Sora’s first steps were not as dramatic as he expected.
After everything Yuki had told him, part of Sora expected standing to feel impossible. It did not.
Ryota watched from the chair with a piece of bread halfway to his mouth. “Disappointing.”
Sora looked at him. “What is?”
“I thought you were going to fall.”
“That would have made you happy?”
“No. But it would have made breakfast more interesting.”
Lars frowned from the other side of the room. “Don’t encourage him to fall.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Sora said, taking another careful step. “At least not before lunch.”
Yuki stayed close enough to catch him, pretending not to hover and failing almost immediately.
He took several more steps across the room, then turned back toward the bed.
Nothing inside him felt foreign. There was fatigue, soreness in his hand, and the hollow drag of too much sleep, but no voice, no pressure, no darkness answering beneath his thoughts.
Sora exhaled slowly.
“I should probably visit the king,” he said.
Yuki’s expression sharpened immediately. “You just woke up.”
“I know.”
“You just ate.”
“I also know that.”
Ryota leaned back in his chair. “He has a point. If he waits too long, they’ll send someone less polite than the last official.”
“The last official was not polite,” Yuki said.
“That is exactly why I said less polite.”
Lars looked at Sora carefully. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
Sora glanced toward the door. Somewhere beyond it, Radiance Castle was already moving through another morning, full of officials, healers, guards, reports, and decisions being made by people who needed answers from survivors before the survivors had finished understanding what they had lived through. He did not want to go. He wanted to sit with Mars Guild a little longer and pretend the only important thing in the world was warm food and the fact that his friends were close enough to argue with.
But the blank space in his memory waited behind his eyes.
Renjiro’s scythe had cut him. Corruption had taken him. Then he had returned.
If that meant something, Shadis needed to know.
“I’m sure enough,” Sora said.
Yuki did not like that answer, but she did not stop him.
They walked together through the castle halls a few minutes later, not quickly, though Sora suspected that had more to do with Ryota than with him. Ryota’s chest wound forced him to move at a measured pace, no matter how hard he tried to cover it with casual smirks and lazy comments. Lars stayed beside him without making it obvious he was adjusting his stride. Yuki walked on Sora’s other side, quiet and sharp-eyed, watching every passing official as if one wrong word would be enough to freeze the corridor.
Sora kept his attention forward.
Radiance Castle looked as bright as ever, but the people inside it moved differently now. Guards watched harder. Officials spoke lower. The kingdom had not stopped functioning, but tension lived beneath the polish.
When they reached the hall outside the private meeting room, a guard stepped forward and opened the door before Sora even spoke.
Sora paused.
Ryota’s smirk faded slightly. Lars’s eyes narrowed. Yuki’s expression became cold.
“They knew I was coming,” Sora said.
Yuki looked ready to say something, but Sora lifted his hand slightly before she could. “It’s fine.”
“It is not fine,” she said quietly.
“No,” Sora admitted. “But I’m already here.”
Lars placed a hand on his shoulder for one brief second. “We’ll wait outside.”
Ryota nodded. “Take your time.”
Yuki did not move right away. Her eyes stayed on the open door, then shifted to Sora. “If they push too hard, leave.”
Sora almost smiled. “That is not how meetings with kings work.”
“It is how this one works.”
There was enough steel in her voice that even the guard looked away.
Sora nodded once, then stepped through the doorway alone.
A long table filled the chamber, maps and reports arranged across it beneath softened morning light. King Shadis sat at the head with the unreadable calm of someone who had already heard too many terrible things.
Kaito Ishiro stood to one side of the table, arms folded loosely, his face still marked by exhaustion he was too disciplined to show fully. Near him stood Yumi Kurosawa, hands clasped tightly in front of her. Her pink eyes flicked toward Sora, then toward Shadis, then toward the woman standing near a set of shelves filled with medical records and sealed glass containers.
Sora had never met that woman before.
He knew it immediately.
She stood out even among the people in the room. Long red hair spilled over her shoulders in smooth waves, vivid against the dark fabric of her fitted healer’s coat. Her eyes were red as well, sharp and bright behind small circle-rimmed glasses that caught the light whenever she tilted her head. She did not carry herself like the exhausted healers Sora had seen in recovery rooms. There was no frantic edge to her now, no hurried motion, no visible weight of triage and blood and dying patients. Whatever stress had controlled her in the healer hall had been set aside, revealing something far more composed.
Her smile curved slowly when she saw him.
Daisuke and Mirei stood near the table with writing boards already prepared.
Sora crossed the room and knelt.
The motion made his healing body protest faintly, but he kept his posture steady. He lowered his head because, whatever else this meeting was, Shadis was still the king.
“Rise,” Shadis said.
The command came calmly, without harshness.
Sora stood.
Shadis studied him for several seconds, and Sora suddenly became aware of every breath he took.
“How are you feeling?” Shadis asked.
“Good,” Sora said, then corrected himself because the answer felt too casual. “Better than I expected. Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Shadis nodded once. “That is good to hear.”
The red-haired woman stepped slightly closer, her eyes never leaving him. Sora resisted the urge to take a half-step back.
“Sora Ayanami,” Shadis said, “this is Mariah, Radiance’s main healer and our lead researcher on corruption.”
Mariah placed one hand lightly against her chest and inclined her head. “A pleasure.”
Her voice was smooth and controlled, the kind of voice that made simple words feel carefully chosen. Sora immediately understood why Yumi looked nervous around her. Mariah did not seem threatening in the obvious way Kaito did or in the royal way Shadis did. Her danger was quieter. It sat in the way her gaze lingered, in the way her smile suggested she had already imagined twelve different theories about him and was patiently deciding which one to test first.
