Kiseki woke up feeling like someone had packed his bones with sand.
Both chariots had been moving for what felt like forever. The sky had already turned over into the next day by the time his eyes finally cracked open.
He blinked once. Then again.
"You can get down now," Stephane said, sounding deeply offended by the concept of having to wait for him.
Kiseki made a noise that was somewhere between a yawn and a complaint. "Huh…? Oh…"
He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes for so long it almost became a ritual.
Stephane stared at him.
At first, it was just irritation. Then it sharpened into something more dangerous.
Kiseki could practically feel the man's patience boiling.
"Are you testing me?" Stephane snapped.
Kiseki yawned again.
Stephane's eye twitched. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET OUT BEFORE I—"
He cut himself off mid-rant.
That was when he noticed the villagers staring.
Not just staring, either. Staring with the quiet confusion of people who were trying very hard to mind their own business while also clearly wanting to gossip about this for the rest of the week.
Stephane froze.
Right.
They were not in Ganja anymore.
This was the village Kiseki's grandfather's letter had led them to.
And apparently they had arrived at a stable just inside the entrance, which was inconvenient for everyone involved, especially the horses that were definitely used to being treated with more dignity than the people riding them.
The villagers around them looked them over with immediate suspicion.
Mostly because these newcomers had chariots.
And nobody else did.
Still, if there was one thing these villagers were good at, it was pretending nothing strange was happening in their general vicinity.
They all looked away.
Some went back to buying horses.
Some came to sell horses.
Some had kids with them, probably because children apparently treated horse stables like amusement parks.
A few were there for riding lessons.
Others were cleaning stalls and brushing down the animals like this was the most normal morning in the world.
In seconds, Stephane's outburst stopped mattering.
Lucky for him.
Kiseki climbed down from the chariot, still half asleep, and stretched.
"You need to keep your tone in check," he said, voice flat with exhaustion, "and be aware of your surroundings."
Stephane looked like he might explode.
Instead, he took a breath that clearly hurt.
Then Kiseki yawned again.
Stephane's blood pressure probably shattered a wall somewhere.
"Weapon boy," Stephane said at last.
Kiseki snapped his head up. "Huh?! Weap—"
"Listen," Stephane cut in sharply, clearly choosing survival over arguing. "The other chariot is waiting outside. We are going to drive the invaders out of the town."
He stepped closer.
"By all means, find the man known as Hikari. Your grandfather hinted that only that man knows what to do with the letter."
Kiseki blinked. "He said that in the letter?"
Stephane didn't answer.
He just stared.
Not a normal stare, either. This was the kind of stare that made you feel like you'd committed a crime against civilization.
Kiseki looked away with dramatic sarcasm. "Alright, fine. Fine. Just go help Pops."
Then he turned and started walking like he knew exactly where he was going.
Which was a lie.
A confident lie, but still a lie.
"Let's go, Mendo."
There was a pause.
"Huh?" Mendo said, only just realizing he was being addressed.
Then he hurried after him. "Oh. Wait up!"
Stephane watched them go, calm again now, though something in his expression softened just slightly.
"Hm."
Then he turned and headed back toward the village entrance, where a different kind of trouble was waiting for him in Ganja Town, and the sort of mission only a man with too much responsibility and not enough patience would accept.
Kiseki and Mendo moved through the village streets, which were busy enough to feel alive, but calm enough to be strange.
Nobody looked panicked.
Nobody was running.
Nobody even seemed to care that a couple of children had just appeared out of nowhere with chariot dust on their clothes.
"How are we gonna find Hikari?" Mendo asked.
Kiseki glanced down at him. He had not expected the question to be that straightforward.
He looked forward again. "It can't be that hard. If Pops knows him, then…"
He trailed off.
Because just ahead, at a merchant's stall, he saw it.
Major Warlord.
Volume 8.
From that distance alone, Kiseki's soul nearly left his body.
He grabbed Mendo's hand without even thinking.
"Huh?" Mendo said again, because apparently that was his favorite sound today.
Kiseki ignored him and sprinted toward the stall.
"No way," he muttered, grinning already.
The merchant straightened with professional pride. "Ah, I see you have your eyes on our newest Major Warlord manga. Which chapter do you—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know," Kiseki said, already searching himself for money.
Every pocket.
Every fold.
Every possible hiding place on his body.
He could practically hear the universe laughing before he even found the truth.
His coin pouch?
Left on his bed.
His secret stash under the floorboards?
Still in Ganja.
Of course it was.
Why would the gods allow him to have one normal moment?
Kiseki dragged both palms down his face like he was trying to wipe himself out of existence.
He had not planned on leaving town.
He had not planned on escaping invaders.
He had not planned on protecting the Heir.
He had not planned on having to drag a six-year-old through a strange village while one of the best manga chapters he'd seen all month was sitting right in front of him like a cruel joke.
His eyes drifted back to the merchant.
The merchant drifted back to his eyes.
"Uh…" Kiseki said slowly. Then, with the weakest grin known to mankind, "You don't happen to do IOU over here, do you? Hehe…"
He scratched the back of his head.
The merchant folded his arms.
That was not the look of a man who respected dreams.
That was the look of a man who had seen this kind of failure before and had no intention of enabling it.
For one horrible second, Kiseki thought the man might actually answer him seriously.
Then Mendo looked up and said, with the kind of innocent honesty that only small children and disaster events possess, "What's an IOU?"
Kiseki's face twitched.
The merchant's expression darkened.
And then, in an instant, both Kiseki and Mendo widened their eyes and ran.
Because the merchant had just thrown a giant comic book at them like it was a kunai.
Kiseki ducked.
