Inside the sterile, white-lit cabin of the Ghost, the silence was profound. The adrenaline of the escape slowly receded, replaced by a sense of awe and dawning realization. Kaito and Riku sat strapped in their seats, their plasma carbines held loosely in their laps, their eyes wide as they stared at the alien interior of the skiff. They looked at Haruto, who was now calmly stripping off his helmet, and saw not just a powerful ally, but a being from another reality.
Himari stood unsteadily, her hand braced against the bulkhead, her gaze fixed on the canopy. Below, Silverwood was a glittering tapestry of lights, a beautiful city scarred by the fires of the hunt. She watched as their impossible vessel climbed, the world shrinking beneath them. The man she had thought of as a star-fallen warrior, a man of strange but understandable power, was something more. The wall he had built, the weapons he had forged, this flying chariot… it wasn't magic. It was something else entirely. Something new.
"Your… your chariot," she finally managed to say, her voice barely a whisper. "It is from your home?"
Haruto met her gaze, his expression unreadable. "It is," he said simply. "It is a piece of my home. An escape pod, modified."
The understatement hung in the air, heavy with unspoken meaning. An escape pod. A mere lifeboat from his world was a vessel of unimaginable power in hers. The sheer, terrifying scale of the technological gap between their civilizations settled upon her.
**
Haruto brought the drone feed up on the main screen in the cabin. The high-altitude view showed Silverwood not as a city being pacified, but as one erupting. Small fires had been lit on the rooftops of the Artisan's quarter. More appeared in the merchant district, and then near the old royal palace. They were not fires of destruction. They were signal fires, beacons of defiance lit in the night.
"Minato," Himari breathed, her eyes welling with tears. "The loyalists."
The miracle at the plaza had been a spark. Their impossible, spectacular escape, witnessed by dozens of guards who would spread the tale of the flying, invisible ship and its godlike warriors, was the fuel. The city was not being cowed into submission. It was rising.
"The Duke thought he could rule through fear," Riku said, his voice filled with a newfound, dangerous hope as he stared at the screen. "But tonight, we gave the people a power greater than fear. We gave them a legend."
Haruto watched the fires spread, his face grim. He had come to this planet seeking only to survive. He had rescued a princess out of a basic sense of duty. But now, he was inextricably tied to the fate of this world. His actions, his very presence, had irrevocably altered its course. He had wanted to remain a ghost, an observer. Instead, he had become a catalyst for revolution.
He looked at Himari, who now stood straighter, her shock replaced by a look of regal determination. She was no longer just a hunted refugee. She was the leader of a rebellion, armed with a power this world had never seen. And he was her weapon.
The Ghost banked, turning back towards the dark mountains and the hidden fortress that was their home. They left Silverwood behind, a city alight with the fires of a nascent war they had just started. The mission was no longer about survival. It was about what came next.