Mariah’s eyes drifted down his arms, then back to his face. “You are a remarkable anomaly.”
Sora blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Yumi made a small strangled sound beside Kaito. “M-Mariah…”
Mariah’s smile widened slightly. “Scientifically speaking, of course.”
Shadis’s expression remained steady. “Mariah examined you while you were unconscious. She confirmed there were no visible traces of corruption remaining in your body.”
Sora looked back at Mariah.
She adjusted her glasses with one finger. “No lingering external corruption. No obvious spiritual distortion while you slept. Your body recovered remarkably well, though I suspect your adaptation ability assisted with that. I would have liked to observe the process more closely while it was happening, but unfortunately, you did most of the interesting work while unconscious.”
Sora glanced toward Yumi.
Yumi looked like she wanted to apologize already.
Shadis rested both hands on the table. “For now, tell us everything you remember.”
Daisuke and Mirei lifted their pens almost in perfect unison. Mirei noticed Daisuke doing it and narrowed her eyes slightly. Daisuke wrote the date at the top of his paper with unnecessary speed.
Sora drew in a slow breath. “I remember Renjiro. I remember the Hell Scythe cutting me. It was not like a normal wound. I felt something enter me through the cut. Not just energy. It felt like something opened inside me.”
Mariah’s expression changed immediately. The smile remained, but the curiosity behind it sharpened into focus.
Sora continued. “It was cold. Heavy. Wrong. I remember Yuki being there. I remember knowing I needed to move, but my body did not feel like it belonged completely to me anymore. After that, everything is blank.”
“Nothing from when you attacked Yuki?” Shadis asked.
Sora’s jaw tightened. “Nothing.”
“No voices?” Mariah asked. “No impressions? No images? No urges? No sense of being trapped somewhere while your body moved without you?”
“No,” Sora said. “There is nothing. One moment I was there, and the next I woke up in the healer room.”
“Do you feel anything now?” Shadis asked. “Any lingering darkness, foreign spiritual pressure, violent impulse, or awareness that does not belong to you?”
Sora shook his head. “I feel normal.”
Mariah hummed softly.
Sora did not like the sound.
“Normal is a lovely word,” she said. “Very comforting. Very unreliable.”
Yumi’s shoulders tightened. “M-Mariah…”
“I’m not accusing him of lying,” Mariah said, not looking away from Sora. “I believe he is telling us exactly how he feels. The trouble is that corruption has never been known for respecting how people feel.”
Sora held her gaze. “So you think it could still be there?”
“I think,” Mariah said, “that when history presents me with its first impossible case, I would be foolish to trust a surface reading and call the matter settled.”
Shadis nodded faintly. “Which is why we will confirm over time.”
Sora’s eyes moved back to the king.
Shadis’s voice remained measured. “You are not being imprisoned. You are not being treated as an enemy. But Radiance must understand what happened to you.”
The tension in Sora’s shoulders eased slightly.
Kaito spoke for the first time. “When Yuki stopped you, what happened?”
Sora looked toward him. The quietness of Kaito’s voice somehow made the question feel more important than if he had demanded an answer.
“She froze me,” Sora said. “That is what she told me. She stopped my body before the corruption fully took over.”
Mariah’s fingers paused against her glasses.
The whole room felt as if it leaned toward the answer.
Sora continued carefully. “I do not remember that part. But Yuki said she froze me deeply enough that I stopped moving. Muscles, joints, maybe more. She thinks that might be why it faded. I think my adaptation may have helped too, but I do not know.”
Mariah’s red eyes brightened.
“That,” she said softly, “is very interesting.”
Mirei began writing faster. Daisuke noticed and immediately tried to match her pace.
Mariah turned toward Shadis, the playful edge slipping from her voice as her mind clearly moved into theory. “It may not be a cure.”
Shadis looked at her. “Explain.”
“Reversion,” Mariah said. “That is the safer term. If Sora was knocked unconscious before the corruption fully took root, then it may not have had enough time to bind itself completely to his mind and spiritual system.”
Yumi swallowed. “B-Because corruption feeds on the mind?”
Mariah’s eyes flicked toward her. “Exactly.”
Yumi looked both relieved and terrified that she had spoken correctly.
Mariah continued, pacing slowly beside the table now. “We have always known corruption attacks more than the body. It alters perception, emotion, memory, identity, and impulse. It feeds through the mind until the person becomes less a person and more a vessel for destructive instinct. If the mind is the primary pathway, then interrupting consciousness before full takeover could halt the spread.”
Sora listened in silence.
Mariah’s gaze returned to him. “Stopping the mind stops the spread. Not permanently in every case, I imagine, and certainly not if the corruption has already rooted too deeply. But early enough…” Her smile returned, smaller this time and far more dangerous because of the hope hidden inside it. “Early enough, the body may reject what never finished claiming it.”
Shadis looked toward Kaito.
Kaito’s expression had grown heavier. “That changes how we fight corrupted people.”
“It may,” Shadis said.
Kaito’s eyes narrowed slightly, thought moving behind them. “If an adventurer is corrupted in battle, killing them may not be the only option. Not immediately.”
Mariah lifted one finger. “Careful. That window may be extremely short. Seconds. Minutes. We do not know. The strength of the source matters as well. Renjiro’s Hell Scythe may operate differently depending on the victim’s resistance, injury, spiritual energy, or mental state. Sora’s adaptation ability may make him unique. Yuki freezing him may have slowed the spread in a way most teams cannot replicate.”
