The message came at dawn.
Yami stood in the common room. His cigarette was not lit. That was strange. Yami always had a cigarette lit.
"Listen up," he said. "The special mission is now. Golden Dawn. Blue Rose. Us. We go together."
Asta jumped up from the floor. He had been doing push-ups. Sweat dripped down his face. "Together?! With Yuno?! We get to fight next to Yuno?!"
"You get to fight next to him. Try not to die next to him."
"I WON'T DIE! I'M TOO STRONG TO DIE!"
Noelle crossed her arms. Her face was calm. But her hands were shaking a little. "What is the mission, Captain? You said it was special. Special how?
"A village stopped sending trade goods," Yami said. "No letters. No visitors leaving. Just silence. It's near the Forsaken Realm. Close to where Ouga grew up."
The room went quiet.
Luck's lightning stopped crackling. Even he understood.
"Eye of the Midnight Sun," I said. It was not a question.
"Maybe," Yami said. "Maybe not. We go and we find out. If it's them, we don't run. We don't wait for backup. We finish it."
I nodded. My chest felt tight. Not from fear. From something else. Something old.
---
The village had no name on any map. It was small. Maybe thirty houses. When we landed, the wind carried no smoke from the chimneys. No dogs barked. No children played in the mud.
Yuno walked beside me. His wind magic moved the grass without him even trying. "This feels wrong," he said.
"It does."
"You've seen this before."
I did not answer. I did not need to.
Klaus adjusted his glasses. "The houses are untouched. No fire. No broken doors. But there are no people either. Where did they go?"
Mimosa knelt by a flower bed. Her green magic touched the soil. "The plants are dying. Not from lack of water. From something else. Something is pulling the life out of everything here."
Asta sniffed the air. "It smells like... nothing."
That was when the ground opened.
Not with an earthquake. Not with fire. It just opened, quiet and smooth, like a mouth. Black mist poured out. It did not act like normal mist. It moved with purpose. It crawled toward us like a living thing.
"Everyone back!" Yami shouted.
Too late.
The mist wrapped around Noelle's ankle. She screamed. I turned, and my body moved before my mind caught up. I grabbed her arm and pulled her free. The mist hissed where it had touched her skin, leaving a mark like frostbite.
From the black hole in the ground, a figure climbed out. A cloak covered every inch of it. No face. No hands showing. Just dark cloth that moved wrong, like it was full of smoke instead of a body.
Nobody said a name. Nobody knew one.
"Captain, get back!" Yami's voice cut through the yard. He was already moving, his sword drawn, black mana flooding off his blade in waves.
The cloaked figure did not run. It did not even turn to look at him.
Yami swung. A single strike, the kind that had ended fights before they started.
The figure raised one hand. Just one. And caught the blade.
The whole yard shook. Yami's feet dug two long grooves into the dirt as he was pushed back, actually pushed back, his sword shaking in a grip that was suddenly not strong enough.
Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Yami. Pushed back. By one hand.
"What," Yami said quietly, "are you."
The figure did not answer him. It let go of the blade and turned, slow and calm, toward Noelle.
"NOELLE, MOVE!" I shouted.
She tried. Her hurt ankle betrayed her, and she stumbled instead.
The figure crossed the distance in one step that should not have been possible, wrapped a cloaked arm around her waist, and a portal ripped open in the air behind it. Black at the edges. Cold wind poured out, smelling like old ash.
"NO!" Asta charged first, sword raised, and got thrown backward into a fence before he even reached them.
I ran.
I had never run like that before. My legs cracked the ground with every step. The wheel behind my head spun so fast it screamed. Noelle's eyes found mine, wide and scared, her hand stretched out toward me across the closing gap.
I was three feet away.
Two feet.
My fingers brushed hers.
The figure spoke. A quiet voice, from somewhere deep inside the hood. One word.
A name.
My mother's name. The one from my old life. The one from before I was ever Hasegawa Ouga in this world. A name no one here should have ever known, said in a voice I had not heard in more years than I could count.
My whole body locked up.
Just for a second. Just one.
It was enough.
The figure stepped back into the portal with Noelle still in its arm, and the portal closed like a wound sealing shut, and they were gone.
I stood there with my hand still reaching into empty air.
Nothing came out of me. No scream. No words. Just a low, steady pressure that started somewhere behind my ribs and kept building, and building, until the air around me turned thick and red, like the whole yard had a heartbeat and it was mine.
"Ouga." Yuno's voice, careful, from somewhere behind me. "Your mana."
I did not look at him.
Asta took one step toward me. Klaus grabbed his arm and pulled him back without a word.
Even Yami did not move closer. He stood exactly where the strike had pushed him, sword still in hand, watching me the way a man watches a storm he cannot outrun.
Red mana rolled off my skin in slow waves, thick enough to bend the grass flat around my boots. My breathing had gone quiet. Too quiet. My hands were shaking, not from fear.
Nobody came closer.
Nobody said her name again.
**To be continued...**
Author note (Yo bitches! Big surprise coming in the next chapter i cooked up😁 better be ready for it.)