The Astrolada District was loud in all the wrong ways.

  Merchants shouted half-heartedly from their stalls, carriages rattled over worn stone roads, and students from Fiester Academy passed by in clusters—laughing, arguing, complaining about assignments. The district was alive, vibrant, and utterly boring.

  Kaito Morikawa walked through it all with his hands in his pockets, expression flat.

  “…This is unbearable,” he muttered.

  He passed beneath hanging banners bearing the crest of the Fiester Kingdom, their fabric fluttering lazily in the afternoon breeze. The academy’s outer walls loomed nearby—tall, clean, orderly. Too orderly.

  Kaito glanced toward the academy gates where students were just finishing classes, flooding out like clockwork. Predictable. Safe. Dull.

  He yawned.

  “I should rob someone,” he thought aloud.

  A few pedestrians gave him uneasy looks and quickly moved away.

  Kaito sighed. “No, no. Too much work.”

  He stopped near a street corner overlooking the academy’s front plaza, eyes drifting toward the distant statue at the center—stone heroes frozen in eternal triumph. He stared for a moment longer than necessary.

  “…Akitsu Shouga,” he murmured.

  The name surfaced uninvited, like an old itch.

  Kaito tilted his head slightly, crimson eyes narrowing with mild curiosity. “Wonder where you ended up.”

  He leaned back against a lamppost, thoughts wandering. Akitsu wasn’t dead. That much he knew. If he were, the world would feel… quieter. Less interesting.

  “Expelled from reality, tossed into something unpleasant, probably,” Kaito mused. “That seems to be his specialty.”

  A faint smile tugged at his lips.

  “I’m bored,” he decided.

  And boredom, to Kaito Morikawa, was reason enough for most things.

  He pushed off the lamppost and began walking, steps unhurried but purposeful. “Let’s see where you wandered off to, Akitsu Shouga.”

  The world bent.

  The Astrolada District faded.

  Fog swallowed the road.

  The cold did not leave immediately.

  After Akitsu finished reading the words carved into the shrine, silence swallowed the ruins whole. Even the wind seemed hesitant, as though afraid to disturb whatever lingered beneath the stone and bone.

  The air felt heavy—old, stagnant, filled with echoes that had nowhere left to go.

  Kael Ardent was the first to move.

  “…Alright,” he said, forcing a breath out, clapping his hands once as if to wake himself. “Everyone just—slow down. No one’s attacking us. Yet.”

  Ayaka, half-asleep and floating near Akitsu’s shoulder, clutched the edge of his cloak with both hands. Her small glow flickered uncertainly.

  “It’s scary,” she whispered.

  Akitsu placed a hand gently on her head, fingers brushing through her faintly luminous hair. “It’s fine,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction. “Nothing’s happening.”

  Seraphine Orion exhaled slowly. Frost-like mist escaped her lips despite the lack of cold wind. “Words can linger,” she said calmly. “Especially in places like this. But they don’t always mean immediate danger.”

  Kael glanced back at the shrine, its carvings half-buried beneath moss and cracks. “That doesn’t make it comforting.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Seraphine replied. “Comfort dulls awareness.”

  Akitsu looked at the carved stone once more, the words burned into his thoughts, then turned away. “We can’t stay out here,” he said. “If something wanted us dead, it would’ve moved already.”

  Kael nodded. “So… shrine?”

  “It’s the only structure still standing,” Seraphine agreed. “We fortify it lightly and rest.”

  Ayaka perked up instantly. “Sleep?”

  “Yes,” Akitsu said softly. “Sleep.”

  They spent the evening quietly.

  Kael cleared debris from one corner of the shrine, stone scraping against stone as he worked. Akitsu gathered what little dry wood he could find wedged between fallen slabs and ancient rubble. Seraphine traced faint sigils along the shrine’s walls—not spells, exactly, but old elven markings meant to discourage wandering spirits.

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  “Will this work?” Kael asked, watching her hands glow faintly.

  “It won’t stop something determined,” Seraphine replied. “But it will make them hesitate.”

  Akitsu stirred a small fire to life. “That’s good enough.”

  They ate in silence, the crackling of wood echoing far too loudly within the ruined structure. Ayaka curled against Akitsu’s side and drifted to sleep, her glow dimming with each passing minute.

  Kael finally spoke. “…Akitsu.”

  “Hm?”

  “You read that carving like it was your own language.”

  Akitsu stared into the fire. “I didn’t know I could.”

  “That doesn’t worry you?”

  “It does,” Akitsu replied. “But worrying won’t change it.”

  Kael frowned. “You’ve been different since the lake.”

  Akitsu didn’t answer.

  Seraphine watched him carefully but said nothing.

  That night, the shrine held.

  No whispers came. No footsteps echoed.

  Only the quiet breathing of four travelers beneath a sky barely visible through broken stone.

  Morning came gray and heavy.

  They left shortly after dawn, moving through rubble older than memory. The ruined kingdom stretched endlessly—collapsed towers, cracked roads swallowed by roots, statues eroded into faceless silhouettes.

  Kael squinted ahead. “…Walls.”

  Massive stone walls rose in the distance, broken but still towering, encircling the kingdom like a grave marker.

  “So this was the border,” Seraphine murmured.

  They reached the gates by midday.

  The gates were open.

  Beyond them—nothing.

  The land outside was dead.

  “No…” Kael whispered.

  The soil was black and dry, cracked like burned skin. No trees. No grass. No insects. Thick black clouds drowned the sky, unmoving. Fog rolled endlessly across the ground, swallowing sound.

  Ayaka hugged herself. “This place hurts.”

  Seraphine’s expression darkened. “This land has a name. The Ashen Expanse of Mourning.”

  Akitsu stepped forward. “It feels… empty.”

  “Uninhabitable,” Seraphine corrected. “Nothing should live here.”

  Kael glanced around. “…Then why are we here?”

  They walked.

  Hours passed.

  Then—

  “…There,” Ayaka said softly.

  Buildings emerged through the fog.

  A village.

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” Kael said.

  The village stood intact yet ancient. No collapse. No decay beyond age.

  “…No one’s here,” Kael said.

  Seraphine knelt. “Abandoned centuries ago.”

  Akitsu frowned. “Yet nothing’s collapsed.”

  They walked deeper.

  Then Kael stopped.

  “…Someone’s there.”

  A lone figure walked down the road.

  Black hair.

  Red eyes.

  Akitsu’s breath caught. “…Kaito Morikawa.”

  “You know him?” Seraphine asked sharply.

  “Yes.”

  “Kaito,” Akitsu called.

  The man stopped, turning slowly. “You found this place too.”

  “…Why are you here?”

  “Passing through.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It is. Just not one you like.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Seraphine said.

  “No one should,” Kaito replied. “Yet here we are.”

  “It’s not safe,” he added.

  “Where should we go instead?” Akitsu asked.

  “Straight ahead.”

  Trust Kaito Morikawa.

  “…What do you want?” Akitsu asked.

  “To become acquaintances.”

  “…I’ll find out one day.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Kaito vanished into the fog.

  “…The boss of a criminal syndicate,” Akitsu said.

  “…But we’re following what he said.”

  “Yes,” Akitsu replied. “Because sometimes bad advice still points the right way.”

  They walked straight ahead.

  Hours later, the fog thinned.

  They reached a cliff.

  Below—

  An old house.

  Lanterns lit.

  “…Someone’s home,” Kael whispered.

  Akitsu stared.