Three days after Korrin's detention, the war changed.
Not obviously.
Not dramatically.
Just... shifted.
Kurogane felt it first.
Day 31 – 0400 Hours
He woke without alarm.
Not from nightmare.
From wrongness.
Lightning was agitated.
Not panicked.
Alert.
Something's different.
What?
I don't know. But it's wrong.
Kurogane dressed quickly.
Moved through predawn corridors to the tactical monitoring station.
Empty at this hour.
He activated the displays.
All four fronts.
Northern. Western. Eastern. Central.
Status: Holding.
Casualty rates: Moderate.
Enemy pressure: Standard.
Nothing unusual.
But lightning insisted.
Look deeper.
He pulled attack pattern analysis.
Last seventy-two hours.
Since Korrin's removal.
And there—
Subtle.
Almost invisible.
But present.
Enemy coordination had decreased.
Not collapsed.
Decreased.
As if—
Kurogane felt cold.
As if someone had stopped feeding them information.
But that should mean pressure reduced.
Victories easier.
Casualties down.
Instead—
He pulled deeper metrics.
Enemy tactics had changed.
Not coordinated strikes anymore.
Something else.
Probing.
Testing.
Searching.
For what?
Kurogane didn't know.
But lightning's unease was contagious.
0630 Hours – Emergency Alert
The alarm woke half the academy.
Not drill.
Real.
PRIORITY ALERT – EASTERN FRONT
ANOMALOUS ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED
CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN
THREAT LEVEL: UNDETERMINED
Kurogane reached tactical command as Mizuki and Masako arrived.
Valen was already there.
Face grim.
"What is it?" Mizuki asked.
"We don't know," Valen replied.
He activated the display.
Eastern Front. Seris's recon corridor.
And at the center—
A distortion.
Not physical.
Elemental.
Like space itself was... wrong.
"When did this appear?" Masako asked.
"Eighteen minutes ago," Valen said. "Reconnaissance units detected energy fluctuation. Then this."
The distortion pulsed.
Slow.
Deliberate.
"It's growing," an analyst reported. "Expanding approximately 2 meters per minute."
"Evacuate the area," Valen ordered.
"Already underway. But—"
The analyst hesitated.
"But what?" Masako demanded.
"Units near the distortion are reporting... effects."
"What kind?"
"Elemental disruption. Fire won't ignite. Water won't flow. Earth becomes brittle. Wind stalls."
Silence.
"That's not possible," Mizuki said.
"It's happening," the analyst replied.
Lightning coiled tight.
That's not normal combat.
No.
What is it?
Kurogane stared at the distortion.
At wrongness made visible.
I don't know.
But it's connected to everything else.
"Pull historical data," he said. "Any similar phenomena. Any records of elemental disruption like this."
Analysts moved immediately.
Valen looked at him.
"You have a theory?" he asked.
"A suspicion," Kurogane replied. "Korrin was manipulating the war. Feeding information to enemy forces. To pressure my deployment."
"Yes."
"But what if that wasn't the real purpose?" Kurogane continued. "What if pressure was secondary?"
"To what primary objective?" Masako asked.
Kurogane gestured at the distortion.
"To this," he said. "Whatever this is."
Mizuki understood first.
"The war was distraction," she said quietly.
"Or preparation," Kurogane replied.
"For what?" Valen demanded.
An analyst interrupted.
"Historical match found," she said. Voice shaking slightly. "One instance. Documented 12,000 years ago."
Everyone turned.
"During the Sealing," the analyst continued. "When the original Kurogane—the Darkness Emperor—was contained."
She pulled archived records.
Ancient text. Fragmented. Barely legible.
But one passage clear:
Before the seal completed, the emperor's power tested boundaries. Seeking weakness. Probing for escape. Elemental law destabilized in proximity to the attempt.
Silence crashed down.
"No," Valen said. "That's not possible. The seal has held for 12,000 years—"
"Has it?" Kurogane interrupted.
Everyone looked at him.
"Has the seal held?" he repeated. "Or has it been weakening? And someone knew?"
