They watched him.
Nineteen faces. Some blank. Some tight with dread.
Yet still, each glance carried the same silent questions, all sharpened at the edges.
They moved beneath the mountain in silence. Boots brushing damp stone. The tunnels around them were slicked with moisture, veins of pale mineral catching firelight like scars beneath skin.
The air was paper-thin, brittle as ash. It carried the scent of earth and rust —laced with a trace of something sour.
Fūre walked ahead. Unhurried. Detached.
He struck a match. Lit a cigar.
Smoke curled from his lips like his own breath.
Kamo walked near the front, eyes sunk deep into shadow.
Nagitsu drifted behind, hands pocketed, humming something tuneless. Nothing loud. Just a current beneath the shuffle of feet.
One of the recruits turned. Caught the flash of silver at his ear. The suggestion of a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
Fūre didn't glance back.
He didn't need to.
Fūre strode ahead, smoke trailing from his cigar in wisps of grey. He walked as if alone, eyes straight ahead, never once checking to see if he was followed. But when he paused briefly before an ironbound door, everyone halted simultaneously, an unconscious echo of his silent authority.
No word passed between them. Just obedience
They stood uneven. Slouched. Rigid. Nineteen forms shaped by instinct and uncertainty.
The air seemed to press closer here, thick as breath in a closed fist.
Eyes flicked—walls, ceiling, the door. Each one twitching like a needle on the verge of thread.
No one spoke. Yet Kamo noted the defiance burning quietly in some eyes, while others held only wary resignation. Their gazes flitted to him occasionally—watching the way he stood, unmoving, beside Fūre.
They entered the deeper chamber, a wide cavern carved from black stone.
Fūre opened the door without ceremony and stepped into the room beyond. Inside, metal tables sat starkly beneath muted lights, the walls unadorned save for faded maps and scribbled notes.
The recruits filed in uncertainly, blinking at their new surroundings, quiet murmurs falling away quickly beneath the room's oppressive silence.
The door slid shut behind them with the heavy scrape of metal against stone.
Fūre's voice filled the chamber like smoke—soft but thick, choking yet captivating.
"Welcome home," he said. Repeating his opening remark, as if expecting a different response
A shiver traveled visibly through the recruits.
One boy swallowed hard, fingers trembling. Congruent to a girl beside him tightened her jaw, lips set in thin defiance.
Fūre stepped closer, his gaze brushing across them slowly, lingering briefly, meaningfully, on the girl's hardened face.
"Understand, you've traded one leash for another. Your only freedom here is proving you're worth something more than the blood we spilled for you."
Nagitsu's whistle died softly in the background. Kamo met his gaze briefly—cold expectation danced in Nagitsu's eyes, a silent judgement shared between predators.
His gaze slid to Kamo as he smirked faintly. "Lucky them, huh?"
Kamo didn't reply.
His eyes returned to the recruits, scanning their faces, their hands, the way they shifted their weight nervously from foot to foot.
Fūre exhaled smoke, studying Kamo carefully.
He turned to the crowd.
"If you're the type that needs to find your own way—go ahead. No one's stopping you. But once you step outside, don't expect to find anything waiting for you. And don't expect to be let back in."
He paused, eyes scanning the room—flat, unreadable.
"That's the last time I'll say it."
Kamo nodded once. He remembered clearly his own first night, the way Fūre had knelt before him, not to comfort, but to study, to dissect, to test his worth as coldly as a merchant examining merchandise.
And yet, standing here, Kamo felt only gratitude, as sharp and bitter as ashes.
Fūre had not saved him—he had sculpted him, cut away weakness until only something useful remained. Now Kamo would do the same for these nineteen trembling souls.
Kamo didn't add to Fure's sentiment. His eyes returned to the recruits, scanning their faces, their hands, the way they shifted their weight nervously from foot to foot.
Fūre exhaled again, slower this time. Then clapped his hands once—sharp, abrupt, too loud for the room.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "any questions?"
