Chapter 13: What Kazuto Took
The first bench flew through the air like a battering ram.
Garron met it head-on.
With one roar he slammed his tower shield upward, splintering wood into fragments that rained across the chapel floor.
"BACK LINE MOVE!" he thundered.
Kyūsei moved instantly this time.
No hesitation.
He ducked left as two villagers lunged past him with jerking, unnatural speed.
An old farmer he might have greeted yesterday swung a rusted sickle at his throat.
Kyūsei parried clumsily with his short sword.
The impact numbed his wrist.
"They're stronger than normal people!" he shouted.
"Because normal people don't run on curses!" Rufus yelled back.
The healer raised both hands.
Golden circles of light bloomed in the air.
Chains of radiance shot outward, binding three villagers mid-charge.
"For about five seconds!" Rufus added.
One second later the chains began cracking.
"Maybe three!"
Mira blurred through the side aisle.
Her daggers flashed flat-side first, striking necks, joints, temples.
She moved with ruthless precision, disabling without killing where possible.
"Legs," she snapped to Kyūsei. "Break balance first."
Then she vanished behind a pew and reappeared elsewhere.
Terrifying woman.
At the altar, Lena drew a thin rapier from her hip.
Kyūsei had assumed it ceremonial.
He was wrong.
Silver mana burst along the blade as she cut a perfect line through the air.
Three advancing villagers were thrown backward as if struck by an invisible wall.
"Nonlethal if possible," she ordered.
Then ducked beneath a thrown candlestick.
"Lethal if necessary."
Much more practical.
Kazuto stood in the center aisle like a stone in a river.
The possessed villagers rushed around everyone else—
but most of them angled toward him.
Black-eyed children.
Old men.
Women with kitchen knives.
Bodies moved by something wearing them badly.
Kazuto's jaw tightened.
He fought with the flat of his blade, pommel strikes, kicks, sweeping motions that dropped people without cutting flesh.
Yet he looked angrier than when facing monsters.
The layered voice came again, from many throats at once.
"Thief."
Kazuto slammed one villager into a pillar.
"Complain louder."
"You opened what was sealed."
He froze for half a heartbeat.
Lena noticed immediately.
"Kazuto?"
A dozen villagers attacked in that pause.
Kyūsei reacted before thinking.
He thrust both hands forward.
A wall of wind blasted across the chapel, knocking the attackers sideways into pews.
Kazuto snapped back into motion.
"Nice save!"
"I'm collecting debts!"
Kyūsei's heart hammered.
What did they mean?
You stole.
You opened what was sealed.
Kazuto had secrets layered under secrets.
But answers would wait.
An elderly woman leapt at him with impossible speed.
He sidestepped, remembering Mira's advice, kicked behind her knee, and drove his shoulder into her chest.
She fell hard but kept clawing at the floor to rise.
Her black eyes rolled toward him.
"Empty throne…"
Kyūsei recoiled.
Even through her broken teeth, the smile remained.
He reached inward for fire.
Not the abyss.
Anything but that.
Heat gathered.
He sent a narrow burst downward beside her body.
The floor flared, forcing her back without burning her.
Kazuto noticed.
"Control improved!"
"I'm being complimented during trauma!"
"Best time for growth!"
At the rear doors, black vines thickened over wood and stone.
They pulsed like veins.
Rufus pointed frantically.
"That's the anchor!"
Lena cut down another villager with the blunt guard of her rapier.
"Meaning?"
"Possession network! Kill the root, break the puppets!"
"Then why are you shouting and not doing it?"
"It looks disgusting!"
Mira landed beside the doors.
"It is disgusting."
She stabbed one dagger into the vine.
The blade hissed and black sap sprayed.
The entire chapel convulsed.
Every villager screamed together.
Kyūsei's bones vibrated from the sound.
Mira jerked her dagger free.
"…Good sign."
Garron charged the door like a siege engine.
Shield first.
He smashed into the vines.
They held.
He stepped back.
Then smiled.
Kyūsei had not known mountains could smile.
Garron inhaled.
"MOVE."
Everyone moved.
He slammed forward again with a roar that shook dust from the ceiling.
The doors burst outward.
Vines tore free in chunks.
Sunlight flooded in.
The villagers collapsed where they stood.
All at once.
Like strings cut.
Silence followed.
Then groaning.
Actual human groaning.
Rufus threw both hands up.
"Ha! Support carries again!"
No one acknowledged him.
Outside the chapel, villagers lay scattered in the square, alive but unconscious.
Black residue seeped from their eyes like smoke and evaporated.
Rufus rushed between them healing bruises and checking pulses.
Kyūsei stumbled out into fresh air and bent over, hands on knees.
His whole body shook.
Kazuto joined him.
"You did well."
"I almost vomited on a grandmother."
"Adaptability matters."
Kyūsei straightened.
"No jokes."
Kazuto's expression sobered.
Rare enough to be alarming.
"What they said inside…"
"Yes."
"You stole something."
Kazuto looked toward the tree line east of the village.
"I took something from people who should never have had it."
"That is not an answer."
"It's the only one for now."
Kyūsei stepped closer.
"You promised less riddles."
"I promised nothing. You assumed."
"I hate you."
"Healthy."
But there was guilt in his eyes now.
Real guilt.
Before Kyūsei could push further, Mira appeared soundlessly beside them.
"The villagers are waking."
She glanced at Kazuto.
"And we have tracks."
"East?" Lena asked, approaching.
Mira nodded.
"Hundreds of feet. All walking together."
Rufus joined them pale-faced.
"Some of the villagers are muttering in sleep."
"What words?" Lena asked.
He swallowed.
"'The Hollow Gate opens at moonrise.'"
A cold wind passed through the square.
Master Eldrin's history line flashed in Kyūsei's mind.
Void Beyond Form.
Empty throne.
Hollow Gate.
Too many names circling the same darkness.
Lena drew a line on the map.
"There's only one ruin east of here close enough."
Kazuto's face hardened immediately.
"No."
Kyūsei looked at him.
"You know it."
"Yes."
"What is it?"
Kazuto answered without taking his eyes off the forest.
"The Temple of Nharos."
No one spoke.
Even Mira's expression tightened.
Rufus whispered, "I thought that place was sealed."
Kazuto gave a humorless smile.
"So did I."
Kyūsei's chest tightened.
"You've been there."
Kazuto finally looked at him.
"Years ago."
"And that's where you stole something."
Silence confirmed more than words.
Lena sheathed her rapier.
"We move now."
Garron lifted his shield.
Mira checked both daggers.
Rufus groaned softly but followed.
Kyūsei stepped beside Kazuto.
"What did you take?"
Kazuto started walking.
"Hope," he said.
Then after three steps:
"And a key."
The forest ahead waited in unnatural stillness.
Above it, dark clouds gathered though the rest of the sky remained clear.