The deck lights flickered. Frost exhaled. Gold shimmered where Urahara landed, one tag, one bent spear.
Rin didn't look over. Stolen katana in his left hand, reverse grip, blade low.
Dahlia pulled cold until the air sang.
Timmy's swarm obscured the lamps.
Kuzo drew steel from pocket space and planted his feet.
They moved.
Kuzo's first cut skated Rin's cheek. Rin turned the flat, elbowed ribs.
"Too fast," someone hissed from the rail.
Frost spears erupted in a ring.
"Static Sink," Rin whispered.
Shadow thickened under his boots. The spears hit a solid shadow. Urahara's Refraction Seal bent their lines outward like glass. Shards hissed past and never cut.
The swarm dropped in sheets.
"Photon Web," Urahara.
Gold threads thrummed across the air. Half the hornets cooked; the rest funneled narrow.
Rin slid into the funnel, shoulder grazing the deck, one cut through the dark core. Ash blew around his ankles. A beetle landed on his collarbone; he flicked it away without looking.
Kuzo swapped mid-spin, chain knife from the pocket in seconds. Links screamed past Rin's ear.
Rin dipped, hooked the chain with the katana's spine, and yanked. Tension nearly threw Kuzo off balance.
"Darkpoint."
Tap on the ankle nerve. Stance sagged slightly. Enough.
Dahlia exhaled a blizzard. Wolves emerged from the wind and hit with glass jaws.
"Ghost Veil."
Rin's aura vanished for three beats. Wolves lunged through where he should be. He stepped through their backs as they burst into snow, eyes faint red, Viatra I. The wind's lies brightened; the clear path sharpened.
Three cuts, almost lazy: neck of ice, frost tether, flat hit to armor.
Dahlia slammed into a wall.
Timmy slammed palms to the deck. Threads of red thought knotted a mantis out of wings and hunger.
"Yoru Muku."
Pressure folded. The tether slacked.
Urahara spat a tag. Radiant Net. A gold cage detonated upward, wrapping bugs and heat, cooking them quiet.
"Charms are so versatile," someone whistled. "That's math and technique he's using."
Kuzo dragged a halberd from pocket space and charged.
Rin advanced. The katana rode the shaft instead of fighting it.
Shadow filaments snapped off his wrist, and the Black Thread Bind bit the haft mid-swing, yanking the angle wide. The return cut scraped the guard, stung skin, sparked sparks. He held. Barely.
A gold sigil thunked between them, Mirror Pulse. Space shoved them apart without heat. Smoke drifted.
Rin dropped a palm, caught his balance, and rose smoothly. A thin frost scar traced his forearm. He didn't check it.
Kuzo reset narrow, saber low, trying to win with straight lines and hip truth.
Rin watched the shoulder, not the blade.
"Phantom Thread."
He nicked the stance anchor. The next strike arrived empty, as if the floor ate it. The katana kissed the cloth, red on the sleeve, then stopped at his throat on purpose.
"Holy— he moved like a phantom," someone cracked. "He could've finished him."
Kuzo bared his teeth. Urahara fanned three tags. Dahlia crawled up, mist thickening again. Timmy found a second breath—
The air boomed.
Heat walked in first.
Captain Mars hit the threshold like a dropped anvil. Boots rang the ship's spine; air tightened a size. Behind him, Captain June stepped through, sleeves neat, hair pinned, eyes calm in a way that made loud auras feel childish.
For half a heartbeat, no one moved.
June clapped once.
Sound hurt.
"Y'all put on a great show, but there are people on this airship, and I can't have you risking their lives over petty squabbles," she said, voice even. Then she got loud. "So if you aren't here to train or relax, get the fuck out of here and go back to your seats!"
Mars didn't add words. He lifted one hand. Heat rolled. Every loose flame, spark, and ego shrank.
Benches screeched back into place. Auras guttered. The three strays edging forward suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be. The crowd parted on instinct.
Rin let the katana drop to a low guard. He turned his head a fraction toward Urahara.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
Urahara tilted a tag in salute, half smile. "Anytime."
Rin faced the room. "I was just looking for the bathroom," he said, deadpan. "Why does this always happen to me?"
A few snorts escaped before Mars' heat killed humor on contact.
Rin slid past the captains like weather through a doorway, the stolen blade hanging easy, edge clean. The corridor took him.
The training hall exhaled. Then noise, relieved, nervous, too loud.
"Trial by Mercy's gonna be insane."
"No joke."
"I need to train my wind Muti harder."
"So the black clan lives, I hope I can face him, we got unfinished business."