Yumi clasped her hands tighter. “B-But it means there is a chance.”
Not certainty. Not salvation. But a crack in a wall everyone had believed absolute.
Mariah’s expression softened by a fraction. “Yes. It means there may be a chance. For early cases.”
“And for stronger cases?” Shadis asked.
Mariah’s gaze lowered slightly.
Everyone knew who he meant without saying her name.
“Suzu Nozomi was far beyond what we are discussing,” Mariah said. “If a person has been corrupted for years, if their mind, power, body, and instincts have already been reshaped, unconsciousness alone would not likely revert them. At that point, corruption is not invading the house. It owns the foundation.”
Yumi looked down.
Kaito said nothing.
Sora understood why the answer hurt.
Shadis’s gaze returned to him. “Sora Ayanami, you are the first person in recorded history to return from corruption.”
Sora did not know what to say to that.
The words should have made him feel important. Instead they made him feel like a door had opened beneath his feet. First person in recorded history did not sound like praise. It sounded like standing somewhere no one had mapped yet, with everyone watching to see whether the ground collapsed.
Mariah noticed his discomfort immediately.
“How does it feel,” she asked, voice smooth again, “to become the world’s most important survivor?”
Sora stared at her. “Uncomfortable.”
“How honest. I like that.”
Yumi’s face reddened with secondhand panic. “M-Mariah, please d-don’t phrase it like that.”
Mariah looked amused. “How should I phrase it?”
“N-Not like you want to claim him for research.”
Mariah looked back at Sora.
Sora’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you?”
“Only with your permission, of course.”
“That is only slightly better.”
“It is much better.”
Shadis spoke, his tone calm but final. “No examination or research will be done without Sora’s consent.”
The words settled the matter instantly.
Mariah inclined her head without protest. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
Sora believed her, strangely enough. She was unsettling, but not careless. Whatever hunger lived behind her curiosity, she did not seem like someone who needed to break rules to be dangerous. That almost made it worse.
Shadis looked back at Sora. “Would you consent to further examination today?”
Sora hesitated.
Mariah watched him with terrifying patience.
“Not today,” he said.
Shadis nodded. “Then not today.”
Mariah sighed softly, as if disappointed but accepting. “A pity. I will simply have to admire the anomaly from a respectful distance.”
Sora looked at Kaito. “Is she always like this?”
Kaito’s expression remained serious, but there was a trace of tired resignation in his eyes. “Yes.”
Yumi nodded quickly, then seemed to regret agreeing so openly. “S-Sometimes worse.”
Mariah smiled. “You wound me.”
Yumi did not look convinced.
Shadis allowed the brief shift in mood to pass before returning the meeting to its purpose. “Sora, what you have told us will remain restricted for now. The public will not know the details of your condition.”
“Good,” Sora said.
“Return to Mars Guild,” Shadis continued. “Rest. Eat. Recover. If you experience anything unusual, report it immediately to Mariah, Yumi, Kaito, or myself.”
Sora nodded. “Understood.”
Shadis’s expression softened slightly, not enough to make him seem less like a king, but enough for Sora to feel the difference. “Thank you for coming so soon after waking. I know you were owed more time.”
Sora thought of the official in the healer room and resisted the urge to comment. “You needed to know.”
“I did,” Shadis said. “But that does not make the burden yours alone.”
For some reason, that answer struck deeper than Sora expected.
He bowed his head. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Kaito stepped forward as Sora turned to leave. He did not say much. That almost made the words matter more.
“You did well surviving,” Kaito said.
Sora looked back at him.
Kaito’s face remained steady. “Do not let anyone make survival feel like something you need to apologize for.”
Sora’s throat tightened before he could stop it. He gave a small nod. “I’ll try.”
Yumi moved closer as he reached the door, still twisting her fingers together nervously. “I-I’m sorry about Mariah.”
Mariah called from across the room, “I can hear you.”
Yumi flinched. “I-I know.”
Sora glanced between them and, despite everything, almost laughed. “It’s fine.”
“It r-really isn’t,” Yumi whispered.
Mariah’s voice followed him one last time, smooth and bright enough to make his shoulders stiffen. “Rest well, Sora. I would hate for Radiance’s most important patient to overexert himself before we understand what happened.”
Sora stopped with his hand on the door.
He turned back slowly. “That is still a strange goodbye.”
Mariah smiled.
Yumi covered part of her face with both hands.
Even Daisuke looked briefly unsure whether he should write the sentence down. Mirei, unfortunately, already had.
Sora left before anyone could make the meeting stranger.
Outside, Lars, Yuki, and Ryota were waiting exactly where they had said they would be. Yuki stood first when the door opened, her eyes immediately searching his face for signs of trouble. Lars looked over his shoulder from where he leaned against the wall, and Ryota pushed away from the opposite side with a faint wince he failed to hide.
“Well?” Ryota asked.
Sora looked at all three of them.
Then he exhaled. “Mariah is terrifying.”
Yuki nodded once. “Yes.”
“You knew that?”
“Everyone knows that.”
Lars studied him. “Are you all right?”
Sora thought about the word first. He thought about corruption, reversion, time limits, examinations, and being the first person in recorded history to return from something no one returned from. Then he looked at his guild standing around him in the hallway.
“For now,” he said.
Ryota smirked. “Good enough.”
Together, they started back down the hall.
Inside the meeting room, silence lingered after the door closed.