Mendo squealed.
The comic sailed past their heads and slapped the ground behind them with the kind of sound that said I am done with this nonsense.
A few minutes later, they were walking again.
Mostly because running forever was exhausting.
Mostly because Kiseki was still offended by the whole encounter.
"I can't believe he chased kids away with manga," Kiseki muttered.
He looked down at the comic in his hand.
"And he didn't even throw the good manga at us. What the hell is a Psyren? I want real manga."
Mendo glanced at him with the brutal honesty of a child who has not yet learned mercy. "Maybe when you get some real money, we can go back to the manga man—"
"I DO HAVE REAL MONEY IN—"
Kiseki caught himself before he finished the sentence.
He gritted his teeth and stared at Mendo in silence for a moment, trying very hard not to lose his temper in the middle of a village he didn't know, while carrying the emotional burden of being insulted by a six-year-old.
After a breath, he forced the words out.
"…Yeah."
Then he looked forward again and shoved the irritation down where it belonged.
"Where even is the guy we're looking for?" he asked. "We should find him so we can leave. This village is weird…"
His eyes drifted to the cover in his hands.
"Especially Psyren."
And honestly?
He was starting to think that might be the most honest thing he'd said all day.
In another part of the village, life kept moving like nothing in the world had ever gone wrong.
Villagers crossed the streets carrying baskets and tools. Merchants shouted prices from crowded stalls. Kids chased each other between buildings while exhausted parents pretended not to notice.
The entire place felt weirdly peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Especially for a village hiding a man mysterious enough to apparently live in a clock tower.
The wind picked up slightly.
Not enough to send fruit carts flying or anything dramatic like that. Just enough to stir the trees and make the leaves dance overhead.
Near one of the houses stood an enormous Coast Redwood tree.
And enormous meant enormous.
The thing looked less like a tree and more like nature trying to build a skyscraper.
A birdhouse hanging from one of the branches started swaying dangerously.
The branch bent.
Cracked.
Then snapped.
The birdhouse dropped.
Straight down.
A fall that high would've smashed it into splinters.
But just before it hit the ground,
A finger hooked the wooden handle at the top.
The birdhouse stopped dead.
Inside the nearby house, a woman's relieved voice called out, "Thanks a million, Clara!"
"Oh—"
The girl holding the birdhouse blinked like she'd only just realized she'd caught it.
Then she smiled automatically.
"It's nothing."
And honestly, that smile was suspiciously bright for somebody casually preventing airborne bird tragedy.
Clara looked back up at the gigantic redwood tree towering overhead.
"Hmph."
Her face scrunched slightly as she thought.
Not the kind of thinking people usually did either.
It looked more like she was calculating possibilities at dangerous speeds.
Ms. Miller leaned out from the house nervously. "Right… could you help me put them back up there?"
"Them?"
Clara looked down into the birdhouse.
Inside was a mourning dove flattened protectively over two tiny babies, puffed up so wide it looked personally offended by gravity.
"Oh."
Clara's eyes widened with immediate fascination.
She handled the birdhouse more carefully after that.
Then she crouched slightly.
The roof beneath her feet cracked.
And suddenly—
BOOM.
She launched upward.
Not climbed.
Not jumped normally.
Launched.
One hand held the birdhouse perfectly level while the rest of her body turned into a blur against the massive redwood.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Her feet struck the bark in rapid bursts as she ricocheted higher and higher, using pure momentum to run almost vertically up the tree.
It should not have looked graceful.
Somehow it did.
She reached the canopy, slipped through the branches smoothly, and grabbed onto one thick limb beneath her.
The branch bent slightly under her weight but didn't break.
Mostly because Clara herself barely seemed to weigh anything.
She carefully secured the birdhouse against the trunk properly this time instead of hanging it from the weak hook.
Then she smiled proudly at her work.
Like she'd just completed the most important mission in the world.
"That's weird."
A voice drifted up from below.
Clara blinked.
"Huh?"
She hopped lightly across several branches toward the side of the tree facing the road.
Below, two unfamiliar figures walked through the village.
Kiseki and Mendo.
"What kind of person lives in a clock tower?" Mendo asked.
Kiseki frowned slightly. "I don't know either, but we don't really got a choice, do we?"
Clara narrowed her eyes.
Not suspiciously exactly.
More like curiously.
Like she'd just spotted two stray cats doing something interesting.
"Yeah, I guess so," Mendo said.
Leaves rustled softly above them.
Kiseki paused.
Something about the sound made him glance upward toward the tree.
For a second, everything went still.
The leaves stopped moving.
The branches stopped shaking.
Kiseki narrowed his eyes slightly.
Then he looked away again.
Probably nothing.
Above them, hidden behind the leaves, Clara slowly parted the branches with both hands and watched the two newcomers continue down the road.
"Hm," she muttered quietly.
And somehow, even her suspicion felt energetic.
Stephane was already racing back to Ganja before the fear fully caught up with him.
At first, all he had was hope.
Hope that one of the guards had somehow held the woman down. Hope that the soldiers had bought them enough time. Hope that the village would still be standing when he got there.
It was a thin kind of hope, the kind that could be snapped in half by a bad turn of wind.
Five soldiers who had escaped with him, along with Kiseki and Mendo, rode in the chariot behind him. Nobody spoke much. Even the horses seemed to understand that this was not the kind of trip for conversation.
Then the gates of Ganja came into view.
Stephane's eyes widened.
He slammed the chariot to a stop so hard it almost groaned in protest.
For a second, he just stared.
Then he jumped down.
The usual boundary at the gate, the one that had to be pulled aside for chariots, was right there.
He didn't bother waiting.
He vaulted it.
