"True balance is not silence, but the perfect echo of chaos and order shaking hands."
The air was thick with stillness, yet it trembled with the weight of history.
Storm sat cross-legged on a stone ledge near the Shrine of Returning Souls, a temple long forsaken by time. Moonlight brushed against the jagged contours of his face, revealing the quiet torment of a man both feared and forgotten.
A soft tapping approached—deliberate, metronomic. Kiddomaru's cane struck the stone floor with surgical rhythm. He approached without hesitation, eyes level, earrings glinting under the stars like twin constellations. The symmetry was unbroken—even the folds in his tailored jacket mirrored each other with eerie precision.
He stopped precisely eight paces from Storm.
"You didn't leave," Storm said without looking up.
"You didn't die," Kiddomaru replied.
Storm cracked a half-smile.
"I suppose that earns both of us some credit."
Kiddomaru tilted his head, the only asymmetrical motion he allowed himself.
"I've seen the texts. They speak of you as the First Master. The one who made weapons breathe. The one who knew souls before they were born."
"Exaggerations," Storm replied. "But not lies."
Kiddomaru lowered himself onto a stone opposite the Shinigami. From his cane, he slid out a slender blade—narrow, balanced, weightless. It gleamed with silver resonance. Etched along its surface were ancient runes—the names of every master Kiddomaru had ever studied. On its hilt, the initials "DKPA."
Storm noticed. "You carry his legacy."
"I am his legacy."
A silence passed. Then, Storm asked, "Why come to me?"
"Because my symmetry ends where truth begins. And no one holds more of it than you."
Storm raised his eyes.
"And what if you learn truths that break your balance?"
Kiddomaru didn't blink. "Then I'll build a new one."
The air shifted. The shrine began to hum—a pulse beneath the stone. The stones remembered this conversation, or others like it. Somewhere deep in the shrine's roots, ancestral souls stirred.
Kiddomaru stood again.
"Before I can follow, I must fight. Not to defeat you. But to prove that my soul can mirror yours without breaking."
Storm rose as well, brushing dust from his cloak.
"So be it. But remember—truth fights dirty."
In one flash, Kiddomaru extended his blade in a perfect arc, slicing downward with zero hesitation. Storm blocked it—not with steel, but with the back of his palm, catching the blade between his fingers. Sparks scattered.
Storm's hand twisted. Kiddomaru twirled his cane-blade and backflipped with exact symmetry, his feet landing at the same angle, each muscle responding to a silent geometrical law.
Storm grinned.
"You're not fighting me. You're dancing."
"Balance is a form of combat," Kiddomaru said, breathing steadily.
The two moved again. Storm struck low, a sweeping kick designed to draw imbalance. Kiddomaru jumped—not up, but sideways, allowing the wind to guide him into a glide. He used the recoil to throw a single soul bullet from his left pistol, followed by an identical blast from the right. Storm parried one with his bare knuckle and deflected the other with a sliver of his own aura.
They clashed in a blur of movement—blade, cane, fist, echoing one another with uncanny synchronicity. But in each mirrored strike, Storm found a crack—a delay, a pause, a doubt.
And that's when Storm stopped.
"That's enough."
Kiddomaru lowered his weapons.
"Why?"
Storm placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Because you weren't fighting to kill me. You were fighting to reflect me. And that makes you more dangerous than most assassins I've met."
Kiddomaru narrowed his eyes. "Then why stop?"
Storm stepped back, looking up at the stars.
"Because I'm no longer the man who kills students for being wrong."
A long silence passed. Then Kiddomaru said:
"Then let me be the first who learns from your truth."
Storm gave a faint nod.
"Then come. There's much I must unbury. And a storm you must survive."
Together, the master and apprentice stepped from the shrine. The past would not wait.