Shadis remained seated at the head of the table, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular as the weight of what they had learned settled over the room. Daisuke and Mirei continued writing for several seconds before realizing no one else was speaking. Their pens slowed, then stopped.
Kaito looked toward Mariah. “How certain are you?”
Mariah’s playful expression faded. What remained was sharper, colder, and far more honest. “Certain? Not very. The theory is sound based on what little we know, but one case does not create a law. Sora’s adaptation may have done half the work. Yuki’s ice may have done more than she realizes. Renjiro’s scythe may have failed to complete the process because the timing was interrupted.” She looked down at the notes on the table. “There are too many unknowns.”
“But it happened,” Yumi said softly.
Mariah glanced at her.
Yumi’s stutter did not come this time. Her voice was quiet, but steady. “He came back.”
The room absorbed that truth.
Shadis leaned back slightly in his chair. “Then corruption is not as absolute as history believed.”
“Early corruption,” Mariah corrected. “Possibly.”
Kaito’s expression darkened. “How many people have been killed before anyone knew that?”
There was no answer that could make the question lighter.
The silence that followed was not hopeful, exactly. Hope was too clean a word for something built from years of graves, executions, mercy denied because mercy had seemed impossible, and corrupted victims put down before anyone understood there might have been seconds in which they could still return. But beneath that silence, something had shifted.
A terrible possibility had entered the room.
Mariah removed her glasses and cleaned them slowly with a cloth from her pocket, though they did not need cleaning. “We should be careful what we call this. Give people too much hope, and they will hesitate when hesitation gets them killed. Give them none, and we may keep killing people who could have been saved.”
Shadis nodded once. “Then for now, it remains restricted.”
Kaito looked toward the closed door. “Sora becomes important whether he wants to or not.”
“Yes,” Shadis said. “And that means we protect him from more than corruption.”
Yumi’s hands tightened. “From people?”
Shadis did not look at her when he answered.
“Especially from people.”
Mars Guild returned to their dorm with a goal none of them said aloud until the door was closed.
The walk back from the meeting room had been quiet. Sora moved better than he should have for someone who had only woken up that morning, but everyone could tell he was measuring each step carefully.
By the time they reached the Mars Guild dorm, the sunlight had shifted across the castle windows, warm and bright enough to make the hallway look peaceful. Lars opened the door, waited for the others to enter, then stepped inside last and closed it firmly behind them.
The dorm looked the way they had left it before Oceanside.
Mars Guild’s dorm was a clean mess, the kind of room that proved its occupants tried to stay organized and failed in predictable ways. Training gear had been placed against the wall in neat piles that somehow still managed to spill outward. Yuki’s folded clothes sat perfectly arranged on one chair, while Sora’s spare jacket hung over the back of another as if he had thrown it there with the confidence of someone who fully intended to move it later and never did. Lars’s weapon maintenance tools were lined up neatly on the table, though small bits of metal had rolled into places they did not belong. Ryota’s things were mostly packed already because he claimed unpacking was a waste of time, though everyone knew he simply liked being able to leave quickly.
The room smelled faintly of leather, steel, cold air from Yuki’s gear, and the ordinary life they had been living before the world reminded them how quickly ordinary could be taken away.
Sora walked to the center of the common room and stopped.
Lars leaned back against the door. Ryota lowered himself onto the couch with a slow breath he covered by stretching his arms along the backrest. Yuki remained standing near the window, arms crossed, her gaze moving once across each of them before returning to Sora.
Sora stared down at his bandaged hand, flexing his fingers once. After a moment, he looked up.
“We’re leaving Radiance tonight.”
Ryota’s eyes shifted toward him.
Yuki’s expression hardened immediately.
Lars did not look surprised.
Sora noticed that first. “You were thinking the same thing.”
Lars nodded. “Yes.”
Ryota let out a small breath through his nose. “That was fast.”
“It wasn’t fast,” Sora said. “We were already behind. Coastal Kingdom just proved it.”
Yuki’s jaw tightened. “You woke up this morning.”
“I remember.”
Sora’s expression flickered, but he did not look away. “That part is why I’m saying this.”
The room went quiet again.
Yuki did not answer immediately. She looked toward the door, then toward the hall beyond it as if she could still feel the weight of the castle around them. “They did not tell you that you were cleared to leave.”
“They also did not tell me I couldn’t.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Sora admitted. “It isn’t.”
Ryota leaned forward slightly, his smirk gone now. “You know what this looks like, right? We leave the same day you wake up, after Shadis questions you, after Mariah decides you are the most interesting person in the kingdom?”
Sora looked at him. “It looks like we have survival instincts.”
“It looks like we are running.”
“That too.”
Yuki’s eyes narrowed. “So you admit it.”
Sora turned toward her. “Yes.”
That answer stopped her for a moment.
He let the silence hold before continuing. “I do not want to stay here and wait for every official in Radiance to decide what I am. I do not want to wake up tomorrow with Mariah standing over my bed talking about surface readings and remarkable anomalies.”
Ryota’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I would pay to see your face if that happened.”
“I would not.”
“She would probably ask permission first,” Lars said.
“That does not comfort me,” Sora replied. “She could ask very politely while already holding a clipboard.”
Yuki’s expression did not soften, but something in her eyes shifted. She understood the joke for what it was: a thin cover over real discomfort. Sora did not scare easily. Not in the normal way. He could be arrogant, reckless, sharp-tongued, and far too willing to test danger just to see where its limits were. But the meeting with Mariah had unsettled him. Not because she had threatened him. She had not. That was almost the problem. She had respected every boundary and still made him feel like his existence had become a question the kingdom would keep asking until it found an answer.
