The wasteland was a forgotten place. Its bones lay scattered across the earth, cracked and splintered like old teeth. The air was thick, dry, and clung to everything with a suffocating weight. Even the wind seemed tired, brushing through the withered remnants of what was once life, barely stirring the dust in the air.
Blue Kurogane stood on the edge of this emptiness. His gaze swept across the desolation before him, taking in the expanse of lifeless earth. The silence around him was unnerving, as if the very land had been swallowed by time. His hand, pale against the stark grayness, tightened around a stray piece of wood—its surface worn and fragile.
For a moment, he simply held it, feeling the texture beneath his fingers. The stick felt like nothing, like just another relic of the wasteland. But then—there was a pulse. A quiet vibration, as though the stick itself had a heartbeat. The wood groaned under an invisible force, folding in on itself as if it were paper, and in the blink of an eye, it vanished, leaving nothing but an echo in the air.
Where it had been, there was now only a faint shimmer—a ring.
It was simple, unadorned. No markings. No design. Just a smooth, perfect band of metal. But the moment Blue's fingers brushed against it, he felt the weight of it—a gravitational pull that was as subtle as it was impossible to ignore. The ring hummed, an almost imperceptible thrum vibrating through his hand, through his very bones.
The power within it was ancient, primordial, and there was no mistaking it. It was not a tool. It was something far greater. Something beyond reason.
Blue slipped the ring onto his finger. His heart beat once. Twice. Then—he felt it. The ring expanded in his mind, stretching out beyond sight, beyond measure. It was a void, a black hole of unimaginable capacity. It was as if the ring contained an entire world inside it, and that world bent and shifted according to his will.
The rings pulsed again, a steady rhythm like a heart in the silence of the wasteland. They were more than objects. They were a part of him. Extensions of his will. Untouchable. Indestructible. Nothing—no force, no blade, no spell—could break them. They were beyond the physical laws of the world, impervious to anything that might seek to harm them.
Blue flexed his fingers, the rings responding like living things. Invisible. Silent. But present. Always present.
They vibrated in tune with his thoughts, echoing a promise of limitless power. He knew now that the rings could store anything—objects, weapons, even souls. Whatever he wished, it could be contained. As if the very essence of existence had been folded into these rings, awaiting his command.
A shiver of warning ran through the air, breaking his concentration. The subtle tremor of the ground beneath his feet. The faintest vibration that rippled through the fabric of the silence. Something was coming.
The rings hummed once more, sending a ripple of energy through the air.
Blue turned his head, his eyes narrowing. The shadows of the wasteland seemed to shift. In the distance, a blur of motion—a figure sprinting with unnatural speed. A wolf. But not like any wolf he'd ever seen. This creature moved with an unnatural grace, its amber eyes gleaming with hunger, with malice. Its body rippled with muscle, powerful and fluid, like a shadow on the hunt.
His fingers tightened around the invisible rings on his hand. He did not move. He did not flinch.
The wolf, faster than anything Blue had encountered, lunged toward him. Its jaws opened wide, fangs gleaming in the twilight. The air around them thickened.
Blue remained perfectly still.
In that instant, time fractured.
The wolf's form twisted, and Blue was gone—no more than a flicker in the space it had occupied. The beast's claws scraped across the ground where Blue had stood, its body now shifting towards the empty space where he had vanished.
The wolf's amber eyes locked onto him. It snarled, low and guttural, and lunged again—quicker this time, more vicious.
But Blue was already elsewhere, his body a blur against the wasteland's stillness.
A ripple of energy surged through the air. It wasn't a spell. It wasn't a blast of force. It was something more subtle. The very space around the wolf collapsed inward, pressing against it with a force that couldn't be seen, only felt.
The beast's body writhed in the air, struggling against the invisible pressure that crushed it from all sides.
The wolf's form spasmed. The air around it shimmered, and then, in a heartbeat, it shattered. Its body disintegrated, torn apart not by brute force, but by a crushing pressure that folded the very fabric of reality.
And just like that, it was gone. Vanished into the air, nothing left but a faint trace of the chaos it had brought.
Blue stood in the silence, his eyes cold and emotionless, his body unmoving. The world around him felt still, as though the very wind had ceased its motion.
His hand flexed again. The rings pulsed, their invisible presence wrapping around him like a second skin. Ten rings. Ten extensions of his power. Ten symbols of his control.
A quiet tremor rippled through the air. A warning.
The rings were not omnipotent. Not infallible. A faint unease lingered at the edges of Blue's thoughts. The wolf had been fast. Fast enough to make him aware of how fragile even his power could feel in certain moments. There was a nagging thought, a whisper in his mind.
What if something stronger came next? What if his power wasn't enough?
He exhaled slowly, pushing the thought away. There was no room for hesitation. Not now. Not ever.
The rings thrummed once more, their constant hum a reminder of the power at his command.
Blue's gaze turned back toward the horizon, his fingers flexing again, and the air around him shifted, settling into stillness once more.
The wasteland was silent.
But Blue knew better than to believe in quiet.
Silence always had a price.