Yuuta sat on the ground, his hands pressed flat against the frozen grass, his body still trembling from the shock of returning to the world of the living.
His brain cells were slowly waking up, one by one, sending signals through his nervous system, reminding his body how to breathe, how to think, how to be alive. His DNA and genes were reconstructing themselves, piece by piece, reassembling the man he had been before the bullet tore through his chest.
He looked around.
The field was a disaster. The stalls that had been filled with food and laughter were overturned, their contents scattered across the ice. The tables where judges had sat were broken, their wood splintered, their cloths torn. The ground was cracked, frozen, stained with blood that had not yet been covered by snow. It was hard to believe that only hours ago, this place had been filled with happiness and joy, with parents cheering and children laughing and the smell of cooking food drifting through the air.
Now there was only silence. Horrifying, endless, unbearable silence.
Bodies lay scattered across the campus. Some were covered in white sheets, their shapes still and cold. Others lay uncovered, their faces frozen in expressions of terror, their eyes staring at nothing. Yuuta did not recognize them. He did not want to.
His eyes found the stew. It was spilled on the ground, frozen, mixed with grass and dirt and something else. His stew. The one he had made thinking of Erza, the one he had carried across the field to share with her, the one that had fallen from his hands when the bullet hit.
"Erza," he said.
He looked around. He could not find her.
"Elena."
He found her. She was lying a short distance away, her small body curled in the grass, her face peaceful, her breathing steady. Sister Mary was beside her, unconscious, her body limp, her face hidden in the crook of her arm. She was breathing too, shallow but alive.
Yuuta felt relief flood through him. They were alive. They were safe. Whatever had happened, whatever had caused this destruction, they had survived.
He stood. His legs were shaking, the muscles still waking up from death, still learning how to hold him. He took a step, then another, then another. He walked toward Sister Mary, toward Elena, toward the only family he had ever known.
Then he felt it.
Grief.
It was not his own. It was something else, something vast and terrible and ancient. Dragon grief. He had never heard it before—normal humans could not hear it, could not feel it, could not even imagine it. But Yuuta heard it. It was not a sound, not really. It was a weight, a pressure, a presence that pressed against his chest and made it hard to breathe. It was the pain of a dragon who had lost something precious, something that could never be replaced.
His heart twisted. He remembered Erza's face as he was dying, the tears on her cheeks, the horror in her eyes. He remembered her voice, broken and desperate, calling his name. He remembered the way she had held him, the way she had tried to heal him, the way she had refused to let him go.
She was gone. He did not know where, but he knew she was suffering. He knew she was in pain. He knew he had to find her.
He ran.
He did not know where to go. The field was chaos, the city was chaos, the world was chaos. But then he saw it—a massive aura rising above the sky, visible even to his human eyes, a pillar of light and grief and rage that could not be ignored. It was coming from the port. He did not know how he knew, but he knew. She was there.
A bicycle lay near the edge of the field. It was Sam's bicycle—Yuuta recognized it by the rusted chain and the faded sticker on the frame. Sam never locked it. He said it was because he trusted the world, but everyone knew it was because he had lost the key years ago and was too stubborn to buy a new lock.
Yuuta grabbed it. He swung his leg over the frame and pedaled toward the port.
The city was frozen. Not metaphorically—literally. Ice coated the streets, the buildings, the cars that had been abandoned in the middle of the road. Snow piled high on the sidewalks, covering the bodies of people who had collapsed from the cold. The sky was dark, thick with clouds that should not have been there, that had no right to exist in the middle of the afternoon.
Yuuta pedaled faster.
He saw them. Soldiers in combat uniforms, their faces hidden behind masks, their weapons gleaming with technology he did not recognize. They were moving through the streets, putting civilians to sleep with strange bubble-like bullets, erasing memories, hiding whatever had happened. A secret organization. The kind that existed in movies and novels, the kind that he had never believed in.
One of them spotted him.
"Stop!" the soldier shouted. "You cannot be here! Stop immediately!"
Yuuta did not stop. He did not have time. He did not have patience. He had to find Erza.
The soldiers fired. The bullets were not normal—they were bubbles, glowing and translucent, moving faster than anything he had ever seen. One of them hit an old man who had been standing in a doorway, and he collapsed instantly, asleep. Yuuta swerved, dodged, pedaled faster. The ice on the road should have made it impossible to control the bicycle, but his body moved on instinct, his balance perfect, his reflexes sharp.
"Control, we have a runner," the soldier said into his radio. "Male, black hair, white shirt, riding a bicycle. He is heading toward the port. We need backup."
The commander's voice was sharp. "Why would he go toward the threat? Is he collecting evidence? Is he a reporter?"
"We do not know. But he is fast. We cannot catch him."
"Dispatch backup. Do not let him reach the port."
Five vehicles roared to life behind Yuuta. Military-grade combat vehicles, black and armored, their engines growling like beasts. They sped after him, their sirens silent, their intent deadly. They fired more bubbles, more bullets, more attempts to stop him.
Yuuta dodged them all.
He did not know how. He did not know why. He only knew that he had to reach her, that he could not stop, that nothing in this world or any other would keep him from finding Erza.
The port came into view.
The port was covered in ice like Antarctica. The ground beneath Yuuta's feet was no longer concrete or asphalt but something else entirely—a frozen wasteland that stretched as far as he could see, glittering under the dim light that managed to pierce through the thick clouds above. His breath came in heavy gasps, each exhale forming clouds of mist that froze almost instantly, falling to the ground like tiny crystals. The air around him was so cold that it hurt to breathe, that it burned his lungs, that it made him wonder if this was what death felt like.
