A crowded market square. A sign overhead read **DRAGO MINI MARKET**. Clothes, pastries, vegetables, and children’s toys changed hands all around, the whole street loud with haggling.
Ashura crouched beside a street bookseller. "How many books have you sold today?"
The man’s brow creased. "And why exactly does that matter to you?"
"Heh. Figured that wouldn’t work." Ashura gave the pouch in his hand a light shake, coins clinking inside it.
The bookseller’s eyes went wide. "Only two, all day."
Ashura hummed. "What if I bought every single one of them?"
"...Every one? Seriously?" The man leaned in as Ashura beckoned him closer and murmured something in his ear. A slow smile spread across the bookseller’s face.
A moment later, a customer picked up a title off the stall. "How much for this one?"
"Sorry," the bookseller said, still smiling. "Sold out."
Hasib stood at the center of a boxed-off arena, metal training soldiers closing in from every side. He caught his breath just as one of them lunged in with a sword, the slash coming at him like a streak of red flame.
His eyes went wide. He raised his blade to meet it, but the impact threw him clean off his feet.
A second one, built for pure strength, came in behind it, swinging a fist at him. He caught that one on his blade too, but the shock of it still split his lip, blood running down his chin.
He gritted his teeth, jumped, and clamped his legs around the construct’s head, twisting hard enough to wrench it clean off. A third attacked before he’d even landed, and he dodged it, weaving in a tight zigzag that looked almost too smooth for how hard he was breathing, before closing in and finishing it with a single strike.
**Slash!**
"Done. Last one."
The final construct came sprinting in from a distance. The instant it entered his range, Hasib threw his sword in a straight line, catching it square in the stomach. It kept coming anyway.
"Yuzoko."
The blade tore back into his hand, black energy trailing off it, and cut straight through.
**[CONGRATULATIONS. TASK COMPLETED.]**
Hasib opened his eyes to find Itoshi sitting nearby, casually licking a lollipop.
"Oh, you’re up. Take a look over there."
Hasib turned, and his eyebrows shot straight up.
Sara and Rocky stood together, both cutting into the same stretch of trees, Sara working her sword through the trunks alongside him.
"Something’s awakening in her," Itoshi murmured. "I didn’t even catch the exact moment." He gave his own cheek a light slap, as if to make sure he was actually seeing it.
Sara glanced at Rocky, a little unsure of herself. "I don’t really get how you’re cutting these so clean. Could you help me?"
She lined up against the trunk in front of her, steadied herself, and then—
**BOOM.**
Sara jumped back, startled by her own strike. Hasib caught sight of a faint pink glow still clinging to her blade.
"You just did that in one hit? How?"
"Ohh, this?" She blinked down at her sword. "I mean, you could probably do it too."
Itoshi’s eyes hadn’t moved from her the entire time.
Rocky’s mouth curved slightly. "Not bad."
Itoshi let out a breath. "Seriously, already? All right, Sara, listen. Learn to feel your Zhoa flow, the pressure it builds as you push it into the blade. That pressure is your power."
Sara nodded and kept working at it. Nearby, Rocky pointed at his own row of trimmed logs. "I did mine. What now?"
Hasib walked over and inspected them, each one smooth and even.
His hand curled into a fist. *I have to get past her too.* He turned toward his own tree and got to work.
Itoshi called the group over. "Everyone, come take a look at this for a second."
He drew his sword first.
"Mizuto. The Soul of the Sea."
He went still for a moment, drawing every bit of his Zhoa flow into the blade. Then he dropped his head, spun his whole body through the motion, and called out—
"WATER WAVE BLADE."
The sword’s arc sent something like a wave of water rolling out ahead of it, rippling through the air. It struck a tree dead center, cutting straight through, the force carrying on to knock into another one standing behind it.
"That’s the idea," Itoshi said, sheathing his blade. "Try building toward something like that yourselves."
