Miuson's chest rose and fell like a bellows, every breath scraping its way out of him. Steam curled from his skin where snowflakes dared to land, melting instantly, drinking up the heat still humming beneath his ribs. His hands trembled on his spear. His knees nearly buckling.

Domitius leaned closer to Okun, voice barely more than a rough breath. "W…Was that… was that his Soulful Technique?"

Okun didn't answer at first. His eyes were still fixed on the bare ring of stone around them, the way the snow had retreated in a perfect, impossible circle. The way the air was still saturated with Miuson's soulura and shimmered faintly.

He finally swallowed and gave a single, slow nod. His voice came out low and sure. "Yes. It was."

No celebration followed. No triumphant shout. Just a heavy understanding settling in like a weight. The kind fathers carry when realizing a child in their care has grown into something sharp and bright enough to burn on their own.

The child Oni stood frozen several paces away, its small chest fluttering with shallow breaths. The glow in its eyes sputtered out, returning them to their usual color. Its hands, which had been spread wide with command over the wind and ice, curled back toward its chest.

A thin, stuttering sound escaped it—confusion, disbelief, fear. The child Oni's gaze dipped to the orange-warmed ground. Would it melt if it stepped forward? Would the heat devour it just as easily as it devoured the ice it conjured?

Before it's own fear could devour the child Oni from the inside out, a pained grunt broke through the frozen hesitation.

The mother Oni. Still lying in the bloody slush. Still breathing, still conscious, all for her child's sake despite the blood loss so far.

Her sound was not a call for help—it was a mother's warning: Run away.

The child Oni's head jerked toward her. Its eyes widened, then hardened.

The memory of the black cloaked figures. The shuffling puppet that had once been its father. The cold, merciless voices. The hands that took. The pain that followed.

The tears still clinging beneath its eyes didn't fall. They boiled into anger instead.

Its jaw tightened. Its teeth ground together like ice shifting under pressure. Its fists balled so hard that its knuckles paled. It's eyes glowed a icy blue once more. The blizzard air trembled around it, responding to its anger.

The child Oni's fury began anew, climbing steadily like a storm rebuilding itself from the failure of its last strike.

However, a shout would cut through the howl of the wind.

"STOP!!"

It cut through like a bell, single human voice that refused to be swallowed by wind. It was Dama's cry, ragged and raw, but impossible to ignore.

Everyone turned. Even the child Oni paused mid-breath, ice-clouds puffing from its mouth as confusion flickered across its young, furious face. For a second, man and beast were both frozen by the same unexpected sound.

Dama came barreling up through the snow like a tiny comet, one arm bunched across his face to shelter his eyes from the blast of frost. He ran on legs that began protesting long ago, coughing once, twice, as if every step cost him a lung, yet he did not slow.

Koul tried to step forward, instinct and pride warring behind his mask of pain. He choked out a warning to Dama, raw voice cracking: "Dama ACK! Stay back!!" He barked, blood droplets spewing in every direction.

But Dama, coughing and head bowed against the stinging air, turned his head to Koul. He barked back, hoarse but clear enough to be heard over the storm. "Trust me, Mr. Koul!"

The scream of the wind thickened around them as if the world had taken a sharp breath and refused to exhale. Dama lowered his chin and turned his face back toward the child Oni, his single arm still raised to cover his eyes. Snowflakes stung like thrown grains of salt. Yet beneath the sting, he felt something—not with ears, not with skin—but with his soul.

The air was not just air. The storm was not just weather. It was feeling. Instead of being fueled by nature, this blizzard was fueled by soulura—emotions.

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Sorrow. Fear. Rage. All braided into the frost like threads through cloth.

Dama swallowed, tasting iron and winter on his tongue. "This blizzard…it's not just power. It's their heart. Their pain. I can feel it, sense it...!"

Soulura flowed from emotion, Okun just taught him that, though he barely understood it until now. But this—this was, different, instinct, not knowledge. Something in him recognized the child Oni's feelings as if he had heard them spoken aloud.

To the child Oni, it blinked snow off its lashes, confusion wavering across its face. It stared at Dama and memory fluttered behind its eyes like pages disturbed by a breeze.

The day it met him.

It was laughing and genuinely having fun while shaping snowflakes and sculpting icicles that chimed like tiny bells. That simple pleasure reminded the child Oni of what its daily life was like—outside playing with its parents in their natural home—before they came. Its joy had stretched across the frozen clearing, bright and unbroken.