The words didn't match the tension in the room. His voice had lightened, almost amused, like a teacher addressing a rowdy classroom instead of nineteen traumatized teenagers.
No one answered.
He looked around expectantly, eyebrows raised as if this was all perfectly normal. "No brave souls? Not even one?" He paced a slow arc in front of them, smoke curling from his cigar like a tail.
Then, finally—quietly—someone spoke.
Fūre's eyes lingered on the girl's question—Fūre raised a brow. "Why did you take us?"
"Because you're trained." He replied as if he expected something to that effect. "Or close to it. And because the people you served were never going to let you be anything but tools."
Her voice cut through again, sharper. "So what—you're forming an army?"
Fūre's eyes flicked to her. "Sure, if you need to view it that way. I can tell you one thing though, army or not, I'm ending a war that was never declared out loud."
The silence that followed was tighter than before—sharper, like it had cut through something vague.
Kamo saw it in their eyes. Some were still hoping this was a pitch—some chance to be part of a noble cause, maybe even heroes. But the words they'd just heard weren't about purpose. They were about survival. They won't believe you. Kamo knew that before they got here. He hadn't believed him at first either.
Another voice rose—bitter, louder than the rest. "You sound just like them."
Fūre didn't move.
"You talk about 'usefulness' like it's a favor. Like being valuable to you is supposed to mean something."
Kamo's gaze drifted toward the boy. Maybe seventeen. Pale scars around the collarbone. Breathing sharp and uneven.
Fūre stepped forward, but didn't raise his voice. "And what did it mean to them? To the Foundation?"
"That doesn't make you different," the boy snapped. "You just took the leash."
A few heads nodded. Small, tight movements.
Kamo didn't speak. But in his mind, the words were already forming.
They think they've escaped one cage just to land in another. That Fūre's no different from the system. And maybe they're right—if all they're looking at is the leash. But they're not seeing the hand that holds it. The reason it's there.
Fūre tilted his head. "You think this is about being free?"
He looked at no one in particular. "You want your name back. Your file erased. You want to feel clean again. But the second you lit a spark in your myaku, they stopped seeing you as human."
He let that sink in.
"You were removed. Before you got to the real thing. Before you became another blood-slick podium in some Trial."
A long pause. No one spoke.
Kamo felt it shift. The realization—slow and subtle—sliding through the room.
Fūre didn't wait for another question.
"The outside world doesn't care if you come back. They won't ask where you've been. Hell, to them you've been dead They'll mark you as a defector—or pretend you never existed."
He stepped back, the edge in his voice softening into something far more unsettling.
"You're not prisoners. You're problems the world forgot to finish cleaning up."
Fūre's voice cut the silence. "That'll do."
No one argued.
He gestured toward Kamo without looking at him. "Orientation. Show them the base. Don't bother sugarcoating it—if they're going to break, better it happens before morning." Fūregen followed with a nod toward the rear passage.
"Show them where they'll sleep. And the layout. We'll move again soon."
Kamo's eyes flicked to him. Just slightly.
Move again?
But Fūre was already walking off, smoke trailing behind him like punctuation.
He didn't say it outright. He didn't have to.
But soon, another raid was coming.
Kamo nodded. "Understood."
He turned to the group. Their eyes met his like animals watching a fence close behind them. He didn't wait for their fear to settle.
"This way," he said simply.
Boots scraped against stone as they moved—some dragging, some stiff with tension. The metal door hissed open again. Kamo led them through it, and with him, went the tension.
Only smoke and silence remained.
Nagitsu stepped forward from the wall where he'd leaned for most of the exchange, hands still tucked in his pockets. His smirk had faded. He let the door seal behind the last recruit before speaking.
"Well," he said lightly, "they're not going to sleep easy."
Fūre didn't respond. He walked to the table, ground his cigar into the steel with a slow, thoughtful twist. Ash smeared like blood on metal.
"They shouldn't," he said.