And the moment his feet hit the other side, the fear in his chest collapsed into something colder.
Something sharper.
Disbelief.
Then anger.
He drew his sword from its belt and ran straight into the village.
The sounds hit him first.
Screams.
Metal.
Pain.
The kind of noise that belonged in a nightmare and nowhere else.
Then the sights came.
The Handsomes were everywhere.
Beating soldiers.
Seizing their weapons.
Forcing men to die by the very blades meant to protect them.
Villagers were caught in it too.
Some lay wounded on the ground beside fallen guards and soldiers.
Some were still being struck, barely clinging to life.
Women.
Children.
Everybody.
Nobody had been spared.
Stephane kept moving, and for a moment it felt like his mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing.
Then he saw his wife.
She was being dragged out of the house in the distance, still resisting, still insisting she did not know where the boy they were looking for was.
Whether it was true or not didn't seem to matter to them.
One of the Handsomes threw her down hard.
Stephane saw the stomp before it landed.
Saw the violence of it in a slow, cruel second that stretched too long to be real.
She bled.
She bruised.
She folded under the blow.
Stephane's grip tightened around his sword until his knuckles went white.
His breath caught.
Then his eyes lifted toward the hill.
Toward the house where Kiseki lived.
And there, in the distance, Delilah was still standing.
Still watching.
Watching him from far enough away to be impossible, and close enough to feel deliberate.
Kiseki's grandfather was nowhere in sight.
Stephane's jaw hardened.
His brows drew together.
And for the first time since he'd turned back, the anger in him had nowhere left to go.
Only forward.
Kiseki and Mendo had been walking through the village for what felt like half a lifetime. At first, wandering around had seemed kind of fun. Now every street looked exactly like the last one.
"I didn't think it'd take this long to find one guy," Kiseki muttered, scanning every building they passed as if Hikari might suddenly pop out of a chimney and wave.
Mendo looked up at him.
"Shouldn't we ask someone?"
"We've been asking people," Kiseki said. "So far we've learned two things."
He raised two fingers.
"One: he lives in a clock tower."
Another finger.
"Two: he never sleeps."
He lowered his hand.
"I don't know if the villagers are helping us or seeing how long they can keep a joke going."
"But what about kids?"
"Mendo—"
"We haven't asked any kids."
"Mendo—"
"But what if they—"
"We won't!"
The words came out louder than Kiseki meant them to.
A few people nearby glanced over.
Kiseki froze.
"...Huh."
He scratched the side of his head awkwardly.
"So that's what it feels like."
Stephane suddenly made a lot more sense.
At least a little.
Mendo, meanwhile, had already forgotten the entire conversation.
"Oh."
He pointed.
"Over there."
Kiseki followed his finger.
A group of little kids stood in the middle of the road.
Two of them were... fighting.
Well...
Calling it fighting was generous.
They each had a fistful of the other's collar and were pulling with every ounce of strength five-year-olds could possibly possess.
Which, admittedly, wasn't much.
The rest of the kids surrounded them like this was the greatest sporting event in history.
Kiseki folded his arms.
"Huh."
His expression shifted into pure sarcasm.
"Would you look at that."
He nodded toward them.
"They've even got free entertainment."
He and Mendo stopped a safe distance away to watch.
Honestly, after only a few hours in this village, weird had started feeling normal.
The tiny battle continued for another few seconds.
Then...
Both boys suddenly floated into the air.
Not because of magic.
Because somebody had picked them up by the backs of their collars.
They dangled there, still clutching each other's shirts.
The lift was so gentle that neither of them even screamed.
Instead they just blinked in confusion.
Then a familiar voice asked,
"But why are you fighting?"
Both boys looked up.
Clara.
She held one child in each hand like they weighed less than grocery bags.
Which, considering they were five, they probably did.
"It was him!" one of them shouted immediately. "He started it!"
"Hey!" the other protested. "Why're you putting it all on me?!"
Neither of them realized they were still grabbing each other's collars.
Clara's expression softened.
"But..."
She looked genuinely hurt.
"I thought you were good boys."
That worked faster than any lecture.
"No, I'm a good boy!" the second one said quickly. "He's the one who's not!"
"Oh yeah?" the first shot back. "Well, I forgave you first! That makes me the better boy!"
"Me too!"
The second boy puffed out his chest proudly.
"Two's bigger than one!"
Kiseki blinked.
"...What?"
Almost instantly, both boys let go of each other.
Each folded his arms dramatically, shut his eyes, and turned away with matching little "hmphs," as though they'd just settled an international dispute.
Clara giggled.
Not politely.
Not because she was trying to make anyone feel better.
Just because she genuinely found the whole thing funny.
There wasn't an ounce of cynicism in her.
She laughed the way little kids laughed before life taught them there were reasons not to.
Kiseki frowned.
He couldn't explain it.
He'd never met her before.
She hadn't done anything wrong.
But something about her bothered him immediately.
Maybe it was how effortlessly she smiled.
Maybe it was how impossibly innocent she seemed.
Or maybe...
She reminded him of somebody who had never had to worry about anything.
Whatever it was, Kiseki decided right then and there...
Yeah.
We're probably not getting along.
Beside him, Mendo's face lit up.
"Oh!"
He started walking toward Clara.
Kiseki reacted instantly.
Without even looking, he reached out, grabbed the back of Mendo's collar, and smoothly redirected him the other way.
It happened so naturally it almost looked practiced.
"Nope," Kiseki said.
"Not today."
Mendo looked back at Clara.
Then at Kiseki.
"Okay."
That was it. No arguing. No questions.
He simply changed directions and continued walking beside Kiseki as though nothing had happened.
