The square was heavy with silence. Smoke still curled from broken rooftops where soldiers had forced their way through, and villagers moved with the jittery steps of people waiting for the next blow to fall.
At the center, Yoshiki stood with his hands clenched, faint wisps of heat rising from his skin even though he tried to smother it. The flames had not left him since the storehouse. Neither had the truth.
The others were there too—Hikaru leaning against a post, arms crossed in shadow, his sharp eyes watching everything; Yuzuriha standing with notes clutched close, the faint blue marks at her temples dull in the daylight but no less real. Daichi kept quiet near Yoshiki's side, as steady as the earth, though his expression was unreadable.
The crowd pressed closer. Someone finally asked the question that had hung unspoken for days:
"Why are they doing this to us?"
Yoshiki's jaw tightened. His grandfather's warnings echoed, and Hikaru's voice from that night still rang in his ears—they feed on people.
He could lie. He could let them cling to ignorance. But the weight of silence was crushing.
"They're not here to protect us," Yoshiki said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the murmurs. His ember-lit hair caught the wind, glinting faintly like coals. "The soldiers, the machines—they're not guarding us from anything. They're harvesting us."
A ripple of shock ran through the crowd. Some gasped. Others muttered prayers.
Yuzuriha stepped forward, her voice calm but cold. "We've seen the records. Their machines drain life itself—resonance energy. That's why patrols are constant. That's why people vanish. We are not citizens to them. We're fuel."
Murmurs swelled into outrage and disbelief. "Lies!" someone shouted, while another whispered, "I knew it… my brother never came back…"
Hikaru's eyes swept the villagers, his tone measured and grim. "You've felt it yourselves—the way they count us, watch us, test us. It's not safety. It's control. And if we keep bowing our heads, they'll take more. They'll take everything."
The villagers shifted, torn between fear and fury. A mother clutched her child closer. An old man spat into the dirt. A young hunter slammed his fist against a post, whispering curses under his breath.
Ayame, the farmer's daughter, stood near the back of the crowd, her hands gripping her shawl so tightly her knuckles ached.
She remembered the night her cousin had been taken—soldiers dragging him out of their home, promising it was only for "assessment." He never returned. For months she had buried the thought, convincing herself it was fate, or sickness, or some accident.
Now Yoshiki's words ripped that lie apart.
Her heart pounded. She looked at him, standing there with his strange ember-lit hair, flames coiling faintly at his fingertips. He looked both terrifying and achingly human. He's one of us, she thought. And he's burning himself to protect us.
Tears pricked her eyes, though she clenched her jaw to keep from sobbing aloud. Around her, she heard other villagers muttering, but for the first time the fear in their voices was laced with anger—anger that matched the fire in Yoshiki's voice.
Back in the square, Yoshiki raised his voice, the heat in his chest no longer just fire but conviction.
"I don't care if you fear me, or the flames in my hands. I'll never let them turn us into cattle. We have a choice: to hide until they burn us out, or to stand."
His words hung heavy in the air. For the first time, the crowd looked not just afraid—but restless.
The village was no longer silent. It was beginning to stir.