Nagitsu leaned beside the table, eyes flicking to the spot where the girl had stood. "That one's gonna challenge you again. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon."
Fūre gave a faint nod. "Good."
Nagitsu tilted his head. "You want them agitated?"
"I want them thinking," Fūre replied. "Fear makes them still. Doubt makes them look inward. But curiosity? That's the only thing that ever made one of us dangerous."
He tapped the side of his head, once.
"They're not enough," he said quietly.
Fūre didn't respond.
Nagitsu's voice hardened. "Are they enough for the Celaris? Because after what we pulled at Foundation Four, that mission looks twice as impossible. I saw them up close. They flinch at noise. They freeze at blood. They're not soldiers. They're barely trained survivors."
Fūre stepped away from the table, rolling the tension from his shoulders. "We'll recruit more."
"There's power in numbers," Nagitsu said flatly.
Fūre nodded once. "Exactly."
Nagitsu stepped forward, the flicker of frustration in his voice now undeniable. "There's more power in power. In people like me. Like Kamo. Like you."
Fūre stopped. Turned.
"You think two or three more of each of us—clones of the three—could tear down a system that's stood untouched for over four hundred years?"
Nagitsu didn't answer.
Fūre's voice was calm, but cold. "The government doesn't need a god to win. Just a formula. Just control. Just time. The Foundation kids? They're pieces of that formula. Even the weak ones."
"So what?" Nagitsu said. "We train them up and hope they don't break in the field?"
"No," Fūre replied. "We put them through the fire. And the ones that survive—really survive—become fire themselves."
Nagitsu's jaw twitched. "And the rest?"
Fūre's stare didn't waver. "They die for a cause better than the one that raised them."
Silence again. Then Nagitsu scoffed faintly, not mocking—just tired.
"This plan of yours… it has a lot of graves in it."
Fūre's voice softened, but not out of sympathy. "It always did."
He walked past Nagitsu, picking up a folded map off the table. His fingers brushed it open, revealing a charcoal-sketched layout of a city sector.
"There's no clean way to topple a lie that's become architecture," he muttered. "So we chip at its foundation. Piece by piece. Person by person. You gotta realize that when The Celaris falls, it won't be from a single blow. It'll be because something rotten finally couldn't hold its own weight."
Nagitsu looked down at the map. "And if it holds longer than you expect?"
Fūre's eyes lifted. "Lets make sure that doesn't happen instead of endless pessimism."
Something had shifted in Sector Three.
Not louder. Not quieter. Just more alert.
Over the past few weeks, guards moved in clusters now, not pairs. Patrol routes bled into civilian zones. Markets closed early for "routine security sweeps."
All of it started around the same time the rumors did.
Whispers of a Foundation breached, collapsed. A name no one would say aloud. A prison cracked open.
No one on this side knew if it was true.
But the fear was.
Hikari walked three paces behind Elara, hood drawn, hands hidden. Their route was deliberate—cutting through alleys, crossing through dense pockets of foot traffic, always keeping line of sight but never direct contact.
Today wasn't a mission. Not officially. They hadn't been sent.
But they needed to escape the infinite tension inside the foundation. Fully aware of the upcoming consequences upon return.
Hikari walked three paces behind Elara, hood drawn, hands hidden. Their route was deliberate—cutting through alleys, crossing dense foot traffic, never too close, never too far. Not today. Today wasn't a mission. Not officially. They hadn't been sent. They'd snuck out—needed to breathe. And they'd pay for it later.
The market was skeletal this morning. Half the stalls were shuttered. The others braced themselves behind makeshift barriers—crates and curtain rods, bundled tarp corners lashed down with rusted wire. Nothing felt permanent here. Even the sky looked like it was holding its breath.
They wove through the crowd like loose threads. A flicker of white from Hikari's sleeve. A glimpse of his profile beneath the hood. Elara kept glancing back at him, her pace tight. She didn't like this. She hadn't liked it from the beginning.