Sora looked toward the window, where Radiance gleamed beyond the glass.
“If we stay, they tell us to rest. Recover. Wait. They keep us where they can watch us, because that is the smart thing to do.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But waiting will not make us stronger.”
Lars pushed away from the door. “He is right.”
Yuki looked at him. “You support this?”
“I was thinking it before he said it.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“It is not supposed to.” Lars folded his arms. “We were not ready.”
Lars continued, his voice steady but edged with something rougher underneath. “We were strong enough to survive parts of that battle, but not enough to control it or change the end of it. If we stay here, everyone will tell us survival was enough.”
Yuki looked down.
Survival had become a word adults kept handing them like it should weigh less than failure.
Sora walked toward the table where Lars’s metal tools sat arranged in clean rows. He picked up one small piece of polished scrap, turned it between his fingers, then set it down again. “The wild mountain dungeons on the northern ridge.”
Ryota’s brows lifted. “You want to go there?”
“Yes.”
“You mean the unmanaged ones?”
“Yes.”
“The unrated ones?”
“Yes.”
“The ones that every guild instructor, official, senior adventurer, and person with a working brain says not to enter?”
Sora looked at him. “Those are the ones.”
Ryota leaned back. “Great. Just making sure we were discussing the same terrible idea.”
Yuki’s voice sharpened. “Those dungeons could be SSS-ranked and no one would know.”
“That is the point,” Sora said.
“That is not a point. That is a warning.”
“It can be both.”
Yuki stared at him, frustration broke through the exhaustion on her face. “You are not fully recovered.”
“I can walk.”
“That is a low standard.”
“It is the standard I currently meet.”
“Sora.”
He stopped joking then.
The change was subtle but immediate. His shoulders squared, and the arrogance he usually wore like armor faded into something quieter.
“I know,” he said. “I know I just woke up. I know Ryota is injured. I know you are exhausted. I know Lars is running on anger and discipline and probably nothing else. I know leaving Radiance tonight is stupid.”
Ryota raised a finger. “Extremely stupid.”
Sora ignored him. “But we are not going there to die. We are going because no one else can make us into what we need to become quickly or safely enough.”
Yuki’s hands curled against her sleeves.
Sora looked directly at her. “Adults train people carefully because they are trying to preserve them. That is good. That is normal. But normal training will not prepare us for Renjiro. It will not prepare us for Tsubasa. It will not prepare us for whatever Eclipsed Abyss throws next.”
Lars nodded once. “The mountains will.”
“They might kill us,” Yuki said.
Ryota gave a small shrug. “So could staying weak.”
Yuki turned her glare on him. “You are not allowed to agree while pretending your chest does not hurt.”
“My chest barely hurts.”
“You breathe like an old door.”
Ryota looked offended. “That was specific.”
“And accurate.”
Sora glanced between them. “This is why we need supplies.”
Yuki’s attention snapped back to him. “You planned this already.”
“I started planning it during the walk back.”
“That was ten minutes ago.”
“I think quickly when afraid.”
Ryota smirked faintly. “Afraid of dungeons or Mariah?”
“Mariah.”
No one laughed as much as they should have, but Ryota’s smirk widened, and even Lars looked like the answer had landed somewhere close to humor.
Yuki sighed, pressing one hand to her forehead. “I do not agree with this.”
Sora nodded. “I know.”
“I think you are being reckless.”
“I know.”
“I think if we get caught, Kaito might drag us back himself.”
“That would be bad.”
“Shadis might be worse.”
“Also bad.”
“Mariah might be excited.”
Sora grimaced. “That is why we cannot get caught.”
Yuki lowered her hand and stared at him.
For a long moment, the room held still around them. Then she looked away first, toward the supplies near the far wall, toward her folded clothes, toward the medical kit she had packed before Coastal Kingdom and never finished restocking.
“When?” she asked.
Sora let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. “Three in the morning.”
Lars nodded as if the time had already been chosen in his own mind. “Patrol rotation thins near the lesser west service route around then.”
Ryota looked toward him. “You know that?”
“I pay attention.”
“You say that like the rest of us don’t.”
“You don’t.”
Ryota opened his mouth, then closed it. “Fair.”
Lars moved toward the table and began collecting metal pieces into a pouch. “Two horses.”
Yuki’s brows drew together. “Only two?”
“Four horses draw attention,” Lars said. “Two can be taken from the outer stable without triggering questions immediately, especially if we choose the ones used for short courier routes. They are fast enough, trained enough, and less likely to be missed before dawn.”
Sora looked at him. “You planned this more than I did.”
“I said I was thinking the same thing.”
“Apparently you were thinking crimes.”
“Efficient travel,” Lars corrected.
Ryota nodded. “Borrowing without paperwork.”
Yuki looked at all three of them like she was reconsidering every life choice that had brought her into this guild. “We are stealing horses from Radiance Castle.”
Sora held up his bandaged hand. “Borrowing aggressively.”
“That is not a phrase.”
“It is now.”
Yuki closed her eyes for a moment. “I hate all of you.”
“No you don’t,” Ryota said.
“I am trying.”
“Try harder. We have until three.”
Despite herself, a small breath escaped Yuki that was almost a laugh and almost not. Then she turned toward her things. “Fine. If we are doing this, we are not doing it like idiots.”
Sora looked at Lars. “She says that every time.”
