Jeffrey's bare fists were harder than they had any right to be.
He moved with the efficiency of someone who had wrestled monsters in Gehen by hand — batting aside Moto's blade, reducing Aemon's clones to nothing with single strikes, reading the geometry of each attack before it arrived and answering it before it finished. They fought as a unit. Moto, Aemon, Najo, Snake, Tanaka throwing herself in without training or hesitation. All of them together.
It wasn't enough.
Step by step, Jeffrey drove them toward the cliff.
Kazuchi's absence changed nothing.
Then — movement in the trees.
Snake dragged himself upright. His vision was wrong, the clearing smeared and swimming, but through it he could see Moto stepping into a blow meant for Blake. The green light behind his eyes came back thin and unreliable. He threw himself at Jeffrey from behind, arms locking around the old man's torso, putting every ounce of what was left into the hold.
For one second, the advance stopped.
Jeffrey roared and exploded. He tore Snake free like something stuck to his coat and hurled him aside, then drove Najo into the ground with a hammering blow that left him flat. Blood ran from Najo's ears. Aemon was moving wrong. Tanaka's hands were shaking.
Moto looked at the clearing. He looked at the faces.
He remembered sitting across from King Douglas asking how peace could ever be real. The world is massive and people want different things, but the best place to start is protecting your family and friends.
The smoke started seeping from him — not the light, drifting kind. This smoke was thick and dark and getting darker with every breath.
Najo's head snapped around. He knew exactly what that smoke meant.
"No," he said, and his voice was sharp. "Don't."
The smoke wavered.
Moto looked at it. Fine. He looked up — past the clearing, past the treeline, all the way up to the moon hanging cold and full above all of it.
He met Najo's eyes. Made a single quick gesture upward.
Before Najo could answer, Moto moved.
Jeffrey had just driven a fist into Snake's chest, the green light in his dreadlocks guttering out for the last time. Moto came in from behind and locked his arms around Jeffrey's waist.
Jeffrey drove an elbow back.
Crack. The impact split Moto's scalp, blood running dark and fast into his hair. His vision blurred. His grip didn't loosen.
The ground tore upward.
Najo answered. A massive slab of earth ripped free, carrying Moto and Jeffrey skyward on a rising platform into the dark above the treeline.
Moto threw his head back and let go.
The smoke poured from him in violent, expanding waves — dark and heavy and climbing, a cloud that swallowed the moonlight and kept growing.
In the clearing below, Aemon's face went white. "He can't get out of that," he whispered. "He's going to blow himself up."
"Not while I'm here," Tanaka said. She looked at Aemon. "Can you summon your clones?"
"They took damage. I need to go back in first."
Inside his mind, Fear — who had been curled in the chair with his hands over his face — opened his eyes.
And ran.
Not through the mindscape. Out. Into the cold air of the real world, hunched and frantic, clutching something small in both hands.
A half-burned scrap of the six-leaf herb. The one that hadn't caught in the rain.
Aemon stared at it. "Yes," he said. "Good thinking."
He lit it. The smoke curled inward. His consciousness dove.
Inside, the clones were scattered and damaged. He moved through them — pulling them back together, willing them whole — and felt them return to readiness one by one.
Outside, Tanaka turned to Snake.
"Can you give them a boost?"
Snake looked at his arms. The tattoos were barely moving. "I'll try."
His serpents lashed out, biting Aemon and Najo. Pain — then the adrenaline hit, sudden and chemical, forcing exhausted bodies back into service. Tanaka placed her hand on Najo and felt her perception sharpen as the inversion opened a channel through the smoke above.
"I've got him," she said. "Right there."
High above the clearing, Moto gritted his teeth.
The smoke around him had its own gravity now, dense and dark, pulling more of itself into the centre. Heat was beginning at the edges of it.
"This is it," he growled. "Smoke Zone — Dreadnought."
A hand hooked the back of his collar.
His eyes went wide as he was ripped backward, torn clean out of the cloud's heart at speed. Beside Jeffrey, a black shape — Rage, arriving like a promise — stepped directly into the smoke's centre.
The cloud ignited.
BOOM.
