Snowfall again.
But colder now.
Thicker.
The kind that silences everything, even thought.
They crossed the border at night.No flares. No chakra. No sound.Just breath and footsteps swallowed by frost.
Land of Iron.
Where shinobi meant nothing.Where chakra was sin.Where steel ruled.
The samurai saw them before they stepped into view.
Three appeared from the snow.
Armored. Still. Waiting.
Blades already drawn.
The girl stopped, hand drifting toward her pouch.
The boy raised a hand.
"Let me speak."
She hesitated… then lowered her fingers.
The lead samurai stepped forward.
Eyes like ice. Voice like stone.
"You're not welcome here."
The boy didn't argue.
Didn't bluff.
Just answered:
"We seek the hollow beneath the Forge."
That name—made all three stiffen.
The girl blinked.
"What's the Forge?"
The lead samurai didn't answer.
The boy did.
"Where they buried a god in a sword."
Silence followed.
Then motion.
The samurai didn't attack.
They turned.
Gestured once.
"Follow. But speak only truth. Or your tongue won't leave with you."
Hours passed.
They walked under frozen cliffs.Through ruins lost even to the snow.
Until—
A black monolith.
Rising from the earth.Shaped like an anvil.Carved with prayers.
The Forge.
It wasn't just a temple.
It was a grave.
The girl saw it the moment they entered—
The floor was made of bones.Welded together with silver.Thousands of them.
Chakraless. Yet not empty.
Each bone whispered.
The boy stepped forward.
The samurai didn't stop him.
He knelt.Pressed his palm to the altar.
His eye burned—
And the world tilted.
Flash—
A memory not his.
The mountain split.An army of steel clashed with shadows.A child screamed.And in the center—
A blade, dripping light.Not chakra.Not metal.
Something older.
Forged from the rib of a forgotten titan.
He woke gasping.
The girl caught him before he collapsed.
"What did you see?"
He looked at her.
Eyes trembling.
"Vault #2 isn't a place."
"It's a weapon."
Behind them, the elder samurai approached.
Older than the mountains.
Blind—but only in the eyes.
He spoke with no movement.
"You carry the curse. The Third Eye."
The boy nodded.
"And I need what sleeps here."
The elder's voice sharpened.
"Then you will face the Trial."
The girl tensed.
"What trial?"
The elder turned.
"The sword has a will. It remembers every bearer who failed it. Every god who feared it."
The Forge cracked.
A circle opened in the ground.
Stairs led down—
Dark and breathing.
The elder gestured.
"Walk alone. If you return, the blade is yours."
"If not…"
The girl stepped forward.
"I'll—"
But the boy shook his head.
"I'll walk."
He descended alone.
The dark swallowed him.
His eye glowed faintly—then dimmed.
The Trial had begun.
And in the silence—he heard voices.
His own.
Twisted. Younger. Broken.
"You don't belong here.""You're not strong enough.""You're just a crack in a mirror."
He walked anyway.
Then the room opened.
Massive.Cylindrical.Walls covered in weapons.
None of them real.
Illusions.
Only one blade stood at the center.
Simple.
Black.
Wrapped in a cloth older than language.
He stepped toward it.
The moment he touched it—
It screamed.
Not in sound.
In memory.
Flash—
Gods dying.Skies burning.A man with three eyes impaled on this very blade.Laughing.
Begging.
Cursing.
The blade didn't want to be wielded.
It wanted to be used.
He tightened his grip.
And whispered:
"Then use me too."
Outside—
The Forge trembled.
The samurai drew their weapons.
The elder raised a hand.
"Wait."
Then the floor split.
The boy rose from the circle.
Clothes torn.Arm bleeding.Blade in hand.
Silent.
Changed.
The girl ran to him.
"You're… alive."
He didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
The blade pulsed in his hand.
And from the steel—
A single, whispering eye opened near the hilt.
The girl gasped.
"That's—"
He nodded.
"The Second Vault."
Later that night, before sleep—
He stared at the sword.
Its voice spoke inside him now.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
Just… ancient.
And beneath it—six more voices stirred.
Still asleep.
But waking.
He whispered:
"Two down."
"Four to go."
The girl looked at him across the fire.
"And when all six are open?"
He didn't look at her.
Just stared into the dark.
"Then we find the one who made them."
"And we end the chain."
To be continued.