“And every time,” Yuki said, pulling open a drawer, “you give me a reason.”
The dorm shifted into motion.
It was quiet motion, careful and contained. They did not tear through the room with excitement or fear. They packed like adventurers who understood how little time they had and how much depended on not leaving anything obvious behind until it was too late to stop them. Lars took charge of the practical details almost immediately, laying out what they needed on the table: coin, rope, maps, small tools, spare knife, compact cooking kit, flint, water, and metal pieces he could use in emergencies. He packed more metal than anyone else would have considered reasonable, but no one questioned it. His magnetic sword and his ability were only as useful as what the battlefield gave him, and the mountains might not be generous.
Yuki restocked their medical supplies with ruthless focus. Bandages, salve, antiseptic, needle and thread, pain draughts, fever powder, and a roll of cloth she added after glancing once at Ryota’s chest and Sora’s hand. Ryota saw the look.
“I am fine,” he said.
“You are packing light,” she replied. “Not because you are efficient. Because lifting things hurts.”
Ryota paused with one shirt in hand. “That is an aggressive accusation.”
“It is an accurate accusation.”
“I can carry my own pack.”
“You can carry a smaller pack.”
“I refuse to be treated like cargo.”
Sora looked up. “You may end up as cargo if your wound opens.”
Ryota pointed at him. “You do not get to judge anyone’s physical condition today.”
“I walked.”
“Congratulations. Should we clap?”
Lars did not look up from his supplies. “No clapping. Pack faster.”
The faint humor helped, not because anything was funny enough to erase what had happened, but because their voices sounded like themselves again in small pieces: Ryota complaining, Yuki scolding, Sora deflecting fear with ridiculous comments, and Lars turning chaos into a plan.
Sora packed the least: one change of clothes, some coin, and a small ration bundle, with nothing sentimental or unnecessary. His hand hurt every time he tightened a strap, and more than once the bandage pulled against the wound sharply enough to make his fingers stiffen. He hid it badly.
Yuki noticed every time.
“If your hand gets worse, I am freezing it again,” she said.
Sora glanced at her. “That is your answer to most things.”
“It works.”
“You froze my entire body.”
“And look at you now. Alive enough to complain.”
Ryota laughed under his breath.
Sora pointed at him with the strap he had been trying to fasten. “Do not encourage her.”
“I am not encouraging her. I am respecting results.”
Lars finished tying one pouch shut and set it with the rest. “We need food for four days. After that, we hunt, buy, or go hungry.”
“Comforting,” Ryota said.
“We are not taking a carriage. We cannot carry much. The first village past the northern road should have supplies if we need them, but we avoid public stops until morning.”
Yuki looked toward him. “What about patrols outside the city?”
“Light near the service route. Heavier near main gates. If we take the old drainage path past the lower gardens, circle behind the training yard, and reach the outer stable from the east side, no one should see us.”
Sora stared at him.
Ryota did too.
Yuki slowly turned. “Lars.”
“What?”
“How long have you known how to sneak out of Radiance Castle?”
Lars paused for the first time.
Then he resumed packing. “That is not important.”
Ryota’s smirk returned. “It feels important.”
“It is not.”
Sora nodded solemnly. “Our serious planner has a criminal history.”
“I do not.”
“You know secret routes and horse theft logistics.”
“Borrowing logistics,” Lars said.
Yuki pointed at Sora. “Do not spread your phrases.”
“I am leading by example.”
Lars looked at him. “Please don’t.”
They finished packing before sunset, then spent the remaining hours pretending not to wait. That was the hardest part. Leaving immediately would have been reckless even by their standards. The castle was too awake, the halls too full, the stables too watched. So they stayed in the dorm and let time crawl.
Ryota dozed on the couch for an hour and denied it when he woke. Yuki checked the medical kit three different times. Lars reviewed the map until the paper looked like it might resent him. Sora sat near the window, watching Radiance shift from afternoon brightness into evening gold, then into the softer glow of lanterns.
At one point, Sora looked toward the door.
Yuki noticed.
“You want to tell them.”
Sora did not ask who she meant.
“I don’t want them worrying,” he said.
Ryota opened one eye from the couch. “Then disappearing in the middle of the night is a bad plan.”
Sora’s mouth tightened.
Lars looked up from the map. “If we tell them, they may try to stop us.”
“They might,” Sora said.
“They cannot come,” Yuki added, her voice quieter than usual.
“I know.” Sora looked down at his bandaged hand, flexing his fingers once despite the sting. “That is why I should tell them, not ask them.”
Ryota sat up slowly, hiding a wince with a lazy stretch. “That sounds like the kind of decision people make right before being yelled at.”
“Probably.”
“Good luck.”
“You are not coming with me?”
Ryota leaned back again. “I am injured, emotionally exhausted, and very against unnecessary conversations.”
Yuki gave him a flat look.
He stared back. “That was honest.”
Lars folded the map carefully. “Make it quick. If someone else hears, this becomes harder.”
Sora nodded.
He left the Mars Guild dorm alone.
When Sora reached Illumina’s door, he paused with his hand raised.
For a moment, he considered turning back.
Then he knocked softly.
The door opened after a short delay.
Yoshinori stood on the other side, already awake. His expression shifted when he saw Sora, surprise first, then concern.
“Sora?”
Behind him, Aiko looked up from the common room couch. Ryuji sat nearby with one hand resting lightly near his ribs, his posture careful but alert. Itsuki was not in the room. Her door remained closed.
Sora glanced past Yoshinori, then back at him. “Can I come in for a minute?”
