Before Yura swung his blade again, the world remembered him.
Not as the Frost Cutter.
Not as a terrorist.
Not as an enemy.
But as a boy standing barefoot in snow that should have killed him.
Long before empires argued about balance, before chosen ones were measured by power and usefulness, Yura lived in a northern village where winter never truly ended. The cold there was not seasonal—it was inherited. Children learned to walk on ice before they learned to speak.
Yura was different.
Ice bent toward him.
When he cried, snowflakes stopped falling midair. When he laughed—rare, but real—the frost around him softened. The elders called it a blessing. The priests called it destiny.
The gods called it ownership.
At sixteen, Yura was taken.
Chosen.
He was not asked.
Summoned into a war that was already decided by beings far above the battlefield, handed a katana forged from absolute zero—the Frost Divider—and told one simple truth:
"You will stop the world where it becomes inconvenient."
At first, he obeyed.
He froze invading armies in place so they could never advance again. He cut through rampaging beasts without spilling blood, preserving cities by halting destruction mid-motion. People praised him as merciful. Efficient. Clean.
They never saw what happened after.
Frozen soldiers did not die—but they never lived again. Children grew up staring at statues of fathers who never returned. Rivers stopped flowing. Trade routes became glassed plains. History itself developed scars.
Yura noticed.
He began asking questions.
"What happens when winter never ends?"
"What happens to a future that can't move?"
The answers were always the same.
"That is not your concern."
Then came the order that broke him.
A rebellion had risen in the southern continent—small, desperate, led by farmers and scholars who refused divine taxation. The decree was clear.
Erase them. Permanently.
Yura arrived alone.
He saw children carrying books instead of weapons. He saw elders standing in front of homes they knew would not survive the night. He saw a woman—pregnant—step forward and bow to him, thanking him in advance for making it quick.
Yura did not draw his blade.
He froze the decree instead.
The divine command descended from the sky in burning sigils, and Yura cut it in half—splitting intent itself, halting the gods' will mid-descent.
For the first time, a chosen one said no.
The punishment was swift.
The gods did not kill him.
They froze everything he loved.
His village.
His family.
His name in the world's memory.
They sealed him outside the flow of fate, cursed to walk a world that moved while everything he cared for stood still.
"Balance," they told him, as he screamed into frozen air.
"Stillness is balance."
Centuries passed.
Empires rose and fell while Yura wandered a world that never waited for him. He watched the same mistakes repeat—chosen ones turning into weapons, gods treating lives like variables, love creating motion that ended in ruin.
So he decided:
If the world could not learn…
He would stop it himself.
Back in the present, frost and fire collided in trembling silence.
Yura's hands shook—not from fear, but from memory.
"I froze tomorrow," he said quietly, eyes fixed on Rocky. "Because every time it moves, it bleeds."
Snow drifted upward now, pulled by conflicting forces. Guguro's flames flickered—not attacking, but listening.
Rocky felt it then.
Not justification.
Not forgiveness.
But understanding.
Yura was not trying to end the world.
He was trying to save it from repeating itself.
The Frost Cutter raised his blade once more—hesitant now, burdened.
"Tell me, Summoner," Yura asked, voice breaking for the first time.
"Can your summons protect the future… without freezing it?"
The battlefield waited.
Not frozen.
Not burning.
But balanced—
for one fragile moment.
Yura's blade trembled.
Not from weakness—
from exhaustion that had lasted centuries.
The Frost Divider slipped from his grip and struck the frozen ground point-first. The ice did not shatter this time. Instead, it melted, quietly, as if the world itself had decided to listen.
"I have stopped tomorrow for so long," Yura said, voice barely louder than the wind. "That I forgot what it felt like to choose today."
Guguro's flames softened, no longer raging, forming a ring of warmth instead of destruction. The battlefield breathed again. Snow fell normally now, cold but gentle, no longer carrying the weight of judgment.
Rocky stepped forward.
No summons flared.
No aura surged.
Just a summoner walking toward a man who had frozen the world out of grief.
"You don't need to carry it alone anymore," Rocky said. "Balance isn't stillness. It's motion that doesn't break what it loves."
Yura looked at him—really looked.
Not as a threat.
Not as an obstacle.
But as someone who stood between power and compassion without flinching.
"And if I move again," Yura asked, "what if I destroy everything?"
Rocky raised his hand.
The system appeared—but different from before. No command prompt. No forced contract. Just a single, glowing option, waiting.
SUMMON CONTRACT — VOLUNTARY
CONCEPT: STILLNESS AND MOTION IN HARMONY
"This time," Rocky said, "you don't stop the world. You protect it—with us."
Sylvia watched silently, heart tight in her chest. She saw it then—the moment Yura finally let go.
The Frost Cutter knelt.
The sound echoed louder than any battle.
"I will not freeze tomorrow again," Yura said. "If I walk this path… I walk it by choice."
He placed his hand over Rocky's.
The contract ignited.
Not chains.
Not domination.
Acceptance.
Frost and flame intertwined, spiraling upward into the sky as the katana dissolved into light and reformed—no longer a weapon of judgment, but of control and restraint.
The system chimed softly.
NEW SUMMON ACQUIRED
YURA — THE FROST CUTTER
ROLE: CONCEPTUAL GUARDIAN
AUTHORITY: CONTINUITY, TEMPERATURE, PAUSE
STATUS: BOUND BY WILL, NOT COMMAND
Yura stood again—but different.
The frost around him no longer devoured motion. It guided it.
He looked at his hands, then at Rocky.
"So this," he said quietly, "is what moving forward feels like."
Rocky smiled.
Behind them, the frozen battlefield fully thawed. Summons returned to motion. The sky cleared. The snow became just snow.
One of the Seven Katana Terrorists was no more.
In his place stood a guardian.
And somewhere deep within Rocky's system, the counter changed:
KATANA AUTHORITY — 1/7 HARMONIZED
Six remained.
But for the first time, the hunt no longer felt like a war.
It felt like salvation.