The arena, once roaring with the remnants of battle, now held an eerie silence. Kairo's chest still heaved, adrenaline fading into a hollow echo. But the quiet was deceiving. Somewhere in the shadows of his mind, a tremor had begun.
Voices. Seven of them, whispering, arguing, laughing, and taunting.
"You cannot control them," one hissed, sharp as a knife.
"They see everything you hide," another murmured, calm yet chilling.
"Break… break… break…" a third chanted, like nails scraping metal.
The others followed, each distinct, each demanding, filling the space behind his eyes with chaos.
Kairo's hands tightened around the chains at his side. He had felt emotions before—rage, grief, even fleeting hope—but this… this was different. It was like the arena itself had infiltrated his mind, each voice a fragment of something ancient, powerful, and hungry.
He tried to speak, to shout them down, but words became tangled in his throat. Sweat ran down his face, heart hammering against his ribs like it might burst. The faint silver strands at the tips of his hair shimmered more brightly, reacting to the storm inside him.
From above, the dark throne of Hades loomed. The god's eyes, sharp and calculating, fixated on Kairo like he was both a curiosity and a threat.
"Enough," Hades' voice thundered across the arena, and the voices inside Kairo faltered, hesitating for the first time. "Contain him. Now."
Chains of summoning shot from the floor, wrapping around Kairo before he could fully process them. The voices shrieked, echoing in his skull as he was lifted from the arena. He struggled, but the power surging within him was still raw, untrained, and incomplete.
The last thing he saw before being dragged into containment was Hades' shadowed figure, silent and ominous, watching him like a predator who had just spotted a new, dangerous prey.
They are mine… one of the voices whispered.
Not yet… another countered.
Kairo's vision blurred, silver strands of hair catching the last light of the arena, his mind already becoming a battleground for the seven voices that would haunt him from this moment forward.