Yoshinori stepped aside without asking anything else.
Sora entered and closed the door behind him.
Aiko stood slowly. “You’re leaving.”
Sora looked at her.
It was not a question.
Ryuji’s expression did not change much, but his gaze sharpened. Yoshinori stayed near the door, one hand still close to the latch.
Sora exhaled. “Mars Guild is leaving Radiance tonight.”
Aiko’s face tightened. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
Yoshinori’s eyes narrowed. “Where?”
“The wild mountain dungeons on the northern ridge.”
Ryuji leaned back slightly, and for once, even his calm looked strained. “Those are unmanaged.”
“And unrated,” Aiko said.
Sora nodded. “That is why we are going.”
Yoshinori was quiet for a moment. He looked at Sora’s bandaged hand, then toward the door, then back to Sora’s face. “You woke up this morning.”
“I know.”
“You were corrupted.”
“I know that too.”
“And now you are leaving for dangerous dungeons before anyone can tell you not to.”
Sora’s mouth curved faintly, though there was no real humor behind it. “Pretty much.”
Aiko stepped closer. “Sora.”
“I am not here to ask permission,” Sora said. “I know how this sounds. I know it is reckless. I know we are injured. But staying here will not make us strong enough.”
The words settled between them.
Yoshinori looked away first, toward Shunjiro’s folded clothes. For a second, Sora thought he might argue. Part of him almost wanted Yoshinori to. It would have been easier if someone yelled, if someone told him he was being stupid, if someone tried to turn the decision into a fight. But Yoshinori did not do that.
Instead, he drew in a slow breath.
“I understand.”
Aiko turned toward him. “Yoshinori.”
“I do,” Yoshinori said, though the words clearly cost him. “I do not like it. I think it is dangerous. I think Kaito would drag all of you back by your collars if he found out.” His gaze returned to Sora. “But I understand why you are doing it.”
Sora had not expected the answer to hit as hard as it did.
Ryuji’s voice came calmly from the couch. “We cannot go with you.”
“I know,” Sora said.
“No,” Ryuji said, meeting his eyes. “I mean even if we wanted to, we cannot. Kaito forbade us from leaving Radiance. Shadis will make it official if he has not already. Tetsuo is still asleep. Itsuki…” His voice softened for a fraction of a second before steadying again. “Itsuki cannot leave. And we are not ready.”
Aiko looked down, frustration tightening her hands into fists. “I hate that.”
“So do I,” Yoshinori said.
Sora looked between them. “I am not asking you to come.”
“We know,” Yoshinori replied.
Aiko’s eyes lifted again, sharper now. “Then come back.”
Sora blinked.
Aiko stepped closer, the scar along her face catching the dim lamplight. “You, Lars, Yuki, Ryota. All of you. If you are going to do something this stupid, then get strong and come back alive.”
Ryuji nodded. “No heroic deaths. No disappearing. No making us wonder if another friend is gone somewhere we cannot reach.”
Sora’s throat tightened slightly, but he covered it with a faint smirk. “That sounds demanding.”
“It is,” Aiko said.
Yoshinori took one step closer. His face was serious, tired, and steadier than Sora expected. “When you return, Illumina will be whole again.”
Sora’s smirk faded.
Yoshinori continued. “Shunjiro will be back. Tetsuo will be awake. Itsuki will be with us. And when Mars Guild returns from those mountains, you will not be the only ones stronger.”
Aiko nodded, fierce despite the exhaustion in her eyes. “We are not staying weak either.”
Ryuji’s mouth curved faintly. “We are just being forced to recover first.”
“That is different from quitting,” Yoshinori said.
He nodded once. “Then we will see each other again.”
Yoshinori held out his hand.
Sora stared at it for half a second, surprised.
Then he stepped forward and took it.
The handshake was firm. Yoshinori did not squeeze too hard because of Sora’s injured hand, but he did not treat him like glass either. Sora appreciated that. The gesture carried more weight than either of them could have managed with words.
“Stay alive,” Yoshinori said.
“You too,” Sora replied.
Aiko crossed her arms. “That was included for all of you, in case Mars Guild struggles with basic instructions.”
“We do,” Sora said.
“I know.”
Ryuji smiled faintly. “Good luck, Sora.”
Sora released Yoshinori’s hand and stepped back toward the door. “Thanks.”
Yoshinori opened the door for him.
Before Sora stepped into the hall, he looked back once. Aiko stood beside Ryuji, both of them watching him with the same tired determination. Yoshinori remained by the door, his hand still on the latch. Behind them, the dorm held every absence it had carried before Sora arrived, but now it also held a promise that next time, all of them would be there.
Sora gave a small nod.
Then he left.
When he returned to the Mars Guild dorm, Lars, Yuki, and Ryota were waiting exactly where he had left them.
Ryota opened one eye again. “Did they yell?”
“No.”
“That is unsettling.”
“They told us to stay alive.”
Yuki’s gaze softened slightly. “Good.”
Lars nodded once. “Then we do.”
The hours continued passing.
By midnight, the dorm lamps were low.
By two, the castle had quieted.
By the time the third hour after midnight approached, Mars Guild stood ready.
They wore traveling clothes instead of guild uniforms, darker cloaks pulled around their shoulders to avoid drawing attention in the halls. Their packs were small, tight, and practical. Lars carried the heaviest load without comment. Yuki carried the medical supplies. Ryota carried less than he wanted and more than Yuki preferred. Sora carried his own pack despite the sting in his hand and refused to look proud about it because Yuki was already watching for signs of idiocy.
