The silence that settled over the main courtyard was heavier than the deafening clatter of gears—not a single Tsukumo guard drew breath anywhere in the complex.
Down below, in the makeshift quarters and shattered houses, morning crept forward.
From where we stood at the heart of the forge, we could hear confusion beginning to spread.
The slaves grew uneasy: no one had roused them early, no doors crashed open, no overseers doled out beatings amid shouted orders.
One by one, doors creaked open.
Dracokin with dull scales, elves with drooping ears, soot‑stained humans, and gaunt orcs stepped out into the open. They walked hunched, anxious, swallowed whole by fear—convinced this unnatural silence hid a trap or a fresh punishment.
"Why hasn't the bell rung yet?" I heard a human whisper to the elf beside him, his voice trembling.
"It must be nearly seven… what's going on?"
Through the hesitant crowd, a small, swift figure slipped past, darting between adult legs in a desperate sprint.
It was Elian.
The young dracokin boy raced straight for the great iron gates of the Main Forge—then froze.
His yellow eyes swept over the sea of fallen black armor, pools of dark blood, and broken weapons, finally locking on the center of the courtyard.
Only three figures remained standing, untouched and unbroken in the glow spilling from the forge fires.
Laura, Arthur, and I.
The others reached the gate soon after, pressing shoulder‑to‑shoulder. At the sight, dread gave way to raw shock.
"Who are they?" a woman gasped, clutching her chest.
"Where are the soldiers? What is all this?" Whispers swelled, thick with panic and uncertainty.
Elian said nothing. His chest heaved fast, and the first tears spilled, cutting tracks through the ash on his face. He began to sob—loud, ragged cries releasing fear he'd carried since the day he was born.
Kael appeared moments later, forcing his way through the crowd. The old dracokin halted beside his grandson, breathless from running. He looked down at the bodies carpeting the ground, then up at us three. His one good eye widened, his hands shaking.
"They actually did it…" Kael murmured to himself, voice thick, breaking through decades of darkness and grief. "They really did it."
Laura placed a flat hand firmly against my back and gave a steady push.
I stumbled half a step, fighting to keep balance. The thud of my sole striking the blood‑soaked metal rang out sharp and loud. The crowd of slaves flinched as one—a reflex of pure, old terror.
"They need a voice, Suki," Laura murmured behind me, practical tone masking the urgency of the moment. "No one here does it better. Go on—speak."
I lifted my head. I left the cold emptiness of the slaughter behind and focused on them all: the chipped horns, bowed backs, hollow eyes that knew nothing but whip‑enforced submission. This was Ruitan's suffering, made visible in the orange glow of the furnaces.
Air burned in my lungs. When I opened my mouth, numbness was gone—replaced by an ancient, burning fire.
"I know what you're thinking!" My voice didn't stay flat this time. It boomed, filling every inch of the Main Forge with unshakable authority. "You look at this slaughterhouse and think death has only changed faces—that we toppled old tyrants just to take their thrones."
I took another step forward, arms spread wide, unarmed and fully exposed before them.
"But listen closely: we did not come to harm you. I give you my word—by the black blood staining this floor—we will never be your new masters."
The murmur of panic faded. Frightened eyes now met mine, glimmering with fragile hope, fighting to believe.
"For years you were taught to think yourselves weak!" I went on, my voice gathering strength that tore ash from the air. I pointed to the colossal conveyor belts, then to the heaps of shattered armor. "Tsukumo and his generals told you you were born to obey. They said your lives were only fuel—charcoal for the Forged God's fires."
"But look down! Look at the bodies of those who called themselves untouchable! Their blood bleeds and boils exactly like ours!"
The crowd held its breath. The young dracokin boy Laura had saved breathed fast and shallow.
"Your chains are broken—starting today!" I shouted, and the wind around me seemed to hum, carrying the weight of my words. "But true freedom isn't just about surviving the dark—it's about taking it! This forge swallowed Ruitan's strength, drained its spirits, and killed its families."
"From this day forward, we turn that very machinery against them!"
I clenched my fist and raised it high, feeling furnace heat kiss my skin.
"We won't run. We'll use their own iron to forge our swords! We will turn this prison into our shield—and your sweat into the storm that wipes this empire off the map!"
The young dracokin stepped forward, legs trembling but not retreating. Breath catching, yellow eyes blazing with a fury long asleep, he struck a closed fist hard against his chest, right where his heart hammered.
Behind him, a human did the same.
Then a bent‑over elf straightened his spine and followed suit.
Seconds later, the dull thud of dozens of fists striking chests echoed through the foundry, out‑roaring the furnaces.
Elian's sobs broke into a wide, jagged grin. A revolution had just been born.
And it carried our names.
"We make this place our stronghold—but to survive, Tsukumo's castle must still believe this factory belongs to them," Laura cut in, posture straight as she took command.
Arthur stepped up, thick arms crossed over a broad chest, and finished:
"To keep the lie alive, the fires never die. If the smoke vanishes from the sky, Vanki's whole army beats down these gates in minutes."
