The capital didn't feel like a city anymore. It felt like a held breath.
I walked through the streets, my newly-shorn hair feeling strangely light, the plain grey tunic a world away from the armor I'd apparently loved. The spirits didn't just move out of my way this time. They froze. They pressed themselves against walls of solidified sorrow, their eyes wide, not just with fear, but with something new: anger. Resentment. I heard the hissed word, not as a title, but as a curse.
The news traveled faster than I did. The Princess of the Fifth Terrace had returned to her domain, humiliated and unprotected. And the jackals had begun to swarm.
I reached the main gate leading out of the capital. Two hulking Bruiser-spirits, who usually took a sadistic pleasure in making souls beg for passage, just stared at me. One of them gave a stiff, jerky nod and slammed his hand on a mechanism. The massive, bone-webbed gates groaned open just enough for me to pass.
They couldn't get me out of their city fast enough.
Beyond the gates, the landscape changed. The defined paths and structures of the capital gave way to a warzone of shifting, unstable essence. This was the borderlands near the Fifth Terrace. The air itself tasted of ozone and panic.
The battlefield was a mess. It wasn't a field of honor; it was a place of collapse. I saw the shimmering, beautiful structures of the Fifth Terrace, delicate spires that looked like frozen music,n ow cracked and defaced. Spirit-soldiers in tattered silver armor were making a desperate, fighting retreat against a ravenous horde of Jackals.
The Jackals weren't demons. They were a different kind of soul, lean, hungry, and feral, their forms shifting and snapping with greedy, sharp-edged energy. They fought not to conquer, but to consume, tearing loose pieces of essence from the retreating defenders and devouring them with savage glee.
I didn't care about their war. I just needed to get through. I started walking, a lone figure cutting a path through the chaos. I didn't attack. I didn't defend. I just… walked. Jackals lunged near me, sensed the hellfire simmering under my skin and the ancient, terrifying brand between my shoulder blades, and thought better of it, veering off to easier prey.
"You!"
I stopped. The voice wasn't a spirit's whisper or a Jackal's snarl. It was clear, solid, and blazing with anger.
I turned. A girl stood atop a chunk of rubble, glaring down at me. She was maybe my age, dressed in practical, worn leather armor scored with claw marks. A B-Rank insignia was pinned to her chest—a fist gripping a broken chain. In her hands, she held a massive, wickedly sharp glaive that looked too big for her. Her face was smudged with dirt, her hair a messy, dark braid, and her eyes burned with a fury that was anything but spectral.
"You,"
she repeated, her voice trembling with rage. She jumped down, landing lightly in front of me, glaive held ready.
"Cinder. The great A-Rank. The one who started all this and then hid in his castle while the rest of us clean up his mess."
I said nothing. I just watched her. A B-Rank Hunter. Still alive, still fighting. Alone.
"My team didn't want to come,"
she spat, answering my unasked question.
"They said defending this terrace was a suicide mission after you abandoned it. They said it was your fault. I told them they were cowards. But looking at you now... walking through here like it's a garden... I think they were right."
She took a step forward, her glaive pointing at my chest.
"People are dissolving because of you! The Fifth Terrace is being torn apart! And you just... what? Out for a stroll?"
Her words hit harder than any physical blow. Because she wasn't a politician like the Princess. She was a soldier. She was in the mud, seeing the consequences firsthand.
I finally found my voice. It came out quiet, flat.
"I'm not here to fight your war."
Her face twisted in disbelief.
"Not here to-? It's your war! You made it your war when you promised that princess protection! You don't get to just quit!"
"I didn't promise anyone anything,"
I said, the words feeling hollow even to me.
"I don't remember."
For a second, she just stared. Then a harsh, bitter laugh escaped her.
"You don't remember. Of course. How convenient. The great Cinder loses his memory and his spine at the same time."
She lowered her glaive, the fight seeming to go out of her, replaced by pure, utter contempt.
"Just get out of my way. I have actual work to do. Try not to trip over the souls you're getting killed on your way to wherever it is you're so importantly doing nothing."
She shouldered past me, heading toward the sound of distant snarls, a single, stubborn knight marching into a lost battle.
I stood there, rooted to the spot by her contempt. The path up, my escape to heaven, seemed to waver in the distance, now looking less like salvation and more like a coward's retreat.
The sound of her glaive meeting a Jackal's snarl echoed from a nearby collapsed archway, followed by her furious shout. She was fighting. Alone.
A coldness that had nothing to do with hellfire settled in my gut. She was right. This was his mess. And I was the only one left to clean it up.
I turned and walked toward the sound of the fight.
I found her backed against a wall, holding off two Jackals with sweeping, desperate arcs of her glaive. A third was circling, looking for an opening.
"Hey,"
I said, my voice cutting through the snarls.
She didn't look back, her focus absolute.
"I told you to leave!"
"I'm not offering to help you,"
I said, the words coming out before I could think them through.
"I'm offering to help me."
That made her falter for a split second. A Jackal lunged. I didn't move my hands. I just flexed the power in my chest.
They didn't scream. They whined, recoiling as if they'd been scalded, their predatory confidence shattered. They looked at me, then at her, and then fled into the mist.
She stood panting, her glaive still held ready, staring at the spot where they'd been. She slowly turned to look at me, her eyes wide with a new kind of shock. Not at the power, but at the application of it.
"What... what was that?" she breathed.
"A mess being cleaned up," I said flatly. "You said your team didn't want to come. Where are they?"
She hesitated, suspicion warring with the dawning hope that she might not have to die today.
"At the B-Rank guild hall. Licking their wounds. Planning to take a contract on the other side of the capital tomorrow."
"Good," I said. "Let's go."
"Go? Go where?"
"To convince them," I said, already starting to walk back towards the capital gates.
She jogged to catch up, falling into step beside me, her anger now mixed with pure confusion.
"Convince them? They think this is a death sentence! They think you're a traitor! Why would they listen to you? Why would they listen to me?"
"They'll listen," I said, my voice low. "Because you won't be asking them to defend a princess's throne."
I stopped and finally looked at her.
"You'll be asking them to help the great, amnesiac, spine-less Cinder clean up his own mess. Tell them it's a retrieval mission. For a reputation. The pay is... not getting dissolved by Jackals. And the chance to tell the A-Rank who screwed everything up exactly how to do his job."
A slow, incredulous smile started to spread across her dirty face. It was a ruthless, brilliant, and utterly shameless plan. It appealed to pride, to survival, and to the sheer petty satisfaction of being right.
"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" she said, but the venom was gone from her voice.
"I'm starting to get that," I replied.
We walked back towards the capital in silence for a moment. The spirits still shrank back from me, but now I had a B-Rank hunter walking purposefully at my side, her glaive resting on her shoulder.
She glanced over at me, a thoughtful look on her face.
"You know... for a guy who's supposedly lost his mind and his memory... you're still kind of... I don't know..."
She trailed off, a faint dusting of red touching her cheeks as she quickly looked forward again.
"...Never mind. Let's just go find my team."
She picked up the pace, leaving me to follow.
I watched her back for a second, the stubborn set of her shoulders, the confident way she carried her weapon. For the first time since I woke up on that beach, the crushing loneliness eased, just a fraction. I wasn't alone in this.
I always suffered for the errors of other people.
I know how it feels.