The morning light filtered through the canopy in thin blades, cutting across the trio's path like silent warnings.
Dew clung to ferns.
Birds sang in cautious bursts.
The forest had changed overnight. It was thicker, watchful, as if it had listened to Izumi's story.
Hajime walked ahead now, boots crunching on fallen petals.
Rei trailed, sword slung low.
Izumi moved in the middle, fingers brushing leaves that curled toward her touch like cats.
No one spoke for an hour.
Then Hajime broke the silence.
"Your mom… what was her name?"
Izumi's step faltered.
A white petal drifted from her sleeve.
"…Hana," she said. "Means flower."
Hajime nodded.
Didn't push.
Rei glanced back.
"Eve quiet today?"
Izumi closed her eyes.
Listened.
"She's thinking,"
Eve murmured inside her. "About the boy with the gold-silver light."
Izumi's cheeks warmed.
"She's… distracted."
Rei smirked.
"Old flames never die."
Izumi swatted the back of Rei's head.
"Shut up."
But she smiled.
The path narrowed.
Roots arched overhead like cathedral ribs.
Izumi's voice returned—low.
"You want the rest?
Fine.
After Kagerou, I wasn't a kid.
I was a fucking monster."
Nine Years Earlier – The Deep Veil, Three Days After Kagerou
Izumi tore through the forest like a plague unleashed.
Eight years old.
Robes shredded to ribbons.
Eyes blazing, toxic emerald.
Seiki leaked from her skin—green fire, uncontrolled, rabid.
Roots whipped behind her like jagged tails in a frenzy.
Trees exploded in her wake.
Animals dropped mid-flight, spines snapped by invisible thorns.
A wolf pack charged.
She didn't even look.
Vines flayed them to the bone in seconds.
Blood misted the air.
Eve's voice cracked inside her.
"Rin—STOP. You're destroying the forest!"
Izumi screamed.
The scream shattered a cliff face.
Rocks rained.
She punched the ground.
Roots erupted fifty feet high, coiling, thrashing, starving.
A deer bolted across her path.
Thorns impaled it mid-leap.
Guts spilled like wet rope.
She kept walking.
Sobbing.
Screaming.
Destroying.
Then the forest went still.
A single footstep.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Queen Sylvara emerged from the green.
No armor.
No crown.
Just living bark fused to her skin like a second skeleton.
Hair, a cascade of autumn fire.
Eyes the deep, merciless green of ancient rot.
Her Seiki was pure emerald, no alloy.
She stopped ten paces away.
Watched the child rage.
Didn't flinch as a root the size of a tree trunk lashed at her face.
Sylvara caught it.
Bare hand.
Crushed it to splinters.
Ash rained.
Izumi snarled.
Roots swarmed—dozens, hundreds.
Thorns dripping venom.
A storm of green death.
Sylvara sighed.
Raised one hand.
Palm open.
The storm stopped.
Every root froze mid-air.
Cracked.
Shriveled.
Fell as dust.
Izumi gasped.
Tried to summon more.
Nothing came.
Her Seiki choked.
Sylvara walked forward.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Grabbed Izumi by the collar.
Lifted her off the ground like a feral stray.
The girl thrashed.
Kicked.
Bit.
Screamed until her throat bled.
Sylvara let her.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then she slammed Izumi into the dirt.
Not out of cruelty, but necessity.
Izumi's face hit the soil.
Roots tried to rise.
Sylvara's foot pressed between her shoulder blades.
Seiki poured in cold, crushing, and absolute.
The girl's power folded.
Sylvara knelt.
Voice calm as deep water.
"Done?"
Izumi spat blood.
Tears.
Snot.
"…Fuck you."
Sylvara smiled—small, sharp.
"Good.
Anger's useful.
Now learn to aim it."
She hoisted the child over her shoulder.
Walked.
The forest parted.
Roots bowed.
Leaves whispered.
Eryndral – The Rootbound Arena
Izumi woke chained to a living tree.
Roots wrapped her limbs like iron.
Sylvara stood opposite.
No weapons.
Just her.
"Rule one," Sylvara said.
"Power without roots is cancer."
She snapped her fingers.
The arena erupted—roots, wind, fire, flood.
A hurricane of pure green.
"Try to stop it."
Izumi tried.
Her Seiki surged—wild, sloppy.
Roots clashed with Sylvara's.
Feedback ripped through her veins.
Izumi screamed, followed by throwing up blood.
Sylvara didn't blink.
Her storm swallowed Izumi's.
Compressed it.
Forced it back inside.
Izumi collapsed.
Gasping.
Broken.
"Again."
Weeks bled into months.
Sylvara beat control into her.
Physically and emotionally.
Seiki slammed into cracked ribs.
Roots that pinned her for hours.
Trials that left her pissing herself.
She adapted and overcame.
One dawn, Izumi stood unbroken.
Sylvara opposite.
The arena was silent.
Izumi raised her palms.
The forest obeyed.
Controlled.
Lethal.
Beautiful.
Sylvara nodded once.
"Good, you're ready, now meet the pack."
The Emerald Vanguard – Heartwood War Room
Takahiro Izanami—Commander.
Staff of Eden across his back.
Scars like lightning.
"So this is the border demon. Don't make me regret this."
Masanori Shigure—Wielder of Elijah.
Flame Chariot idling, horses snorting embers.
Grinned.
"Kid's got teeth. Let's see if she bites."
Ayumu Hayate—Wielder of Noah.
Gauntlets humming.
Knelt.
Eye-level.
"You're home, Rin. Don't worry about them."
They threw her into border wars.
Crimson Bloodforge cults.
Thorned Pact infiltrators.
Izumi learned to kill with flowers.
To heal with thorns.
At just fourteen years of age, the Crimson Legion hit the village of Thornmere.
Bloodforge Overdrive Titans surrounded all sides.
She used her Forbidden Fruit Art: Nature-Drowned Avatar that towered fifty feet.
Petals fell like guillotines.
The siege ended in one strike.
The Eidarus Tree roared its approval.
Sylvara summoned her to the throne.
No ceremony.
Just truth.
"You're a Lord now. Protect the Veil, or I'll prune you myself."
Izumi bowed.
Blood on her robes.
Lotuses in her hair.
"Thank you so much, your grace. It's an honor."
Present Day – One Mile from Sylva's Hollow
Izumi's voice cut off.
The forest thickened into a wall of glowing trunks.
Roots arched into a gate.
In the distance were faint lantern lights.
The smell of bread and wet earth.
It was the village of Sylva's Hollow within the Verdant Veil territory.
Hajime exhaled.
"Smells like home."
Rei's hand left his sword.
"I'm starving!"
Izumi stepped forward.
Lotuses bloomed in her footprints—slow, deliberate.
The gate creaked open on its own.
A child's voice echoed from the dark.
"Lord Rin? Is that really you?"
Izumi smiled—tired, sharp, alive.
"Yeah, kid. I'm back."