The crack in the earth glowed faintly through the night, a pale vein of fire cutting across the soil. The survivors stood around it, hesitant to move closer, as if the ground itself might swallow them whole. The last echoes of battle still clung to the air—the stench of crushed stone, the bitter smoke of firewood trampled underfoot, the blood and sweat of too many close calls.
No one spoke at first. Their breaths steamed in the cold air, shallow and sharp, as though words might give shape to what they all feared: that the fight had been nothing but a prelude.
Genji wiped his blade, sheathing it with deliberate care. His eyes scanned the survivors—counting, calculating, already building the next formation in his mind. Diago crouched by one of the dead constructs, shoving his axe into its broken core to pry loose the still-flickering rune. Sparks spat against his hand.
"Dead stone," he muttered. "But runes like these don't just die. Someone placed them. Someone fed them."
"Not someone," Juro said, his voice sharp but steady, cutting through the murmur of fear. "Something. And it's still below us."
All eyes turned toward him. He stood rigid, sweat running down his brow, his knuckles white around the shaft of his spear. He wasn't loud tonight, not brash or reckless. His words fell heavy, rational, unshaken by panic.
"This," Juro continued, nodding at the cracked earth, "isn't just a nest of stone puppets. It's a vein. A channel. These constructs weren't wandering—they were sent. And if they were sent, then we're sitting in someone's territory."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Some pressed closer to one another. Others instinctively looked to Shitsubo.
He had moved away from them all, crouching at the very edge of the fissure. His mask tilted downward, his hand trembling slightly where the cracks in his flesh glowed faintly. He didn't look at them. He didn't answer their silent questions.
Finally, Genji broke the silence. "Then we move."
"Where?" asked a young woman, clutching her child. "Every direction leads to another graveyard."
"Not if the rumors are true," Diago said, glancing at her. "There's a place. I've heard of it. A high city, cut into the cliffs near the far western sea. They say the Vanir once traded there—before the fall. It wasn't touched when the fires came down. Maybe it still stands."
A spark of hope flickered among the survivors, small but desperate.
But Juro stepped forward, his shadow long in the firelight. His tone hardened, precise, like a knife against bone. "Rumors again. Always rumors. You cling to them because the truth terrifies you. There is no sanctuary. No untouched city. The Vanir are ash, the elves scattered, the gods themselves undone. You want to run toward a whisper of safety? Fine. But don't pretend it's anything but madness."
Murmurs turned sour. Fear rose again, and with it anger.
"Would you rather we sit here and wait to be eaten?" Diago barked, standing.
"I'd rather we stop fooling ourselves with fairy tales," Juro shot back. "A lie with a compass is still a lie. We survive by choosing ground we can defend, not chasing shadows across the continent."
His words cut deep. Some nodded reluctantly. Others glared, unwilling to let go of fragile hope.
And then Shitsubo spoke, his voice low but heavy, carrying across the circle like a blade dragged through stone.
"You're all weak."
Every head turned. His mask reflected the firelight, cold and unreadable.
"You cling to hope because you're too afraid to face the truth," he said. "You cling to reason because you're too afraid to take a step in the dark. But you're all the same—you beg for survival and expect someone else to pay for it. Me. Him. Anyone but you."
He rose to his full height, the faint glow of the curse flickering under his skin like embers trying to break through.
"If your lives matter so much," Shitsubo continued, "fight for them yourselves. I'm not your shield. I'm not your savior. If I fight, it's because I choose to. Not because your fear demands it."
A thick silence followed. Some survivors looked away, ashamed. Others glared with open hatred.
But Juro didn't flinch. He met Shitsubo's words with calm, his voice steady.
"You're right," he said. "We are weak. We're desperate. But that doesn't make you strong. You think the curse makes you more than us? It doesn't. It makes you a beast chained to your own hunger. You scare us, Shitsubo—not because you're powerful, but because you don't care if we live or die. That makes you no different from the monsters we fight."
The words struck like iron. Some nodded. Others gasped at his boldness.
Shitsubo's hand twitched toward his mask, as though about to tear it free. For a moment, his silence was heavier than any roar.
Then he stepped back, tilting his head. His tone dropped to a quiet rasp, but every syllable cut sharp.
"You mistake me, Juro. I don't care if you live. But I care even less if you die. And that makes me something you'll never understand."
Juro's jaw tightened, but he didn't speak again.
Genji stepped forward, breaking the standoff. His voice was calm, measured, almost weary. "Enough. We'll move west. Whether the city is real or not, it's a direction. If it's hope, let it drive us. If it's false, we'll deal with it when we arrive. Standing still is the only death we can guarantee."
The survivors murmured agreement. Even those swayed by Juro's reason chose to follow.
Shitsubo said nothing more. He turned back to the glowing fissure, crouching once again, as though only the tremor beneath the earth mattered to him.
And as the survivors prepared to move, a faint sound rose from the crack—a whisper, almost like voices layered upon voices, speaking in tongues too old to be remembered.
Shitsubo tilted his head, listening.
The curse under his skin pulsed.
And for the first time, his silence felt not like distance, but like a man listening to something none of them could hear.