Kiseki slowly let go of his collar.
The two of them disappeared farther down the street.
Behind them, Clara carefully set both little boys back onto the ground.
Then she paused.
Something tugged at her curiosity. She looked toward the road.
There they were again.
The same two strangers she'd spotted earlier beneath the redwood tree. They hadn't noticed her looking this time.
Clara narrowed her eyes just a little.
"Hm."
Not suspicious. Not wary. Just... curious.
Like she'd found the beginning of a puzzle she hadn't decided whether to solve yet.
Kiseki and Mendo kept walking through the village.
At this point, it felt less like they were searching for one man and more like the village itself was deliberately rearranging its streets just to waste their time.
Mendo looked up
"What are we going to do then?"
Kiseki was quiet for a moment.
"…We'll think of something."
He looked down at Mendo, his narrow eyes carrying that look they got whenever he was about to say something that sounded wiser than he actually felt.
Then he looked ahead again.
"Anything, really. As long as we avoid any more weirdos while we look for Hikari."
He finished the sentence and glanced back at Mendo.
"You're looking for Hikari?"
The voice came from directly in front of him.
"Hah?!"
Kiseki dug his heels into the ground, stopping just before he walked straight into Clara.
She was standing there like she'd simply appeared out of thin air.
Her eyes practically sparkled.
Not in a creepy way.
More in the way a puppy's eyes light up when it sees someone holding a tennis ball.
"…Y-Yeah," Kiseki said cautiously.
He instinctively stretched one arm between them, as though keeping a safe distance from whatever strange force she carried around with her.
"What's it to you?"
"Can I come?"
Her fists clenched excitedly beneath her chin.
Her eyes somehow got even brighter.
Kiseki blinked.
"…What?"
"No!"
He answered so fast it almost echoed.
Without wasting another second, he grabbed Mendo's hand and marched right past her.
"Leave us alone!"
"Oh."
Clara turned to watch them go.
"Okay."
That was it.
No arguing.
No complaining.
No trying to convince him.
She accepted it so easily that it somehow made Kiseki even more irritated.
He let out that strange sound again.
"Hhhhh…"
It wasn't exactly a sigh.
It wasn't exactly a growl.
It sounded like someone trying very hard not to become tomorrow's local crime report.
They kept walking.
Behind them, Clara tilted her head.
"Hm."
She looked genuinely puzzled.
"Wonder what that's about."
Then, almost instantly—
"OOH! CHARLIE!"
Every trace of curiosity disappeared.
Bounding toward her was the fluffiest creature Kiseki had ever accidentally looked at.
It was less of a dog and more of a cloud that had decided to become alive.
Pure white.
Round.
Floppy ears.
Tiny black button nose.
It looked like somebody had given a cotton ball unlimited optimism.
Charlie barked happily and bounced around Clara's feet like approval itself was the greatest prize in existence.
Clara laughed and crouched down.
"There you are."
She scratched beneath his chin.
"You're a good boy, Charlie."
Charlie's tail wagged so hard his entire body started wagging with it.
Kiseki caught the scene out of the corner of his eye.
He instinctively turned his head.
Saw Clara smiling at the little dog.
Saw Charlie looking like he'd just won the lottery.
...
Then Kiseki immediately looked forward again.
"Hhhhh…"
There was that sound again.
Not because Charlie had done anything wrong.
Not even because Clara had.
Something about her relentless cheerfulness just rubbed him the wrong way.
He couldn't explain it.
And honestly...
He didn't particularly want to.
Kiseki and Mendo wandered on.
By this point, Kiseki had looked at just about everything the village had to offer.
Every street. Every sign. Every shop. Every suspicious-looking pigeon.
Still no Hikari.
Then,
Grrrrrr...
Kiseki stopped.
His stomach had just loudly reminded him that escaping an invasion did not count as eating breakfast.
He frowned at it for exactly one second before sighing.
"Looking for Hikari in the clock tower is hungry work, isn't it?"
He nodded to himself.
"We'd better eat something before we become clock towers."
Mendo looked up.
"...Can people become clock towers?"
"I don't know."
"Then why did you say it?"
"...I don't know."
That somehow felt like enough of an answer.
Then Mendo's eyes lit up.
"Oh yeah!"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a soft beef bar.
Kiseki's eyes widened.
A beef bar.
Wrapped like one of those giant chocolate bars, except instead of chocolate it was packed with tender strips of seasoned beef.
At that exact moment, Kiseki became convinced fate had finally decided to apologize.
"YES—"
He reached out.
Less than a heartbeat later,
Mendo shoved the entire thing into his own mouth.
"...NO!"
Kiseki's hand remained frozen in the air.
Entirely too late.
Mendo happily chewed away, looking like someone who had just solved world hunger by himself.
Kiseki slowly lowered his arm.
"...Of course."
He shut his eyes.
Exhaled through his nose. Then came the familiar sound.
"Hhhhh..."
The hemming.
It was becoming less of a habit and more of a survival mechanism.
"Well," Kiseki said through clenched teeth, forcing himself to stay calm, "I guess... we'll have to find something else to eat."
He put just enough emphasis on else to make it clear he was emotionally injured.
"Okay," Mendo replied.
Completely unaware. Completely unbothered.
Being six looked nice.
Kiseki hemmed again.
"Hhhhh..."
Then he straightened himself. One problem at a time.
"Are they gonna feed us for free?" Mendo asked.
Kiseki almost answered immediately.
Then he remembered.
No money. No coin pouch. No secret savings.
Nothing except the clothes he was wearing and one very important letter.
"...I don't know," he admitted.
"We'll figure something out."
At least, that was the plan.
