A choked gasp tore from Goro's throat—not despair, but terrifying clarity. This wasn't a request; it was a crucible. He scrambled forward, boots slipping on rubble slick with ash and terror. He didn't look at Kenji frozen halfway up the beam, or Hideshi buried under splintered timber. His warhammer—solid, familiar, suddenly pitifully small—lay discarded near a fallen Iwakura banner. Goro scooped it up, the familiar weight a fleeting anchor. Then he was running—not toward escape, but *toward* the devastation. Past the ruined gate where Kenji still clutched the skull banner, past the shattered watchtower rubble still warm from Kaido's landing. He sprinted downhill, lungs burning with dust-laden air tasting of ozone and burnt earth, toward the distant village clinging like lichen to the Stone Crags foothills. His father's forge awaited. Not the hearth—pitiful, coughing thing—but the tools: the heavy sledges tongs like dragon jaws, the quenching trough deep as a grave. Tools forged for iron tears, not mountain blood. He ran faster, legs pumping, the apocalyptic pillar's heat prickling his skin even miles away. Kaido's contemptuous silhouette watched him vanish into the settling dusk—a beetle granted purpose by a hurricane. **Goro's mind raced:** *The deepest vein… Granite Heart ore… buried near the old landslide… Takes three days just to chip loose…* The impossible scale yawned before him. Yet Kaido's silent gaze, heavier than a mountain range, drove him onward. He'd need more than tools. He'd need miracles.
Kaido tilted his head back, inhaling the deepening twilight. Scents layered upon scents—burnt cedar carried on shockwave winds from the destruction plume miles east, mingling with damp stone from nearby mountains and the sharp sting of fear still radiating from the fortress survivors. His crimson gaze slid past Kenji, now frantically hammering the crude skull banner onto the main gate beam, and lingered on Goro's dwindling figure vanishing toward Stone Crags' shadowed slopes. Purpose etched. Potential ignited. Slowly, deliberately, Kaido pivoted. Ash crunched beneath his sandals as his attention fixed on the remaining survivor: Hideshi. The samurai had crawled behind a mound of shattered masonry near the main hall's collapsed roof beam, pressing himself flat against the cold stone like a lizard hoping to blend in. Dust coated his trembling back; his ragged breaths rasped like sandpaper. Kaido strode toward him, each deliberate step vibrating fractured cobblestones. He stopped directly above Hideshi's huddled form, his immense shadow swallowing the meager twilight clinging to the rubble. "And you?" Kaido rumbled, his voice low and resonant as grinding tectonic plates. The question wasn't an inquiry. It was a blade pressed to the throat of Hideshi's fragile existence. "What can *you* do?"
Hideshi froze. Every muscle locked tight. He didn't look up. His face remained pressed into jagged stone debris, dust coating sweat-streaked skin. His fingers clawed uselessly at fractured rock beneath him as if hoping to dig deeper. Only the frantic flutter of his pulse visible beneath his ear's grime betrayed life. Weakness permeated him—the sour tang of terror-sweat mixing with dust, the shallow shudder of each suppressed breath, the utter absence of defiance Goro possessed. Scraps of shattered armor lay scattered nearby, their purpose mocked by the unconscious warriors littering the courtyard. Kaido's gaze dissected him: calloused hands hinting at weapon training now rendered useless, posture screaming prey instinct. Not defiance. Flight reflex calcified into paralysis. This one offered no spark. Only kindling. Kaido's scaled lips flattened into a thin line. Disappointment radiated colder than winter stone.
Kaido moved. Thick fingers closed like bear traps around Hideshi's stained collar and belt buckle. The samurai yelped—a raw, choked sound—as Kaido hauled him effortlessly aloft. He dangled, limbs flailing weakly, kicking only air. Dust cascaded from his clothes as Kaido strode without hesitation toward the fortress's rear—an area less devastated, where training grounds once stood beside collapsed storerooms. Splintered weapon racks lay scattered; cracked practice dummies slumped against walls. Kaido stopped before a heavy stone training post deeply scarred by blade strikes. He dropped Hideshi hard onto packed earth. The samurai landed in a graceless heap, scrambling backward on elbows until his back slammed against the cold stone post. Terror widened his eyes, flicking frantically between Kaido's impassive face and the scattered weapons nearby.