Sora opened the dorm door first and looked into the empty hall before stepping out.
The others followed.
Radiance Castle at three in the morning felt like a different world. The bright authority of daylight had faded into long corridors of silver shadow and sleeping stone. Lanterns burned low along the walls, their flames steady behind glass. Somewhere far away, a guard’s boots echoed and disappeared. The air held the hush of a place that trusted its walls too much.
Mars moved through that hush carefully.
They did not run. Running drew attention. They walked with purpose when they were visible and slowed near crossings where patrols might pass. Lars guided them through a side corridor behind storage rooms, then down a narrow stairwell that smelled faintly of old dust and cold stone. Ryota moved slower on the stairs, one hand briefly touching the wall whenever his chest pulled too sharply, but he did not stop. Yuki stayed close enough to notice and far enough not to insult him by offering help too quickly.
They passed the lower gardens through a servants’ passage that opened behind a line of trimmed hedges. The night air struck cooler outside, carrying the scent of damp earth and flowers kept alive by careful hands. Above them, the towers of Radiance rose pale beneath the moonlight, beautiful enough to make their escape feel almost ungrateful.
No one stopped to admire it.
Lars led them around the edge of the training yard, keeping to the shadows near the wall. The sanded ground lay empty beneath the moon, practice dummies standing in silent rows like witnesses who had no mouths to call for guards. Sora glanced at them as they passed and thought of training that happened under supervision, under rules, under the assumption that improvement could be controlled.
Then he thought of Suzu, Renjiro, Tsubasa, and Mariah’s quiet conclusion. The mountain dungeons seemed less insane after that.
They reached the outer stable from the east side exactly as Lars said they would. The stable doors were locked, but not heavily. Radiance trusted its own people more than it should have. Lars crouched near the latch and drew a thin strip of metal from his pouch. Ryota leaned beside Sora and whispered, “Definitely criminal history.”
Sora whispered back, “Extensive.”
“I can hear you,” Lars muttered.
“Good,” Ryota said. “Then deny it.”
Lars did not.
The lock opened with a soft click.
Yuki sighed. “That was not a denial.”
Lars pushed the door open. “Quiet.”
Inside, the horses shifted restlessly at the intrusion. The smell of hay, leather, and warm animal breath filled the darkness. Sora closed the door behind them while Lars moved down the row with practiced calm, checking markings and tack with quick efficiency. He chose two horses: strong enough for distance, calm enough not to panic, and plain enough that no noble or knight would immediately notice their absence before morning.
They saddled them in silence.
Ryota tried to lift one saddle and immediately regretted it. Yuki took it from him without asking. He opened his mouth. She looked at him. He closed it.
Sora tightened a strap with his good hand and hissed softly when his injured palm brushed against the leather.
Yuki turned. “Hand.”
“It’s fine.”
“Sora.”
He held it out.
She checked the bandage quickly, her touch clinical and careful. “Still closed.”
“I told you.”
“You also told me you were fine before trying to leave the kingdom the same day you woke up.”
“Those are unrelated.”
“They are connected by stupidity.”
Ryota looked over. “That was clean.”
Sora frowned. “Do not compliment her insults.”
“They deserve recognition.”
Lars finished securing the second horse. “We ride in pairs. Sora with Yuki. Ryota with me.”
Ryota raised an eyebrow. “Why am I with you?”
“Because if you pass out, I can keep you from falling.”
“I am not passing out.”
“Good. Then it will be an easy ride.”
Ryota looked offended but did not argue.
They led the horses out through the rear stable entrance and closed the door behind them. From there, the lesser route curved along the inner wall, hidden behind storage sheds and low garden structures before reaching a narrow service gate used mostly for deliveries too small to justify opening a main entrance. The gate had a simple patrol schedule. Lars knew it. No one asked how.
They waited in the shadow of a stone arch until the distant guard passed.
The moment his footsteps faded, Lars moved.
The gate opened quietly.
Beyond it lay the outer service road, pale beneath moonlight, leading away from Radiance and into the dark stretch of land beyond the kingdom walls.
For a moment, all four of them stood there.
Radiance rose behind them, massive and bright even in the deepest part of night. Its towers caught the moonlight. Its walls looked unbreakable. Somewhere inside, Shadis was likely still awake. Kaito might have been awake too. Mariah was probably awake in a way Sora did not want to think about. Tetsuo remained in the healer hall. Illumina remained behind castle walls, not abandoned, not forgotten, waiting for the day they could stand together again.
The world Mars was leaving had warmth, food, protection, and people strong enough to make choices for them.
Ahead waited mountains filled with unmanaged dungeons and unrated danger, offering them either a chance to become stronger or a very efficient way to die outside anyone’s permission.
Yuki looked at Sora. “You collapse on the road, I am freezing you and dragging you back.”
Sora mounted carefully behind her, hiding the pull of pain in his hand with only moderate success. “That sounds uncomfortable.”
“It will be.”
Ryota climbed onto the second horse behind Lars and exhaled through his teeth. “For the record, I am against collapsing too.”
“For once, good,” Lars said.
Sora looked back at Radiance one final time, thinking of Illumina whole again, Mars Guild stronger than before, and the promise that none of them would stand as helpless as they had at Oceanside. Then he faced the road. There was no right way to become strong enough for what was coming. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. Mars Guild rode into the night with permission from no one, but with one promise left behind: they would come back alive. Behind them, Radiance slept beneath its golden towers. Ahead, the mountains waited.