The world burned behind Theo's eyes.

Sedgwick's gaze snapped up just in time to see the boy charging toward him—a blur of rage and grief made flesh.

Wild-eyed.

Reckless.

A boy whose world had been torn apart.

A boy with nothing left to lose.

"You fools!" Sedgwick barked, stumbling back. "Capture him!"

But Theo didn't stop.

His feet pounded the earth, grief dragging behind him like chains—yet fury burned brighter, uncontainable.

He wasn't thinking.

He wasn't planning.

He wasn't hiding.

Someone was going to pay. 

But just as Theo closed the distance—something faster struck. 

A sudden gust exploded through the area.

Dirt curled into a cyclone as dust spiraled to the sky.

A blur of forest green shot past Theo—cloak flaring, boots skimming the earth.

Sedgwick's voice broke in panic. "What now!?"

CLANG!

Steel met steel. 

A soldier—thrown in Sedgwick's path—cut down before his scream could fully form. 

Another gust ripped through the battlefield—violent and sudden like the wind itself had come to life.

Through it all, the stranger advanced—slow, unflinching, unstoppable. 

His hood blew back in a swirl of dust and wind. 

Beneath it: sharp, storm-dark eyes that didn't blink.

A newly grown and thick beard.

A presence like a drawn blade but humming with pressure.

It was Nozomu. 

He didn't speak, but he didn't have to.

The battlefield already knew what was to come. 

The debris at his feet refused to touch him as he raised one hand—calm, deliberate—the air itself began to spin.

He inhaled, and the world exhaled.

A spiraling wall of wind crashed through the enemy line like a tidal wave, hurling soldiers through the air like dolls.

Some screamed. Most didn't get the chance.

"Defend me!" Sedgwick shrieked, voice cracking like glass.

But the ground beneath him quaked. 

His balance shattered—and with all the grace of a kicked statue, he hit the dirt—hard.

Cloak tangled.

His pride broken.

Sedgwick crawled, his dignity bleeding out into the soil.

Towering above him was Evaughn Wyatt, looming like a fortress that was given flesh.

Bald. Bearded. Built like the wall at the end of the world. 

His forest-green cloak whipped behind him, snapping in the wind like a war banner. 

Thick muscles rippled beneath his short-sleeved shirt.

As he stepped forward, his shadow poured over Sedgwick, swallowing the light like a curtain drawn on judgment.

"Going somewhere, Section Commander?" Evaughn asked with a grin, cracking his knuckles. "Not while I'm standing."

Sedgwick crawled backward, right as more enemies of his burst from the smoke.

From above, boots landed in a tight spin.

A sharp glint of steel, followed by a burst of water, pierces through a soldier's chest. 

His scream was swallowed in a splash.

Isabella Rain.

She was small. Fast. Precise.

Her rope javelin made of water was already reforming—drawn from the air's moisture.

"Don't blink. Water's fun, until it decides to pull you under."

Nozomu raised his fist. "Attack!"

The wind howled.

Their cloaks—every one of them deep green—flared across the battlefield. 

It branded them as a unit.

A resistance.

A rebellion. 

"Kill them!" Sedgwick roared, climbing to his feet. "Kill them all!"

His soldiers snapped into formation.

They moved in sync, hands thrust forward, voices sharp and clipped as they summoned the wind into deadly form.

"Wind Manipulation...Needle Current!"

Whistling air shards burst from their hands like flechettes, slicing forward in razored lines meant to pierce flesh and bone.

But the air shifted again.

From above, a figure hovered.

Still. Calm.

His wavy hair was pulled into a tight, deliberate bun, not a strand out of place. 

His sword was already in hand—silent, waiting.

His name? Pop.

"Don't take it personally. You're all really trash at this."

A blast of wind erupted from his sword—clean, brutal, precise. 

It didn't just deflect the incoming projectiles; it owned them.

The needle-like flechettes reversed midair, caught in the eye of the storm, and screamed back toward their casters like judgment returned.

The impact came like thunder.

Explosions ripped across the field.

Armor shattered. Bodies flew.

Screams followed—sharp, short, and final—torn straight from the throats of soldiers as their own attack shredded them.

From the dust cloud came a new figure, silent and unhurried. 

Emerald eyes flashed behind square-rimmed glasses. Hair red as flame and just as wild, streamed like a flag.

Tana Effie.

She stepped forward, her grin sharp enough to cut.

"Finally," she muttered, voice low with anticipation. "My turn."

Flames coiled around her like hungry serpents, eager and alive.

She didn't command them—she dared them. And they obeyed.

"Flame Manipulation... Prometheus Spear!"

With a laugh that cracked like kindling, she hurled her flaming spear. 

The air itself seemed to scream as it split apart, a trail of fire so bright it seared Theo's vision.

She wasn't fighting, Theo realized, heart pounding. 

She was playing with fire—and winning.

