Chapter 17 — The Hollow Bloom

Yuzu's world narrowed to a single point: the moment his feet left the ground and the First Rotborne's hunger crashed into him.

There was no impact like flesh on flesh. No crack of bone. No burst of aura. Instead, the thing's flavor enveloped him, folding around his senses like mold thick on forgotten fruit. It dragged at his thoughts, his orchard, even his breath. Sweet at first — like overripe nectar — but sour beneath, a decay that licked at the marrow of his being.

He didn't fight it with muscle. He fought it with memory.

Inside, the Thornfruit pulsed. The pact mark burned under his ribs, sharper than ever. His orchard quaked — branches straining, leaves shivering — but they didn't break.

Not yet.

His hands met the creature's chest — if it could be called a chest — and through the writhing mess of roots and shattered sigils, he tasted its core.

Nothing.

A void. Hollow. A place where no flavor had ever taken root, where no spirit had ever sung.

He almost recoiled. But he didn't.

Instead, he let go.

He dropped his defenses, released the tether of the Thornfruit pact for a heartbeat — and the void surged into him.

It clawed at his orchard, snapping branches, smothering sap. His skills flickered like dying stars. He heard echoes of old lies: Vesca's laughter, Gelmo's warnings, Saro's bitter truths.

Then — past all that — something new.

His own voice.

Small. Distant. The boy who had stood on the Bloomstone platform, empty-handed. Rejected. Forgotten.

You have no flavor.

The words seared through him. He answered the only way he could.

"I made my own."

The Thornfruit pact snapped back into place. Its roots coiled through his orchard, binding shattered branches, sealing torn bark. The mark under his ribs flared—deeper than before. Not just crimson and gold now. Threads of deep indigo spiraled outward, pulsing like veins.

A new pulse shook through his soul. Not flavor. Truth.

Yuzu grasped the hollow core of the First Rotborne and fed it back itself.

His pact spun outward. Flavorless void met roots forged in hunger and defiance. The creature's body convulsed. Its twisted form cracked, sapless roots splitting apart as Yuzu's orchard surged into the empty space.

He didn't devour it. He planted something inside it.

Roots sank into void. A seed dropped into hollowness. And bloomed.

Outside, Mira saw it first. The First Rotborne froze, limbs snapping taut like dry branches. Black sap erupted from fissures along its barked skin, trailing threads of glowing crimson and indigo. Its mouth, forever gaping, snapped shut. Hard.

Then, like a rotten fig overripe and forgotten, it collapsed inward.

No explosion. No scream. Just a collapse — soundless, clean — as if it had never been there at all.

Yuzu fell to one knee. Mud splashed up his arms, and for a moment, the world tilted. His orchard spun wildly behind his eyes. The Thornfruit pact still pulsed under his ribs — steady, but exhausted. His breath came ragged.

Mira was at his side a second later, kneeling in the muck. "Are you—"

"I'm here," he rasped.

Her jaw clenched. She scanned the square — Rotborne staggering, confused. Some fell to their knees. Others cracked apart without a sound.

Saro appeared next, blades lowered, breathing hard. His gaze swept Yuzu, then the empty patch where the First Rotborne had stood.

"You killed it."

Yuzu shook his head weakly. "I… changed it."

Before anyone could respond, the earth groaned. Not trembling like before. Deeper. Older. A bass note in the bones of the world.

Roots coiled out from the cracks in the old fig tree's stump. But this time, they weren't black and rotted. They shimmered — faintly golden, tinged with indigo. New. Alive.

Mira's breath caught. "Is that—"

Yuzu forced himself upright, legs quivering. "It's mine now."

He stepped forward. His orchard stirred in time with his stride. The villagers had gathered again, battered but upright, eyes locked on the shifting roots.

Saro exhaled sharply. "You grafted into it. You turned rot into root."

"I didn't want to destroy it," Yuzu said quietly. His voice shook. "I wanted it to remember what flavor was."

The roots twined together, arching upward. Shoots burst from soil and rubble, spiraling into a young sapling that shimmered in the dim dusk light.

Not fig. Not Thornfruit. Something new.

A Bloom of Memory.

Mira's voice broke the hush. "What does it mean?"

Yuzu stared at the sapling, fingers curling loosely.

"It means the harvest is changing."

Above them, clouds broke. Not sun. Not storm. Just light.

Soft. Honest. Enough.

In the distance, unseen by Ashroot, a Council chamber darkened. And far deeper still, under roots long buried, other seeds stirred awake.

The war had not ended. But something else had begun.