Kaido's gaze swept the debris. He spotted it near an overturned rack: an odachi. Its blade lay partially unsheathed, revealing polished steel darkened with neglect. The hilt remained tightly wrapped, long enough for two-handed grip. Quality mattered little. Kaido snatched it up. The blade felt flimsy as a reed in his grip, the balance offensively poor. He tossed it contemptuously. It landed point-first in the packed earth inches from Hideshi's hip, the blade sinking deep, vibrating with a sharp metallic hum that cut through Hideshi's frantic panting. Kaido jerked his chin toward the blade. "Pick it up," he commanded, voice scraped gravel.
He stepped back, planting his feet wide. Arms clasped loosely behind his back. His crimson eyes locked onto Hideshi's petrified face. Dust motes danced in the fading twilight air between them. The fortress ruins seemed to hold their breath—Kenji's distant hammering ceased abruptly overhead. Kaido's expression betrayed nothing: no expectation, no anger. Only testing. Waiting. The command, when it came, resonated with primal finality: **"Attack me."** The threat was implicit, invisible: *Show me why you draw breath.* Hideshi stared at the gleaming odachi, trembling.
Hideshi's fingers closed around the rough silk binding of the odachi's hilt. Cold seeped from the steel into his bones. He pulled, expecting resistance, but the blade slid smoothly from the earth's grip. Its familiar weight—a memory of drills before dawn—felt alien and terrifying now. He scrambled upright, knees scraping packed earth, sweat stinging dust-crusted eyes. Kaido's impassive silhouette loomed impossibly large, radiating suffocating stillness. The samurai closed his eyes shut tight—not in defiance, but desperate recall. Childhood chants echoed: *Serpent's Coil… Wind Scythe…* Clan techniques drilled into muscle memory. Yet facing *this*? They felt like throwing pebbles at a typhoon. His knuckles whitened on the hilt. Breath hitched. A lifetime of training screamed *run*. Only Kaido's looming reality pinned him in place.
Hideshi lunged sideways—not toward Kaido, but circling toward the splintered weapon rack. His breath hissed between clenched teeth. Feet shuffled, kicking up dust. Then, abrupt stillness. A sharp inhalation. His stance widened—left foot forward, blade angled low behind him. Fingers adjusted on the grip—a subtle twist. Muscles coiled. With explosive speed, he accelerated sideways, blade blurring upwards in a silver arc aimed diagonally across Kaido's torso—a Wind Scythe variation. Simultaneously, his free hand whipped forward—a clumsy, desperate flurry of seals: *Ox, Rabbit, Dog.* Air shimmered violently around the odachi's edge. The jutsu was incomplete, unstable—a flickering aura of compressed wind struggling to manifest. It screamed past Kaido's ribs… and dissipated harmlessly against the indestructible scales beneath the kimono fabric. The blade itself bounced off Kaido's forearm with a pathetic *clang*. Hideshi staggered back, arm numb from the recoil, panic tearing the fragile concentration needed to maintain the failed technique. He tasted bile.
"Useless," Kaido rumbled. Not condemnation—cold observation. A monstrous hand shot out impossibly fast—not toward the blade, but toward Hideshi's collar again. Fingers clamped like hydraulic presses. He hauled Hideshi effortlessly into the air once more, suspending him face-to-face. Eyes narrowing, Kaido inhaled deeply, nostrils flared—smelling stale sweat, copper fear, ozone, and beneath it… a scorched-earth tang? Perhaps elemental affinity? Potential? Or just delusion? "That… *flicker*," Kaido growled, his breath hot against Hideshi's paling face. He tilted his horned head, crimson gaze dissecting the samurai's terror. "What *jutsu* was that meant to be? Speak. Now." The demand carried the weight of falling stone. Prove purpose. Or become dust.
