The fire was gone.
That was the first thing everyone noticed.
No lingering heat. No smoke curling upward. No glowing embers scattered across the ground. It was as if the battle had been erased, leaving only the damage behind as proof that it had ever happened.
The academy stood wounded.
Walls collapsed inward, corridors split open to the night air, seals burned halfway through—frozen mid-function like they had given up trying to protect anything. The sky above was clear now. Too clear.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
Yanshi stood where the last flames had died, shoulders lowered, katana gone from his hand. His breathing was steady, but his posture told a different story—like a man who had finished holding something together and was now waiting to see what broke first.
Miss Shiratori approached him slowly.
"You shouldn't move yet," she said.
Yanshi didn't turn.
"I'm still standing," he replied. "That's enough."
Ishawa arrived a moment later, hands in his pockets, smile faint but forced.
"Well," he said lightly, "they didn't kill us, didn't take the kid, and didn't level the city. By our standards, that's a win."
No one laughed.
---
The Missing
Mizumi was the first to notice.
She had been counting.
She stopped walking.
"…Wait," she said.
Iruka turned. "What?"
Mizumi's eyes scanned the broken courtyard again. Students, teachers, medics, barriers—faces she recognized, faces she didn't.
Her throat tightened.
"Ren," she said. "Where's Ren?"
The name hit harder than any blast.
Iruka stiffened instantly. "He was with us. Before the second wave."
Sumi turned sharply, her calm cracking just slightly. "He didn't fall back with the rest?"
Silence answered.
Tobi felt it then—that cold, sinking weight in his stomach. Not fear. Recognition.
This wasn't over.
Miss Shiratori's expression hardened. She raised her hand, signaling for a headcount.
"Anyone else?" she asked.
A pause.
Then a shaken voice from near the infirmary barrier.
"…Two support students are unaccounted for."
Another voice.
"A teacher from the east wing—no signal."
The quiet deepened, turning sharp.
Yanshi finally turned around.
"They didn't retreat empty-handed," he said.
No anger. No panic.
Just certainty.
---
Quiet Terror
Medical teams worked in silence. No shouting orders. No chaos. Just murmured instructions and glowing healing seals pressed against wounds that shouldn't have existed in a school.
Tobi sat on the edge of a broken step, elbows on his knees.
The sword wasn't in his hand.
It didn't need to be.
It was there anyway.
Iruka stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the dark treeline beyond the campus.
"They didn't take you," Iruka said quietly.
Tobi nodded. "They didn't need to."
Iruka looked at him sharply. "Don't say that."
But Tobi didn't respond.
Sumi approached from the side, her footsteps soft. She stopped a short distance away—not too close. Not too far.
"The barriers held," she said. "Barely."
Tobi glanced at her. "But they wanted us to notice that."
Sumi met his gaze.
"Yes."
That was what made it terrifying.
They hadn't attacked blindly.
They had measured.
---
Elsewhere
Far from the academy, in a place with no name on any map, a corridor lit by flickering talismans echoed with footsteps.
Ren's footsteps.
He was alive.
Breathing hard.
His hands were bound—not with rope, but with something colder. Something that drank energy instead of restraining flesh.
A voice spoke ahead of him, calm and almost curious.
"You reacted faster than expected."
Ren said nothing.
Another voice—different, amused.
"That's the problem with attachments," it said. "They make good leverage."
Ren clenched his jaw.
The corridor doors closed behind him.
---
Back at the Academy
Hideo stood on a rooftop overlooking the damaged grounds, coat fluttering slightly in the night breeze.
His eyes traced the broken walls, the injured students, the way Tobi sat too still for someone his age.
"They took pawns," Hideo murmured. "Not the king."
A shadow beside him shifted.
"For now."
Hideo smiled faintly.
"No," he said. "For later."
He turned away from the academy.
"The board's finally set."
---
The Weight of Tomorrow
Miss Shiratori gathered the remaining students.
"This incident will not be discussed outside these grounds," she said firmly. "Official statements are already being prepared."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd—fear, confusion, anger.
Yanshi stepped forward.
"If they took someone," he said, "we bring them back."
Simple. Absolute.
Tobi stood.
Not dramatically.
Just… stood.
"I'll help," he said.
Yanshi looked at him—not as a teacher, not as a guardian—but as something closer to an equal.
"I know," Yanshi replied. "That's what worries me."
The wind passed through the ruins.
No petals this time.
No fire.
Only the feeling that something had been taken, and something else had been promised.
And somewhere in the dark—
The enemy was already preparing the next move.