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Author Note:
' ' = When thinking in mind.
Italic = World Whisper.
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The carriage hummed like a held breath. Lanterns swung in shallow arcs, throwing long bars of shadow across riveted walls. The floor thrummed with the rails' pulse—slow, steady, like a tired heart refusing to stop.
Chief 1 stood first, fingers whitening around a ledger already bent at its spine.
Chief 1: We've just come to terms with two Kabaneri. Now another one shows up. Should we let him be?
Ayame's answer was quiet, but it carried. Her posture was formal; her eyes were tired.
Ayame: Yukina and Mumei already confirmed that he is fine.
Chief 2's mouth tightened. A vein ticked at his temple.
Chief 2: Yukina was a mere apprentice before, so her words don't hold that value. As for Mumei—she is a Kabaneri. She will, of course, try to save someone like her.
Kurusu's hand hovered near his sidearm, not touching it—just close enough to feel the option.
Kurusu: Ayame-sama, Mumei and Ikoma have proved themselves. While that person is a complete stranger. We can't trust him just yet… And I have a feeling that he is very dangerous.
'Kurusu: Not dangerous like a Kabane. Something colder. The kind that decides, not hungers.'
Ayame didn't flinch.
Ayame: I understand, Kurusu. However, he clearly said that he would leave at Kongokaku. On top of that, he also said he didn't need any food, water… and blood.
Kibito, hovering near the doorway like a hinge between rooms, cleared his throat.
Kibito: I also think having more Kabaneri on our side is good.
The floor's vibration seemed to deepen, as if the train itself disagreed.
Mumei's voice cut in from the iron staircase, where she sat with her chin propped on her palms, elbows on her knees, hair like a dark ribbon against steel.
Mumei: I don't think it's that simple.
All heads turned. Even the lanterns seemed to sway toward her.
Ayame: Mumei-san, what do you mean?
Mumei's gaze didn't leave the floor. She watched the tremor shiver through the metal at each wheel joint.
Mumei: Since that person declined to take anything from us, why do you think he would help us?
The question landed like a dropped wrench. No one moved.
Ikoma, standing just behind the chiefs, blurted before he could stop himself.
Ikoma: Wait, isn't it obvious that he should help us since he is travelling with us?
Mumei lifted her eyes—flat, clear, sharp.
Mumei: He said to treat him like air.
Silence. The kind that lengthens corridors.
'Ayame: Air has no obligations. Air owes no one anything.'
'Kurusu: Air can also suffocate if it vanishes.'
'Chief 2: If he refuses food, water, blood—what sustains him?'
'Ikoma: Then why is he here?'
The lantern hooks creaked. Somewhere deeper in the train, a coupling groaned; the sound crawled under the floorboards and settled under their ribs.
Chief 1 looked to Ayame, searching her face for certainty he could borrow.
Chief 1: Ayame-sama, if we recognize him as a Kabaneri, protocol demands we set provisions. Quarantine, ration structure, feeding intervals—
Mumei's head tilted a fraction.
Mumei: He declined provisions. Even the word "Kabaneri" didn't belong to him until today. He wears it like a borrowed coat, not an identity.
'Mumei: And the virus in him doesn't fight him. It listens.'
Ikoma rubbed a thumb along a gouge in the rail post, eyes unfocused.
Ikoma: But if he travels with us, he shares our fate. That should mean something.
Mumei: It means he shares the rails. Not the fate.
Kurusu stepped forward, the iron beneath his boot complaining.
Kurusu: Then what do you propose?
Mumei's answer was measured, not cruel.
Mumei: We don't propose anything. We adjust around him. Like the weather.
Chief 2 bristled.
Chief 2: Weather doesn't break locks and drop into engine rooms.
Ayame's hand rose—small, decisive.
Ayame: Enough. The last week has taught us that certainty is a luxury. We will not provoke him, and we will not rely on him. We hold the course to Kongokaku.
Kibito nodded, relief and worry braided tight.
Kibito: Then we keep watches as planned. Double them near the engine.
Kurusu: I'll take the early one.
'Kurusu: If he moves, I want to know first.'
Ikoma glanced toward the bulkhead, as if he could see through it to the engine room where the golden-crimson gaze had opened and closed like a verdict.
Ikoma: If he is like us, he can be reasoned with.
Mumei: He isn't like us.
Her words were soft, but they stripped the room.
Mumei: We fight to stay in the world. He steps in and out of it. That's different.
The rails sang a long, thin note. You feel it in your teeth. You taste iron.
Ayame drew a breath that seemed to weigh more than the others.
Ayame: Then we proceed as planned. No hostility. No petition. If he offers aid, we accept it without debt. If he keeps to himself, we do the same. Our people come first.
