Six months of living in the shadow of the Isvan peaks had changed the rhythm of Kaelen's heartbeat. The cold was no longer a bite; it was a constant, dull hum against his skin. He had grown taller, his frame lean and corded with the kind of muscle that only comes from hauling frozen timber and sprinting up vertical slopes of ice.
In the clearing behind the cabin, the air hissed with the sound of magic.
"Ice-Make: Lance!"
Gray Fullbuster's voice cracked through the wind. He slammed his fists together, and half a dozen jagged spears of ice erupted from the frozen ground, arching through the air toward Kaelen.
Kaelen didn't move. He stood with his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his breathing shallow and rhythmic. Then, his eyes shifted. The iris bled into a piercing, unnatural crimson, and a single black tomoe began to rotate around the pupil.
To anyone else, the lances were a blur of lethal frost. To Kaelen, the world became a grid. He saw the slight tremor in Gray's wrist that dictated the angle of the strike. He saw the weak points in the crystalline structure of the ice.
He waited until the first lance was a foot from his throat.
With a sudden, explosive twist, Kaelen stepped into the "blind spot" of the attack. His right hand reached into the empty air beside him. A dark, oily ripple distorted the space for a fraction of a second, a fold in the world that only he could see.
"Storage," he muttered.
His hand vanished into the rift and reappeared gripping the hilt of a blackened iron short-sword. He didn't even have to look; the weapon felt like an extension of his own nervous system.
Clang!
He parried the first two lances with a single, sweeping upward stroke. The impact vibrated through his arm, but he didn't give Gray an inch. He stepped forward, the iron blade singing as it sliced through the remaining projectiles.
"He's getting faster with that 'hole' in the air," Lyon called out from the porch. He was leaning against a post, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he watched with Ur. "He doesn't even have to reach for it anymore. It's like the sword just falls into his hand."
Ur didn't answer. She was watching Kaelen's eyes. She had seen that red glow before, and every time it appeared, the air around the boy seemed to grow heavier, more suffocating.
Back in the clearing, Gray wasn't done. He slid across the ice he had created, his hands forming a massive hammer of frost.
"Stop dodging and hit me!" Gray yelled, swinging the hammer in a wide, punishing arc.
Kaelen's Sharingan tracked the movement. He saw the arc. He saw the opening. But something else was happening. The crimson in his eyes wasn't just giving him vision; it was feeding him. The memory of the man with the cane, the smell of charred wood from his father's pyre, it all surged forward, fueled by the adrenaline of the fight.
His Ethernano, usually a steady stream, turned jagged and violent. Blue sparks began to dance across his skin, jumping from his fingertips to the iron blade.
I'll destroy it, a voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Kaelen didn't duck the hammer. He lunged into it.
"Discharge."
He slammed his spark-coated palm against the side of the ice hammer. The high-frequency vibration didn't just break the ice—it made it explode into a fine, glittering mist. The force of the blast sent Gray flying backward, skidding ten feet through the snow until he slammed into a drift.
Kaelen didn't stop. He took another step forward, his sword raised, his face a mask of cold, unbridled fury. His eyes were wide, the tomoe spinning frantically. For a second, he wasn't in Isvan anymore. He was back in the massacre, and Gray was just another shadow to be cut down.
"Kaelen! Stop!"
Ur's voice hit him like a physical blow.
Kaelen froze. His sword was inches from the snow where Gray was struggling to sit up. The blue sparks on his arm hissed and died out. He stood there, chest heaving, the red light in his eyes slowly receding until they were once again a dull, empty black.
"Enough for today," Ur said, her voice unusually sharp. She walked into the clearing, her eyes darting between the two boys.
Gray groaned, rubbing his ribs as he stood up. He looked at Kaelen, blinking away the snow.
"Damn, Kaelen... What was that? You looked like you were actually trying to take my head off."
Lyon walked over, looking Kaelen up and down with a scowl. "Your face went all weird. You looked... I don't know, like you forgot who we were for a second. It was creepy."
Kaelen looked down at the iron sword. He felt a wave of nausea hit him, the typical comedown from the Sharingan's intensity. He forced his hand to open, and the sword was swallowed back into the dark ripple of the void.
"I just got carried away," Kaelen muttered, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.
Damn, if I don't learn to control myself, I'm really going to end up doing something terrible... He discovered a few months ago that his Sharingan was consuming him from the inside out, and that there was nothing he could do about it. In this world, the Uchiha were cursed by a god in the past and are forced to live with this burden.
He had become stronger than before, that was certain, but not enough. He needed more. More strength for this man.
"There's 'carried away' and then there's whatever that was," Gray said, though he didn't seem truly angry. He bumped Kaelen's shoulder with a bruised grin. "But hey, you smashed that hammer like it was glass. I didn't think your 'sparks' were that strong yet."
"They aren't," Ur interrupted, her gaze lingering on Kaelen. "That wasn't just a spell. That was a surge. Kaelen, inside. Now. Gray, Lyon, go start the fire. You're both shivering."
The three boys walked back to the cabin in a strange, heavy silence. Lyon and Gray started bickering about who had the better form, but Kaelen stayed quiet. He could still feel that dark heat in the back of his skull.
Later that evening, while the others were eating, Kaelen sat by the window. He looked at his reflection in the dark glass. He didn't recognize himself anymore. He was a ten-year-old child with the eyes of a ghost, living with people who had no idea what kind of poison was flowing through his veins.
"Hey," Gray said, tossing a piece of dried fruit at him. "Stop staring at nothing. It makes the soup taste worse."
Kaelen caught the fruit without looking. "Lyon's cooking is what makes the soup taste worse, Gray."
