The sky was grey again.
The kind of grey that didn't move, didn't change, didn't threaten rain—it simply existed. Teruko walked beneath it like a ghost with muscle, feet scuffing over broken pavement as the outskirts of the city pulled her deeper into silence. She didn't know how far she'd wandered from the apartment Mazanka had been squatting in. She didn't want to know.
She didn't want to see Rakan's cautious glances, Mazanka's crooked grin, or the cracked remains of her broken travel device.
The air was too thin here. No Ka'ro beneath the skin of the city, no rhythm to match the soul's breath.
She felt blind.
And worse—she felt seen.
By the wrong eyes.
The encounter had been brief—Mazanka offering her a chance to help train Rakan while he fixed her device. She had said nothing at the time, nodded once, but the word yes never passed her lips. And now it never would.
Because now her future—her title, her purpose, her mentor's expectations—all of it was behind a door she had closed without meaning to.
And now the silence inside her was loud.
She found a vacant construction site on the city's edge, where rusted beams reached skyward like skeleton fingers. The chain-link gate had long since been ripped open. Rebar, concrete blocks, rusted equipment. A place that had once aimed to become something, and now simply existed to decay.
It suited her.
She sat on a concrete slab. The air didn't move.
The wind felt artificial.
Her fingers touched the fracture in her travel device. It sparked once. Then gave up.
Teruko Shidō bowed her head, alone for the first time in a world that didn't recognize her name.
She didn't notice the Ka'ro until it was too late.
The shift in the air was subtle. The kind of pressure a warrior feels in the ribs before a blade sings.
She turned.
Three figures approached from the far side of the lot.
Not strangers.
Worse.
Familiar.
Kagami Raishō. Enji Makurei. Tomoru Sakuin.
The Kenshiki-no-Kage.
Her squadmates. Ones she had grown with, sparred beside, bled with. And now they moved like ghosts carrying judgment.
Raishō's steps were even. His left arm still bore the curved black tattoo from his promotion cycle—he had been proud of it once.
Makurei walked slower, more hesitant, his long sleeves drifting with restless Ka'ro like mist.
Sakuin's eyes burned. He walked like flame dressed in skin.
Teruko stood.
Her body remembered how to move before her mind gave it permission.
"You're hard to find," Raishō said, voice calm, cool as riverstone.
"I wasn't hiding," Teruko replied. She hated the smallness in her voice.
"Mazanka," Sakuin spat. "You're walking with him."
"I'm not walking with anyone—"
"You were one of us," Makurei said gently, sadly. "What are you now, Shidō?"
A beat.
Sakuin cracked his neck.
"Let's see if you still remember who you are."
The Ka'ro moved like lightning made of memory.
"Shintei-Ka'ro: Shōjō Gōbaku. Scarlet Binding Mist."
Makurei struck first. Pale Ka'ro twisted from his arms in coiling bands that slid across the ground, seeking her limbs with gentle violence. Teruko rolled aside, tattoos flaring—
"Shintei-Ka'ro: Ranbu no Kōha! Petal-Crash Waltz."
Her Ka'ro lashed outward in a spiraling ring, like flowers spinning on a storm's edge. She shattered the misting coils and countered with a forward dash—but Raishō intercepted.
"Sōgen-Ka'ro: Jikan no Kakehashi. Bridge of Split Moments."
Time around him stuttered—just slightly. A flicker. He stepped between two breaths, blocked her blow with his elbow, and shoved her back with an invisible force—like memory reversing for half a heartbeat.
Teruko stumbled, recovered, crouched low.
Already surrounded.
Sakuin hadn't moved yet.
His Ka'ro simmered beneath his skin like magma.
Teruko could feel it.
Aithērya.
No, that's not possible...
"You shouldn't have abandoned us," Raishō said. "We would've forgiven hesitation. We would've forgiven pain. But not betrayal."
"I didn't betray anyone," she hissed.
"Then why are you standing there," Sakuin growled, "and not here with us?"
He flared.
"Aithērya Unseal: Zetsubō no Taika. The Pyre of Despair."
The concrete cracked beneath him. Flames—not red, not gold—but deep violet, licked up from his arms and legs like ceremonial fire. The air howled as Ka'ro surged like blood pushed through a god's heart. His hair lifted. His eyes glowed.