The slaves exchanged glances—understanding fighting exhaustion.
"You won't break rocks anymore," Laura continued, red eyes sweeping the crowd with tactical precision. "Nor haul crushing loads. But you will run light shifts—feed enough coal only to keep furnaces burning and smoke rising."
"Keep the illusion alive. Can you do that?"
The young dracokin glanced at the fires, then at the piles of cold armored bodies, and nodded. Slowly, others followed. They weren't laboring for a broken god anymore. They were working to stay alive.
Arthur began using his immense strength to tear iron plating from the forge entrance, widening it so more people could pass at once and throw debris into the river‑orange lava.
Unnoticed amid the bustle, Suki took one step back. Then another. Hidden by smoke and the heavy silence of what he'd done, he let shadows near the great ore belts swallow him, drifting slowly away from the courtyard's bright heart.
Some distance off, Laura was already handing broken tools and cold soldier corpses to inhabitants to toss into the fire. A quick glance told her Suki had vanished. She started toward him—until a hand stopped her.
It was Kael. He stood firm on forge‑floor iron, staring at the mounds of dead soldiers. His one good eye widened and shone bright.
"By the gods…" Kael breathed, voice thick. "You truly did it."
"This is only the beginning, old friend," she answered, tone heavy with unyielding promise. "Peace for this whole world will return."
Then a small movement caught her eye.
Elian, looking suddenly uneasy, reached out and tugged lightly at the hem of Laura's dark cloak.
She looked down to meet the boy's gaze.
"Where's Suki?" his small voice asked uncertainly, big eyes searching the empty space where their leader had spoken moments before.
Laura lifted her head instantly. Her red gaze swept the lit area, hunting for his shape. When she realized he was no longer where last seen, her smile vanished—replaced by tight focus. She'd noticed the emptiness in his eyes when he came down from the blood‑soaked walkways; she knew something was wrong.
"I'm wondering too, little one," she murmured, tone losing ease. She smoothed the boy's hair quickly, protective. "Stay here with Arthur. I'll find him."
Pulling her cloak tight, Laura turned her back on the furnace glow and plunged into the factory's dark maze—determined to follow Suki's unseen trail.
Above Ruitan's thick, toxic smoke curtain, the sky held an illusion of untouched purity.
Suki hung suspended in thin, freezing high‑altitude air, bathed in pale sunlight that could never pierce the gloom to reach the sick land far below. Wind howled violently around him—but the real storm raged silent inside his mind.
He looked at his hands, held out before him. Palms and fingers were spotless, washed pore‑deep by his own wind‑control. Yet to him, the black, steaming blood of soldiers still streamed freely down them.
More than forty lives.
He'd sliced, dismembered, pierced them—and never once felt his heart beat faster with pity. The killing wasn't a burden, nor a desperate act of justice. It was cold gears turning—executed with the hollow precision of an executioner unafraid of taking lives.
Why? I thought, squeezing eyes shut, diving deep into my own mind to find whatever would answer. Where are you? Speak to me!
I tried reaching the darker version of myself—that shadow‑self forged in the core of my hatred, alive in the cracks of pain.
"You won't come out this way, will you?" I whispered.
Only absolute, terrifying silence answered.
That absence of the dark voice frightened me more than any threat.
"Show yourself…" I muttered to the void, teeth clenched until they ached.
The reply didn't rise from within—but came from an abrupt shift in air pressure behind me.
I spun on instinct, combat reflex sharp: arm coiled, right hand snapping down toward the Kazekiba's hilt.
But froze mid‑motion.
Laura was there.
She hovered a few meters away, holding altitude with frightening ease. Arms folded tight under her dark cloak, cloak and hair whipped wild by upper‑atmosphere gales. Her red eyes burned like floating embers up here.
I relaxed my guard, releasing the sword's grip, shoulders dropping slightly.
"I completely erased my aura," I said—voice rough, worn thin and dry. "Suppressed my energy until nothing remained. I should be invisible. How did you find me?"
Laura tilted her head and laughed low—the sound cutting through the freezing tension. She unfolded arms and drifted closer, expression loose, wearing predatory confidence like a coat.
"Forgot who you're dealing with, boy?" she replied, lips curving in sharp, knowing amusement. "I don't track targets by aura or energy ripples."
"I'd know your scent miles away, Suki. You can hide your power from the whole world—but never from me."
I didn't smile or banter back.
I only looked away from her face, returning gaze to the ocean of black, poisonous clouds beneath us. The hollow depth in my eyes seemed to swallow every scrap of light or comfort high altitude might offer. I stood there, struggling to understand how—within minutes—the humanity I'd fought so hard to guard had seemed to dissolve like ash in wind.
Laura's smile died instantly. A seasoned killer, fluent in death's thousand faces, she knew this quiet look better than anyone. It was the ghost‑mask of one who'd won a war outside—only to start losing the battle within.
She closed the gap, stopping exactly beside him. Her playful edge hardened into sharp seriousness; eyes traced every line of Suki's tight profile.
"What happened down there?" Her voice deepened, stripped of irony—commanding plain truth. "And spare me talk of infiltration tactics or guard placements. What happened to you, Suki?"
