The town hall had stood at the center of the village for as long as anyone could remember, its timber walls dark with age, its air perpetually thick with the scent of old incense. This evening, that scent was fresher than usual, curling up from three smoldering braziers arranged before a stone altar etched with the sigils of Moon, Star, and Earth.
The ritual had just ended. The eldest of the three priests rose first, his knees cracking louder than the incense sticks burning down beside him, and turned to address the chief with the weary confidence of a man who had never once considered himself wrong.
"Sir, we've redone the ritual, just as you asked." He folded his hands into his sleeves. "All three gods agree—the volcano will not erupt. Three years ago, we predicted the last eruption, and it happened exactly as we foresaw. I see no reason to doubt ourselves, or the gods, now." He paused, his tone hardening slightly. "Trust in us, chief. Don't let yourself be shaken by the ravings of that lowlife thief."
The chief said nothing at first. He tilted his head back, studying the ceiling as if the truth might be etched somewhere in the wooden beams, then lowered his gaze slowly.
The poor boy, he thought, the words sitting heavy behind his tired eyes. Seeking attention, I suppose. He was born unlucky, and I wish there had been some way to change that for him. But he had to be born to a guardian from the Sandlands, didn't he. How unlucky.
He offered the priest only a small, distracted nod, and the three men filed out, satisfied with a verdict the village would never think to question.
Up at the cliff's edge, far from the incense and the certainty of priests, the squad stood in stunned silence.
"What do you mean, you don't want them to die?" Kei's voice cracked through the quiet, sharper than he intended.
Sora hesitated, jaw tight, before answering. "The volcano. The one that overlooks this whole village." His eyes drifted toward the mountain's dark silhouette against the reddening sky. "It's going to erupt. I tried to warn everyone, but no one would listen. I don't know how much time is left."
For a long moment, nobody moved. The wind itself seemed to hold still, as though even the air understood the weight of what had just been said.
Kei broke first, as he always did. "Oh—oh no, this is bad. This is really bad." He was already pacing, hands tangled in his hair. "We have to warn them, now, before—before it's too late and they all—"
"Kei." Peiren's voice cut through gently, an anchor. "Breathe."
Sora looked between them, something unreadable passing behind his eyes, then turned without another word.
"Come with me."
He began climbing, and after a beat of hesitation, the rest of the squad followed.
Down in the valley, inside the modest warmth of the chief's house, Anoki sat across from his older brother, the last echoes of laughter still fading from the room.
Kaido wiped a tear of mirth from his eye, chuckling one final time before his expression shifted, quieter now, more distant. "Say, Anoki. I feel a very strong wind."
Anoki glanced toward the shuttered window. "From outside?"
Kaido laughed again, though it carried a different weight this time. "No, Anoki." His smile faded into something more solemn. "I feel like the world is about to turn drastically. A great change is coming." He exhaled slowly. "I only wish I had more time to see it through."
Anoki kept his expression calm, the way he always did when the currents of the world shifted beneath him. He could feel it too—that same pull, that same uncertainty of whether it would bring ruin or something worth surviving for.
"A great change is indeed approaching," he said at last. "The last generation graduated only a month ago. They're meant to carry it forward." He paused, something like doubt flickering across his face. "And if I'm honest, the rookies I took in carry real potential. The Grandlord and the higher-ups entrusted them to me, to guide them into this new era." A quiet sigh escaped him. "I only hope I don't ruin it."
Kaido's smile returned, warmer now. "Still dwelling on that? It was never your fault, Anoki. Don't punish yourself over it."
Anoki let the words settle, then glanced toward the window, surprised by how far the light had shifted—deep orange bleeding into dusk.
"It's sunset already?" He rose at once. "I need to get to my squad. They're waiting."
"Then go, little brother." Kaido waved a hand, though warmth lingered beneath the casual gesture. "I'll rest now. It's been a while since I had such a lively evening. Thank you."
At the door, Anoki paused, turning his head just slightly.
"You're welcome," he said. "Big brother."
Then he stepped out of the house into the reddening dusk, leaving the room—and his brother's quiet unease—behind him.
Back on the mountain trail, the squad had been climbing for what felt like an eternity.
The path twisted upward in endless switchbacks, gravel crunching beneath tired boots, the air growing thinner with every stretch of elevation. What had begun as a determined march had, somewhere over the last hour, dissolved into something closer to a slow, miserable shuffle.
"My legs are done," Hori groaned, nearly tripping over a loose stone. "Finished. Retired. They've filed their resignation."
"No one's carrying you," Peiren said, though even his voice had lost some of its usual sharpness.
Kei, however, had turned complaining into a full performance.
"How is this still uphill?" he wheezed, bracing his hands against his knees. "We've been walking for hours. My feet don't feel like feet anymore. They feel like two bricks somebody strapped to my ankles out of spite."
"You said that exact thing ten minutes ago," Hayatte pointed out, a tired smile tugging at her mouth despite herself.
"Because it's still true, Hayatte! The betrayal of my own body only deepens with time!"