Hopefully.
His eyes drifted away from Mendo and landed on a building beside the road.
"...Huh."
A large metal sign hung over the entrance. THE CLOCKTOWER
Kiseki stared at it.
"...You've gotta be kidding me."
Mendo looked at the building. Then back at Kiseki.
"Clock towers look different in real life."
"...Yeah..."
Kiseki scratched his head, trying to explain something he hadn't actually thought through.
"We... didn't exactly find a clock tower."
He looked back up at the sign.
"But..."
A grin slowly appeared.
"I think we found our guy."
He turned sharply toward Mendo.
The look on his face said exactly one thing. Let's get this over with so we can finally go home.
"Come on."
He headed for the entrance.
"Let's go inside."
"Wow…"
Inside, Kiseki stood in the doorway, staring at the place.
"It's really a pantry, isn't it?"
He looked around again.
"A weird pantry."
Unfortunately, that was exactly what it was.
Once they stepped inside, everything looked normal enough. There were customers sitting around, people buying food, and a service hatch where customers could talk to whoever was cooking on the other side.
Pretty ordinary.
Except for one thing.
Actually, several things.
Almost everything was made of metal.
The tables.
The counters.
The walls.
The equipment.
It was like someone had looked at a perfectly normal pantry and thought, You know what this needs? More metal.
But even that wasn't what caught Kiseki and Mendo's attention.
It was the tall metal box.
The two of them stared at it.
Then they walked toward it.
Then a little closer.
Then closer again.
By the time they stopped, they were standing directly in front of it like it had some kind of gravitational field.
"What do you think it is?" Mendo asked.
"I don't know, a…"
Kiseki tilted his head.
Then tilted it the other way.
The metal box had several horizontal rows.
Each row contained a compartment holding some kind of food. Bread. Snacks. Other things Kiseki couldn't immediately identify.
Beside each compartment was a deep circular slot with a coin-shaped opening.
And beside that was a price.
Kiseki stared.
"A… food stand?"
Mendo poked the machine.
Nothing happened.
He poked it again.
And again.
"It doesn't look like a food stand."
"Hands off our vending stand, yer break it, ye buy it!"
Mendo jumped.
Kiseki immediately turned toward the voice.
One of the cooks was glaring at them through the service hatch.
The hatch wasn't very far away. There was basically only a closed door separating the area where Kiseki and Mendo stood from the kitchen, so apparently the cook had been watching them investigate his precious metal box like two burglars with no idea what burglary was.
"Oh, right," Kiseki said.
He remembered the real reason they were here.
Hikari.
The letter.
And hopefully food.
Kiseki walked toward the service hatch with the seriousness of a man about to negotiate a peace treaty between nations.
He stopped in front of the short man behind the counter.
"I'm here to see Hikari."
The man raised an eyebrow.
"Fer what?"
"Personal matters."
Kiseki folded his arms.
"I've got a letter for him."
The man's eyes narrowed.
"Hmm."
He leaned slightly forward.
"Let me have a look at that."
Kiseki tilted his head.
"No."
There was a brief silence.
The short man considered this.
Then nodded.
"Fair point."
Apparently that was all the negotiation required.
The cook turned away to help another customer.
Kiseki watched the customer collect their food and walk away.
Then the short man pointed toward the side of the pantry.
"Take the stairs."
Kiseki turned.
His eyes traveled upward.
And upward.
And upward.
Next to the service hatch stood a ridiculously tall door.
It was so tall that Kiseki briefly wondered whether the person who built it had misunderstood the concept of doors.
"Whoooa," Mendo said.
Kiseki's eyes continued following the door upward before finally traveling back down.
At the bottom was a perfectly ordinary circular doorknob.
Conveniently placed at the exact height a normal human being would need to reach it.
Kiseki stared at it.
Then at the enormous door.
Then back at the doorknob.
"…Why is the door so tall?"
Beyond the door was a surprisingly long room.
Long enough that Kiseki started wondering if the pantry had secretly been hiding an entire building inside itself.
They walked for what felt like several minutes, hands stretched out in front of them as they felt their way through the darkness.
Apparently, store policy required the door to be closed behind anyone who entered.
Because apparently getting lost in a dark room full of mysterious objects was safer if you couldn't escape easily.
Kiseki's hand brushed against something cold.
Metal.
Then another.
Then another.
There were objects sitting on tables everywhere.
Mendo could tell most of them were metal.
Kiseki didn't need to see them.
He knew weapons.
He could probably identify one while blindfolded, asleep, and being kicked down a hill.
His fingers brushed against the butt of a sword.
Or the handle.
Whatever the proper name was.
He wasn't exactly taking notes.
Kiseki immediately grabbed Mendo.
"Stay close."
He began guiding the six-year-old forward, carefully controlling their speed whenever they brushed against another weapon.
Slow enough not to slam into anything.
Fast enough not to accidentally drag a blade across themselves.
It wasn't exactly comfortable.
But Kiseki knew enough about weapons to understand that the best way to survive a room full of them was to avoid treating it like a playground.
Then his hand touched something different. A wall.
"Ah."
Kiseki took another step.
And immediately discovered that the floor had apparently decided to stop existing.
His foot caught the edge of a step.
"WOAH!"
He managed to catch himself before falling.
Kiseki froze.
Then slowly steadied himself.
"Phew."
For approximately one millisecond, he forgot Mendo existed.
"Huh?"
Mendo took another step.
His foot missed the same step.
"Oh."
He fell.
And because he was holding onto Kiseki, Kiseki fell too.
"Wait—"
They both disappeared down the stairs.
At the bottom was a man sitting behind a curved wooden table.
