The war room breathed shadow and urgency.
Torches guttered in iron brackets, their flames restless, spitting light across maps pinned to low tables with kunai and dagger points. Ink bled into parchment like old wounds. The air was thick with sweat, smoke, and oiled steel—an odor every battlefield shared, whether fought by gods or men.
Lord Kuroda stood at the center.
Blackened armor encased his frame now, plates etched and scorched, bound with indigo cords that marked him as Nightblade. Old scars cut across his face like half-healed fault lines, stark beneath the flickering firelight. Around him clustered his captains—lean, silent shinobi whose gazes tracked everything and trusted nothing.
Mizuki stood to Yue's left.
Close enough that he felt the warmth of her body in the chill mountain air.
No chains bound him anymore. The daimyo's summons had granted that mercy. But guards flanked every exit, hands resting lightly on spear shafts, and every pair of eyes weighed him like a blade poised above a scale.
Outside the stone walls, war drums thundered from the valley—steady, relentless, crawling closer with each heartbeat.
Dawn seeped through the narrow arrow slits.
But the light was wrong.
The sun rose sullen and wounded, staining the sky crimson beneath the lingering eclipse, as if the heavens themselves had been cut and left to bleed.
The doors burst open.
A scout staggered in, armor spattered with mud and frost, breath tearing from his lungs. He dropped to one knee.
"Akahoshi vanguard," he gasped. "Five hundred spears. Two hundred horse. They cross the lower ford now. Main force follows by midday."
Lord Kuroda's fist slammed into the table. Wood split.
"Numbers."
"Three thousand total, my lord. Red Crane banners dominate. Siege engines confirmed."
A ripple of curses moved through the room—low, sharp, contained.
The Nightblade Clan could field perhaps eight hundred fighters at best. Shinobi. Ashigaru levies. A scattering of ronin bound by old debts. The fortress was strong—carved into cliff and stone—but even the sharpest blade dulled if held too long.
"Guerrilla strikes," one captain growled. "Bleed them in the passes."
"Evacuate the villages," another countered. "Draw them deep. Burn their supplies."
Lord Kuroda's gaze swept the chamber.
Then it stopped on Yue.
"The sky-fallen speaks in omens," the daimyo said. "Let him speak strategy."
The room stilled.
Every eye turned.
Yue stepped forward.
The weight of it pressed into his lungs—mortal desperation, raw and immediate. Nothing like the veiled intrigues of the Lunar Court, where wars were waged with illusion and eternity. Here, death was blunt. Hungry. Unapologetic.
"The eastern ravine," Yue said calmly, forcing his pulse into stillness. "At dawn, mist clings there thick and slow. Use it. Conceal archers on the ridges. Draw their vanguard into the narrow path—feign retreat. Then collapse the slopes."
A grizzled captain snorted. "We know our own ground."
Yue met the man's gaze without flinching. "So do their scouts. They will expect an ambush."
A pause.
"The mist," Yue continued. "It is wrong today. Thicker. Slower to burn away. It will hide more than men."
Mizuki glanced at him sharply.
She had seen it too—the blood-red fog creeping uphill, defying sun and wind alike. The others whispered of bad omens.
Yue knew better.
Solar essence bled through the torn veil, poisoning the air itself.
Lord Kuroda considered, then nodded once.
"Prepare the ravine. Mizuki—three squads. Use the stranger's plan. If it fails, fall back to the inner walls."
Orders snapped through the chamber.
The captains dispersed in disciplined silence.
Mizuki seized Yue's arm before he could follow.
Not rough.
Firm.
"You come with me," she said. "If your words are wind, you die with us."
He did not resist.
"And if they are not?"
Her obsidian eyes searched his face—measuring, judging.
"Then perhaps," she said quietly, "the heavens truly sent you."
They descended the hidden paths as dawn broke fully.
The ravine yawned beneath them—a deep scar carved into the mountainside, choked with cedar and fern. Blood-red mist pooled ankle-deep, swirling lazily, as if alive.