Hideshi's legs flailed uselessly above the packed earth, toes searching for purchase. His throat tightened against Kaido's grip, voice emerging a choked whisper: "Wind… Scythe. F-First Form…" Kaido snorted—a sound like grinding rocks. "*That* wasn't Wind Scythe. That was…" He searched his fractured memories—a phantom echo of drunken laughter and swirling blades. "...a dying breath. Weak." He released his grip abruptly. Hideshi crashed onto his knees, wheezing. Before he could scramble back, Kaido's boot slammed down—not on him, but onto the discarded odachi's blade, pinning it deep into hardened earth. The polished steel groaned, bending under impossible pressure. "Stand," Kaido commanded. His foot lifted. "Pick it up again." Hideshi hesitated, trembling hands hovering over the warped blade. Kaido's crimson eyes narrowed. "Or stay on your knees until ash fills your lungs. Your choice."
Kaido leaned down—a mountain folding. His scaled hand closed around the hilt above Hideshi's trembling fingers, engulfing both grip and terrified knuckles. The world seemed to dim as Kaido's presence intensified—a pressure radiating pure dominance. Violet-black wisps of Conqueror's Haki hissed from his clenched fist, crackling like static electricity. They coiled around his massive forearm, threading down the odachi's bent blade, staining its steel with deepest obsidian. The air thickened—oppressive, humming with latent destruction. Dust motes froze mid-air. Hideshi whimpered, pinned not by Kaido's grip on the blade, but by the sheer suffocating aura forcing his breath shallow. "Watch, *boy*," Kaido rasped, words vibrating the cursed steel. "Let me show you…" His knuckles whitened. The pooled Conqueror's Haki ignited—a localized storm erupting with a sound like tearing space. "…a *proper* attack!"
Kaido roared. It wasn't sound—it was primal force tearing through reality. His entire form exploded into motion—a titanic pivot, hips twisting, anchored leg gouging packed earth into a crater. The odachi—now a conduit of roiling violet-black annihilation—blurred upwards. Crackling energy trailed its arc like a comet's tail. "**DIVINE DEPARTURE!**" The name shattered silence, echoing Kaido's fractured memory of crimson-haired legends and split skies. The blade struck nothing physical—its arc aimed skyward—but released the coiled Haki. A crescent of pure destructive will ripped free. It tore through the air—not displacing it, but *sundering* it. The shockwave flattened rubble piles fifty meters distant. The energy slash tore towards Stone Crags' distant peak—a silent, violet-black scar across twilight. Where it passed, stone vaporized instantly. Halfway up the mountain's eastern face, a vast section simply… ceased to exist. A plume of dust and shattered bedrock bloomed. Moments later, the delayed thunderclap arrived—rolling back across the fortress ruins like the hammer of an angry god. Dust choked the air.
Kaido lowered the blade, its cursed violet hue fading. The odachi itself, taxed beyond endurance by the channeled Haki, flaked apart—metamorphic steel disintegrating into grey powder that drifted like ash between his fingers. He sniffed—burnt ozone, vaporized granite, Hideshi's renewed terror. Kaido turned his impassive gaze downward. The samurai remained frozen on his knees, staring mutely at the vanished mountain peak—now cleaved into a jagged, smoking wound. Tears carved streaks through the grime on his cheeks. Kaido's shadow engulfed him. "Your Wind." Kaido's voice scraped raw against the settling silence. He gestured negligibly towards the apocalyptic notch still glowing faintly violet in the distant mountainside. "Scythes wheat." A pause, weighted with impossible scale. "*Mine*…" His crimson gaze met Hideshi's vacant stare. "…departs *mountains*." He pivoted, boot grinding the powdered remnants of the odachi into dust. "Tomorrow dawn. Train. Here." He strode towards the ruined main hall. "Or depart. Sky. Mountain. Same difference." **Hideshi stared at Kaido's retreating back—a silhouette carved against the horizon where mountains died.**