The ruins still smoked from the aftermath of Master Vince's last strike. The earth itself had been split open molten cracks glowing like veins of a wounded god.

K stumbled through the haze, his once-pristine coat torn, his right arm trembling violently. His orange hair, wild and untamed like a burning flame, glinted faintly under the dying light. His lips curled into a crooked smirk as he wiped the blood trailing down his chin.

K muttered, voice low but venom-laced.

"Heh… I tanked his attack and observed his strength… tested it…"

He spat on the ground, his boots crunching against the shattered remains of the battlefield.

"Looks like he's still strong. That old bastard... hasn't lost his edge."

K clenched his fist, the void energy swirling faintly around it. His veins pulsed a dull black.

"Voidborn might not be enough... I need something stronger. Much stronger... if I'm ever to kill that old man."

He looked toward the distant horizon toward where Master Vince had vanished with the others. His eyes narrowed, cold calculation hiding beneath the flicker of madness.

"The two twins left behind their wills... but a trash is a trash, no matter what," he whispered, his tone dripping with disdain.

The air shifted. A faint hum of the void resonated around him dark tendrils twisting in the wind. He raised his hand and gazed at the faint shimmer of his reflection on a piece of broken armor. His smirk returned.

"Tch... this body's broken, but the mind remains sharp."

He straightened, brushing the dust off his cloak. His steps echoed through the ruins, measured and deliberate. Each movement carried an eerie calm, the calm of a predator planning his next move.

"They call me the Tactician of the Hollow Nine for a reason," K murmured, his eyes reflecting the faint ember of pride. "Strength can be matched. But foresight... foresight wins wars."

For a moment, his gaze softened almost reverent.

He raised his hand, pressing it over his heart as though offering silent prayer.

"Lucere…"

The name rolled from his tongue like both worship and surrender.

"You, the Almighty of the Hollow Nine. The only one who saw through the delusions of this world. The only one who dared to see the truth — that humanity itself is a disease."

The wind howled, carrying dust and ashes into the air.

K's grin widened, his shadow stretching long and twisted under the dim sky.

"You're not a fool, my lord. You're the clarity this rotten society lacks."

He turned his back to the ruin, limping forward.

"Just wait, Lucere. I'll find the next shard. I'll awaken the perfect vessel."

His fingers brushed the side of his coat revealing a dark, pulsing crystal embedded in his chest, faintly glowing like a heart of shadow.

"And when that happens… even Vince the Wandering Fist won't stand a chance."

Lightning cracked somewhere far away a storm gathering at the edge of the world.

K smirked once more, whispering to the wind.

"Let the Taishin shine while it can… soon, the Hollow will consume the dawn."

He disappeared into the smoke, leaving only his laughter behind sharp, cold, and echoing endlessly across the broken plains.

Before he was called K before the Hollow Nine, there was only a boy with smoke in his heart.

The rain had been falling for hours.

Not the kind that cleanses, the kind that soaks the world in grey, until even dreams turn cold.

Inside a dimly lit laboratory, a small boy stood on a stool, scribbling complex equations on a board twice his height. His handwriting was small, neat almost mechanical.

His name was Kairo.

And even at ten years old, his mind worked faster than any scholar in his father's institute.

"Father, if you reverse the Shinrei flow here"

He pointed at a diagram a loop of energy streams showing Shinrei compression ratios.

"….you can stabilize the emotional resonance without harming the vessel."

His father froze, the quill dropping from his hand. His mother stared. The room went silent except for the sound of the rain outside.

Then, for the first time in years, his father smiled.

But it wasn't the smile of a parent proud of his child.

It was the smile of a researcher who had found his missing piece.

Days became months.

Months became years.

The boy's world shrank to numbers and commands.

"Kairo, analyze this pattern."

"Kairo, stay up until you finish."

"Kairo, do you understand what this means for our legacy?"

He understood too well.

He understood that every time he solved a problem, his father took the credit.

He understood that his mother only praised him when investors came to visit.

He understood that the warmth in their eyes was never for him.

At night, he'd sit by the cracked window, his breath fogging against the glass watching the smoke rise from the chimneys.

His Shinrei Affinity Smoke / Mist, a sub-element of Win manifested early.

At first, it frightened him. Wisps of grey mist would appear whenever he cried, wrapping around him like a shield, hiding him from sight.

He didn't know it yet, but it was his soul's way of protecting him.

The Affinity of Concealment.

Born not from pride, but from pain.

One night, he overheard them.

His parents.

Their voices, muffled through the laboratory walls.

"He's… unnatural," his mother whispered.

"No child should think like that. No emotion, no hesitation."

"He's not a child anymore," his father replied coldly. "He's a tool. A gift from the Shinrei itself."

Kairo's small hands trembled as he pressed them to his chest.

He wanted to cry.

But no tears came.

Only smoke.

A silent, choking fog that filled the corridor, his heart screaming where his voice could not.

Years later.

He was fifteen.

The institute had grown thanks to his work but Kairo had withered.

His eyes were dim, his voice monotone. The laughter of other students echoed down the halls, but he walked alone. Always alone.

The day that changed everything came when a problem appeared a complex Shinrei loop that even his father couldn't solve.

"Kairo!" his father snapped. "Do something. Fix it!"

Kairo stared at the unstable energy diagram on the board. The solution appeared instantly in his mind. He reached out, drawing on his Smoke Affinity manipulating the Shinrei thread with surgical precision.

The unstable circuit stabilized. Perfect.

Too perfect.

The observers gasped.

His father's face twisted not in joy, but in fear.

"This… this can't be."

"You… you're not human. No human can channel Shinrei like that without emotion."

Kairo blinked.

He wanted to say, I just wanted to help you, Father.

But the words never came.

His father's hand struck him across the face hard.

"Monster!"

The word echoed.

Over and over.

Until that was all he could hear.

That night, Kairo stood alone in the rain, the smoke curling around him again.

His eyes were blank, his lips trembling.

He whispered to no one,

"I'm sorry for being a monster..."

The next morning, the laboratory was empty.

The boy had vanished.

Only a single equation was left written on the board elegant, flawless.

The signature at the bottom read:

"Kairo — who wished to be loved."

…

…

Years later.

In the ruins of an abandoned cathedral, the young man now known as K knelt before a figure sitting on the edge of the altar, Lucere.

His pink wolf-cut hair glimmered in the fractured moonlight, and his eyes orange, red, and black swirled like galaxies devouring themselves.

Lucere smiled.

"Tell me, boy of mist… why do you look at the world as if it already ended?"

Kairo now K bowed his head, his voice calm but trembling.

"Because I learned long ago… that love is just another equation. And I was never part of it."

Lucere stood, his shadow stretching across the floor, wrapping around K like a second skin.

"Then perhaps, Kairo… you will fit perfectly in a world I imagine."

He extended his hand.

"Join me. Let us build a paradise where emotion no longer chains brilliance. Where people like you can breathe."

For a long moment, Kairo said nothing.

Then, slowly, he took Lucere's hand.

And that was the day K, the Tactician of the Hollow Nine, was born.

The boy who wanted to be loved became the man who learned to command emptiness itself.

To be continue

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