The wind picked up again.
Thick clouds swirled over the sky like a storm was trying to crawl down from the heavens. Yume's eyes never left them.
"Name Killers?" the boy repeated, his voice hoarse.
Yume nodded.
"They're not knights. They're not guards. They're not even people anymore, not really."
He stared at her, confused.
"I don't get it. What do they do?"
She lowered her hand from the sky and stepped closer.
"When someone awakens a cursed or forbidden name… the Holy Court sends them. People trained to kill name-bearers. They don't arrest. They don't talk. They cut the name out of your soul."
He felt his stomach twist.
"Why didn't they send them before?"
"They didn't know if your name was real," she said. "Now they do. And now they want to erase you."
He looked down at the markings still faintly visible on his chest.
"I didn't ask for this," he said.
"None of us did," she replied. "But it's yours now. And they'll kill you for it."
He looked around the ruined village. The empty windows. The broken houses.
"They already killed your brother, didn't they?"
Yume didn't say anything.
But her jaw clenched, and that was enough.
They sat by the river just outside the village ruins. Yume had found dried fruit in one of the untouched homes. The boy ate in silence, chewing slowly, eyes scanning the trees.
She watched him.
"You don't know how to use it yet, do you?"
He shook his head. "I don't even know what it is. I just... feel it sometimes. Like it's burning through me."
Yume nodded. "That's how it starts."
"Did your brother… ever learn to control his?"
She looked down. "No. He tried to summon a binding spell to protect us. But the name took too much. He screamed... and then he disappeared. Like the name swallowed him."
"Names are hungry," the voice whispered.
"Use them right, or they eat you whole."
The boy shivered.
"So what now?" he asked. "Do I keep running?"
"No," she said. "You train. You learn what the name wants. You survive."
He gave her a skeptical look. "And you're just gonna help me?"
Yume didn't flinch. "I don't want to watch another name-bearer die alone."
That night, the forest was silent.
Too silent.
Yume showed him how to control his breathing. How to listen for movements in the dark. How to sense the way name-energy flows through the body. She called it Ink Blood — the strange feeling of a name moving under your skin, like it was alive.
He asked her what her name was.
She shook her head.
"Never speak it out loud," she said. "If someone with a higher rank hears it, they can bind it. Twist it. Or steal it."
He blinked. "People can steal names?"
"Some," she said. "The higher their rank, the more dangerous they are. A-Rank Name Killers can rip the sound of your name from the air."
"What's higher than A?"
She didn't answer for a long time.
Then: "S-rank. The ones born with divine names. They can wipe out cities."
He stared into the fire.
"What rank do you think mine is?"
Yume looked at his chest. The mark had dimmed now, but the strange letters still pulsed like veins.
"I don't know," she said softly. "But the Court called it Name Zero."
He looked up. "Is that good or bad?"
"Neither," she whispered. "It's worse."
Sometime after midnight, the voice woke him.
"They are here."
He sat up fast, heart pounding.
The trees were still.
The fire had burned low.
Yume was already standing, knife in hand, staring into the woods.
"You feel it too?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Something just stepped through the veil."
"A Name Killer," the voice said.
"First blood is near."
They didn't speak.
Didn't run.
The boy stood beside her and looked out into the dark.
Then he saw it.
A figure walking between the trees.
No torch.
No light.
Just black robes.
And a glowing red mark across their throat — like letters carved into flesh.
They moved like wind. No sound. No footsteps.
Yume's voice was barely a whisper.
"That's a B-rank Name Killer."
He clenched his fists.
"I'm not ready."
"You won't get ready," she said. "You either use the name... or you die with it."
To be continued...