*...Huh... huh...*
The heat in my chest tipped over into something colder, something older. Water rose up off the scorched ground on its own, gathering into a second shape layered over mine — Aalto's shape, translucent and vast, arms unfolding from my shoulders like a tide finally allowed to break. Wave like glowing tattoos on Anjero's arms and legs. With a vicious tide like aura behind him.
*Haaaaa!!!! Wraith Form: Water!!!! I'll stop you right here and now!!!*
Kuro's eyebrows lifted, delighted despite himself. "Oh! Well, this'll be interesting. Come at me with all you've got, water user."
The tide answered for me. A column of pressure built along my arm, water compressing into something dense enough to hit like a hammer instead of a wave. "**Aalto: Geyser Bazooka!!**"
"Gahhhh—" Kuro rocked back a full step, pressing a hand to his ribs, almost impressed. "Oh, that hurt a little."
"Anjero." Kamira's voice cut through the ringing in my ears. "He's after Aado — get him out of here."
*You don't think I know that?!* My legs wouldn't move that way even if I wanted them to. Not with all of them still standing between Kuro and everything he wanted. "I can't run while you're all stuck here."
"Don't worry about us." Aoi didn't look away from the field. "Do the right thing."
*I... I am doing the right thing.* The water around my fists thinned and sharpened into a fine, needling mist, dense enough to cut. "**Aalto: Vapor Fist!!!**"
*(As I tried to fight Kuro, waiting for reinforcements that might never come in time, I kept thinking to myself — how? How can I beat him if he isn't even fazed by my punches?)*
"Guhwaaaa!!!" The ground came up to meet my knees before I even registered falling. "I'm not... d-done yet!!!"
"I'm having a bit of fun." Kuro spread his hands, welcoming. "Please, continue."
*Why is he after Mr. Aado? Where are the grown-up Guardians?* I threw up blood before I could stop myself. *I might be in real trouble here.*
"Anjero!" Romaji's voice, distant, panicked.
*No worries. I'm not out yet...*
"**Abyss Lariat!!**" The shadow wrapped his arm the same way it had wrapped it around Aado — dense and black, clinging like smoke that refused to disperse — and this time I saw it coming and still couldn't get out of the way in time.
"Anjero, look out!!" — Mashù and Yoku, too far, too late.
*Huh—?* The arc caught me across the chest and the world spun sideways before slamming into the ground.
"Sorry, kid." Kuro looked down at me almost gently. "I really wanted to recruit you. Huh. Such a waste of talent and spirit."
*Hu... huh...* I got my hands under me. Stumbled up.
"You idiot, stay down!!!" Tekai's voice cracked with something between fury and fear.
"Well." Kuro tilted his head, genuinely startled for the first time all night. "You have definitely surprised me."
The ground itself answered before he could finish being surprised. Slabs of packed stone tore loose from the earth and rolled toward him in a single grinding wave. "**Landslide Blitz!!**" Devanga didn't wait for an invitation.
A second gust followed right behind it — Diane's blade catching the wind and throwing it forward as a spinning crescent of pressurized air. "**Gale Tornado Slash!!**"
A voice barked out over a loudspeaker somewhere behind the treeline, amplified and flat. "Kuro. We have you surrounded. Surrender now or face the consequences."
Kuro's easy smile finally slipped. "Damn. I got carried away." He didn't even glance at the Commando line closing in. "Jeremi. Grab Hajime. Let's go."
"Yes, Father." Jeremi's outline flickered and thinned, folding into the shadows pooling at his feet until there was nothing left of him but a ripple in the dark, already sliding toward where Aado lay. "**Shadow Sneak!**"
"Oh, no, you don't—" Devanga was already moving, the ground cracking open beneath his stride. "**Landslide—**"
"**Demonic Roar!**" The guttural sound tore out of Kuro's chest and swallowed whatever Devanga had been about to finish, the shockwave of it rolling every one of them back a step. Kuro's eyes swept the field, searching. "Space, where are you?!"
"He's frozen in time, idiot!" Tekai spat the words out like they tasted bad.
"Huh. I hate doing this." Kuro's shoulders dropped, and for one moment something ancient and exhausted showed through the theater of him. Darkness didn't so much surround him as replace him, a wraith-shape swallowing every line of his silhouette until only two point of light remained where his eyes had been. "**Wraith Form: Dark!! Gate of Hades!!**"
The air split open behind him — not a door, not a portal, just an absence, a wound in the world that things could fall into. Sans went first. Then Kuro. Then Suru, then Rino, then Jeremi, dragging Aado's limp body between them, and the tear sealed shut behind them like it had never existed at all.
Everyone else was left standing in the wreckage to be arrested, questioned, and counted.
---
"Oh, god. What happened here?!" Sharin's voice cracked across the ruined clearing the moment she arrived, already waving paramedics forward. "Get these kids to a hospital, now!"