That's when it happened.
A scuffle. Fast. Sudden. A vendor's shout, choked off mid-breath. A blur of motion—two men, one already clutching a satchel, the other dragging the vendor down by the collar. The crowd parted like muscle under a blade.
A sound cracked through the crowd—sharp, wet, human.
Not loud enough to startle everyone. Just enough to make the ones nearby pause. A cough that wasn't a cough. A shout that didn't finish forming.
Hikari's head turned.
Across the lane, a vendor had fallen sideways against his own stall. Crates of dried roots and twisted vegetables scattered across the stone. One of the men still stood over him, fingers hooked in the collar of his shirt like he meant to rip it off. The other already had a satchel in his grip—half-zipped, heavy.
The movement wasn't chaotic. It was surgical. Efficient. These weren't hungry men. They were practiced.
The vendor reached for something—maybe to stand, maybe not.
That was enough.
The man with the satchel raised a foot and brought it down. Once. Twice. A dull rhythm against ribs and concrete. The noise didn't echo, but it stuck. Thick in the ears like syrup.
And that's when the crowd pulled away. Not screaming. Just… detaching. Fluid and cold. Like blood pooling away from heat.
No one stepped in.
Not at first.
Hikari stepped off the curb.
Elara's hand caught his wrist. Not hard. Just enough to ask a question.
He didn't look at her.
"You can't fix this," she said, voice low. "You start something out here—they won't care who swung first."
Still, he kept walking.
One of the men looked up—saw him coming. Noticed the coat. The way Hikari didn't run. His jaw tensed, but he didn't bolt.
The other one didn't even glance back. Just raised his arm again.
The vendor's breath hitched. Half a cough, half a sob.
That's when Hikari's hand opened—just slightly—and the white flame blinked into being, quiet and steady.
Now they looked.
The thieves froze. One dropped the satchel with a thud. The crowd that had pulled away didn't speak, but you could feel the ripple—a shift in air pressure, in silence, in instinct.
Hikari's expression didn't change.
He didn't speak.
He just stood there, palm lit, sleeve tugged by wind.
The taller man took a slow step back, eyes never leaving the fire. Then another. His partner mirrored it.
No orders. No challenge. They just… retreated.
But the quiet didn't return.
Not like before.
This time, it came loaded. Heavy. Full of the kind of silence that thinks. That calculates. That remembers.
Eyes followed them. Not the thieves.
The two in white cloth.
A beat passed.
Then someone muttered.
Then another.
A ripple again—this time made of voices, not motion. Low and bitter.
"Is that flame?…"
"—He must be kynenn."
"They must be from the foundation. Look at their cloaks"
"Look at his eyes. He's not scared of anyone."
"No one that age should be that calm. Monsters"
Elara's voice slid in low beside him. "We need to go. Now."
Hikari let the flame die in his hand, slow and deliberate. The heat left the air, but not the tension.
He turned, wordless.
And the crowd didn't scatter—didn't flee. It just shifted around them, like water refusing to touch oil. Not out of awe. Not anymore. Out of instinct. Like they'd seen this before, and knew what followed wasn't justice. It was escalation.
They walked.
Not fast. Not slow. Just… steady. Like fleeing would confirm the crowd's worst fears. Like running would make it worse.
The murmurs followed. Grew teeth. Then faded.
Only when they'd ducked into a tight side street—narrow, slick with runoff, flanked by crumbling stone—did Elara stop.
She didn't speak right away.
Her hand went to the wall, steadying herself.
Then, finally: "You knew they'd react like that."
Hikari didn't answer.
"You did," she said again. Not accusing—just trying to understand. "You let them see."
He looked at her. Eyes calm. Not cold, but unreadable. "I let them know we weren't prey."
Elara shook her head. "You don't care that they called us monsters."
"Why should I, I know I'm not one. I was trying to help"
Silence.