The table was surrounded by shelves.
A ridiculous number of shelves.
Enough shelves to hold what looked like a lifetime supply of beer bottles.
A lifetime for someone who didn't live particularly long and drank several beers a day, but still.
There were a lot of shelves.
Most of them weren't holding beer anyway.
They were packed with raw materials, ores, unfinished metal pieces, tools, and other objects that looked like they belonged in a workshop belonging to someone who had never heard of the concept of throwing anything away.
The man sat with his back to them.
His posture looked exhausting.
Like he had been sitting there for hours doing something incredibly delicate.
Playing with toys, maybe.
At least, that's what it looked like from behind.
Mendo had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
Neither did Kiseki.
But they could hear him.
Shhhk.
Shhhk.
Shhhk.
Sandpaper dragged across metal in a steady rhythm.
Controlled.
Precise.
Almost hypnotic.
Strangely, they hadn't heard it upstairs.
It was only after tumbling down the stairs that the sound had become clear.
Then—
Silence.
The scraping stopped instantly.
The man didn't turn around.
He didn't need to.
The room had become so quiet that Kiseki could suddenly hear his own breathing.
And Mendo's.
Neither of them moved.
The man remained seated.
His back was still facing them.
For a few seconds, nobody said anything.
Then the man's voice came through the silence.
Clear.
Calm.
No hesitation.
No hidden threat.
No strange emphasis.
"What do you want?"
The question unnerved Kiseki enough that he forgot he was supposed to answer it.
For a few seconds, he just stood there.
Then his brain caught up.
Right. He was talking to me.
"I was…"
Kiseki pushed himself off the floor.
"…sent for Hikari."
Silence.
Deep, uncomfortable silence.
Mendo got back on his feet beside him.
Still nothing.
Kiseki waited.
The man didn't move.
Didn't turn around.
Didn't even seem particularly interested in the fact that two children had just fallen down a flight of stairs into his workshop.
"My grandfather needed me to hand you this."
Kiseki held up the rolled letter.
It was a bold move.
Mostly because now that the man was standing in front of him, Kiseki could actually appreciate how large he was.
Six foot one.
Muscular.
Tan.
Not old, but definitely not young.
And his hair was something between a mohawk and a horse's mane—dark, thick, and swept upward without the usual spikes.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
The silence felt bigger.
And the suspense was starting to feel like it was actively trying to kill Kiseki.
Pun intended.
The man stood.
His chair scraped backward as he pushed himself up, leaving him standing completely straight.
Mendo froze.
Kiseki's stomach tightened.
From where they stood, the difference in size was ridiculous.
The rumors they'd heard about Hikari suddenly didn't sound quite so ridiculous anymore.
The villagers had said he was the leader of the village.
Kiseki had assumed that was probably one of those stories people told when they didn't know the truth.
Now?
He was reconsidering.
The man reached for something.
Kiseki's body tensed.
A scythe came into view.
He held it straight in his hand, the blade catching just enough of the dim light to make the point very clear.
Then, with absolutely no emotion on his face, the man said:
"Sit down."
Mendo shrieked.
He immediately disappeared behind Kiseki.
Kiseki nearly screamed too.
Actually, the scream was already halfway to escaping.
Holding it back felt like trying to keep a gigantic surprise turd inside after his body had already decided it was coming out.
Somehow, he managed.
Barely.
He swallowed.
Then slowly looked to his right.
There were seats.
Small ones.
Roughly Kiseki's size.
He stared at them for a moment.
Then back at the man.
Then at the seats again.
Because apparently this was his life now.
He was thirteen years old, standing in the basement of a pantry called THE CLOCKTOWER, facing an enormous, unfamiliar weaponsmith holding a scythe, with his six-year-old companion hiding behind him.
And somehow, even now, curiosity was still winning.
Kiseki's eyes drifted across the workshop.
The soot on the man's forearms caught his attention.
That wasn't ordinary dirt.
Kiseki knew enough about weapons to recognize the residue left from working metal.
Especially the kind of residue you'd expect from maintaining a weapon with Karan iron ore.
Karan iron came from mines in Kara.
Kiseki had never seen a mine anywhere in this village.
He hadn't even seen anything resembling one.
Which meant there was another question sitting right in front of him.
And somehow, despite the scythe, the size of the man, the darkness, and the fact that Mendo was currently using him as human armor,
Kiseki still wanted to know where the metal came from.
Kiseki sat down.
"Upstairs…"
The big man pointed toward the far end of the forge room.
Kiseki looked in the direction he was pointing.
Then at Mendo.
Then back at the man.
They already knew.
This had to be Hikari.
Even Mendo could figure that one out.
Still, if waiting a little longer meant completing the job and finally getting out of this strange place, Kiseki figured it was worth it.
Eventually, they found themselves upstairs.
Or, more accurately, inside Hikari's house.
And the house was… surprisingly nice.
It was basically what a wealthy person's house might look like if someone had replaced all the gold with extremely expensive-looking wood.
Everything had a polished, carefully crafted appearance.
The walls.
The handles.
The furniture.
The decorations.
Kiseki noticed all of it.
So did Mendo.
Which was probably why they spent more than an hour examining the same living room like they had been hired to inspect it.
Kiseki was studying the fine details carved into the walls when Mendo became fascinated with a wooden vase.
Neither of them noticed the door opening.
Until it was too late.
The man stood there.
Kiseki froze.
Mendo froze.
The vase suddenly became the most interesting vase in the history of vases.
The man didn't look angry.
He didn't look amused either.
He just looked exactly as calm as he had been downstairs.
Which somehow made things worse.
Kiseki couldn't tell if they were about to get an explanation…
Or get thrown out.
