Six years passed.
The island had changed, though slowly, like a great beast stirring in its sleep. The forests grew denser, the vines brighter, and the stone veins that once pulsed faintly beneath the soil now hummed almost imperceptibly, as if carrying the rhythm of a hidden heart.
The village, too, had changed. Children once carried in their mothers' arms now worked the fields. Old roofs had been replaced, tools reforged. The islanders had built something that looked like permanence, a life they could call their own.
And in those six years, Yoshiki Takahiro, Hikaru Hayashi, and Yuzuriha Mori had grown with it.
Yoshiki's shoulders had broadened, his once-youthful face sharpened into something older, harder. He still trained every day, his practice sword replaced now with iron forged by the smithing families. Hikaru had grown taller, almost towering, his strength matched only by his stubborn loyalty. And Yuzuriha—no longer just the curious girl with a notebook—had become the village's quiet scholar, collecting knowledge, mapping patterns in the glowing flora, and observing the subtle strangeness of the land.
They were no longer children dreaming under the stars. They were young adults standing on the threshold of something unknown.
The day began like any other.
Fishermen pushed their boats into the sea, children raced through the square, and smoke rose from morning fires. The air smelled of salt and cooked rice, and laughter echoed along the shore.
Until a cry pierced the calm.
"Ships! On the horizon!"
The village froze. Every head turned toward the sea.
There, far in the distance, glimmers of metal broke the endless blue. Dark silhouettes cut through the waves—vast, unnatural, unlike any boat the islanders had ever carved from wood.Their hulls gleamed in the morning sun, and their banners were unfamiliar, marked with symbols none of the villagers recognized.
At first, silence reigned. Then, as realization sank in, voices rose—shouts, cries, laughter, disbelief.
"They've come for us!" someone yelled, tears streaming down his face. "We're saved!" cried another. "After all these years—they've found us!"
People clutched one another, some weeping openly, others dropping to their knees in prayer. To them, the ships were salvation, proof that the outside world still existed, that they were not forsaken.
But to Yoshiki, they were chains.
He stood apart from the cheering crowd, his fists trembling at his sides. His eyes, sharper than ever, fixed on the approaching steel beasts. The air around him felt cold, suffocating.
Beside him, Hikaru forced a grin, though it faltered at the edges. "Guess your grandfather was right all along," he said softly.
Yoshiki's jaw clenched. "He wasn't just right. This is the beginning of what he feared."
Yuzuriha said nothing. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon, calculating, unblinking. She noticed the details others ignored—the precision of the ships' formation, the unnatural stillness in the air, the way birds avoided the water around them as though repelled.
"They're not here for rescue," she murmured, her voice steady but laced with dread. "They're here for something else."
Her words were swallowed by the roar of the crowd, but Yoshiki heard them. And though Hikaru said nothing more, the heaviness in his expression revealed that he, too, understood—perhaps not fully, but enough to know this wasn't salvation.
This was judgment.
The ships grew closer, their shadows stretching long across the waves. Metallic voices rang out, amplified by strange devices that carried over the surf. The villagers couldn't understand the words, but they heard authority in the tone, command in the cadence.
Children laughed and waved. Elders clasped their hands and whispered thanks to the heavens.
Yoshiki's stomach twisted. He remembered his grandfather's final warning, etched into his very bones. They will come not to save you, but to chain you again.
And as the steel beasts drew near, their flags snapping in the sea breeze, he whispered the words to himself, his heart hammering like a drum of war:
"It's starting."