She let out a breath that shook on the way out. "You don't even flinch anymore. Not at their faces. Not at the fear. I thought you to hated that."
"I still do." He leaned against the wall beside her. "I just stopped thinking hating it would change anything."
A fake smile appeared on Hikari's face. Another beat.
Elara didn't press. She let the quiet hold a moment longer before speaking again, softer now.
"You know they don't see what I see… right?"
He didn't look at her. Just stared down the alley's spine, watching the runoff trail between broken bricks like veins.
"I know what they see," he said.
"Yeah," she murmured. "But knowing isn't the same as agreeing."
"I don't agree," he replied. "I just stopped expecting them to see anything else."
Elara folded her arms, leaning opposite him.
He didn't answer.
"You didn't do anything wrong back there," she added. "And you didn't lose control."
Hikari looked up.
"I know what you were doing," she said. "You chose not to hurt them."
A pause. Then: "That matters. Even if they don't see it."
Hikari let out a small laugh. " I don't know why you don't believe me. But it doesn't bother me that much. Let's just get back," he said.
Elara nodded. "Before someone else see's us."
They stepped out of the alley, the edge of tension still clinging to their heels—but this time, they walked in silence. Not because there was nothing to say. But because—for once—it had already been said.
The walk back wasn't long. But it felt like it stretched—like the streets had grown thicker with eyes.
They kept to the narrow paths. Crossed shadows. Avoided patrols.
When the Foundation's walls came into view—tall, gray, silent—Elara slowed.
"You sure you don't want to say you forced me?" she asked. It was a joke.
Hikari didn't laugh.
They continued talking up until they had reached the checkpoint wall.
The yard beyond was quiet—security light pulsing overhead like a heartbeat. Hikari crouched low in the brush, jaw tight.
Elara stood beside him, watching the guards cycle their patrol routes.
Then she looked at him. "Your turn."
He shook his head. "You sure?"
"Don't ask." She pulled her hood tighter. "If you're not through that gate in the next ten seconds, I'll hit one of them."
Hikari didn't argue.
She stepped out. Just far enough to be seen.
The two guards snapped to alert, voices sharp.
"What are you doing out here?"
"I got turned around—my unit was—" She started to circle back.
Too slow. Too obvious.
One guard advanced. The other reached for his radio.
That was the opening. Elara took off running toward the main entrance. Immediately after, Hikari moved.
He slipped from the brush, darted across the narrow strip of open ground. Vaulted the outer rail. Landed in dirt.
Didn't breathe.
No shout. No gunfire.
The commotion held.
He hugged the wall of the outer yard, sprinted low along the fence, boots whispering over the concrete. He slid behind the rear maintenance post.
He slid behind the rear maintenance post.
The hole was still there—low, half-covered by rusted mesh and loose stone.
He dropped flat, shoved the mesh aside, and squeezed through.
Scraped his shoulder. Didn't care.
Inside now.
The crack in the dorm wall was just ahead.
He reached it, pried the stone loose the same way he always did. Quiet. Fast.
Cool air slipped through.
He slipped in after it. Replaced the stone behind him.
Gone. Like he was never out there.
He looked at the stone—snapped back into place like he hadn't left at all.
But Elara had. She was still out there, giving him cover.
He exhaled slow, jaw tight.
She'd be fine. A few days in isolation, maybe a 'forgotten' meal or two. They weren't stupid enough to beat her over a something that matters so little. As long as she is here now, they are getting what they want.
But if they hadn't come back?
Then yeah. That would've been different. They'd have waited until she was caught, then made an example out of her.
He sat on the bed. Stared at the wall.
It was her turn to take the hit. Hikari had thought, they would probably be looking for her for the next 30 minutes or so.
The silence settled again.
And then—
Boom.
The wall shuddered.
Lights flickered. Somewhere outside, a siren cracked the air once, then died.
Another explosion, closer.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Hikari sat up fast, heart thudding.
Footsteps. Not orderly. Not drills. Running.
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.