The fortress burned beneath a sky that refused to become morning.
Siege rams struck the outer gates again and again, each impact shaking stone like the pulse of an enraged god. Arrows shrieked through the air, trailing unnatural blue fire that clung to wood, flesh, and iron alike—cold flames that hissed and spread, devouring defenses as though stone were parchment.
Ladders slammed against the walls.
Red-armored samurai surged upward in relentless waves, horned helms glinting beneath eclipse-stained light. From the ramparts, Nightblade shinobi answered with kunai, arrows, and boiling oil—but still the enemy climbed, driven by something beyond mortal rage.
Yue stood on the inner wall beside Mizuki.
The wakizashi trembled in his grip, slick with sweat and blood. It was a brutal weapon—short, honest, unforgiving. Nothing like the elegant crescent blades of the Lunar Court. Below them, the courtyard writhed in chaos: Akahoshi warriors pouring through a breached side gate, Nightblade defenders locking shields in desperate formation.
Screams never ceased.
They blended with the crackle of blue fire—fire that laughed at water and wind.
"Hold the line!" Lord Kuroda roared from the keep steps below.
The daimyo was a vision of defiance—armor blackened, blood streaming from a gash along his brow, katana rising and falling with lethal precision. He cut down one intruder, then another.
It wasn't enough.
Mizuki moved like a storm given flesh.
Her katana sang as she struck, ponytail snapping behind her, every motion sharp and efficient. An enemy samurai vaulted the parapet toward Yue.
There was no time to think.
Yue moved.
The blade passed where his head had been an instant before. He slipped inside the swing—too close, impossibly close—and drove the wakizashi into a gap beneath the breastplate.
Hot blood sprayed across his face.
The samurai collapsed.
Mizuki glanced at him mid-motion, eyes briefly widening above her mask.
"You learn fast."
"Necessity," Yue gasped, wrenching the blade free, "teaches quickly."
Another wave crested the wall.
Mizuki seized his collar and dragged him back as arrows slammed into stone where he'd stood a heartbeat earlier.
Her voice cut through the din. "The warlord comes. Look."
The courtyard shifted—fighters recoiling, space opening as if instinct itself fled.
Through the smoke and fire strode the Akahoshi commander.
He was massive, encased in red plates trimmed with gold. His helm bore a blazing sun crest, and cold blue fire wreathed his form, warping the air around him. Where he walked, shadows fled. Nightblade blades dulled, steel whining as if afraid.
"The new dawn consumes the night!" the warlord thundered.
His voice was wrong—too vast, layered with something ancient.
"Bow," he roared, "to the eternal light!"
Yue felt ice flood his veins.
Solar essence.
Raw. Corrupted. Forced into a mortal vessel.
Solaris.
The eclipse had not only exiled Yue—it had armed his enemies.
Rage ignited in his chest, white-hot and uncontrollable. The seal around his power shuddered.
Mizuki's hand clamped around his arm. "Stay back. That thing isn't human."
"No," Yue said quietly.
He stepped forward.
"He is mine."
He leaped from the wall.
The landing was light—unnaturally so—as though the ground itself yielded to him. The melee parted around him, fighters instinctively retreating from the sudden pressure in the air. Cold wind spiraled outward, carrying silver motes that shimmered at the edges of sight.
The warlord turned.
Blue fire flared higher.
"A pretender," he sneered. "The sun tolerates no shadows."
Yue advanced, wakizashi raised.
The seal cracked wider.
Shadows deepened across the courtyard, swallowing patches of blue flame. Phantom figures emerged—lunar warriors robed in flowing silver, blades of pale light carving through Akahoshi ranks.
Panic rippled.
Nightblade voices rose, fierce and incredulous.
"The moon fights with us!"
The warlord charged.
His nodachi descended in a blazing arc.
Yue parried.
Steel screamed.
Solar fire scorched his arms, pain ripping through muscle and bone. He staggered—but did not fall. Illusion answered instinct: mirrors of shadow bloomed, reflecting the flames back in searing arcs that scorched gold-trimmed armor.
They clashed at the courtyard's heart.
Blue fire and silver shadow twisted together, warping air and light. Each of the warlord's blows burned. Each of Yue's strikes bound, dimmed, and dragged the light toward night.
"You stink of the fallen prince," the warlord snarled.
The voice beneath his own surfaced—Solaris's echo.
"He is dust. The eclipse is complete."
Yue's grief crystallized.
"Not yet."
The seal shattered.
Above them, the sky broke illusion.
A vast crescent moon manifested—perfect, luminous, impossible—hanging in daylight. Cool radiance poured down, quenching blue fire, strengthening shadow, restoring balance.
The warlord screamed as his flames guttered.
Yue lunged.
The wakizashi slid beneath the helm, into the throat.
Blue essence erupted outward in a freezing blast, hurling bodies aside. The possessing fire tore free—gold streaking skyward before vanishing into cloud.
Leaderless, the Akahoshi broke.
The courtyard fell silent but for dying breaths.
Victory came hollow.
Bodies lay piled, blood flowing in dark rivulets across shattered stone. Smoke curled from ruined walls. Lord Kuroda lay slumped against the keep steps, a spear driven through his chest.
He was already gone.
Yue staggered.
Backlash struck like a hammer.
Frost crept across his skin. His hair flashed silver. Moonlight burned behind his eyes. He fell to his knees among the dead.
Mizuki reached him first.
She dropped her katana and caught him as he collapsed.
"What are you?" she whispered, voice breaking.
He smiled weakly. "Tired."
They moved him to a quiet chamber—once a store room, now an infirmary thick with the scent of blood and herbs.
Mizuki worked with practiced hands, stripping burned cloth, cleaning wounds rimed with frost and blistered by solar fire. Her hands trembled only once.
"You could have died," she said.
"So could you."
He caught her wrist gently.
"All of you."
Her obsidian eyes met his, fierce and unguarded. "I lost my family once. My village. Everything. Nightblade became my home." Her voice softened. "And now… you."
The word lingered.
"I cannot lose you too."
Yue reached up, brushing a loose strand from her face. "I fell from endless night into a world of blood and fire. You are the first light I've found here."
She leaned down.
Their lips met—desperate, grounding, real. Battle and terror melted into something fierce and alive.
When she pulled back, her forehead rested against his.
"Later," she said. "After we bury our dead."
Twilight claimed the ruined fortress.
In the shattered great hall, survivors gathered beneath scorched banners. Lord Kuroda's body lay wrapped in black. His final words named Mizuki his successor.
"The moon favors us now."
She stood before them in fresh armor, spine straight, eyes unyielding. Yue stood at her side, a new katana at his hip—its blade etched with a crescent.
"The Nightblade stands," Mizuki declared. "And we do not stand alone."
Whispers followed Yue wherever he moved.
Lunar Prince. Moon's Chosen.
That night, atop the broken walls, the blood moon hung cracked—golden veins spreading through it like infection.
A scout arrived, breathless. "A golden emissary escaped east. He carried word of the surviving lunar remnant."
Solaris knew.
Far above, in the Solar Palace, fire answered rage.
"Then I will finish it myself," the emperor snarled.
Golden flames ignited on the horizon below.
Yue felt the gaze of eternal day.
He squeezed Mizuki's hand.
"This war is larger than clans."
She drew her katana, moonlight gleaming along its edge.
"Then we fight it together."
The crescent moon bled brighter.
Defiant.
But the false dawn gathered.