Yone

Yone isn’t truly alive anymore. His own half-brother, Yasuo, killed him while he was still a standout pupil at their village’s sword school, a fighter everyone assumed would go far. In any ordinary story, that would have been the end.

What Came After Dying

But something in the spirit realm took notice of him. After his death, a malevolent entity hunted him down, and Yone only escaped by turning the creature’s own blade back on it. He won, but the win came at a price. Ever since, he has been stuck wearing the creature’s mask, which is fused to his face and cannot be pulled off, and he cannot fully pull himself apart from the thing he destroyed in order to survive.

That open question about what he has become now drives him forward. Yone tracks down spirit creatures across Ionia, and he does it less from any sense of duty than from a need to make sense of his own state. In combat, Way of the Hunter makes every second attack deal bonus magic damage and raises his critical strike chance. Mortal Steel lunges ahead and, after two hits, sends him flying forward on a rush of wind that shoves enemies out of the way. Spirit Cleave strikes everything in a cone, and the shield it grants scales with the number of champions it hits. Soul Unbound releases his spirit to dash ahead on its own, accelerating before it snaps back into his body and replays part of the damage it dealt along the way. Fate Sealed, his ultimate, teleports him behind the furthest enemy in a line and delivers a slash strong enough to pull every enemy it touches toward him. It is a technique shaped by someone who no longer fully tells his body apart from what he carries inside it. His hunt places him in the same circle as other Ionians dealing with the region’s turmoil, among them Akali and Irelia. Still, Yone’s struggle is personal: it is less about protecting Ionia than about reckoning with what he owes to the thing he became.