The wind whistled through the half-ruined village of Biwa like a dry sigh, lifting dust from the cobblestones and rattling the half-broken shutters. Smoke lingered in the distance, curling over the horizon like a stubborn memory. Kael and Jade stood near the outer wall, the air thick with the tension of a quiet, unspoken war. Kael's stomach growled, low and deliberate, as if mocking the gravity of the moment. Jade rolled her eyes and muttered something sharp under her breath, her words carrying across the yard with the weight of a whip.
"You've got to be kidding me," she said, her voice dripping with exasperation. "The moment the sky darkens with demons, the moment war rolls to our doorstep, and you—of course—you're thinking about breakfast."
Kael didn't respond. He crouched slightly, the hem of his cloak flaring with his movement, his hands flexing over the hilt of the small blade he carried. It wasn't the Blood Driver—Cassian's terrifying legacy—but even this simple weapon seemed to hum in anticipation of violence, as if the metal itself could sense Kael's latent hunger.
"The blade doesn't care about hunger," Jade continued. "It won't fight for you. You—ugh! I swear, sometimes your mind wanders into the strangest places."
Kael's only reply was a small grin and a shrug, though his eyes tracked every shadow, every flicker of movement beyond the walls. He had learned to move like the wind himself: silent, unpredictable, yet present enough to be dangerous.
The first wave of beasts arrived without warning. They moved like coordinated madness, their forms slithering and bounding over broken fences and burned-out carts, nostrils flaring, claws scraping against stone. Some were small and wiry, hunched like old men, with glinting eyes; others towered like jagged trees, bark-like hide splitting under the sun's reflection. The smell of iron and wet fur rolled toward them on the breeze, and Kael's stomach growled again. Jade's mouth moved faster than lightning, issuing sharp commands to Dill and the other villagers, but Kael needed no guidance.
He lunged forward before she finished, the weight of his body shifting, the blade in his hands catching the light as it swung. Every motion spoke of unspoken practice, of reflex honed by survival and something deeper. The edge of the blade carved through air with a hiss, slicing a smaller creature in half before it could leap at a terrified villager. Kael's hands moved independently of his thoughts, a harmony between instinct and intent. Each strike pushed back the tide of monsters, each pivot turned the enemy's momentum against itself.
"Ha! See?" Jade snapped, darting to intercept a brute that had leapt toward Kael's side. "I do the talking, and you do the—well, you do what you do!"
Kael didn't stop. He twisted, pivoted, the blade curving like liquid steel in his grip. The way he moved, the way he anticipated the creatures' own balance, could have been mistaken for magic if not for the utter physicality of it. The edge shifted subtly with each step: catching a reflection of sunlight, then darkening as he spun through a shadow. It was a dance of death, precise and fluid, and yet, somehow, there was a rhythm to it, a beat that even Jade could follow with her eyes.
One brute lunged, its claws swinging like jagged scimitars. Kael met it mid-step, the blade angled perfectly to deflect, then pivoted to slice across its flank. Flesh tore, a sound like tearing parchment echoing, and the beast crumpled to the ground. The other monsters hesitated for a fraction of a second, sensing the presence of something unusual.
"Look at you!" Jade shouted, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. "You're practically—don't you dare smile right now!"
Kael's grin was quick, barely there, and then he was gone, moving forward to intercept another threat. The village itself seemed to hold its breath, the cracked walls almost bending toward him as he struck. The metal of his blade sang a quiet song of inevitability, each movement a sentence in a language older than words.
The villagers began to regroup, following Jade's instructions, though it was clear Kael's hands were the difference. Every strike he made opened a path for them, every spin, every parry, every feint shifted the battle slightly in their favor. The creatures shrieked, frustrated, as if the wind itself had taken form to oppose them.
Dill, wide-eyed and trembling, shouted something about reinforcements, but Kael's gaze was already distant. He caught movement in the treeline, subtle shifts in shadow, the glint of claws. He moved without thought, feet skimming over stone and broken wood, hands shaping the arc of the blade. It was teaching without speaking, the lessons of life and death passing between him and the enemies he cut down.
Cassian would have called this a warm-up, a prelude. But here, Kael made it look almost casual. His form wasn't heroic in the classical sense—it was absurdly efficient, slightly unhinged, humorous in the timing of his strikes, as if death itself had a sense of irony.
By the time the last of the first wave had fallen, smoke curling over the horizon, the village was battered but alive. Kael leaned against a scorched wall, breathing easy, while Jade's mouth didn't stop moving.
"You know," she said, voice sharp, "I think if the gods ever decided to retire, they could hire you as their replacement. But don't get used to the compliments. That's not why we're alive right now."
Kael's stomach growled one more time. He patted it with a hand, an almost comic gesture in the wake of carnage. "Okay, fine," he said, voice low. "Maybe breakfast first."
Even in the ruins, even with monsters defeated, there was a lesson etched into the air: Kael's hands spoke louder than words, and Jade's mouth carried the weight of strategy and truth. Together, they were chaos tempered by intent, a pair that could bend the tides of a small war. And in the distance, beyond Biwa, the horizon promised more waves, more creatures, more proof that the world would not pause for humor or hunger—yet Kael's grin, subtle and knowing, reminded everyone that he would meet the storm on his terms.
The village would remember this day, though in fragments: the swing of a blade, the cadence of commands, and a boy whose hands wrote the story of survival across the blood and dust.