The sky above Astralyn wept ash.
Gray flakes drifted down like snow, settling on broken stone and shattered glass. The air tasted of blood and burnt essence—thick enough to coat the back of your throat.
Kairo wiped sweat from his brow, leaving a streak of grime across his forehead.
His amber eyes swept the devastation.
How did it come to this?
The central plaza—once a place of laughter and festivals—now looked like a graveyard. Toppled statues lay in pieces. Market stalls were reduced to splinters and ash.
And everywhere, the wounded.
"Over here!"
Rinako's voice cut through the chaos. The Dreamshaper knelt beside a collapsed building, her pink hair dulled with dust. Her hands glowed faintly as she pulled essence from the air, weaving it into healing threads.
Kairo teleported to her side in a flash of cobalt light.
His breath caught.
A young girl—no older than ten—lay trapped beneath a fallen beam. Her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle. Blood seeped through torn fabric.
"Can you lift it?" Rinako asked, not looking up from her work.
Kairo placed both hands on the massive stone beam.
"Yeah."
He phased the beam through a gap in reality, making it weightless for a split second. The girl's eyes fluttered open as the crushing weight disappeared.
"Mama?" she whispered.
Kairo's chest tightened.
He looked around, searching for any sign of the child's mother. All he saw were more bodies. More rubble.
More silence where laughter used to be.
"She's safe," he lied, his voice barely audible. "You're both safe now."
The girl smiled—trusting, innocent.
Kairo felt something crack inside his chest.
Three days.
Three days since the Verythra tore through Astralyn like a living nightmare.
Three days since Itsuki vanished.
Kairo's hands shook as he pulled another survivor from the wreckage—an elderly man clutching a broken locket. The man mumbled something about his wife, his eyes vacant and staring.
"Here," Kairo said, guiding him toward the makeshift medical station. "Someone will help you."
The man nodded absently and shuffled away.
Kairo watched him go, then turned back to the rubble.
Pull. Search. Find. Repeat.
Pull. Search. Find. Repeat.
It was easier than thinking.
Easier than remembering the moment everything went wrong. The moment that thing appeared in the dojo courtyard. The moment Itsuki stepped forward, ready to fight, and then—
Gone.
Just... gone.
Kairo clenched his fists.
His essence flickered, unstable. Cobalt light sparked around his fingers before fading.
Where are you, Itsuki?
A scream echoed from a nearby building.
Kairo's head snapped up. Without thinking, he teleported toward the sound, reappearing in a cloud of void-touched air.
A woman knelt over a man's still form, her hands pressed against a gaping wound in his chest. Blood seeped between her fingers.
"Please," she sobbed. "Please don't leave me."
The man's breathing was shallow, labored.
Kairo knelt beside them.
"Let me help."
He couldn't heal—that wasn't his gift. But he could get them to someone who could.
"Hold on to me," he said, placing a hand on each of them.
Void Step.
The world twisted. Reality folded.
They reappeared beside Rinako's healing station in an instant.
"Emergency!" Kairo called out.
Rinako looked up, her expression grim. Her hands were already glowing with restorative essence as she moved toward the wounded man.
The woman looked up at Kairo, tears streaming down her face.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Kairo said nothing.
He just teleported away.
Pull. Search. Find. Repeat.
But no matter how many people he saved, how many lives he pulled from the wreckage—
Itsuki was still gone.
Evening fell like a heavy curtain.
The great bell of Astralyn's central tower rang six times, its deep voice carrying across the broken city. Citizens began to gather in what remained of the plaza, drawn by word that their King would speak.
Kairo found himself among them, standing beside Takumi and the other surviving students from Zenkai Dojo.
Sayaka stood to his right, her violet eyes fixed on the royal balcony. Her usually perfect posture was slightly slumped—exhaustion written in every line of her body.
Takumi's crimson hair was singed at the edges. His golden eyes flickered with barely contained rage.
"He better have answers," Takumi muttered, his fists clenched.
Kairo said nothing.
Answers won't bring Itsuki back.
The crowd grew larger. Hundreds of faces, all marked by loss. All waiting for their King to make sense of the senseless.
Then he appeared.
King Aldric Livinaxus stepped onto the high balcony overlooking the plaza. Even from a distance, his presence was commanding—a figure carved from iron and authority.
His voice boomed across the square, enhanced by essence-craft.
"People of Astralyn."
The murmuring crowd fell silent.
"Three days ago, our kingdom was attacked by an enemy unlike any we have faced before. The Verythra came not as raiders or conquerors, but as destroyers. Their only purpose was death."
Kairo felt the weight of those words settle over the crowd like a shroud.
"We have lost much," the King continued. "Homes. Livelihoods. Lives."
He paused, his golden eyes sweeping across the gathered faces.
"Master Renji Takahara. Captain Jorik Vayne. Elder Mira Vestin. Scholar Daren Thorne. Guardian Lysa Morewind."
Each name hit like a physical blow.
The King spoke slowly, deliberately—honoring each fallen defender by letting their name echo in the silence.
"They died as warriors. As protectors. As heroes."
A woman in the crowd began to weep.
Then another.
Soon, quiet sobs filled the plaza like a prayer.
"But their sacrifice was not in vain," the King declared, his voice rising. "Because of their courage, thousands of you stand here tonight. Alive. Unbroken."
Kairo felt something stir in his chest.
Not hope—not yet.
But something close to it.
"The beasts believe they have broken us," King Aldric continued. "They believe one attack is enough to make Astralyn bow its head in fear."
His voice dropped to a growl.
"They are wrong."
The crowd stirred. Murmurs of agreement rippled through the plaza.