June swept the floor with one look. No one met her eyes. "If you're sparring, spar. If you're not, move."
Mars lowered his hand. The heat lingered like a threat that could return.
The ship hummed deeper, swallowing tension into steel.
Upper deck. Crystal table. Containment sigils humming and pretending not to fail.
Captains watched the replay drift across the lens.
Hera leaned on her knuckles. "That Iron moves like money already."
Lee tapped the feed where Rin vanished into the shadow. "Cuts paths, and is very clean."
Anansi twirled a silver thread. "Well, well, looks like you got a demon on your hands, William."
America snorted. "Kid hits clean. I like clean."
Bes folded arms. "Pocket space boy has tools. He needs a spine for them."
Cold's tone never warmed. "The bug user is dangerous in crowds. June, you were right to step in."
King flipped a coin and never dropped it. "That's badass how he stopped at the neck."
William smiled without teeth. "Damn, Mars mean as hell."
No one argued. The crystal dimmed. The Trial by Mercy felt closer.
(Voyage to Janoah)
The Aratrum climbed, banking southwest off Chun's obsidian tiers. Below, lantern-eyed automaton guardians paced the canals like clockwork saints. The ship slid into the South Chun Sea corridor, a sanctioned sky lane etched by ward buoys and patrol kites.
For an hour, the water was perfectly calm. Then the sea began to breathe.
Schools of mirror silver kaiyo carp spiraled up in dazzling vortices, chasing the warm wake of the engine sigils. Farther out, humpback resonance whales rolled and sang, their calls showing as faint blue rings in the air, a living sonar. The crew made the sign for luck. Lila pressed her cheek to the glass.
"Okay, they're gorgeous. I'm naming the big one Jewel," she whispered.
Aria side-eyed her. "Sacrilege."
"Relax."
The corridor tilted west, skirting Rajistan Waters. The green belt appeared, mangrove deltas feeding into the sea, temple bells carried on the wind. Monastic ferries dotted the coast, each lit by a single Bodhi lantern. Even from altitude, a calm hum brushed Kai's skin.
"Home side of the world," he said softly.
The door hissed open.
Kai, Aria, and Lila looked up from their seats as Rin stepped in, shirt torn at the cuff, hair a little out of place, expression utterly calm.
Aria raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you vanish to?"
Rin sat down, exhaled once. "Bathroom."
Silence.
Lila blinked. "The bathroom? You were gone forty minutes."
"Long line," he said, straight-faced.
Kai tilted his head. "Did someone attack you in the restroom?"
Rin didn't answer. Aria snorted. "You're hopeless."
He folded his arms and closed his eyes like a cat resuming a nap. "Wake me when we land."
Lila leaned toward Kai, whispering, "He definitely fought someone."
Kai nodded solemnly. "He definitely fought someone."
The helmsman pushed the nose south, cutting across International Waters. Clouds thickened, the light turning pewter as weather stacked in extended shelves. Lightning spidered along the undersides, silent, distant.
Two days later, the air turned cold and clean. The chart crystals flickered from blue to a deep, iron-red on the Gulf of Janoah patrol grid.
"Entering Steel Flame airspace," a deck voice announced. "Keep your aura sheathed. Fire discipline on all decks."
Lookout pylons rose from offshore bastions, black stone, gunmetal roofs, sigil beacons pulsing in steady time. On each bastion squatted the silhouette everyone Seeker rumors tell of, Iron Drake carriage guns, their bronze throats sleeping under oiled covers. Patrol cutters stitched white wakes through the water; flag semaphores blinked a language of timing and doctrine.
Aria's breath fogged the pane. "They built all this out of exile and sand."
"Discipline changes people," Kai said.
"Cute. Put that on a poster."
"Stop," he said, deadpan.
Lila snorted. "He's impossible. I love him."
When the gulf opened fully, Aria nudged Kai with an elbow.
"Hey, monk boy. Ever like someone? Like."
Kai stayed with the horizon. "No."
Aria blinked. "Just... no?"
He thought. "Temple life was work. Breath. Forms. Men only. Feelings were trained toward clarity, not people."
"Translation," Lila said, appearing between them with a steaming paper cup, "our boy took a vow of 'I didn't notice.'"
Kai considered. "Possibly."
Aria grinned. "So if a lightning girl tripped and fell into your arms, hypothetically, you'd call a medic?"
"I would check for a concussion. Then stabilize the neck."
Lila wheezed. "Romance is dead."
Kai's mouth tugged, barely. "Maybe I just haven't met the person who pushes me past my limits yet."