Nightblade shinobi vanished into it like ghosts.
Archers climbed the ridges. Others rigged ropes and wedges, loosening ancient stone.
Yue crouched beside Mizuki behind a fallen log overlooking the approach.
Below, the Akahoshi vanguard emerged.
Samurai in lacquered crimson armor. Spears bristling. Horses snorting white steam. Red Crane banners snapped in the wind like flayed wings.
At their head rode a captain in an ornate horned helm, barking orders.
The mist thickened.
Sound dulled. Shapes blurred.
"Too eager," Mizuki murmured. "They smell weakness."
Yue's heart hammered.
This fear—sharp, immediate—was intoxicating. He had never stood on a battlefield before.
Arrows whispered from the ridges.
Men screamed. Horses collapsed.
The column buckled. Shields rose. Horns blared confusion.
"Now," Mizuki commanded.
Ropes hauled.
The mountains answered.
Boulders thundered down both slopes, crushing armor and bone alike. Dust swallowed screams. The ravine became a grinding mouth.
Nightblade shinobi fell from trees like black rain.
Chains snapped. Blades flashed.
Mizuki surged forward, katana singing as it carved a path through red armor.
Yue followed—unarmed, breath ragged.
An Akahoshi scout burst from the mist, light armor, desperate eyes.
Steel met steel as Mizuki intercepted him.
They clashed in a storm of sparks.
The scout pressed hard.
Yue moved without thinking.
He seized a fallen branch and hurled it.
The man stumbled.
Mizuki's blade kissed his throat.
She turned, blood flecking her cheek, chest heaving.
Their eyes locked.
Mist curled. Cries echoed distantly.
"You fight dirty," she said—almost smiling.
"I fight to live."
She tossed him a captured tanto. "Then live well."
The vanguard broke.
Survivors fled, leaving shattered banners and bodies behind.
Muted cheers rose from the shinobi.
But the ground drank deeply.
Mid-morning shattered the fragile victory.
Akahoshi reinforcements surged onto the opposing ridge.
Archers.
Hundreds.
A Nightblade squad—twenty shinobi—was pinned in the open below. Arrows fell like black rain. Shields splintered. Men fell screaming.
"There's no room to move," Mizuki hissed.
Lord Kuroda's voice carried from above. "Hold—!"
There were no reinforcements.
Yue watched men die.
Real death.
Something inside him broke.
Grief. Rage. Terror.
The seal fractured.
Silver power roared through him—raw, uncontrolled, ancient.
The mist deepened.
Shadows twisted.
Phantom figures rose—dozens of illusory shinobi charging from the fog, silent and merciless.
Enemy archers faltered.
Arrows passed through ghosts.
The real Nightblade squad slipped into the living shadow and vanished.
On the ridge, confusion spread.
Counterfire answered.
The Akahoshi line wavered.
Yue swayed.
Blood spilled from his nose.
The world tilted.
Strong arms caught him.
Mizuki's voice brushed his ear. "What are you?"
"Something," he whispered, "lost."
By noon, the assault broke.
The ravine became a charnel ground.
Victory tasted like ash.
Lord Kuroda addressed the survivors with iron pride. "The sky-fallen brought fortune. His plan—his strangeness—turned the tide."
Yue was granted quarters.
Freedom within walls.
A blade—earned, but not yet named.
Later, on a narrow balcony overlooking the blood-stained valley, Mizuki cleaned his wounds.
The sun hung eclipse-tainted.
Mist clung red and restless below.
"Why do you speak like poetry," she asked, "when men die?"
"Because poetry," Yue said softly, "is all I have left of home."
She tied the bandage.
"Our world has little room for it," she said. "But today… yours spoke louder than steel."
Horns blared.
A scout screamed warnings.
Ten thousand.
Cold blue torches.
A warlord wreathed in golden fire.
Yue felt Solaris stir.
The crescent moon bled anew.
He gripped the wakizashi.
"I will fight."
The gates shuddered.
War answered.