"Astralyn has stood for three thousand years. We have weathered wars, plagues, and the fury of the elements themselves. We will not fall to mindless beasts—no matter how terrible they may be."
The King raised his hand.
"Effective immediately, I am ordering the reinforcement of all city walls. Every gate, every watchtower, every defensive barrier will be strengthened with the finest essence-craft our kingdom can provide."
Takumi leaned forward, his eyes blazing.
"Furthermore," the King announced, "I am placing Captain Nanook Anaxagoras and the Beyond Order in command of the capital's defense. They have my full authority to mobilize whatever resources are necessary to protect this city."
A figure stepped into view beside the King—tall, lean, with silver-streaked hair and eyes that seemed to see beyond the present moment.
Nanook raised his hand in acknowledgment.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
"Finally!" Takumi shouted over the noise. "Someone who knows how to fight!"
Around them, the plaza exploded with sound. Some citizens wept openly—tears of grief mixed with tears of hope. Others raised weapons toward the sky, roaring their defiance.
An old man near Kairo fell to his knees, hands pressed together in prayer.
"Thank the Trueborns," he whispered. "Thank them for giving us a king with fire in his blood."
A group of younger citizens began chanting.
"For Astralyn! For the fallen! For the King!"
The chant spread, growing louder and stronger until it seemed to shake the very stones beneath their feet.
Kairo felt it too—that surge of collective will. The refusal to surrender.
But beneath it all, a darker current ran through the crowd.
Fear.
It showed in the way people gripped their weapons. In the way they looked over their shoulders. In the way parents held their children just a little too tightly.
The Verythra had left more than physical scars.
They had planted seeds of terror in the hearts of Astralyn's people.
And terror, Kairo thought grimly, is harder to heal than any wound.
After the speech, after the crowd had dispersed into the night, Kairo found himself walking toward the ruined dojo grounds.
He wasn't alone.
Takumi walked beside him, unusually quiet. His usual fire-bright confidence had dimmed to embers.
Sayaka followed a few steps behind, her violet eyes distant and thoughtful.
Maya Ikeda caught up with them near the training yards, her Echo Veil ability allowing her to slip through the shadows unseen until she chose to reveal herself.
"Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
Kairo shook his head.
They walked in silence until they reached what used to be the central courtyard. Now it was just a crater—a gaping wound in the earth where the Verythra had first appeared.
"This is where it happened," Sayaka said quietly.
Her voice carried no emotion, but her hands were clenched into fists.
"This is where we lost him."
Takumi kicked at a piece of broken stone.
"We should have been faster," he muttered. "Should have fought harder."
"There was nothing we could do," Maya said. "That thing—it was beyond any of us."
"Doesn't matter," Takumi snapped. "He's gone because we weren't strong enough to stop it."
Kairo stared into the crater.
Itsuki stood right here.
Right here, and then... nothing.
"We get stronger," Kairo said suddenly.
The others looked at him.
"That's what we do," he continued, his voice gaining strength. "We get stronger. Strong enough to find him. Strong enough to bring him home."
Takumi's golden eyes flickered with renewed fire.
"You think he's alive?"
Kairo met his gaze.
"I know he is."
It was a lie—or maybe a hope dressed up as certainty. But it was what they needed to hear.
What he needed to hear.
Sayaka stepped forward, extending her hand palm-down.
"Stronger," she said simply.
Takumi placed his hand over hers without hesitation.
"Stronger," he agreed.
Maya added her hand to the pile.
"For Itsuki."
Kairo looked at their joined hands, then placed his own on top.
"For Itsuki," he echoed.
The promise hung in the air between them—unspoken but understood.
We will find you.
No matter how long it takes.
No matter what we have to become.
We will bring you home.
Far beyond the walls of Astralyn, where the green plains gave way to barren wasteland, three scouts crouched in the dying light of dusk.
Lieutenant Kara Voss raised her spyglass, scanning the desolate horizon.
"There," she whispered. "Do you see them?"
Sergeant Pike squinted into the distance.
"See what?"
Kara handed him the spyglass.
Pike peered through the lens, adjusting the focus. For a moment, he saw nothing but empty grassland and scattered rocks.
Then his blood went cold.
Tracks.
Massive, clawed impressions in the hardened earth—each one the size of a dinner plate. They stretched across the wasteland in a straight line, heading directly away from Astralyn.
But that wasn't the terrifying part.
The terrifying part was how many there were.
"Sweet Trueborns," Pike breathed. "There's dozens of them."
The third scout—a young woman named Tess—crept closer to examine the tracks up close.
"Sir," she called back. "These are fresh. Maybe hours old."
Kara took the spyglass back, her hands trembling slightly.
"How many do you count, Pike?"
Pike was quiet for a long moment, following the trail with his eyes.
"At least thirty sets," he said finally. "Maybe more."
Tess looked up from her examination of the tracks.
"Sir... there's something else."
She pointed to a section of disturbed earth near the largest set of prints.
"These marks here—they're not from claws."
Kara moved closer, kneeling beside the younger scout.
The impressions were different. Smoother. Almost... human-shaped.
"Footprints," Kara whispered.
The three scouts stared at the evidence in stunned silence.
Someone—or something—was walking alongside the Verythra.
Leading them.
Controlling them.
"We need to get back to the city," Kara said, her voice urgent. "The King needs to know about this immediately."
As they gathered their equipment and prepared to leave, none of them noticed the figure watching from a distant ridge.
Cloaked in shadow, eyes glowing with unnatural light, it observed their discovery with cold amusement.
Then it turned and walked away, following the trail deeper into the wasteland.
Where something ancient and terrible was stirring.
Something that had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
The tracks led north.
Toward the Beyond.
Toward answers that Astralyn was not ready to face.
Yet.