Aria's eyes sparked. "Challenge accepted."
She turned back to the window before he could answer, cheeks a degree too warm for the cold glass.
The Aratrum crossed the last cloud wall at dawn.
The sea below was a sheet of iron, broken only by rows of towers that rose straight from the waves, defense bastions with domed roofs of black glass and gold filigree. Steam curled from vents at their crowns like the breath of sleeping giants.
"Entering Steel Flame airspace," a voice announced over the decks. "Sheathe aura. Maintain formation."
The ship's runes dimmed to compliance, but every Seeker leaned toward the glass.
The continent of Janoah unfolded like a carefully crafted dream.
From the air, its coast looked carved by purpose, canals straight as sword lines, bridges arched in mathematically perfect symmetry, harbors divided by massive drydocks where silver ships sat on scaffolds of sigil light. Thousands of workers moved below like disciplined machinery, every motion in sync with the forge bell rings echoing from inland spires.
Farther inland, smoke and color braided the horizon—the Great Janoahian Heartland, cradle of invention. Rail lines of shimmering sigil steel cut across crimson plains, carrying floating carts. Refineries the size of temples bled gold light into the sky. Banners flew from each, the Steel Flame, symbols of restraint and mastery, fire mastered by iron.
Below, ranks of soldiers marched in perfect sync across parade grounds large enough to swallow mountains. Every few beats, volleys fired from musketeers, sheets of flame flashing, then dying in perfect unity. The thunder rolled up to the ship like a response.
"Guns," Aria whispered.
Kai watched the officer's heel, the sovereignty beat that made a hundred hands move as one. "Rhythm."
The Aratrum banked lower.
Pine ridges gave way to terraces of metal and glass. Entire mountains had been carved into production tiers, one for foundries, one for housing, one for research sanctums glowing with alchemical lights. At the peaks, monument towers hummed with stored aura, lightning-like in appearance. Gunmetal cranes moved along sigil rails, lifting plates and cannons as if weight was nothing.
When the capital finally appeared on the horizon, even the captains gathered at the windows.
(JANOAH — THE STEEL FLAME REPUBLIC)
It stretched farther than sight.
A sprawling city of brass, basalt, and firelight. Walls ringed the bay in seven concentric layers, each guarded by Iron Drake cannons on sigil tracks. Between the rings, airships the size of fortresses drifted like planets around a sun. Streets radiated outward in perfect, precise patterns, converging at a colossal spire piercing the clouds—the Arc Sigil Tower, inscribed from bottom to top with Joah's original language.
Every structure gleamed in morning gold.
Temples to reason and industry rose beside barracks and libraries. Public squares featured colossal statues of Jonathan Joan Joah, his hands mid gesture, as if still writing new laws of invention. Water flowed through luminous channels, carrying faint blue currents of aura that powered lamps, elevators, and trains.
Even the air hummed with law and order.
"Wow, there are so many different cultures and people here," Kai whispered.
Lila grinned despite herself. "This place could fight God and still show up on time for lunch."
Aria squinted against the sunlight. "No wonder everyone's scared of them."
The Aratrum passed over the Central Dome District, where sigil glass skylights reflected the sun into a thousand prisms. Under those domes lay the city's soul—the Maverick laboratories, the Seeker archives, the Guild Congress halls. Trains of Tola carriers rumbled between, guarded by mechs with joints hissing with compressed aura.
Finally, the city's heart came into view—the Seeker Citadel of Janoah.
It was more than a fortress; it was built from the very architecture of the empire.
A hexagonal bastion spanning an entire district, made from aura-proof basalt veined with molten gold. Thirteen towers crowned its perimeter, each representing a Pillar nation, their banners snapping in unison. At the center, the Trial Hall opened to the sky, ready for the Trial by Mercy.
Trumpets sounded from the docks below, amplified by sonic Muti, causing the sky to vibrate.
"Docking permission granted," the deck voice announced. "Welcome, Seekers, to the Steel Flame Republic."
The Aratrum slowly descended. The city filled the windows—grand, cold, magnificent. Workers and soldiers looked up from the streets, hands over hearts, saluting like a rising flame.
Kai watched silently.
Aria adjusted her gloves. "This is the biggest stage we've had yet."
Lila smirked. "And the loudest audience."
The engines wound down, settling onto the metal gantry with a soft thunder.
The doors hissed open. Thick, iron-scented air swept in, heavy with smoke, salt, and promise.
Janoah waited.
The arsenal of the modern world.
The empire that turned war into science.
And somewhere inside its golden core, the Trial by Mercy waited to ignite them all.