Then the stitched fox had appeared. Then the stitched bear. Then Dama.

They ruined the immersion, shattered its imagination and brought it back to reality.

It immediately recognized Dama as a human.

Humans. Humans who were supposed to run when the air grew sharp and the cold began to bite. But the stitched ones didn't. They wrapped around him. Protected him.

And then—that arrow.

The memory sliced through the child Oni's mind — the blinding sting, the snap of its mask on the ground, the blood-warmness of tears that had frozen on its cheeks before they could fall. The humiliation. The fear. The pain.

Its small hand rose now, trembling, to touch the spot on its forehead. The bruise still throbbed beneath skin and bone, the mark of being made vulnerable before strangers. A wound deeper than the flesh—a wound of being seen.

Tears welled again. First hot, then immediately chilled. Its face twisted.

It gasped once and then bared its small, pointed teeth. Both fists clenched, full-body tension like a bowstring drawn to breaking. With an angry shout, the child Oni thrust its arms forward as if pushing something away.

The world howled.

The blizzard surged with a violent shudder, a living beast called forth by emotion alone. Wind slammed into Dama's body like a rushing river of knives. His boots skidded across the snow, leaving a long dragging crescent behind him. His breath punched out of his chest. He nearly fell, but dug the toes of his stance deeper, carving a trench into the ice.

Behind him, Koul was also pushed back, yelling Dama's name again. Domitius braced harder, muscles like coiled ropes. Okun's jaw locked whilst raising his guard. Miuson's spear shaft groaned under his grip.

The storm clawed at them, trying to pry them apart and blow them away like scattered leaves.

But Dama, breath ragged, forced his feet to stay. While at first turned away to brace against the cold, he forced his eyes open. Forced his head up. Forced himself not to look away.

Snow continued to streak across his vision, white, white, white. He stared straight at the child Oni who's small body trembled with rage, even as the storm screamed between them.

Throughout all of that, only one thought ran through Dama's mind. "What could make a child hate like that?"

The question formed before he even realized it, quiet as a candle-flame thought. And the answer came just as quickly, like a bolt of lightning in the dark.

His vision flickered. Not the storm. Not the cold. His mind.

He saw again the dream from earlier that morning, the one he had written off as nonsense, as imagination. Yet now it echoed inside him with the clarity of a bell struck by fate.

Black-cloaked men, standing in a ring. The sigil of the Soul Divination Council upon their backs. The child Oni, small and sobbing, trying to lift its wounded mother, shaking, helpless. The way its screams had torn the air, but were ignored, discarded.

Then the white-cloaked figure beside him who he thought was Saa'ir, but wasn't.

A figure without weight. Without face. Yet so full of presence that Dama had felt seen to the bone. It was a presence just like the Curse of Hatred, but also entirely different.

In the dream, that figure had spoken to him in his head, not with authority, but with understanding.

"Hate spreads pain. Hate echoes, rebirths itself, feeds itself."

"However, love does the same. Love spreads healing. Love echoes, rebirths itself, feeds itself."

"It takes a man to step up and try to protect the ones they love, but it takes a truly pure-hearted soul to try and protect everyone."

And those last words—they struck him now harder than the blizzard ever could.

"Remember this, Dama Jinbia, everyone has something or someone they love and care for. Even the darkest hatred can be fueled by the purest love..."

The hatred in this child, Dama realized it was not born from cruelty. It was shaped by grief. By protecting someone precious—something they loved. Just like him. Just like Giona. Just like anyone who has ever loved something fragile and irreplaceable.

The child Oni was not a monster. It was a child trying to defend what it cherished. Its hatred was being fueled by its love.

Dama's breathing steadied, the shaking in his limbs fading. Snow continued to whip at him, but he no longer felt the cold—whether from them becoming numb or because of Dama's determination was not known.

All that was in Dama's mind was that he no longer saw an enemy. He saw a reflection.

In that moment, something deep inside him settled into place like a stone finally finding the riverbed it belonged to.

Just like he had once reached for Giona with a warm hand, not knowing if she would take it, he knew what he needed to do now.

He would not answer hate with hate. He would not answer fear with fear. He would not answer pain with more pain.

He would offer love.

A man would do what needed to be done, but Dama wanted to take that chance.

He would break the cycle.

So, he took one step forward. Slow and sure.

-

Next: (Chapter 102) Dama & The Oni

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