The sky split. The shockwave hit everything. Moto tumbled through the air, end over end, the light of it washing the night white.
Below, the sequence finished in order. Najo launched Aemon upward on a platform. The clones threw each other higher, chaining the momentum — faster, higher — until Rage caught Moto mid-fall and hurled him clear of the last of the blast.
The moment Moto was out, Najo raised his hand.
Lightning struck the smoke dead centre.
The explosion roared again — final, absolute, the sound of something conclusive.
Moto fell.
Najo was already running, full speed, and dived. He caught him just before the ground arrived and they rolled hard together, coming to a stop in the mud.
Silence fell over the clearing.
Tanaka exhaled slowly, her shoulders dropping for the first time.
"Idiots," she said quietly. The relief in it was unmistakable.
Jeffrey had fallen with the wreckage, crashing through what remained of his shed. He hit the ground without grace and lay still.
The fire crackled. Rain fell.
Blake broke through the treeline and found his brother. They collided without words — a fierce, clumsy hug, the kind that doesn't care about the open wounds it's pressing against. Snake hissed through his teeth at the pain but didn't pull back.
Nearby, Moto sat against a tree with his head tilted back, counting faces. Making sure everyone was breathing.
One by one, they were.
Snake released his brother. He sat with it for a moment — the cost of the night, the weight of the week, all of it sitting quietly now that it was over. Then he stood.
Every step hurt.
He crossed the clearing and stopped in front of Moto. Looked at him.
He thought of the letter on the board. The tournament. The prize money he'd won because Moto had simply stepped aside. The fact that none of them had been asked, and all of them had come anyway.
Nothing was free in Sango. That was the one truth the city had taught him.
He dropped to one knee.
"When Jeffery said he'd only accept blood," Snake said, and his voice cracked on it, "I was ready to die for my brother."
He swallowed.
"But you came. Without me asking."
He looked up. "I owe you two lives. Blake's and mine. And in Sango, a debt like that means something. With my life, I'll walk beside you. Risk it for yours. That's what I can give."
The words found Blake like a blade. He hadn't understood — hadn't really seen — what his brother had been carrying all this time. The weight of always being the one in between.
Moto raised one hand weakly.
"Get up," he said.
Snake looked at him.
Moto extended his hand. "I don't need a bodyguard. But I could use a friend."
Snake looked at the hand. Then he laughed — quietly, genuinely, the first real laugh in a long time. "You sure? I am a snake, after all."
"Sure, buddy."
The laughter that spread through the clearing was exhausted and real and came from people who had earned it.
Then Hawk descended.
She came down with Sango officers at her back, her expression carved from something cold and deliberate. She pointed without hesitation. "There he is."
An officer held up a canvas bag. "Is this the stolen property, madam?"
"Yes," Hawk said. "But not all of it."
Another officer called from the wreckage: "There's a body over here, Sergeant. Pulse check?"
The man at the front of the officers took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled. He was broad and dark-skinned and built like something that didn't particularly expect to be moved, his navy uniform open over a white shirt that the institution had apparently learned to accommodate. He looked at the officer with the flat expression of someone surrounded by people who needed to be told the obvious.
"Check for a pulse, dumbass."
He approached, unhurried, surveying the wreckage with mild professional interest.
"My, my," Sergeant Bizure said. "Looks like you've all made quite a mess."
Cuffs came out — metal bands set with glowing green gems, radiation-suppressors forged in Nirvana. When they snapped onto Aemon's wrists, his clones flickered violently and vanished. When they locked onto Snake, the adrenaline Sixtus had given him drained away in an instant. His legs gave out completely. Guards dragged him across the cobblestones.
Bizure walked ahead, unhurried, letting the growing crowd of early-morning onlookers find their best angles. He paused at intervals, making sure the photographers had clear shots — Moto in cuffs, Snake being dragged, the exhausted faces of people who had been awake for two days.
"Smile, boys," he said. "You're famous now."
[End of Sango Arc]
Author's Note
Hey, thanks for reading up to this point. I hope you've enjoyed the story thus far. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the power system and the abilities of the main characters at this point. It's all things you've seen, just consolidated in case you ever need a point of reference.
