"Peace isn't broken by war. It breaks the moment we forget who we fought beside." - Ken Hiroki, after the council of Evalia
The Council Hall of Evalia was built to echo harmony: domed ceiling, white stone, banners of every clan stitched together in a ring. But that day, the air shook—not with unity, but with the sound of argument.
Ken stood at the far end of the chamber, dust still clinging to his armor. The bandages at his side had not yet dried. Kabe leaned against a column beside him, arms crossed, gaze heavy.
"Durama fell because we hesitated," barked one elder, his voice cutting through the hall. "We waited for orders that never came."
Another answered, trembling with anger. "We followed the King's decree—protect the civilians first! Would you have had us burn the fortress to save pride?"
The circle of leaders collapsed into shouting. Every accusation was a spark on oil.
Beyond them, the younger shinobi gathered in clusters near the back—Harama-trained, once brothers and sisters in creed. Now their colors looked like battle flags.
Moon Veil students whispered among themselves, their voices sharp. Steel Fang recruits clutched their spears tighter. The air between them felt ready to fracture.
Kabe spoke quietly, but his tone carried.
"Listen to them. Even the ones who survived can't survive each other."
Ken exhaled. He could feel Rudhana's hum beneath his skin again, faint, restless—as though the spirit inside him sensed the tension too.
He stepped forward, letting the council's arguing die by his silence.
"We lost Durama," he said. "That's truth. But if we tear each other apart here, then the wall will have fallen for nothing."
"And what would you know about it, Hiroki? You weren't the one buried under the walls. You had the King to protect you!"
The hall froze. The words hit like steel.
Ken didn't answer right away. He walked toward the youth, each step slow but unflinching.
"When those walls fell," he said softly, "I was still inside them. Tina-sensei pulled me out, and she didn't come back. So yes—maybe I lived. But don't mistake breathing for being spared."
The silence afterward was heavier than the shouting had been.
Kabe pushed off the column, voice calm but edged.
"Enough. Every clan lost someone. If we keep measuring pain, we'll drown in it before the next battle comes."
Reka-sensei, seated near the King's empty chair, finally spoke.
"The Academy taught balance. Not peace without struggle, but strength without hatred. Have you all forgotten?"
Her words broke the fever for a moment. Heads lowered. Even the defiant crimson-scarfed youth stepped back.
Outside, the bells of Evalia tolled—slow, uneven, as if uncertain whether to mourn or to rally.
Ken looked toward the high windows where the afternoon light slanted through banners of every clan. Some threads were already fraying.
"Then we remember," he murmured. "For them, for Durama."
Kabe nodded beside him. "Peace isn't built in stone. It's built in people."
But even as he said it, Ken saw movement among the shadows near the outer doors—a figure slipping away, cloak marked with foreign stitching, a glint of ink-black metal at their wrist.
He recognized that mark from a whisper in Durama: the sign of Kurogane's envoys.
The Divide had begun.
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The Quiet After Durama
The smoke had barely thinned when the bells of Harama began to ring.
Not in celebration - in remembrance. Each toll echoed through the wind like the sound of something breaking.
At the temple courtyard below, Esyara Suwada knelt beside a basin of silver water. Her hands, though gentle. Trembled as she washed away the ash that had drifted from the north. The breeze carried faint embers - not of fire, but of news.
Her reflection rippled, and for a moment she saw Ken's face in it - wounded, exhausted, but alive.
"He promised he would come home before the blossoms fall," she whispered, pressing her fingers to the surface.
"Then I'll keep them alive until he does."
Nearby, under the shadow of an old cedar, Hanazel Miyara watched over her sleeping daughter, Hanabi. The child's tiny hand still clutched a paper crane - half- burned, the edges curled but not gone.
"Papa fights for us," Hanazel murmured, tucking Hanabi's hair aside. "So we must not cry… not while the fire still listens."
The wind turned colder. From the far horizon, Evalia's bells began to join Harama's - a chain of sound stretching across Tilbara. Between them, silence breathed, and somewhere within it, the two brothers still walked through ruin.
And even in that distance, the hearts waiting for them burned quietly, refusing to fade.