Teruko's breath caught.
"Sakuin, don't," Makurei whispered. "You've only just awakened—"
"She's the reason I pushed for this," Sakuin growled. "She was supposed to be Master Kurosawa's pride. She took advantage of that. I won't allow her to ruin his name any longer. She's not fit to lead us. It should've…it should've been ME."
"You don't understand—!"
"I understand enough!"
The attack came before reason could catch it.
"Pyre Form: Dai-Sensō Hiuchi! Great War Spark."
A flame-embedded kick launched toward her, trailing violet cinders that screamed as they moved, cracking the rebar behind her as she dodged by inches.
Teruko hit the ground, rolled, retaliated—
"Hōrin Seika: Ni no Dan. Crimson Bloom, Second Form."
Twin arcs of Ka'ro whirled from her palms—tethered to her tattoos like silk ribbons honed to razors. They caught Makurei mid-dash and knocked him back into a pile of broken scaffolding.
But Raishō was already there.
"Kakehashi: Sankaku Sekai. Tri-Angled Worldstep."
He blinked three times in less than a breath—each afterimage a half-strike. She dodged the first, blocked the second, and barely ducked the third—
Until Sakuin surged in again.
He was stronger.
But unstable.
Too much Ka'ro leaking from his skin, pooling under his feet like liquid fire. His breath was ragged. The flames flickered not with rage—but grief.
She saw it.
But he didn't.
"Pyre Form: Sanka no Kōri. Funeral Ice of Remorse."
A final burst—Ka'ro turned frigid in color but still burning hot—exploded toward her.
She raised her arms, bracing, already knowing she wouldn't block it.
"Enough."
The word wasn't shouted.
It didn't need to be.
It split the world anyway.
The flames twisted mid-air.
The Ka'ro collapsed on itself.
And Sakuin stopped moving.
Mazanka stepped from the chain-link fence, brushing dust from his sleeves, expression unreadable.
"Three against one," he said. "Not very Kenshiki of you."
Raishō's Ka'ro recoiled instinctively. Makurei stepped back.
Sakuin snarled, whipping his head around.
"Who the hell—"
"Mazanka," Raishō breathed.
Mazanka didn't look at him.
He looked at Sakuin.
"That Aithērya will tear you apart if you keep feeding it. You're not ready."
"TRAITORS!" Sakuin shouted.
"Teruko isn't a traitor."
"She's with you."
"No," Mazanka said, stepping closer. "She's with herself. And that's harder than anything else."
Sakuin charged.
"Pyre Form: Rekkō no Kengen! Infernal Authority of Heatlight."
He summoned a blade of flame carved from his forearm—twisting in midair like living molten steel. He slashed at Mazanka—
Who moved once.
And stood behind him.
Sakuin's weapon shattered.
He gasped.
Blood flecked his mouth.
"Told you," Mazanka murmured.
Sakuin stepped through the haze of scorched Ka'ro, eyes wild and teeth gritted, his breath ragged from the pull of his unstable Aithērya. Purple fire crawled over his limbs, dripping like paint that refused to dry.
Mazanka stood still, hands at his sides, watching—not tense, but present. There was no guard in his stance. No obvious defense.
Just knowing.
And that unsettled Sakuin more than any threat.
"Why don't you draw out your Aithērya?" Sakuin spat.
Mazanka tilted his head. "You think I need to?"
The young Kenshiki roared and lunged.
"Pyre Form: Dai-Sensō Hiuchi! Great War Spark."
A sweeping arc of violet flame, pulled into the form of a coiled spear, twisted out from his forearm and rocketed toward Mazanka like a serpent let loose from grief.
Mazanka exhaled and leaned—not dodging, shifting—his Ka'ro coiling around his body like a breeze that had chosen not to be seen. The spear shattered through the air where he'd stood a moment ago.
Sakuin spun, fueled by frustration, bringing his Aithērya to bear again.
"Pyre Form: Rekkō no Kengen! Infernal Authority of Heatlight."
A blade of molten Ka'ro extended along his forearm—black at the edge, pulsing with unnatural heat. He struck again, and again—flashes of color, spikes of heat—but each time, Mazanka stepped between moments like they were petals in the wind.
