The forest was silent once more, but Reiji felt no peace. The Whispering Blade remained lodged in his thoughts, its faint murmurs clinging to him even as he left the clearing behind. Each step deeper into the night weighed heavier than the last, as though unseen chains bound his spirit.
By dawn, he reached the outskirts of a burned village. The smell of ash still lingered in the air, carried by the morning breeze. Blackened wood jutted from the earth like broken bones, and the ground was littered with the remnants of lives reduced to dust. Reiji knelt near a collapsed well, brushing his fingers across the charred soil. The fire had been deliberate—controlled. A purge, not an accident.
"Too clean," he muttered. "Whoever did this wanted no survivors."
As if answering his thought, a faint cough echoed from one of the collapsed huts. Reiji moved swiftly, pulling aside the wreckage until he uncovered a young boy, no older than twelve, his skin blistered but alive. The boy's eyes widened in terror upon seeing him.
"They… they betrayed us," the boy stammered, voice raw. "The ones we trusted… they came at night. Said they would protect us… but then…" His words dissolved into sobs.
Reiji's jaw tightened. Betrayal was far crueler than open conflict; it left wounds that never closed. He carried the boy outside, laying him gently against the roots of a surviving tree. "Who were they?" Reiji asked, his voice low but urgent.
The boy's lips trembled. "…They wore the mark of the Crescent Fang."
Reiji froze. That name was not unfamiliar. The Crescent Fang were mercenaries who sold their blades to the highest bidder—lawless wolves without allegiance. But once, long ago, they had fought beside him in the hidden war. Some of them had been his allies. Brothers in arms.
The boy clutched Reiji's sleeve, eyes pleading. "Don't let them take more… please."
Reiji stood, the shadows around his figure deepening. He had walked through blood and betrayal before, but this was different. To know that men he once trusted now turned their blades on the innocent… it rekindled a fire he thought long extinguished.
He tightened his grip on his katana. "The Crescent Fang…" he muttered. "If it is betrayal they chose, then ashes will be their legacy."
As the boy drifted into unconsciousness, Reiji looked toward the black horizon. He could already feel it—this was no isolated act. The mercenaries' betrayal was a thread tied to something greater, something that spread its influence through the shadows of the land.
The whispers of the cursed blade, the village in ashes, and the betrayal of old comrades all converged into one truth: the veil of war was no longer distant. It had already begun.
And Reiji, whether he wished it or not, was standing at its center.