The winds screamed across the broken wastelands, carrying ash instead of leaves. The skies above were not black, but bruised stained by years of lightless skies and shattered moons. Beneath that cruel heaven, a lone boy crouched in the skeleton of a temple, his hands stained with blood and soot.
Kaien Arasetsu had survived another day. But only just. He didn't flinch as the dead scavenger collapsed beside him, her face half-melted from the venom of a shadowbeast. He didn't mourn. He didn't blink. He only reached for her bag and pulled out a cracked water capsule.
It was empty. Of course it was.
Kaien sighed, not in despair, but in quiet confirmation of the way the world worked now. "Hope is a liar," he whispered to no one. And then… the sky tore open.
Not with thunder. Not with light. But with a pulse deep, dark, and full of voices. Kaien's vision blurred. The air warped. And beneath his knees, something in the stone shifted like a heartbeat awakening under ancient bones.
His hand brushed against something buried in the dust. A body.
Thin. Cold. Wearing tattered black robes stitched with symbols he didn't recognize. But what froze Kaien in place wasn't the corpse. It was the mark glowing on the boy's chest a silver-black eclipse, pulsing like a second heart.
And in that moment… everything changed.
[ Eclipse System Detected ]
Host Compatibility: 97.8%
Transfer Initiating...
Warning: First Sacrifice Required.
Emotion: LOVE.
To awaken the Duskhound, you must surrender your dearest memory.
Do you accept?
Kaien couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Love? A word he had buried long ago. And yet… a flicker burned in the back of his mind. A memory. A small hand gripping his finger.
A giggle, like bells in the rain. A promise whispered over broken bread. "Don't ever forget me, big brother."
He blinked. Tears fell. But… he didn't remember why. His hand hovered over the mark. His lips trembled."...Do it."
The Eclipse flared. A howl split the silence — low, ancient, terrifying. And behind him, crawling out from the shadows, came the Duskhound — eyes glowing violet, body stitched in smoke, teeth like fractured obsidian. It bowed. And Kaien… forgot her name.
The Duskhound stepped forward—its claws leaving behind trails of flickering shadow, like smoke that remembered fire. The air around it pulsed, thick with something unnatural, something ancient. It didn't growl. It didn't snarl. It simply… waited.
Kaien stared into its eyes—twin orbs of deep violet, swirling like galaxies lost in the dark. And for a moment, he felt something inside himself shift. Not fear. Not awe. Just... emptiness.
Where once there was warmth—where that fragile memory had lived—a cold silence had settled. The laughter was gone. The hand, the voice, the promise… gone. He knew he had given something up. But he couldn't remember what it was. "Love… It took love," he whispered.
His voice cracked, not from sorrow, but from confusion. He knew there should be grief. But all he could feel was the echo of where emotion used to be. The system's voice returned, calm as always:
[ First Contract Complete. ]
Bond Status: Partial.
Beast: Duskhound [F-Class]
Behavior: Loyal. Tracker. Emotion-sensitive.
Warning: Host's emotional equilibrium unstable.
Further sacrifices may result in permanent psychological drift.
Kaien stood, legs shaky but eyes steady. "So this is what it costs," he muttered. "Power… traded for pieces of my soul."
The Duskhound walked beside him—silent, fluid, dangerous. Not tamed like a pet. Not chained like a weapon. But moving like a shadow that chose to follow. He didn't know why, but the beast made him feel... less alone.
They moved through the ruins together. Moonlight—cold and metallic—filtered through cracks above. Kaien glanced at the stars, but they were wrong now. Twisted. Flickering. As if the sky itself had forgotten its own constellations. That's when he heard it A scream. Human. Close.
Kaien froze. The Duskhound tilted its head, already sniffing the scent on the wind. Then, like a whisper through his mind, he felt something — a pulse from the beast, not words but emotion. Urgency. Curiosity. Danger. "Someone's alive?" he whispered.
The instinct to run toward it clawed at him. But the other instinct—the one that knew this world, the one that had survived—warned him it might be a trap. But then, he heard it again. This time not a scream…
...but a voice. "Help… someone… please…"
It was a girl. Young. Weak. Afraid. Kaien's fingers clenched into fists. He couldn't remember what love felt like. But something inside still moved. He looked down at the Duskhound. It met his gaze silently. No command was needed.
They ran.
Through collapsed archways. Over cracked stone bridges. Past the bones of beasts too large to name. The ruins were alive with whispers tonight, and they all seemed to hum with the same question: How much more will you give up… just to feel something again?
She was slumped against a jagged wall, half-buried in rubble, her pale hand reaching into the dust like she was still trying to grasp something that had already fallen away.
Kaien skidded to a halt, breath short, heart confused. The Duskhound stood beside him, ears twitching, body still — not in caution, but recognition. She looked… barely alive.
Cuts lined her arms. Her robes were torn. One eye swollen shut. But the other — the one still open — was staring right at Kaien. And it wasn't afraid.
Not of him. Not of the beast beside him. Not even of the dying world that had chewed her up and spit her into these ruins. He stepped closer. Her lips trembled. Not with fear, but with effort. "You're… not like the others." Kaien blinked. "Others?"
"Beasts…" she whispered. "Hunters. The ones who wear human skin but smell like rot." His hand went to the Duskhound's neck instinctively, but the beast didn't growl. Instead, it stepped forward… and bowed its head. Kaien's eyes narrowed. "What are you?" She chuckled — a dry, cracked sound. "That's my question." "Why is a shadowbeast listening to a boy who looks emptier than the corpse he crawled out of?"
The words struck deeper than any blade.
He didn't reply. Just knelt and pulled away the rocks pinning her leg. Her ankle was bruised, maybe broken. But she didn't wince. She just watched him — like she was studying the shape of his silence.
"You're Eclipseborne," she said flatly. Not a question. A truth. Kaien's jaw clenched. "What if I am?" She tilted her head. "Then you're dying." That stopped him.
"…What?"
She reached up and touched his chest — just over his heart. "I've seen the mark before. You've already made your first sacrifice, haven't you?" His breath caught. Her hand was cold. Not in a way that hurt — in a way that made him remember winter.
Kaien whispered, "I… don't remember what I lost." She nodded.
"That's the cost," she said softly. "And if you keep feeding it... soon you won't even remember why you're fighting." Kaien's throat tightened. For the first time in years, someone saw through him.
She held out her hand. "Help me walk?" He hesitated. And then without thinking he took her hand.
[ System Notification: Emotion Resonance Detected ]
Warning: Foreign presence may interfere with host stability.
Caution advised.
As the Duskhound walked silently behind them, and the ruined temple swallowed their footsteps, Kaien asked: "What's your name?"
She looked up at him, and for the first time, truly smiled.
"Rii."