Beside her, a younger woman's eyes went wide with something closer to dread. "Mom. Will they survive?"
"They will." Sharin's jaw was tight. "But Anjero's in the worst condition."
A paramedic jogged over, breathless. "Everyone's been sent to the hospital, ma'am."
"Thank you." Sharin exhaled, and turned to the one person still standing steady among the wreckage. "Migan. What all happened here?"
Migan told her. All of it, in order, as best she could reconstruct it.
When she'd finished, Sharin was quiet for a long moment. "I see. So Kuro decided to attack today, while everyone was distracted by the festival." She looked up sharply. "Where is Raf?!"
"I'm h—here, ma'am." Rafaeru limped into view, soot streaked down one side of his face.
Migan's eyes widened. "Geez, Raf. What happened to you?"
"Did you see an explosion, way earlier?"
"I think I did."
"Well — yeah. I was in that explosion."
Sharin pinched the bridge of her nose. "You two, to my office. After you get checked up."
"Of course." Migan managed a tired smile, already turning. "Come on, Raf. Let's go see Mari."
---
Thirty minutes later.
*Knock, knock.*
"We're here, Principal," Rafaeru called through the door.
"Come in." Sharin's voice, thick with a cough she was clearly trying to hide.
Migan stepped in first, brow furrowed. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry about me." Sharin waved the concern away like smoke. "Now. Explain what happened. All of it."
Forty minutes of playing the events back, start to finish.
Sharin sat with her hands folded, unreadable, until she wasn't. "Damn. Of course Kuro would attack on the day I called the meeting of premises." Her eyes narrowed. "Wait. Something isn't right."
"What do you mean?" Migan asked.
"How would he know?" Sharin's fingers tapped once against the desk. "I used S.E.I.D. to get there in secret. Not even you two knew about that."
Rafaeru shifted. "Speaking of — do you think it would be smart to let us know? In the future?"
"Why would I do that?" Sharin didn't even look up. "That's below your pay grade."
"Huh..."
"Anyways." She sat back. "There must be a spy in our midst." A pause, heavier than the last. "Also — since Aado is gone for now, I'll have to appoint one of you two to Commander of the South Guardians."
Migan's mouth fell open. "Why do you seem so calm about this? All of your Guardian students are in the hospital. Including your two sons."
"I'm not calm." The words came out clipped, controlled, dangerous. "I'm furious. But as acting Principal and Vice-Chief of the Guardian attack force, I have to keep my composure." Her eyes flicked up, hard. "So don't ask me that question again. Please."
Migan looked away first. "I'm... I'm sorry."
"So." Sharin's gaze moved between them. "Which one of you will take up the mantle of Commander? Migan?"
"I can't." The answer came fast, like she'd already rehearsed it a hundred times in her head. "I couldn't even protect a girl from dying. I trembled in fear of someone younger than me. I would've been dead if Anjero and Nanshi hadn't stepped in." She shook her head. "So no. Not me."
"Okay." Sharin turned. "Raf, you get it."
"Wha— what? Why me?"
"Shush." She held up a hand before he could argue further. "You're the only candidate left. Plus, Aado wanted you to take over after him anyway, eventually."
"I appreciate the offer, but—"
"Please." Sharin's voice cracked, just slightly, just once.
"Please," Migan echoed, quieter.
Rafaeru let out a long breath. "...Okay. I'll do it. But only until we get Aado back."
"Thank you." Something in Sharin's shoulders finally eased. "Now leave my office."
"Yes, ma'am!" they said together.
"Rafaeru. Stay for a second."
He paused halfway through the door. "Yes?"
"You'll go through the trials at Commando's ship at 1700 hours." Her eyes met his, unreadable again. "Good luck."
He swallowed hard. "...Okay."
The door clicked shut behind him.
---
Alone, Sharin let the mask slip half an inch. "Huh. S.E.I.D!"
*"Yes, Miss Sutanri."*
"Turn on the soundproof walls."
*"At once."*
A soft hum settled over the room, and only then did her voice break. "Call the hospital." Her hands were shaking.
"Hi, can I help you?" a front desk nurse answered.
"This is Sharin, from Seishin South." She pressed her palm flat against the desk to steady it. "How is everyone?"
"Let's see..." Papers shuffled on the other end. "Anjero is in intensive surgery right now. His nose and ribs are broken. On top of that, he has a small crack in his spine."
"Oh, god..."
"Kamira lost sight in one of her eyes, and she has high muscle strain throughout her body."
"Anyone else?"
"Just a few bumps and bruises — they'll be discharged within the week. Kamira will need three weeks of therapy, and a new eye, if she wants one." A pause. "Anjero, we'll have to wait and see. I'd estimate over a month, at minimum."
Sharin closed her eyes. "That's enough. Thank you."
The line went dead, and for a long moment, the Principal of Seishin South sat alone in a soundproof room and didn't move at all.