A few minutes later, they were sitting while the man stood in front of them with his arms folded.
"So your village is under attack," Hikari said, his expression completely unreadable, "and your grandfather wants protection?"
"I don't know that much."
Kiseki reached out with the letter.
"For now, he wanted me to give you this."
He mumbled the last part.
"For some reason."
Hikari took the rolled-up letter.
He opened it.
Kiseki watched him read.
The silence became awkward almost immediately.
"So that's pretty much all we came to do," Kiseki said, attempting to fill the silence. "And we're only here for a day or two, so—"
"No."
Hikari's eyes continued moving across the page.
Kiseki blinked.
"No?"
Hikari didn't answer.
His eyes reached the final words.
Then moved away from the letter.
And landed on Kiseki's necklace.
Kiseki noticed.
"What do you mean, no?"
He stood.
"Look, I know you're big and everything, but it was practically a forty-eight-hour mouse chase just to get here."
"Twenty-four," Mendo corrected.
"Yeah, yeah, Mendo, whatever. Twenty—"
Kiseki waved a hand dismissively.
"The point is, I'm starving and tired, so what do you mean n—"
He stopped.
Hikari was staring at him.
There was nothing in his expression.
No anger.
No amusement.
No sympathy.
Nothing.
Kiseki's confidence suddenly shrank.
"Are you… are you even listening?"
Hikari didn't break eye contact.
"You are full of your own opinions with no knowledge of how to speak."
Kiseki's eyebrow twitched.
Hikari continued.
"You surely are Akira's son."
He rolled the letter back up.
Then handed it to Kiseki.
Kiseki took it.
Hikari folded his arms and turned around.
Apparently, whatever he was waiting for now had nothing to do with explaining himself.
Kiseki looked down at the letter.
Then opened it.
He read.
My dearest son, Hikaru,
How are you and your village doing? I hear you have a daughter now. All these years you have not written to me, but I want you to know we all love you and miss you at home.
Unfortunately, I wish I could be writing to you under better circumstances. Akira's son is in danger. He helped the royal guard stop a kidnapping, and I fear he's caught the eyes of the Kaida. By the time you are reading this, I fear they will already be tearing through Ganja looking for him.
It is with everything I hold dear to myself that I ask, my son, please, by whatever means necessary, protect your brother's son from these monsters.
With love,
Father
Kiseki's eyes stopped.
Brother's son.
He slowly looked up.
Hikari's back was still turned.
"Leave."
The word cut straight through Kiseki's thoughts.
"Wait!"
His head snapped up.
"You didn't say you were my uncle!"
"Huh?" Mendo said.
Hikari didn't turn around.
"Leave."
"But then why won't you help us?!"
Kiseki's voice climbed with every word.
The tension in the room climbed with it.
Hikari remained completely still.
"Leave."
"But you can't just—"
"STOOOP!"
The voice exploded through the room.
Louder than anything else that had been said.
Kiseki froze.
Mendo froze.
Even Hikari seemed to pause.
The voice had come from the front door.
Not the door leading to the forge.
The other one.
Kiseki knew that voice.
Unfortunately, he knew it very well.
The door slowly opened.
"Why are you fighting?"
Kiseki's stomach dropped.
Of course.
Clara.
The girl who somehow appeared every time Kiseki was trying to avoid her.
She stepped inside while closing the door behind her.
Then her eyes landed on the room.
The two strangers from earlier.
Her father standing with his back to them.
Arms folded.
And, judging by the atmosphere, very clearly kicking them out.
Clara blinked.
Her eyes widened like she'd just been caught sneaking into somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.
"Uh…"
She smiled.
It was one of those painfully innocent smiles that made Kiseki want to look away before it got contagious.
"Is it…"
A tiny bead of sweat rolled slowly down the side of her face.
"…a bad time, Daddy?"
Mendo's face lit up.
Kiseki's face did the exact opposite.
He froze.
Not because he was scared.
Because his brain had just received information it absolutely did not want.
Hikari finally spoke.
"It's not a bad time."
Clara's entire expression transformed.
The awkwardness vanished instantly.
Her face became bright again.
"Okay!"
She walked happily past the boys toward her father.
Meanwhile, Kiseki remained completely motionless.
His brain was working at a speed that should probably have produced smoke.
No.
There had to be another explanation.
Maybe Daddy meant something else.
Maybe Hikari wasn't—
No.
The letter.
Your daughter.
The girl.
Clara.
Hikari.
His uncle.
Kiseki stared at Clara as thousands of possibilities raced through his head, desperately searching for even one that would allow him to deny the obvious.
And every single one led to the same answer.
Kiseki had just spent the entire day trying to avoid Clara.
He had apparently walked straight into her house.
And the man he'd been sent to find…
Was her father.
Kiseki facepalmed.
He kept his hand over his face for a few seconds, as though he could somehow rub the last five minutes out of existence.
Then he lowered it and looked back at Clara.
Unfortunately, knowing she was his cousin hadn't changed anything.
He still didn't like her.
Not even a little.
As if the universe wanted to make sure he suffered, Clara's eyes slowly drifted away from her father's face and settled on Kiseki's.
She tilted her head.
"You're staring at me. Do you like me?"
She asked it with the same casual curiosity someone might use to ask whether you preferred cats or dogs.
"Hah?!"
Kiseki instinctively threw both hands between them, like Clara was some kind of dangerous animal that had escaped its enclosure.
"What? No! Why would I?!"
Clara's expression died.
Not gradually.
Not dramatically.
It just stopped.
For a second, she looked like a baby who had just discovered that the world was a cruel place and was deciding whether to cry about it.