"Hey!" Lyon shouted from across the room. "I put effort into that!"
Gray laughed, and for a moment, the tension in Kaelen's chest eased. He looked at them—the loud, arrogant Lyon and the stubborn Gray. They were the only things keeping him anchored to this reality.
-----
After the meal, Gray and Lyon eventually collapsed near the fireplace, overcome by a day of training that had pushed their young bodies to their limits. Silence reclaimed the cabin, disturbed only by the irregular crackling of the logs and the whistling of the wind against the frosted windowpanes.
Kaelen remained seated on the windowsill, his gaze lost in the vast blackness outside. He still felt that electric hum beneath his skin, a residual vibration that refused to die down.
Above all, he felt the weight of Ur's gaze. She remained at the table, clearing away the few empty bowls, her face bathed in a shadow that made her features appear even more severe.
"Lyon, Gray, go to bed. If I find you still here in five minutes, I'm making you sleep in the stable," she ordered in a calm but brook-no-argument voice.
The two boys did not protest. Gray cast one last glance toward Kaelen, a fleeting glint of worry in his dark eyes, before following Lyon toward their rooms. Once the door was closed, Ur sat across from the window, observing the boy's frail silhouette.
"Come here, Kaelen. We aren't going to spend the night watching the snow fall."
Kaelen obeyed, sitting silently at the table. He kept his head down, his black hair veiling his eyes.
"This evening, in the clearing... I saw something that disturbed me," Ur began, crossing her arms over the rough wood. "It wasn't just lightning magic. It was as if you had suddenly decided Gray was the creature that ravaged your village. You were somewhere else, Kaelen. You had the look of a killer."
"I know," he whispered, his voice choked. "It's getting worse. When my eyes activate, it's like all the bad thoughts I try to bury come rushing up at once. The anger, the fear... everything becomes ten times stronger."
Ur remained silent for a moment, studying him with a new intensity.
"Uchiha. It's a name one occasionally hears in the old chronicles of Northern mages," she resumed. "They say it was a lineage of solitary warriors, capable of seeing through illusions and predicting movement before it even exists. But the rumors also say it is blood burdened by a particular shadow. A sort of emotional curse."
She paused, searching for her words. She knew nothing of his family, nor the details of the massacre, beyond the ruins she had found. To her, as to everyone else, it was the work of the demon Deliora.
"I don't know the secrets of your family, Kaelen. I don't know how you lived up there before that horror fell upon you. But what I saw tonight... it isn't just the trauma of Deliora. It is your own power that seems to be devouring you. Is that it? The secret of your eyes?"
Kaelen finally raised his head. His eyes had turned black again, but they seemed hollow, haunted by a fatigue that did not belong to his age.
"My father said our hearts work differently. We don't love like others do. And when we lose what we love, or when the pain becomes too great, it transforms into visual power. But the price is atrocious. The stronger the eye becomes, the darker the mind grows. It's as if my eyes feeds on the darkest parts of me."
He clenched his fists on the table, his knuckles turning white. Deep down, his spirit screamed against this injustice. He had never asked for this burden, not in this life, nor the last. He feared that this "Curse of Hatred" would eventually erase the man he was trying to be.
"I'm afraid, Ur. I'm afraid that one day, I won't be able to tell the difference between my friends and my enemies. I'm afraid of becoming nothing more than a machine for destruction."
Ur rose slowly. She walked around the table and stopped right in front of him. Kaelen expected a reprimand, a tactical lecture, or a lesson on Ethernano control. Instead, he felt two hands rest gently on his shoulders, and then he was pulled against her.
Ur held him in a firm embrace, her hand resting on the back of his head. For Kaelen, the shock was total. In his previous life, human contact was rare and superficial. Here, in this cabin, against this woman who smelled of snow and pine, he felt a warmth he had never truly known. It wasn't just the protection of a master; it was the tenderness of a mother.
"Listen to me, you little fool," Ur breathed, her voice vibrating against him. "I don't care what the legends say about your clan or your cursed blood. You are not your clan. You are Kaelen. You are the kid who sulks over his soup, the one who obstinately tries to manipulate space on his own, and the one who protect his friends even if it's clumsy."
Kaelen closed his eyes, feeling his barriers crumble. The man he had once been faded before the child he had become. He gripped Ur's clothes, burying his face against her shoulder.
"I won't let you become that monster," Ur continued, tightening her hold. "If your eyes push you toward the shadow, I'll be there to pull you back to the light, even if I have to slap you awake. You are no longer alone in this. You have Gray, you have Lyon... and you have me."
Kaelen remained there, cradled by Ur's calm breathing. The void he had felt since the massacre seemed, for the first time, to be filled by something other than hatred. He understood that if his Sharingan fed on tragedy, it could also be anchored by the affection of those around him.
"Thank you... Mother," he murmured, his voice barely a breath.
There was a slight tremor in Ur's arms. She didn't reply immediately, but Kaelen felt her hand stroke his hair with infinite softness. She might not have planned it, she might not have been ready to take on this role, but at that moment, she accepted this sacred bond.
"Alright, that's enough emotion," she said finally, pulling away, though her eyes shone with an unusual light. She gave him a small, proud, yet demanding smile. "Go to bed. Tomorrow, we start training at dawn. And if you can't summon your sword in less than a second, I'm making you run around the mountain with Lyon on your back."
Kaelen discreetly wiped his eyes and stood up, a slight smile on his lips.
"Okay."
As he headed toward his room, he felt strangely light. He knew that danger lurked, that the world was vast and cruel, and that his eyes were not done tormenting him.
But he had people to protect. And he swore to himself that nothing, and no one, would take them away from him.