But before that, please let me know your top 5 favourite characters so far.
Power System
Thousands of years ago, a meteor called the Hwange fell to Earth in the Sango region.
It emitted powerful radiation that caused a mass extinction across the world.
The people who survived adapted over time and awakened powers as a result of this radiation.
After a war for control over the Hwange, a powerful man named Trymore emerged and split it into six fragments, giving each nation one.
These segmented ores granted people within a geographic area a specific category of powers. Aside from unique abilities, each fragment also grants those in its proximity an innate ability—something everyone from that nation can do, to varying degrees of proficiency.
The Six Ores
Nyika received the Earth Ore, which grants elemental abilities.
Innate ability: Wind manipulation
Examples: Najo, Sheu, and all Nyika citizens
Zen received the Spirit Ore, which grants spiritual abilities.
The spiritual plane exists parallel to the physical world.
Innate ability: Seeing spirits and the spiritual plane
Examples: Aemon, Andzani, and all Zen citizens
Pasi received the Human Ore, which grants superhuman abilities based on the human body.
Innate ability: Healing factor
Examples: Tanaka, Kangetsu, the Crimson Creed, and Pasi citizens
Sango received the Life Ore, which grants nature-based powers, both plant- and wildlife-adjacent.
Innate ability: Communication with animals
Examples: Snake, Lilly, and all Sango citizens
The remaining two Ores are yet to be explored.
Character Powers (Moto's Crew)Moto
Moto controls smoke and maroon flame. His smoke is emitted from the pores of his skin and is primarily used to obscure vision or be ignited to create explosions.
His strongest smoke technique is Dreadnought, a massive smoke cloud that he can detonate.
Moto's fire burns him, so he avoids using it directly. Instead, he only ignites the tips of his fingers to detonate his smoke bombs.
His fire remains mysterious, but it has previously been able to burn a flame-resistant enemy.
With Tanaka's Grace Inversion, his smoke condenses into a single spot and hardens, allowing him to form his obsidian blade.
Sheu
Sheu has wind manipulation, with gusts becoming stronger the closer they are to her.
She recently unlocked wind sensing, which allows her to feel vibrations in the air and evade attacks. However, while using this technique, she cannot use wind offensively.
She wields a knife that adapts to her wind over time, sharpening its blade through repeated exposure.
Najo
As the grandson of the Lightning Village head, Najo possesses a lightning ability called Storm, which has a higher voltage scaling than standard lightning users and is accompanied by thunder.
In addition, he inherited Earth abilities from his mother's side, making him a very rare wielder of two distinct abilities.
Aemon
Aemon's ability allows him to manifest six core emotions as physical clones:
Love, Rage, Trust, Joy, Fear, and Envy (Grillet).
These clones can remain outside his body indefinitely. However, when they take enough damage, they are forced back into his mind. If this happens, Aemon must enter his own mind to heal them before he can resummon them.
To enter his mind, he must smoke a special herb native to Sango. Once inside, he has full control over the space and can heal his clones through imagination.
Currently, Grillet is restrained and cannot be used in battle.
More about this ability will be revealed later in the story.
Tanaka
As the daughter of Chandler and a woman from Pasi, Tanaka's ability—Grace Inversion—is a fusion of Pasi and Denga power into a single, potent ability.
While Najo inherited two abilities due to being a hybrid, Tanaka received one exceptionally powerful one.
Grace Inversion allows her to invert the ability of anyone she touches, as long as physical contact is maintained.
An inversion is not always a perfect opposite, but it usually is.
Examples:
Najo: Ability to sense electrical charges
Moto: Smoke condenses and solidifies
Aemon: Merges with his clones
Sheu: Wind pulls inward instead of pushing outward
Snake
The final member of the crew, Snake has snake tattoos across his body that can move and manifest as real snakes.
He also possesses a larger snake tattoo on his arm that manifests into his main snake, Sixtus, who is significantly larger than the others.
Their bites inject venom that reduces adrenaline, leaving opponents feeling drained.
Sixtus's bite, however, increases adrenaline, granting a powerful energy boost.
See you in the Rebel Arc...🏃♂️➡️