The cold wind knifed through the alleyways, slicing silence into the bones of the city. Between flickering neon signs and the metallic stink of rain, the boy stood still. His clothes were torn. Blood, both dried and fresh, painted his skin in cruel strokes. The darkness wrapped around him, but there was no comfort in it.
He had followed Seren here.
Three months ago, the man had saved him from the jaws of death — from a dozen tormentors who treated pain like a game and him like nothing. That night, his soul had awakened. Not because of power. But because of the man who arrived like the end of a sentence.
Seren.
The boy had watched him that night — watched the cold precision of violence, the graceful malice in every movement, and the calm in his eyes that didn't tremble before cruelty. He had thought, This man is not from here. He is something else.
Tonight, he stood again before that man.
The boy's voice cracked the still air. "Can I ask something?"
Seren didn't look at him. He had his back turned, leaning slightly against the steel railing, eyes raised to the black clouds.
"Speak."
The boy hesitated. His voice came quieter, almost a breath. "Can you give me a name?"
Now Seren turned.
His gaze was still, unreadable. The boy stood his ground, though his legs trembled. "I don't want to carry the old one anymore. I want something… that starts here. From now."
Seren stepped forward, stopping just in front of him. There was no warmth in his face, no approval. But there was something heavier — the weight of acknowledgment.
"Xaren," he said.
The boy blinked.
Seren continued, "It means nothing in this world. So you'll make it mean something. Carry it until it bends reality. Or until you break."
Xaren. He said it in his mind. Then again. Then once more. And just like that — something shed from him.
He looked down at his hands. Still trembling. Still stained with weakness. But different.
---
A month passed.
And Xaren bled.
Every day, Seren took him deeper into the edges of the city. No lectures. No comfort. Only tasks, each crueler than the last. He was made to steal from predators, fight grown men, enter places where monsters wore human skin.
Tonight was different.
He stood across from a man. A killer.
Xaren's body ached, ribs bruised from yesterday's punishment. He'd broken his knuckles. His breathing was sharp, but controlled.
"Move," Seren said, standing back, arms crossed.
The man lunged.
Xaren dodged. Barely. He wasn't fast enough — a knee drove into his gut, knocking the wind out. Pain exploded in his side. His body folded, but he didn't fall. He couldn't.
Move, he screamed at himself.
Another blow. This time to the face. Blood spilled from his lip.
He fell.
The man raised a rusted pipe.
A silent second passed.
Then something cracked. But not bone.
Seren had moved — his fingers wrapped around the attacker's wrist, breaking it with a twist like paper.
The scream echoed through the alley. Seren didn't stop. He struck once. Twice. Three times. The man collapsed.
Seren stood above him, breathing steady.
Then he turned to Xaren.
"You die once, I save you. You die again, I leave you."
Xaren nodded, still gasping for breath.
Seren added, "Don't expect justice. Don't expect me. No one's coming for you. Ever. Except yourself."
---
Later that night, Xaren sat alone on a rooftop, clutching his bruised ribs.
So this is the path, he thought. It's not power. It's becoming something that doesn't need saving.
A voice murmured inside his head.
"You bleed like him."
Xaren didn't flinch. He had grown used to the presence.
The shadow-beast.
It had come to him weeks ago. A whisper in darkness. A shape he couldn't touch. But its voice lived inside him now — a rumble made of oil and storm.
"What do you mean?" Xaren whispered.
"That man. Seren. You see him as something else. But he bleeds too. I've smelled it on him. The kind of blood that kills what it once was."
Xaren clenched his fists. "He's more than human."
The beast chuckled. "Perhaps. But you— you're not him. You're something that crawled out of the bottom. You're the one who survives when even the light has forgotten you."
Xaren leaned back, staring at the stars.
"I want to be stronger," he whispered.
"Then break yourself again," the beast replied. "And again. And again. Until there's nothing left of the boy who waited."
---
In the coming days, Seren pushed him further.
He fought three men once. Then five.
Sometimes he lost — waking up hours later with cracked ribs and blurred vision.
Sometimes he won — and saw the look in their eyes as something darker grew inside him.
The city whispered of a ghostly boy who appeared and vanished like a phantom, leaving behind blood and silence.
One night, after returning from a hunt, he found Seren waiting in a rooftop garden — a place untouched by filth. A piece of quiet.
"You've changed," Seren said without turning.
Xaren stood beside him, silent.
"You don't ask questions anymore," Seren continued. "You stopped being the boy who begged for names. Now you wear it."
Xaren spoke softly, "Because that boy would've died."
Seren finally looked at him.
A rare thing happened. He nodded.
Then without another word, he vanished into the night, leaving Xaren standing beneath a shattered sky — reborn.
And in the depths of his soul, the beast stirred.
"You're not him yet. But you're walking the same edge. Don't fall."