Hasib turned it over in his head. *That’s basically what the domain’s been drilling into me this whole time.* Sara stared after the demonstration, clearly turning the whole idea over in her mind, already thinking about how her own strike might look if she pushed it that far. Rocky said nothing and simply went back to his own training.
Hasib got back to work on his own row of trunks.
Elsewhere, the Principal had settled into the Vice Principal’s chair, eyes fixed squarely on the neckline of Miss Suhi’s coat, a faint flush creeping across his cheeks as his pen scratched idly across a notepad he clearly wasn’t paying attention to.
*Why does he look so pleased with himself,* Miss Suhi thought, glancing over. *What exactly is he—*
It took her half a second to work out what he was actually looking at.
Her expression went murderous. Five fingers connected sharply with his cheek.
"OW—! What was that for?!"
"You know exactly what that was for."
At that moment, her eagle swept in through the window, angling first toward the Principal.
Miss Suhi let out a short, pointed cough. The eagle changed course mid-flight and landed on her arm instead, dipping its head, wings flicking through a quick series of signals.
She read the gesture and her expression sharpened. "So he’s still close by. Hasn’t gone far at all." A pause. "Which means there’s a bigger plan behind all of this."
She turned to the Principal, still nursing his cheek. "Move carefully from here. If the last two pages slip out of our hands, there won’t be anyone left who can stop him."
The Principal straightened, puffing his chest out. "Afraid? With me around? Please."
One look at Miss Suhi’s face was enough to change his mind. He swallowed hard and made his way out the door without another word.
Outside, he nearly walked straight into Zoha.
She eyed the red mark blooming across his cheek. "What happened to your face?"
"Ah. Mosquito," he said, already covering it with one hand as he hurried past her.
A short while later, the Principal made his way to the Warriors’ assembly, pulling a mask over the lower half of his face as he went.
The grounds were already packed, well over a hundred Warriors standing shoulder to shoulder, swords drawn, Zhoa energy rolling off every one of them until the whole field seemed to shimmer with heat. The Principal climbed the platform at the center and raised a hand for silence.
"Effective immediately, Dragoland is under emergency status." His voice carried easily across the assembly. "Prepare yourselves as though an enemy like Ashura could appear at any moment, because he can. Every one of you swore an oath when you took up that blade. Remember what it means. There is no greater honor for a Warrior than to fall defending this land."
Not a single sword wavered.
Yamin stepped forward next, unspooling his ribbon and letting it fall across the ground in a long, winding line. It moved on its own, sweeping down the ranks, tallying names, confirming every Warrior present. When it finished, he called out mission assignments group by group, matching each squad to its designation with barely a pause between names.
He was midway through the list when a figure staggered out of the treeline at the edge of the grounds, soaked in blood from head to foot.
Every head turned. The Medical Warriors broke into a run toward him, Yamin close behind.
The man collapsed to his knees before they even reached him, forcing out two words. "Croco Land." A ragged breath. "Our foe."
Habi Ma’am dropped beside him, gripping his shoulder. "Vale, what happened? Where’s the rest of your team?"
He didn’t answer. Yamin pressed his ribbon flat against the man’s chest, listening, and his expression went still. No heartbeat.
He moved fast, opening a shallow cut across the man’s chest and threading the ribbon in, trying to coax the heart back into rhythm by force. It didn’t take. A long moment passed, and then it was clear it wasn’t going to.
Vale was gone.
The Principal crossed the grounds in a few long strides and knelt beside the body, resting a hand gently against the dead man’s head, the grief in the gesture at odds with the hardness that settled into his voice.
"Croco Land." He said it quietly, almost to himself, though everyone close enough could hear it. "Is this what you meant to send us? A declaration of war?"
He lifted two fingers, angling them toward a shadowed corner of the grounds, a signal meant for eyes only he knew to look for. Somewhere in the crowd, an unseen agent caught it and gave the faintest nod in return.
Far off, well beyond the edge of the assembly, Ashura stood watching the whole scene unfold, arms crossed, a slow smile spreading across his face.
*Well, well. Looks like things are finally starting to get interesting.*