Above them, the sky bled from orange into a deep bruised purple, the first stars blinking coldly into place, indifferent to four exhausted guardians trudging behind one silent thief.
"Can we please stop," Kei begged, staggering toward a boulder and collapsing against it as though it were the last solid thing in the world. "Just five minutes. My body is filing a formal grievance."
Sora, several paces ahead, didn't even glance back.
"No."
"No? Just—no? No explanation, nothing?"
"We don't have five minutes." His voice was flat, almost bored, feet never breaking rhythm against the gravel. "We barely have four."
Kei groaned, forcing himself upright again, legs screaming in protest. "This is inhumane. This is straight-up torture. I did not sign up to be a guardian just to die of leg failure on some random mountain."
"Then maybe you shouldn't have become one," Sora said simply, without malice, without heat—just fact.
That got everyone's attention.
"Excuse me?" Kei's exhaustion cracked instantly into indignation.
Sora finally turned, one eyebrow raised, unreadable in the dimming light. "You heard me. Aren't you guardians? People meant to protect villages, fight monsters, stand against whatever threatens this world—and you're winded from climbing one mountain?"
"One very steep mountain," Hori muttered, though no one acknowledged it.
"What kind of weaklings are you people?" Sora went on, arms crossed, voice devoid of cruelty and somehow worse for it—plain observation instead of insult. "Do they just hand out guardian titles to anyone in Cang these days?"
Silence fell, broken only by wind hissing across the rocks.
"Okay, that's—" Kei sputtered, cheeks burning with a mix of embarrassment and anger. "That's rude! We've been walking since sunset—before that, even—we haven't eaten, we haven't rested, and you're just strolling up a volcano like it's a trip to the market!"
"Because it is a walk," Sora said. "You're the ones making it complicated."
Peiren, despite his own burning legs, huffed out a short laugh. "He's not wrong, Kei."
"Not you too!"
"I'm just saying." He adjusted his pack strap. "If a fifteen-year-old outcast can outpace all four of us without breaking a sweat, maybe it's time to rethink our training."
"I don't need training, I need oxygen—"
Hayatte set a firm hand on his shoulder, steering him forward before he could sink back onto the boulder. "Walk and complain. You're good at multitasking."
Muttering under his breath, Kei forced his legs into motion again, throwing one last betrayed glare at the back of Sora's head.
The trail steepened further, the trees thinning out entirely until only jagged black rock remained, cooling now beneath the encroaching night. The air changed too—sharper, bitter, carrying the unmistakable tang of sulfur.
"Do you guys smell that?" Hori wrinkled her nose.
"Rotten eggs," Kei muttered.
"That's sulfur," Peiren said quietly, and something in her tone had shifted—the teasing gone, replaced by the low hum of dawning unease.
They pressed on in silence after that. The ground shifted from packed dirt to loose volcanic gravel, warm even through the soles of their boots. Thin plumes of steam rose from cracks in the stone, ghostlike in the darkening air. No one complained anymore. No one had breath left to spare for it.
Then, without warning, the trail simply ended.
The squad staggered to a stop at the crater's edge, and every ache, every complaint, every ounce of exhaustion vanished in an instant.
Below them, the volcano's mouth churned—not dormant, not sleeping, but alive. Molten rock pulsed like a slow, deliberate heartbeat deep within the earth, veins of orange-red fire webbing across blackened stone. Heat rolled upward in thick waves, pressing against their skin even from a distance. The low rumble beneath their feet wasn't just sound. It was pressure. A vibration humming straight through bone.
No one spoke. No one needed to. The same realization passed across every face at once.
This wasn't rumor. This wasn't some outcast boy's paranoid delusion.
This was real.
"How do you know about this," Kei finally managed, voice barely above a whisper, eyes locked on the churning fire below, "when no one in the village does?"
Sora stood closer to the edge than any of them dared, his expression unreadable in the volcanic glow. "Because the priests' prediction says it won't erupt. And everyone believes in their so-called gods." I live in a small hot at the other side of the volcano, so I saw the signs, I tried warning the villagers,But they won't listen to an outcast like me. They think I'm lying."
There was no self-pity in his voice—just quiet exhaustion, the kind that came from being right again and again, and never once being believed.
Peiren stepped forward, all trace of fatigue burned away, replaced by the steel he carried when it mattered most.
"It's our duty as guardians to protect every civilian." His gaze swept over the rest of the squad, hardening with resolve. "So we go back. Now. We warn them, whether they want to hear it or not."
No one argued. No one complained about the cold, or their legs, or the hours spent climbing. Kei, Hori, Hayatte—every one of them nodded in unison, the weight of what they'd witnessed sharpening into something far more useful than fear.
Determination.
"Then let's move." Kei was already turning back toward the trail, voice steadier now than it had been the entire climb. "We spent the whole way up here complaining. Let's see how fast we can move without a single word on the way down."
And with that, the squad broke into a sprint, chasing the last light of dusk back down the mountain—toward a village that had no idea how little time it had left.