No wasted energy. No aggression. Only grace.
"You're not really listening to your Ka'ro," Mazanka said at last, voice almost bored. "That's the problem."
"Shut up!"
"See—this is what happens when someone finds the key before they understand the lock."
Mazanka dodged another blow, this time sliding under the blade's arc, his hand brushing Sakuin's wrist. A small pulse of his own Ka'ro flowed—just enough to destabilize the connection.
The flames rippled, stuttered.
Sakuin growled, forced it stable.
"You think you know what you're doing," Mazanka continued, circling him like a slow orbit. "But you're not wielding your Aithērya. You're surviving it."
"I unlocked it! I EARNED this power!"
"You survived it. That's not the same."
Mazanka's tone changed—still smooth, but laced now with a razor-thin edge of teacherly disdain.
"Aithērya isn't some badge. It's your soul's tantrum made visible. It's the part of you you try to hide—turned loose. And if you don't understand it, it eats you from the inside."
Sakuin screamed, rage blooming in fire.
"Pyre Form: Zanka Enketsu! Residual Flame Severance."
He brought both palms forward—his entire Aithērya compressing into a spinning disc of superheated Ka'ro that howled like a blade made of molten screams. He hurled it with both hands.
Mazanka flicked two fingers toward the air.
A pulse—not of destruction, but redirection—bent the Ka'ro's arc mid-flight.
The disc curved harmlessly into the scaffolding, which melted and collapsed.
Mazanka sighed. "See what I mean? That wasn't clarity. That was fear trying to pretend it's rage."
He took a slow step forward. Sakuin flinched, flame flaring—then sputtering.
"Aithērya shows you the truth," Mazanka said softly now. "And most people aren't ready to see it."
Sakuin staggered.
His Ka'ro faltered—cracks forming along his arms, the tattoos pulsing erratically.
"You don't get it—this was all I had—!"
"I do get it," Mazanka interrupted, voice suddenly sharp. "You thought power would prove your worth. That your pain would make you exceptional. But it doesn't. It makes you human."
A beat.
"And humans break."
Sakuin howled and tried again to summon his Ka'ro.
But the flames didn't come.
Only a sickening ripple through his chest.
His breath caught.
His limbs spasmed.
And then—his Ka'ro backfired.
It cracked—literally cracked, like glass under heat. His skin pulsed too bright. His limbs bent wrong. The Aithērya folded on itself, turning inward—
A soundless burst. Not explosive. Implosive.
The Ka'ro that had once wrapped his arms now sank inward—like it was trying to return to the place it had been forced from.
Sakuin collapsed to the dirt.
Mazanka approached slowly, gaze cool but not cruel.
"I told you; you don't use Aithērya to prove yourself," he murmured. "You survive it to learn who you are."
Makurei rushed to Sakuin. Raishō covered them both.
Mazanka didn't react, only shifting to stand by a frozen Teruko.
He didn't touch her. Speak to her. Didn't look.
Just stood close.
The others looked up, faces bruised, burned.
"This isn't over," Raishō said. "You'll be hunted."
"Tell them," Mazanka replied. "I'll be waiting."
Raishō's eyes flicked to Teruko.
"And you? What will you be?"
She didn't answer.
He nodded.
Then they vanished.
Teruko remained unmoving, breath ragged, hands limp at her sides.
Her hair clung to her skin. Blood welled from her ribs.
Mazanka didn't say anything for a while.
He just stood beside her.
Placed one hand on her the top of her head.
She didn't look up.
"I tried," she whispered. "I tried so hard."
"I know."
"But now it's over."
"No," he said softly. "It's just different."
"Everything I am is gone."
"Then become something else."
Her chest cracked.
Tears came. Silent. Not explosive. Just… slow. Pained.
Like everything had finally caught up to her body.
Mazanka remained beside her.
Let her cry.
Didn't speak again until the shaking stopped.
Then:
"I'll fix your device."
She looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because I know what it means to be lost."
He moved.
Offered a hand.
"Come stay with Rakan and me. Just for a bit. Until your Ka'ro remembers the shape of hope."
She looked at him through blurred vision.
Then she laughed. Just barely.
And then took his hand.