Silence stretched seconds; cold wind bit skin.
Suki curled hands into fists, knuckles cracking under pressure, fighting the emotional wall he always built to shield others from his cracks. Showing fear felt like betraying his role as leader. Yet the weight of those deaths—and how he'd done it—threatened to crush his mind.
The wall finally crumbled.
"It really is about me," I murmured, voice dangerously unsteady, the unbreakable armor cracking open before her for the first time. "It wasn't blind rage, or wild survival instinct, or despair that took over."
"It was all me."
"Up there on those walkways—cutting through a whole platoon, tearing limbs, piercing throats… I felt no anger, no disgust, not even a flicker of remorse."
"I cut them down with the same indifference you'd prune dead branches from a dying tree."
Laura showed no shock. She simply held his fractured gaze, watching every micro‑expression—giving silence so the poison could surface.
"You know… there's… another version of me," Suki confessed openly for the first time, pulling words from deep inside like digging splinters from bone. "A corrupted version—like a living shadow inside me—made of every drop of hate I've swallowed."
"Before we stormed the Forge, he spoke to me. Whispered to be careful—warned that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares back."
I lifted both clean hands to chest height, staring at palms still invisibly stained, silent horror choking me.
"And don't get me wrong—he's not evil or anything. Actually, first time he showed up, it was to warn me not to let hate rule."
"But somehow… every time I step into moments like that, I seem to like it. Crave more of it."
"And earlier—sorry I left like that. I was tangled in all this."
"I'm scared, Laura…" The admission broke free as a ragged whisper—raw, desperate, tearing apart any air of invincibility.
Laura drank every word in heavy, weighted silence. Gale whipped her cloak violently, yet she never blinked, never looked away—processing the full scale of fear eating her friend alive. Unlike others who might flinch or judge, she didn't retreat an inch. No moral horror, no hollow cheerful promises that "deep down you're good and all will be perfect."
Real life didn't run on fairy tales, and she knew it.
Instead, she moved closer—stepping firmly into his personal space.
With unyielding gentleness, she cupped Suki's jaw and cheek, forcing him to lift his head and meet her eye‑to‑eye. Her vivid, predatory red locked onto his storm‑tossed, lost gaze.
"Listen to me closely, Suki," Laura declared—tone commanding yet woven thick with empathy only forged in her own hard life.
"Death is a parasitic sickness. It infects every soul that deals it—and I know that truth far better than you, or anyone else alive on this planet."
"My claws have been stained red longer than you can guess. Hard fact: every time you take a life, a tiny piece of your own soul crumbles away with it."
"If you'd laughed up there… or if I found you down below celebrating, drunk on power, convinced you owned the world…"
"Know this: I'd be first—and last—to drive silver claws through your heart and end whatever monster you'd become."
"Some beings really have no escape but death."
Her thumb brushed soft along his cheek—a rare, startling touch of understanding, from a professional killer who knew trauma's true shape.
"You stand on the right side of this war," she went on, voice softening just enough—never losing sharp honesty.
"Look where you are. You ran from your moment of triumph, from people ready to cheer you. You flew to the loneliest spot above the smog to tear apart your own mind and search for your humanity."
"And you did it because you're terrified you might have lost it."
"That disgust… that agony tearing you apart right now? That's absolute proof you will never become Tsukumo—or any other who chooses evil."
"Maybe not for you," she said, a faint scratch of a smile on her tone, "but that looks plenty human to me. Very Suki."
Suki blinked slowly. Her heavy words struck like needed truth, shattering the worst conclusions he'd built inside. It was sharp, grounding reality—an anchor dropped deep in his mental whirlpool to stop him spinning and drowning.
Laura let go of his face slowly, still close.
"Never make the terrible mistake of calling battlefield efficiency—in a kill‑or‑die place—the total loss of your soul."
At last, Suki's chest rose and fell in steady rhythm.
Breath that had been jagged and pain‑filled smoothed out. The knot tight in his throat loosened. Massive tension lifted from his shoulders. The dark swirl dimming his eyes cooled, settling into deep melancholy—yet eased by a quiet peace he'd forgotten how to feel.
Laura smiled—no edge, no lethal posture left. It was faint, yet warm enough to melt ice for someone who usually lived frozen.
"Someday, if legs tremble and you feel you can't carry all this filth and weight… remember: while I'm here, while Arthur's here—we take whatever's too heavy. We lift it alongside you."
"Don't worry—that's what friends are for, isn't it?"
"Thank you, Laura. Truly… thank you."
I spoke with unshakable sincerity, turning until I stood shoulder‑to‑shoulder beside the claw‑armed warrior. A faint smile touched my mouth—mind still worn thin by the storm of thoughts.
"Now that looks more like the boy I met."
Surrounded only by wind tearing through the poisonous high‑atmosphere mist, we dove—sharp, fast, silent—toward the world below.
Laura shot alongside me in a dizzying rush, slicing clean through the thick, choking smoke‑bank horizon.
I was ready for the forge again.