"Keep running," she yelled. "Fire's greedy—it doesn't like to share!"

Screams vanished under the roar.

The stench of burnt cloth, cooked metal, and charred flesh coated the air like a second skin.

Theo's chest clenched.

They weren't soldiers—they were storms wearing human skin. 

Watching them fight was like staring at a truth he wasn't ready for: his world had already ended, and theirs was only beginning.

Fire bloomed across the battlefield.

The front line of Sedgwick's forces was gone—scorched to bone.

Dawn stopped beside Theo.

Dirt smeared her cheeks, and panic trembled in her voice. "We have to go—now!"

"If I run now, I'll never forgive myself..."

Theo took one step forward before the shock of loss froze him in place.

His eyes were locked on the bodies crumpled in the dirt just ahead—motionless, silent, and too far away.

Everything else had gone quiet.

The screams.

The fire.

Even Dawn's voice.

All of it drowned beneath the weight of two people who would never get back up.

The people who mattered most.

He wanted to run to them. 

To scream their names until the world answered back. 

To shake them, to beg them to wake up.

But his legs wouldn't move. 

And deep down, he already knew. 

They were gone. 

No amount of begging would bring them back.

Across the battlefield, Sedgwick stumbled upright, blood trickling from a split lip. 

Fuming.

Wild.

Fury clawed up his throat.

Then, a voice shouted from the edge of the battlefield.

"Sir! This way!"

A frail man on horseback burst through the smoke, frantically weaving between burning wreckage and fallen bodies.

His armor shimmered in the sunlight—sleek and well-crafted, though less ornate than Sedgwick's.

Where the Section Commander's gleamed with celestial thread and polished sigils, this man's bore only a single silver band across the chestplate—subdued, functional, but unmistakably high-ranking.

Branch Corvust. Section Lieutenant of Sector Five.

Loyal shadow to Sedgwick's authority.

Sweat clung to his shaggy black hair, plastering it to his forehead as his horse kicked up dirt behind him.

Behind him, dozens of mounted soldiers—what was left of them—thundered across the field.

Sedgwick pushed past his men, sprinting toward the reinforcement, boots pounding over blood-soaked soil.

"Retreat! All units—fall back!"

Scattered, battered, and bleeding, his soldiers obeyed the order, pulling back toward the horses.

But Nozomu wasn't quite finished.

He stepped forward, the wind swerving around his fingers like it was alive. 

A sphere of pure pressure spun in his palm.

Small at first.

Then tighter.

Sharper.

Hissing like a predator too hungry to wait.

He pitched it like a ball, and the sphere screeched through the air like a bullet.

Sedgwick turned—just in time to see it coming.

His eyes flared wide. 

Without thinking, he grabbed a soldier by the collar and yanked him forward.

The man barely had time to scream before the sphere engulfed him. 

Violent and precise, it tore him apart, launching his body skyward like shredded paper.

The distraction worked.

Sedgwick mounted a horse, and it kicked into a gallop. 

In seconds, he was gone, he and his men racing off into the Wastelands.

Isabella watched as Sedgwick and his men vanished into the grassland, a trail of dust twirling in their wake. 

"Should we go after them?"

Evaughn cracked his knuckles. "We can still catch up."

"Let them go," Nozomu answered sharply. 

"You sure? They won't get too far," Evaughn replied, but Nozomu didn't respond.

His eyes weren't on Sedgwick anymore.

They were on Theo.

Down in the dirt, where the fire still smoldered and ash drifted like snow, sat a boy. 

Arms wrapped around two lifeless bodies. 

A son who hadn't moved in minutes. 

His face was streaked with dirt and blood, his tears cutting clean lines through the grime like rivers carving stone.

"Wake up… please… I'll do better, I swear—I won't skip school anymore... I'll think harder about my future... just wake up..."

The sound that followed erupted from his throat like a rumbling. 

A scream—not of rage, but of grief.

The kind that didn't echo—because it buried itself in you.

In that moment, Theo learned grief could be louder than war.

Dawn embraced him, arms folding around his back.

David hovered close behind, unsure if there were anything left to say that wouldn't break them all further.

For a long moment, none of them moved.

The battlefield was silent.

But with the silence, nothing had ever been louder.

Nozomu's cloak caught the wind as he strode through the wreckage—glass crunching beneath his boots.

"Isabella, Tana—tend to the wounded... Evaughn, Pop—round up the survivors."

"What about the ones who've been… You know?" Pop motioned toward Theo, holding his parents.

For a moment, Nozomu said nothing.

Then, with a slow breath, he closed his eyes.

"Mind-wiped... They'll be dead before the hour's up. There's nothing we can do."

A pause. Flat and heavy.

Then, firmer: "Move out."

No one argued.

"Yes, sir," they answered as one.

The resistance disappeared into the smoke—toward the wounded, toward the ruins, toward whatever still needed saving.