The training had wrung Nathan dry — muscles aching in that deep, bone-settled way that told him he'd pushed past the point of discipline and into something closer to punishment. Nathan had expected silence when he returned to the village. What he found instead was fire.
A massive campfire roared at the heart of the settlement, throwing amber waves across the faces of people gathered in loose, easy clusters around it. Music drifted through the warm night air — not the measured, formal kind, but something looser, sung by voices that cracked on the high notes and laughed it off. Children darted between the legs of adults, chasing each other through the firelight with a recklessness that belonged nowhere near people trained to kill. And yet here they were — Shinobis, sitting side by side with ordinary folk, cups in hand, shoulders unheld.
Nathan stood at the edge of it all and watched, brow furrowed. It was too loud. Too bright. Too alive for what this place was supposed to be.
"Ryo."
