worse than anger: pure disappointment.
Just—disappointment.
Like I'm not who he thought I was.
"Gingka—" Madoka's voice breaks completely. "We're your friends. We just want to help—"
"Then STOP!"
The shout echoes.
"Stop trying to help! Stop looking at me like I'm something broken! Stop pretending friendship is going to fix what's wrong because it WON'T!"
"Just stop."
Madoka's hand is still half-extended where I—
Where I almost—
I turn away before I can finish the thought.
Start walking.
Fast.
I started to run, needing the distance, needing to outrun the poison in my own blood—need to get away before I say something worse. Do something worse.
Before I—
Gale-force pressure slammed into the ground in front of me.
The shockwave threw me backward, spinning me into the dirt.
The shockwave slams into my chest, lifting me off my feet.
I hit the dirt hard, the air driven from my lungs in a sharp, painful wheeze. I roll, my skin skidding against the grit, before I finally skulk upward, coughing through a thick veil of settling dust.
As the dust settled through my coughing fits, a familiar silhouette stood in the crater.
Kyoya.
***
Standing in a crater of his own making, green energy crackling around him like living lightning. He caught Rock Leone with a casual flick of his wrist and slotted it back into his launcher. His expression was a terrifying vacuum: calm, cold, and dangerous.
"I didn't follow you to this middle-of-nowhere village," he said, his voice a low rasp that cut through the ringing in my ears, "to watch you throw a tantrum, Hagane."
His eyes lock onto mine.
And something in them makes my breath catch.
"If the scroll is empty—"
He tilts his head slightly.
"—it's because you're empty."
The words hit with the force of a physical blow to the guts I was on my feet before I realized I'd moved, my vision tunneling until only his mocking face remained.
"Fuck you, Kyoya."
"There it is." His smile is all teeth. "Anger. Good. Better than whatever pathetic spiral you're drowning in."
"I'm not—"
"You are." He cuts me off. "I recognize it. Don't lie to me"
Something hot flashes through my chest. "This is different!"
"Is it?" Kyoya's voice stays level. Conversational. "You lost to someone stronger. Now you're running home to hide. Going to lock yourself in your room? Stop blading? Give up?"
"That's not what I—"
"Then what ARE you doing?"
The question hangs in the air.
I don't have an answer.
Kyoya's expression shifts, the feigned casualness vanishing into something predatory and precise. He looks at me the way a lion looks at a limping gazelle—not with hunger, but with a cold, analytical focus on the wound.
"You went looking for a shortcut because you don't trust what's inside," he says, his voice vibrating in the center of my chest. "You climbed a mountain for a miracle instead of looking at what you already have."
"What I have ISN'T ENOUGH!"
The shout tears out of me.
"What I have got me CRUSHED! What I have left me kneeling in rubble apologizing to my dead father! What I have—"
My voice cracks.
"What I have is PATHETIC."
Silence.
Then Kyoya laughs.
It's a sharp, mocking sound that echoes off the moutain walls like a slap.
"Listen to yourself." He steps closer, his boots crunching on the stone. "Shouting at the girl who fixes your bey. Barking at the kid who looks up to you. Blaming everyone except the person actually responsible."
His aura explodes.
Green wind whips his coat into a frenzy, energy crackling around him until the air itself seems to bend and warp. The pressure is immense, a physical weight slamming into my ribs.
His voice cuts through the wind.
"You're not a blader right now, Hagane," he says, his voice cutting through the gale. "You're just a dog chasing its tail."
Something inside me finally snaps.
"Shut up—"
"You want power so bad?" Kyoya's smile widens. "I'll show you mine. But I'm not going easy on you just because you're having a breakdown."
He raises his launcher.
"I'm going to crush Pegasus into the dirt until you remember who you are."
My hand moves to my launcher. It's shaking, but not from the cold or the exhaustion. It's a tremor of rage so pure it everything else disappear.
"Fine." My voice comes out strangled. Wrong. "If you want to get in my way—I'll go through you too."
Behind us I can hear Madoka's sharp intake of breath, Kenta's stifled crying, Benkei's protective rumble—I hear them, but I don't care.
Can't care about anything except the bey in my hand and the rage in my chest and the empty scroll mocking me from a mountain I'll never climb again.
Kyoya looks past me, "Hyoma. You know a place?"
"Yeah," Hyoma's voice drifts. A long pause follows, hollow and distant.
"Yeah, I know a place."
He moves past me without meeting my eyes. Kyoya follows, and after a moment, I do too.
The walk takes twenty minutes.
Like a funeral procession. Nobody talks.
Madoka, Kenta, and Benkei trail behind us, keeping their distance like they're afraid I might snap again but not leaving. Worried but silent.
Kyoya walks beside me breathing the same bitter air.
Hyoma leads us through Koma Village. We pass my house and the familiar streets of my childhood until the forest swallows the path.
And there—
Hidden among the ancient trees—
A stadium.
I stop at the edge, the breath hitching in my throat.
The smooth stone circle. It was the place where Hyoma and I had spent our childhood summers, polishing the surface. Using rocks and sand and our bare hands until the surface was perfect for battle.
The place where blading had been a game. Where losing didn't feel like a death sentence.
"You remember this place?"
Hyoma's voice is soft, heavy with a nostalgia.
I stare at the stadium.
"Yeah." I muttered, my voice dead. I stepped to the edge of the stone. " I remember when blading was a game instead of a war."
"It still can be—"
"Don't."
The word cuts him off.
"Just don't."
Hyoma's quiet for a long moment.
Then he steps aside.
Across from me, Kyoya's already on the far side of the stadium waiting.
"You really think you're ready for this, Gingka?"
His voice is low. Dangerous.
"You've got that look in your eyes. The look of a loser."
"Shut up, Kyoya."
"Look at you."
He gestures at me like I'm an exhibit.
His aura explodes fully now. Green light wrapping around him like armor.
"Who are you now, Ginga Hagane."
His eyes lock onto mine. He raises his launcher. The wind picks up. Whipping his coat.
"You're just a loser."
Something hot and sharp flashes through my chest.
My hand goes to my launcher.
I raised my launcher. My fingers fumbled as I slotted Storm Pegasus into place. The fusion wheel was scarred, the paint scorched, the metal cracked—a perfect reflection of the boy holding it.
From rage. From despair. From everything the empty scroll took from me.
"Fine."
My voice sounds like a stranger's.
Storm Pegasus settles into the launcher with a click.
"Let's get this over with."
Behind us I hear it:
Kenta crying, a soft, broken sound that Madoka tried to hush.
Madoka's whispered "Please don't do this."
Benkei's heavy sigh.
I didn't turn around. I couldn't bear to see.
My friends.
Just stare across the stadium at Kyoya.
I only saw Kyoya. The only person who looked at me without pity or fear or concern or disappointment.
Hyoma's voice comes from somewhere distant:
"Three..."
I tighten my grip until my knuckles turned white.
"Two..."
Kyoya's smile widens.
"One..."
Can hear my own heartbeat hammering against my ribs.
Together:
"LET IT RIP!"
The collision shook the valley. Pegasus and Leone met in the center with a sound like a thunderclap, light exploding in a violent clash of sapphire and emerald.
The smooth stone we had polished as children shattered under the pressure.
[END CHAPTER 23]