Kova watched her with annoyance. Her flames barely sparked, flickering with a pitiful glow that carried no real heat. It was weak, a shallow imitation of the power he required for his demons.
His upper body emerged from the surface of the obsidian disc like a ghost rising from a dark pool. He remained still for a heartbeat, his single eye scanning the geometry of the Void before he hopped off the platform.
The air around him was heavy and thick. He was not masking his Yen, and the sheer weight of his presence felt like a physical mountain pressing down on her chest.
Juno struggled to draw a breath as he walked toward her. Every step he took made the pressure intensify until her knees buckled against the obsidian floor. She tried to lift her head, but her muscles refused to obey.
"I feel so weak, as if I am being crushed," Juno gasped, her voice barely a thread of sound.
He reached out a hand to touch her face. Juno tried to flinch away, but she was pinned in place by the suffocating gravity of his Yen.
"Why can I not move?" Juno whispered, her eyes wide with a primal terror.
Kova ignored her plea, his fingers cold enough to make her skin crawl as they made contact. He was looking deeper into her scenery, scoping the foundation of her essence while his Yen continued to grind her spirit into the floor.
"You lack Zen," Kova said, his voice flat and clinical. "You do not have Zen hearts to pump the essence you need. Your black flames are too weak to be anything more than a flicker."
"I lack Zen? What the hell is Zen?" Juno thought. "Kova, I am exhausted," Juno rasped, her eyes rimmed with red. "How long do you expect me to keep going?"
"Exhaustion helps with making the new heart," Kova replied. "Until you are dead, you won't stop. Ever."
"This is your molding, Juno. If you were born with one heart, we'll simply cultivate you another one. Juno, you will break past your limits."
Juno flinched away from his touch, her breath coming in ragged hitches. The children behind the Void energy cage were silent, their eyes wide as they watched the monster loom over their sister.
"Another heart?" Juno whispered. "That's impossible."
"You are no longer a regular human," Kova stated. "If you do not master the black flame in the next few days, I will take the boy's thumb. I have no patience for slow students."
Kova turned his back to her and looked toward the surrounding gloom. The demons began to writhe and thicken.
"I am upping the lethality of my demons," Kova said.
"Kova, wait!" Juno cried out. "Let me take a break. Please. I am begging you."
Kova stopped walking. He raised a hand and pointed a long finger toward the cage where the children huddled.
"You will no longer call me Kova," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "My name is Master from now on."
"Every time you forget that, he loses another finger," Kova added, his finger specifically tracking the small boy in the cage.
"You're a monster," Juno hissed.
"I am whatever I have to be to make you stronger," Kova replied. "Now, say it."
Juno looked at the boy. He was shaking so hard his teeth were clicking together.
"Master," Juno whispered, the word tasting like ash in her mouth.
"Again," Kova commanded. "Louder."
"Master!" Juno screamed. "I hate him," Juno thought.
"Good," Kova said.
He hopped back onto his Void Disc and crossed his legs. As he began to meditate once more, his lower body submerged into the obsidian energy, phasing him into the platform.
This state was restoring his Yen. It would take three days to fully replenish, as he is constantly using his Yen to maintain his void. It will also take six full days for Juno's second heart to cultivate using his methods.
Day one was a descent into madness. Juno fought until her knuckles were raw and her lungs burned with every shallow gasp. The multi limbed demons didn't give her a second of peace.
Every time she fell, a claw found its way into her side or a tail lashed across her back. The darkness of the Void felt like it was trying to seep into her open wounds.
"I can't feel my arms anymore. My fire is nothing but smoke. I am going to fail them," Juno thought.
She looked at the cage, seeing the terror in the children's eyes. That was the only thing that kept her moving. When the first day finally bled into the second, Juno was a mess of bruises and drying blood. Her movements were no longer fluid, they were desperate and jagged.
On day two, the lethality shifted. The demons were faster, their strikes aimed for her throat. Juno found herself pinned against the obsidian floor, a horror's weight crushing the air out of her.
In that moment of absolute suffocation, she felt something deep within her body twitch. It was a sharp, stabbing pain right behind her ribs, opposite of her natural heart.
"It hurts. It feels like a hot needle is piercing my soul. Am I being ripped apart?" Juno thought.
As the second day stretched on, the obsidian disc began to drift through the upper reaches of the Void. Kova was no longer sitting upright. He was upside down, his legs crossed against the underside of the platform as it glided in a slow, gravity defying orbit. He hung there like a bat, his single eye half open as he watched her from above.
"Don't fight the pain," Kova said, his voice drifting down from the darkness. "That is the seed. Feed it your hate."
Juno let out a choked scream. She stopped trying to push the demon away with her physical strength. She reached for the freezing flame in her chest, the cold rage she held for the man watching her from his inverted perch. For a microsecond, the darkness around her fingers didn't just flicker. It roared.
A wisp of black fire tore through the chest of the demon above her. It didn't scream. It just ceased to exist, turning into a grey demon ash. Juno didn't stop. She crawled to her feet, her shaking hands beginning to smoke with a dark, freezing vapor.
"I am not Juno anymore. I am a blade he"s molding," Juno thought.
By the end of the second day, the floor was a graveyard of grey demon ash. Juno stood in the center of the carnage, her breathing a ragged, rhythmic wheeze that mirrored the phantom pulse growing in her chest.
Kova continued his slow, upside down orbit on the Void Disc. He didn't open his eye again, but a slight shift in his breathing suggested he was pleased. His Yen continued to restore as he drifted, a silent man watching the birth of a monster from the shadows above.