Kamo found his own shadow, stretching it upward into a figure. He focused on details—the nearly equal height, the scrawny but toned frame. He couldn't see how to make white, or even purple hair from pure black, but in focusing hard enough, the purple almost showed—maybe a delusion of hope. It didn't take long, but it took all his focus. Through many changes, Kamo was eventually satisfied with the shape, and the shadow began to cast its own faint shadow on the ground.
Sora watched in silence, curiosity obvious.
Kamo tried to channel something into the shadow—unsure of what that 'something' even could be—but it never became sentient, it did remain translucent though. At some point, Sora ran her hand through the innards of the shadow construct. It was hollow. Nothing more than an illusion.
Kamo stared, irritated—he would have preferred to succeed or do anything but let Ren get involved again. But he had one other idea to try.
"Are we gonna patrol?" Sora's voice cut through his planning.
"Yeah."
But by the time he answered, she'd already started down the mountain.
Mist slid off the ridge like slow water. Kamo and Sora walked the outer loop—five hundred paces of broken stone, frost-rimmed grass, and the constant rasp of distant falls. They spoke only to trade positions at turns, the quiet settling heavy enough to mute their own boots.
An hour and a half into the shift, Sora halted beside a crag where the tree line dipped. She lifted her staff and traced a point above the thinning clouds.
"You know that one?"
Kamo followed the line of the staff. A bent strip of stars shimmered faint against a seam of moving cloud. "Huntsman," he guessed.
Sora shook her head, voice almost lost in the wind. "Call it the River Path. Different stories for different borders." Nothing smug in the correction—just fact. She watched the constellation a breath longer, then resumed walking.
Kamo matched her pace. He noticed how her silence cleared the air. He wasn't particularly fond of her either, and her mind seemed aloof, Kamo could tell they had similar ideals, he imagined Sora to be absorbing in a single goal as well, it was a postural thing. That wasn't much of his concern, what he mentally noted was that her presence did not actively repulse him unlike others did.
They came to the south post—the same spot where Ren's frost still clung to invasive roots. The ice was cracking, black stems corkscrewing through fissures. Sora crouched, annoyance flicking across her face.
"They're worse than before."
Kamo had been replaying Ren's challenge in his skull, what he'd interpreted was that unpredictability was unavoidable, and in following that logic, there was a large waste in energy to try and control all factors.
Kamo returned to the spot he'd been in before leaving. Shadow funnelled in his chosen space from his feet, pooling like oil. He pictured Hikari again: height, stance, the basic features of a human. But instead of sculpting exact lines, he let the shape rise coarse, edges breathing like smoke. A torso emerged, then arms, head featureless. The figure balanced, weight light but physical.
Sora watched without comment. Kamo concentrated, splitting his awareness, coaxing a second form from the same pool. It rose slower, took shape rougher. Both wavered, but held. With the figure. His focus was split, but since he'd been standing still,it was not difficult. Kamo walked the shadow to the weed, nearly psychic like. The shadow reached down to grab the weed. Now that Kamo's focus wasn't on the specificity of the figure, he could control its ability to move, the shadow carried its own shadow, which hung over the weed as its black hand gripped, and the weed still passed through. Kamo thought to use the excess, the surrounding shadow of the shadow construct as a way to increase the volume, as it lacked an density. And in doing so the construct was able to pick the weeds out of the roots, though it'd been marginally harder from a strength standpoint than kamo's actual body would have experienced. While there was still excess shadow, especially at night, kamo knew this construct was filled to the brim. He tried to make another, following the same process as the first, and while it worked, he struggled to make either move in a way that correlated to their position on the ground.
Pain tightened behind his eyes; cold sweat traced his spine. Moving them felt like working two extra limbs blindfolded—every gesture echoing through bone. He walked the first shadow forward. Its feet left real depressions in frost. Primitive, but real.
Sora tapped the closer construct with her staff. The tip met resistance, passed through, came out damp with chill. "Denser than before," she said, neutral appraisal.
Kamo dragged the second shadow toward another root patch. Slowly getting the hang of it.
"Words can't explain how hard this is."
Kamo laughed once—dry, surprised at himself—and guided the first soldier to the opposite flank. Strain blurred the edges of his vision, but both constructs remained upright. The roots beneath them twitched, recoiling from the colder darkness.
Minutes stretched. The soldiers leaned, wavered, stabilized—like toddlers learning to walk. Kamo let them hold until his head pounded, then released the link. Both figures collapsed into flat pools that soaked into the ground.
He steadied himself on a knee. Sora offered no hand, But nodded at what she assumed was large progress.
Kamo went back to the one construct, and picked at the weeds until Nagitsu came to relieve him of his shift, the final 2 hours of the night was upon Kamo. And by then, he'd come back to the 2 constructs, each of strength no greater than marked rank, but Kamo did have a slight grasp of how to control them both, so long as he didn't also need to move.
"I don't see how you need to jump off a cliff to do this, but as an ability, i will say this is quite impressive" Nagitsu said after being awoken by Sora who'd taken the authority to relieve Kamo herself. From what she understood, he was unlikely to do so. Kamo was likely to practice until morning, exhausting himself and leaving Sora alone in the circumstance something problematic were to happen.
Kamo didn't respond, hardly heard Nagitsu. And to that same effect he didn't realize they'd left for their patrol until they came back.