Chapter 5: The Red Axe and the Blue Shawl
The village of Saikono was a different world from Butita. Where Butita had been a quiet, rustic hamlet, Saikono was a bustling, vibrant artery of commerce and travel. Its walls were the first sign of its prosperity; they were not of stone, but of towering, dark-grained lumber that rose a formidable fifty feet into the air. This was no ordinary wood. Fulan could feel a faint, dormant energy humming within it, a testament to the Minma-infused trees from which it was harvested, rendering the timber as resilient and unyielding as granite.
Night had fallen just moments after their arrival, and the village had transformed. The cobblestone streets, still damp from a brief evening shower, reflected the light of hundreds of lanterns that hung from eaves and posts, casting a warm, golden glow over everything. The air was thick with the lively sounds of a night market—the sizzle of street food, the energetic calls of merchants, the murmur of a hundred conversations, and the distant strumming of a lute from a nearby inn.
Fulan and Fayrouz moved through the throng, the river of people parting around them. Fayrouz had donned her blue shawl again, though this time she wore it draped loosely around her neck, its end trailing gently behind her.
"Walking from here will take a full day," Fulan mused, his eyes scanning the various wagons and carts being loaded for travel. "If we want to make the exam registration, we need to find transport tonight."
"A carriage or a fast wagon," Fayrouz agreed, her own blue eyes, no longer hidden, calmly assessing their surroundings. They seemed to drink in the light, holding a depth that made them stand out even in the crowded street. Her gaze then shifted to Fulan, her expression turning analytical. "By the way," she began, her tone quiet yet impossible to ignore, "what was that earlier?"
"What do you mean?" Fulan asked, his attention still on a merchant haggling loudly over the price of embroidered silks.
"Your Minma particles," she stated, her voice dropping lower. "During the fight, they changed. They shifted from being completely colorless to a brilliant white, and now… they are colorless again. I have never seen anything like it. Everyone in this world has a Minma of a distinct, singular color that defines them. Yet yours… it is like you have no color at all."
Fulan stopped and turned to her, a playful, slightly evasive smirk on his face. "Are you spying on me? That sounds a little… perverse."
Fayrouz's expression remained unchanged. "How so?"
"Well, monitoring the very particles in my blood and veins without my permission," he said with a soft chuckle, "sounds just a bit intrusive, don't you think?"
"That is a commendable attempt to change the subject," she replied coolly, her point made and his deflection noted.
Before she could press him further, a raw, guttural roar of pure anguish and rage ripped through the cheerful atmosphere of the market.
"—YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED HER!"
The market's lively hum died instantly. Conversations halted, and people turned as one toward the source of the shout. The crowd instinctively parted, creating a wide, tense circle in the middle of the street. In the center of this ring, under the golden glow of a swinging lantern, stood two men.
One was a swordsman, lean and tall, with a massive, claymore-style sword strapped to his back. His face was impassive, his posture relaxed, as if he were merely waiting for a tardy acquaintance. The other man was his opposite in every way: a mountain of muscle with a thick, unkempt beard and eyes red-rimmed with grief. A colossal, double-headed battle axe was slung across his back.
It was the bearded man who had roared. His entire body trembled with fury, his massive fists clenched at his sides. "I told you she wasn't ready! I told you she was too reckless! You were the veteran, Valerius! You should have chained her to a tree if you had to, but you let her follow you!"
The swordsman, Valerius, met the man's fury with an unnerving calm. "Mira made her own choice, Borin," he said, his voice flat, utterly devoid of emotion. "I never asked her to come. Death is a shadow that walks beside every adventurer. We all knew that. She knew it. You knew it. I feel no regret for a risk she chose to take herself."
That final, cold statement was the spark that ignited the powder keg. A broken, animalistic sound tore from Borin's throat.
"No… regret?"
With a speed that defied his immense size, he reached back and his hand closed around the haft of his battle axe. The moment his fingers touched the weapon, its twin heads began to glow, first a dull cherry, then a searing, molten red. Heat radiated from it in visible waves, distorting the air around it. The crowd gasped and scrambled back even further.
"I will teach you the meaning of regret!" Borin bellowed, swinging the massive, glowing weapon from his back.
He raised the axe high, the incandescent metal poised to cleave the indifferent swordsman in two.
But before the blow could fall, a flash of white light cut through the golden street.
Fulan was suddenly there. He moved so fast he seemed to teleport, appearing between the two men in an instant. His faint white aura pulsed once, a silent testament to his explosive speed. He stood with his back to the swordsman, his body a solid, unmovable barrier, facing the enraged Borin. Fulan's eyes were not angry, nor were they afraid. They were utterly steady, a calm and silent command to stop.
In the exact same moment, Fayrouz's hand went to the blue shawl at her neck. It stirred as if alive, and from it, twin ribbons of brilliant cerulean energy shot forth. They moved with impossible speed and precision, wrapping themselves around the glowing red axe head just as it began its descent.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
There was no clang of impact, only the sharp, hissing sizzle of fire meeting water. The molten red of the axe clashed violently with the cool, binding blue of Fayrouz's ribbons. Steam plumed where the two energies met. The axe, a weapon of unstoppable, furious momentum, was frozen in mid-air, held fast just feet from Fulan's face.
The market was dead silent. All eyes were locked on the impossible tableau: the grieving giant, his face a mask of rage; the glowing red axe, trembling with contained power; the unyielding boy in white, who had appeared from nowhere; and the ethereal blue ribbons, a leash of pure control. And in the background, the swordsman Valerius hadn't even flinched, his cold, detached eyes watching the scene unfold with nothing more than a flicker of mild curiosity.
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