The night stretched long, suffocating beneath a sky devoid of stars. The fire from the fallen fortress still burned on the horizon, painting the clouds in shades of crimson and ash. Reiji walked ahead, his unit trailing behind, each man carrying the silence of unease. No one dared to speak, for the air was thick with suspicion.
They had survived the trap—but survival felt like defeat. Reiji's mind replayed every movement of the battle, every step that had led them into slaughter. The enemy had known too much. Too precise. Too calculated.
It could only mean one thing.
Someone among them had betrayed him.
The thought coiled around his mind like a serpent, sinking its fangs deeper with each step. His hand lingered on the hilt of his sword, not out of readiness, but out of doubt. He trusted no one. Not anymore.
The girl they had found—fragile, trembling, clutching her mother's corpse—now walked at his side. Her eyes were hollow, stripped of innocence, yet they followed him as though clinging to the last fragment of safety. Every glance from his men toward her carried accusation, as if she were the shadow of their fractured loyalty.
"Why bring her?" one soldier finally muttered, breaking the silence. His voice trembled with anger, or fear—it was hard to tell.
"She is nothing but weight."
Reiji turned his gaze slowly, sharp as a blade. "She lives."
The words cut deeper than steel. His men flinched. No one argued further, but the seed of rebellion grew stronger. He felt it.
As dawn approached, they reached the remnants of a hidden outpost—a shelter meant for allies. But instead of sanctuary, they found corpses. Their supposed comrades lay slain, blood dried on the walls, throats slit clean. No sign of a battle. Just execution.
A message.
On the central table, carved into wood with deliberate cruelty, were words that chilled even Reiji's heart:
"Your shadow does not belong to you."
He stared at the carving, his breath steady but his pulse racing. The meaning was clear. His enemies did not just know his movements—they knew him. Someone had opened the gate to his secrets, his strategies, his very identity.
The whispers began.
"It was one of us."
"Someone led us into that slaughter."
"Someone here betrayed us…"
The accusations were not spoken to Reiji directly. They did not need to be. Their eyes shifted from one another, blades of suspicion drawn without steel. Every man became a suspect.
Reiji said nothing. He only watched. Observed. Calculated.
But when he met the eyes of one soldier—eyes that darted away too quickly, hiding a truth they couldn't bury—he knew.
The chain of loyalty had broken. And in its place, the iron grip of betrayal was tightening.
As the chapter closed, Reiji stood before his fractured unit, the girl silently clutching his sleeve. Around him, the men whispered of treachery. And within his chest, the weight of inevitability pressed harder.
He would soon be forced to decide.
Not between loyalty and betrayal—
But between killing his own, or being destroyed by them.