Lightning pulsed urgently.
The manipulation.
The war.
The pressure.
Not about me.
About the seal.
"Korrin fed information to enemy forces," Kurogane said slowly. "Enemy forces attacked our fronts. We deployed resources. Spread ourselves thin. Got exhausted."
"And?" Masako pressed.
"And exhausted defenses don't just mean military vulnerability," Kurogane continued. "They mean elemental drain. Power distributed across four fronts. Weakened everywhere."
"You're saying," Mizuki said carefully, "that the war was designed to drain elemental energy. To weaken the world's defenses."
"Against what?" Valen demanded.
Kurogane looked at the distortion.
"Against that," he said. "Against whatever's trying to break through."
"The seal," Masako whispered.
"Yes."
Another alert.
Louder.
SECONDARY DISTORTION DETECTED – NORTHERN FRONT
TERTIARY DISTORTION DETECTED – WESTERN FRONT
CENTRAL OPERATIONS REPORTING ANOMALOUS READINGS
The tactical display lit up.
Four points.
One at each front.
All expanding.
All identical to the first.
"Four distortions," an analyst reported. "Simultaneous manifestation. Coordinates correspond to—"
She stopped.
Face pale.
"Correspond to what?" Valen demanded.
"Ancient sites," she whispered. "Documented in pre-Collapse archives. Called..."
She pulled the reference.
"Called the Four Pillars of Confinement."
Lightning surged.
The seal isn't one thing.
It's distributed.
Four anchors.
And someone's attacking all four simultaneously.
"Evacuate all fronts," Valen ordered. "Maximum priority. Get everyone away from those distortions—"
"Sir," another analyst interrupted. "Enemy forces are moving. All fronts. Converging on distortion sites."
"They're protecting them," Mizuki said.
"Or facilitating them," Masako corrected.
Valen turned to Kurogane.
"You're Strategic Reserve," he said. "This is beyond standard deployment. This is—"
"The reason Strategic Reserve exists," Kurogane finished.
Lightning coiled.
We have to stop this.
Four sites.
Four distortions.
Four fronts.
"I can't be in four places at once," Kurogane said.
"Then choose one," Valen replied. "We'll send conventional forces to the others—"
"That won't work," Masako interrupted. "If these distortions disrupt elemental function, conventional forces become ineffective near them."
"Then what?" Valen demanded.
Kurogane looked at the tactical display.
At four points of wrongness spreading across the world.
At the pattern finally visible.
At the war that had never been about territory or resources or even manipulation.
Just distraction.
While something ancient tested its prison.
"We need the others," he said.
"What others?" Valen asked.
"The five," Kurogane replied. "The elemental representatives. From the Evaluation."
"They're deployed—"
"Recall them," Kurogane interrupted. "All of them. If the Four Pillars are failing, we need concentrated elemental response. Not distributed defense."
"That abandons the fronts—"
"The fronts don't matter!" Kurogane snapped. "This is what matters. Everything else was theater."
Silence.
Valen exchanged glances with Masako and Mizuki.
Finally nodded.
"Issue recall orders," he said. "Priority override. All five elemental representatives return to academy immediately."
"And then?" Mizuki asked.
Kurogane looked at the distortions.
At wrongness spreading.
At the seal that had held 12,000 years.
Beginning to fail.
"Then we find whoever's behind this," he said. "And we stop them."
"How?"
"I don't know yet," Kurogane admitted.
Lightning pulsed.
But we're about to find out.
The tactical displays updated.
Distortions expanding.
Enemy forces converging.
Recall orders transmitted.
And somewhere—
Beyond sight, beyond reach, beyond 12,000 years of confinement—
Something ancient felt the weakening.
Felt the world's exhaustion.
Felt the moment approaching.
The seal wasn't breaking yet.
But it was testing.
Learning.
Preparing.
For the day when four pillars fell.
When exhaustion became opportunity.
When lightning would face not manipulation.
Not politics.
Not choice.
But the reason it had been feared for 12,000 years.
The pattern no one saw.
Until too late.