He knew Erza was powerful. He had seen her freeze a lion, had felt the chill of her aura, had stood beside her as she summoned storms and shattered buildings. But this—this was beyond anything he had imagined. She had not just changed the weather. She had redefined it. She had bent the laws of nature to her will, had turned a port into a frozen wasteland, had made the very air itself obey her grief.
He pedaled faster. The bicycle wobbled beneath him, the ice making it nearly impossible to control. He leaned forward, shifting his weight, trying to keep the wheels from sliding out from under him. The port was close now—he could see the shipping containers, the warehouse, the bodies scattered across the ice.
The bicycle slipped.
He fell, his body sliding across the frozen ground, his arms flailing, his legs kicking. He skidded to a stop near a stack of containers, his clothes torn, his skin scraped, his breath knocked out of him. He tried to stand, but the ice was too slippery, his body still too weak, his legs still shaking from the effort of being alive.
The vehicles stopped behind him. Five of them, black and armored, their engines growling. Soldiers poured out, their boots crunching on the ice, their weapons raised. They surrounded him, twenty of them at least, their faces hidden behind masks, their eyes cold and focused.
Yuuta tried to stand again. He could not. The ice was too slippery, his body too weak, his muscles still waking up from death. He pressed his hands against the frozen ground, tried to push himself up, and fell again.
"Please," he said. "I just need to find my wife. I just need to—"
"Stay down!" one of them shouted. "Do not move! Do not resist!"
Yuuta tried to stand. He fell again. The ice was too slippery, his body too weak. He was desperate, frantic, terrified. He did not want to be put to sleep. He did not want his memories erased. He had to find Erza. He had to see her. He had to tell her that he was alive, that he was here, that he had come back for her.
The soldiers raised their weapons. Their fingers tightened on the triggers. They had their orders. Erase the witness. Put him to sleep. Make him forget.
"Stop!"
They fired.
Yuuta closed his eyes.
It's over, he thought.
I came all this way, and it's over.
He heard the sound of the bullets hitting something solid, something massive, something that should not be there.
He opened his eyes.
An ice ogre stood over him.
It was massive, seventeen feet tall, its body formed from ice that gleamed like diamond, its eyes burning with violet fire. Its fists were the size of boulders, its arms thicker than tree trunks, its presence so overwhelming that the soldiers who had been firing at Yuuta stumbled back in fear.
The ogre roared.
The sound was deafening, shaking the ice beneath their feet, cracking the containers behind them. The soldiers tried to run, tried to retreat, tried to do anything except stand in front of the monster that had appeared from nowhere. But it was too late. The ogre's fist came down, crushing three of them where they stood. Their bodies crumpled beneath the blow, their armor shattering, their weapons scattering across the ice.
Two more ogres appeared from the shadows. They moved toward the vehicles, their massive feet cracking the ice, their fists swinging. One of them picked up a combat vehicle and threw it across the port, where it exploded against a stack of containers. The other smashed its fist through the windshield of another vehicle, crushing the soldiers inside.
It was not a fight. It was a slaughter.
Yuuta watched in horror. Blood sprayed across the ice. Bodies flew through the air. Limbs separated from torsos, heads from necks, the soldiers dying in ways that should not be possible, that should not be happening, that should not be real. He pressed himself against the ground, trying to make himself small, trying to disappear, trying to pretend that he was not seeing what he was seeing.
Then he saw the knight.
He emerged from the shadows, tall and terrible .his armor carved from ice that was darker than the deepest glacier, harder than any metal that existed in this world. He was six feet and seven inches tall, towering over Yuuta, his presence so overwhelming that the air itself seemed to still. His sword was dark blue, like diamond, like frozen starlight, like something that had been forged in a place where light did not reach. His eyes were violet, the same violet as Erza's, and they were fixed on the soldiers who were still trying to flee.
Azeral. The Frost Sovereign Knight.
The soldiers who were still alive, who were still standing, who were still trying to fight—they had no chance.
The knight raised his sword.
He brought it down.
The blade cut through the air, through the ice, through the soldiers who were still standing. It cut through their armor, their weapons, their bodies. It cut through the vehicles behind them, the strongest military technology the Agency possessed, splitting them in half as if they were made of paper. The soldiers fell, their bodies separated, their blood freezing before it could spill.
Yuuta stood frozen. His face was pale. His hands were shaking. His breath came in short, ragged gasps.
He tried to run. He stepped backward, his foot pressing against the ice, and the ice cracked.
The sound was small, barely audible, lost in the wind and the silence. But the knight heard it. His head turned. His violet eyes found Yuuta. His sword, still dripping with the blood of the soldiers, lowered.
The knight heard it.
It turned. Its violet eyes found Yuuta's face. Its sword, still dripping with frozen blood, hung at its side. It stepped forward, its armor gleaming, its presence pressing against Yuuta like a weight.
He stepped forward. His boots crunched against the ice, each step slow, deliberate, inevitable. The ogres followed behind him, their massive forms blocking the light, their growls vibrating through the ground. They surrounded Yuuta, towering over him, their shadows swallowing him whole.
Yuuta could not move. His legs were shaking. His heart was pounding. His mind was screaming at him to run, to hide, to do anything except stand there and wait to die. But he could not. The ice was too slick. His body was too weak. And the knight was too close.
Azeral stopped in front of him. He was six feet seven inches tall, taller than Yuuta, taller than Erza, a giant of ice and shadow and death. He looked down at the small man who had somehow survived, who had somehow reached the port, who had somehow dared to approach his queen.
He drew his sword.
The blade rose. The light caught its edge, scattering into rainbows, beautiful and terrible. Yuuta watched it rise, watched it pause at its apex, watched it begin its descent.
He knew he was going to die.
Yuuta closed his eyes. He thought of Erza. He thought of Elena. He thought of the stew he had made, the stew that had spilled across the grass, the stew that had been meant for his family.
He waited for the end.
It did not come.
To be continued...