Then her lower lip trembled.
She turned toward her father.
"Daddy…?"
Tears began gathering in her eyes.
"They don't like me."
She wrapped her arms around Hikari and buried her face against him, barely managing to hold back a sob.
Kiseki stared.
"Wha…?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Nothing useful came out.
Was this a joke?
Was she joking?
Was somebody supposed to tell him when the joke started?
Beside him, Mendo looked genuinely upset.
And judging by the way he was looking at Kiseki, it was becoming increasingly clear who he thought was responsible for the crime of making Clara cry.
Oh, come on.
Kiseki hadn't even done anything!
Well, technically, he'd done something.
But it wasn't like he'd pushed her off a cliff.
He'd just answered a question!
Hikari rested one hand on his daughter's shoulder.
His face didn't change.
Not even slightly.
"Clara."
"Huh?"
She lifted her head to look at him.
"You did not befriend them, Clara."
For a moment, Clara stared at her father.
Then—
"Ohhhhh… no."
She nodded her head sideways as realization dawned on her.
And somehow, the little movement was endearing.
Of course it was.
Everything she did seemed to come with a built-in supply of endearment.
Kiseki found it irritating on principle.
"You know what to do," Hikari said.
Clara nodded.
And just like that, she was no longer a girl on the verge of tears.
She was a girl with a mission.
She hurried toward Kiseki while Hikari began walking away.
"I'm Clara!"
She stopped in front of him and thrust out her hand.
"I wanna be your friend!"
Kiseki didn't take it.
Instead, his eyes followed Hikari as he walked toward the door.
"Sure," Kiseki said.
Clara's face brightened.
"Think you can talk to your dad for me?"
Her smile faltered.
Hikari stopped walking.
He still faced the door, his back turned to everyone.
Kiseki finally looked at Clara.
"Some really bad men are after me, and he's the only one who can stop them."
Clara blinked.
Then she turned toward her father.
"We're not gonna help them?"
She took a few steps forward, examining Kiseki and Mendo as if she'd only just noticed them properly.
"But they're so tiny."
"Rude…" Kiseki muttered.
Mendo looked down at himself.
Then at Kiseki.
Apparently, he was considering the evidence.
Clara continued.
"Can't we help them, Daddy?"
Silence.
A huge, uncomfortable silence settled over the room.
Well, uncomfortable for Kiseki and Mendo, anyway.
Hikari stood motionless, facing the door.
Clara waited.
Kiseki waited.
Mendo probably would have waited until tomorrow if nobody told him otherwise.
Finally, Hikari spoke.
"You surely are Akira's son."
Kiseki blinked.
"Thanks, I gue—"
"You'll have food and a place to sleep so long as you stay out of trouble."
Kiseki's mouth remained open for a moment.
Then he shut it.
Wait.
Food?
And a place to sleep?
Those were two things he desperately needed.
But that wasn't what he'd asked for.
He needed protection.
He needed to get back to Ganja.
He needed to know whether his grandfather was alive.
And this man was offering him a bed and dinner as if they were discussing the weather.
Hikari opened the door leading to his forge.
Before leaving, he spoke one last time.
"Clara."
"Hmm?"
"Show your cousin to the guest room."
Clara practically lit up.
"Cousin?"
Kiseki's teeth clenched.
"So you're not even gonna help us win the fight? You're just gonna keep us here?"
Hikari paused at the doorway.
He didn't turn around.
"You are full of your own opinions with no knowledge of how to think."
And with that, he walked into the forge and closed the door behind him.
Click.
Kiseki stared at the door Hikari had disappeared through.
"No knowledge of how to think, yeah?" he muttered under his breath. "I'd like to show you how to think."
Unfortunately, the door remained closed. Apparently, it had more sense than to argue with him.
"Daddy has a big heart when you get to know him!" Clara announced with a wholehearted smile.
It was the sort of smile that could convince you the world was a wonderful place full of sunshine, rainbows, and people who definitely wouldn't abandon you in a forge after insulting your intelligence.
It convinced Mendo, at least.
"Okay," he said.
Kiseki looked at him.
Seriously?
Clara bent down until she was at Mendo's eye level. "But don't worry! I'll protect you since we're all cousins."
Kiseki's head turned so fast you'd think someone had just announced that the village was under attack. Again.
"I'm your cousin," he corrected her, pointing at himself. "He's not."
Mendo blinked.
Clara blinked.
For a moment, the three of them stood there, each processing this earth-shattering revelation at their own speed.
Then Clara straightened up sharply and focused on Kiseki.
"Oh! Then I'll protect you!"
Kiseki raised an eyebrow.
"Still not how it works."
"But you're my cousin, right?" Clara asked, looking off to her left as if the answer might be hiding somewhere between options A, B, C, and D.
"Yes, but—"
She waited attentively.
Kiseki opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Clara's hopeful face, then at Mendo, who seemed perfectly content with his new cousin situation despite having just been informed that he wasn't actually related to anyone in the room.
Kiseki exhaled through his nose.
"You know what? I'm good. Just show me the room."
Clara lit up as if he'd just agreed to adopt a hundred puppies.
"Oh! Follow me!"
She turned and skipped toward the staircase, radiating enough happiness to power the village for at least a week.
Kiseki followed, wearing the expression of a boy who had survived an invasion, travelled to a strange village, met an uncle who wanted nothing to do with him, and somehow ended up with a cousin who thought she was his personal bodyguard.
Mendo shrugged and went ahead.
And just like that, Kiseki's new life with his family began. And hopefully he'd be able to go back to his grandfather once this all blew over.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected from his uncle.
But he was beginning to suspect that peace and quiet weren't included in the family package.