A white wolf moved through the forest, his fur was illuminated by the pale moonlight filtering through the canopy above. The air was still—unnaturally so. Not even the rustling of leaves nor the distant cries of nocturnal creatures broke the suffocating silence.
Skoll's ears twitched. Something was wrong.
Then—
A blur of motion.
From the trees above, a figure descended, a steel was flashing in the dim light. Skoll reacted instantly, twisting his body with unnatural grace as the blade sliced through empty air. The ground where he had stood an instant before cracked from the force of the strike.
A pause. A stare.
The wolf and the boy locked gazes, the tension between them was thick enough to smother the quiet.
Yet as Skoll's sharp eyes traced the figure before him, unease crept up his body. The boy's form—his very presence—was… wrong. He flickered, and his edges were distorting like a reflection on rippling water.
Then, without warning, he disappeared.
Skoll's eyes widened, his instincts were screaming too late.
A whisper of displaced air was behind him.
The boy was already there with his blade poised, cutting through the illusion he had left behind.
Skoll spun, twisting his body just in time to evade the strike. The katana whistled past his fur, a fraction of a second away from cutting deep. Without hesitation, he leaped back, putting distance between himself and the boy.
The silence of the forest was shattered immediately.
Skoll lunged first, his body was a blur of speed as he closed the distance, slicing his claws through the air. But the boy was already moving.
A single step—then two.
And suddenly, there were three of him.
Afterimages.
Skoll lashed out, tearing through the first figure—only for it to vanish like mist. The second struck out with a katana, biting the blade into Skoll's side—but before it could fully connect, the illusion wavered and disappeared.
The real one was already repositioning.
Skoll barely had time to react before a distortion in the air pulled at him.
A swirling vortex—a crack in space itself—formed just a few feet away, dragging everything toward it with a force that made the air tremble. Leaves, dirt, even the lingering Ka in the environment spiraled toward its center, vanishing into a void of nothingness.
Skoll braced himself, digging his claws into the ground as the pull intensified. His body resisted, and his muscles were straining, until—
The vortex vanished.
"Tch."
Everything that had been caught in its grasp reappeared in an instant—displaced, scattered. A few broken branches and loosened stones showed signs of degradation, as if they had been momentarily unmade.
But Skoll wasn't given time to process it.
Because the boy was gone again.
No scent. No sound. No presence.
Not invisibility—but something worse.
Even Ka-sensing—an ability that the wolf honed through years of survival—struggled to register him. He was there, yet not. A contradiction.
Then—
A whisper of movement. A shift in the air.
Instinct took over. Skoll twisted just in time to see the boy reappear from the void with his katana already mid-swing. He barely dodged, causing the blade to grazed past his shoulder before he retaliated with a swipe of his claws.
The boy vanished again, reappearing at Skoll's side. Then behind. Then above.
Space was bending.
No—rejecting.
A fractured existence.
The boy—no, the anomaly—manifested once more, his Ka was crackling around him like an unseen force rewriting reality itself.
Skoll dashed forward again, tearing his claws through empty space as the boy blinked out of existence once more.
A ripple. A fracture.
Then—
Behind him.
Skoll barely twisted in time as the boy's katana arced toward him in a flash of silver. He leaped back, but not unscathed—a shallow cut sliced across his foreleg, a stinging reminder of his opponent's speed.
The boy didn't stop. He pressed forward, causing the very air around them be distorted—warped—rejecting the normal flow of space.
The white wolf dodged to the side.
But the boy was already there.
A vortex erupted between them, swallowing debris into its abyss before snapping shut.
Skoll tried to pivot—
Too late.
The boy emerged from nothingness, his katana was poised to strike—
A clean hit.
Or it would have been.
Just as the blade was about to land, the very air between them shattered.
Thrum.
A formless force, it felt... heavy and suffocating. It rippled outward—like a veil of darkness that was never meant to be seen.
The boy's katana stopped mid-swing, its momentum was crushed against something unseen. Not a solid wall, not a forceful push—just an absence, an emptiness that simply denied his strike.
Then, a presence.
A single golden eye gleamed from the shadows.
Fenrir.
The black wolf stood between them with his unreadable expression.
For a moment, silence settled over the battlefield.
Then, in a single motion, both combatants stepped back, breaking the impasse.
The boy exhaled sharply, rising and falling his shoulders with each breath. He looked between the two wolves.
Then—
With a sigh, he loosened his grip.
Clatter.
The katana fell from his hands, embedding itself slightly into the dirt. The boy let himself drop onto the ground beside it, sprawling his arms out.
"God damn it," he muttered, staring up at the canopy above.
"…I lost again!"
Soft footfalls approached.
Fenrir and Skoll stood over the laying Velren.
The black wolf tilted his head slightly.
"You give up too easily."
Velren let out a dry laugh, pushing himself up onto his elbows before fully sitting upright. He wiped the sweat from his brow, giving Fenrir an incredulous look.
"Are you crazy? Fighting both of you at the same time is basically a death sentence."
Fenrir sighed, shaking his head.
"Nevertheless, you did well."
His golden gaze shifted to Skoll, eyeing the spot where the boy's blade had nearly landed a clean hit.
A faint mark was visible on Skoll's shoulder.
The white wolf followed Fenrir's gaze before scoffing.
"Tch. If you had followed through, you might've actually gotten me that time."
Velren smirked but said nothing.
Skoll stretched, rolling his shoulders before speaking again.
"By the way… isn't the Grandmaster supposed to return tonight?"
Velren stilled for a moment before glancing toward the darkening sky.
"…Yeah."