Chief 1 wrote something in the ledger with a shaking hand. Chief 2 shut his eyes for a moment, the kind of prayer that doesn't ask for anything.
Kurusu looked to Mumei.
Kurusu: If he becomes a threat?
Mumei's eyes were steady.
Mumei: Then we run the train faster.
No one laughed.
Ikoma's voice found a last scrap of hope.
Ikoma: Or we ask him. Clearly. Not as a demand—just… ask.
Mumei's gaze flickered, then softened by a single grain.
Mumei: If anyone asks, it should be Ayame.
Ayame did not look away from the lantern's flame, where soot licked the glass like a small storm.
Ayame: If the moment comes, I will.
The train hit a seam in the line. The jolt climbed their spines and set every lamp trembling. For a breath, all of them imagined the engine room: the broken hatch, the still figure against the wall, the eyes like molten rings behind closed lids.
You imagine it too. You imagine turning that handle and finding not a man, but a quiet gravity that decides whether you keep breathing.
Kurusu straightened.
Kurusu: I'll organize the watch.
Kibito: I'll take inventory. If he truly needs nothing, we don't factor him into rations.
Chief 2: And if that changes?
Mumei: You'll know. The air will change before he asks.
Ayame gathered their glances and gave them back steadied.
Ayame: Meeting adjourned. Keep your voices low in the corridors. Fear echoes.
They dispersed in pairs and singles, boots ticking down the narrow aisle, whispers pressed flat by steel. Mumei remained a moment longer on the stairs, listening past the iron—toward the engine, toward that pressure like a storm choosing where to fall.
'Mumei: Treat him like air. Then learn how to breathe under it.'
The carriage settled to its old rhythm: metal, heat, distance. Somewhere ahead, the night opened its mouth, and the Iron Fortress drove on.
.
.
The Iron Fortress rattled onward, shaking its steel bones against the rails as though protesting the burden it carried. After the council reached their decision, the Bushi dispersed with stiff shoulders and quick steps, whispering in low, breath-held voices. They did not look back toward the engine room—not even once.
It was not courage.
It was instinct.
They feared that if they looked at him again, their eyes might betray them.
Behind the sealed metal door, only Yukina, a few engineers, and Kaelthorn remained. The room felt smaller with him in it, as if every rivet in the walls tightened to brace against pressure. The air was warmer too—not from heat, but from tension collecting like static before lightning.
Even though Ayame had insisted that the engine room remain a place of function, not politics, the very fact that the chiefs refused to hold the meeting here again was a silent confession: they feared him more than they feared the Kabanes outside.
And so the guards doubled outside the door—shadows standing in rows, fingers ghosting their triggers, hearts thudding in uneven rhythm.
If anything happened, they were prepared to rush in and fill the engine room with bullets.
Kaelthorn knew.
He sensed every heartbeat on the other side of the steel.
He simply didn't care.
He leaned against the wall, eyes closed, arms crossed, mantle draped like a dark wing over half his body. His presence alone made the room feel impossibly narrow. The engineers exchanged glances, trying and failing to keep their breaths steady as they manned the gauges, adjusted valves, and pretended the coils of nerves in their stomachs weren't tightening.
If he wished to kill everyone in the Iron Fortress, he could.
Not metaphorically.
Not bravado.
Literal fact.
Even dozens of steam guns firing at once would not break his skin.
His blood had changed.
His body was no longer human.
If they attacked, all it would accomplish was their own extinction.
Yet Kaelthorn did nothing.
He merely existed—and that alone pressed onto their nerves like a weight on a collapsing bridge.
When the ration time arrived, the engineers nearly stumbled over each other to leave the room. The second the door shut behind them, a collective exhale slipped from their throats—an audible relief, as if they had been drowning without noticing.
No one wanted to stay in the same room as him.
Had he been in any other carriage, the chiefs might have convinced Ayame to uncouple it entirely—sacrificing him to the darkness between stops. But he was here, in the heart of the engine.
The Iron Fortress could not run without this room.
So they tolerated his existence like a bomb wired into their only lifeboat.
Only Yukina remained with him.
She stood at the controls, posture rigid but hands steady on the levers. The lanternlight brushed her strawberry-red hair, casting long shadows beneath her tired eyes. She focused ahead, on the faint rails barely visible in the night.
After a long silence, she spoke.
Yukina: … You have changed.
Kaelthorn did not react.
He neither opened his eyes nor shifted his posture.
He simply existed—an unmoving point in the room.
Yukina continued anyway, voice steady but quieter.
Yukina: Even before… you had a presence that kept everyone at a distance. But it wasn't like this. It wasn't… suffocating. Even your eyes had only one color then… Just what happened after we separated?
If anyone else had been present, they would have stared at her in disbelief.
Yukina rarely spoke unless duty demanded it. She was composed, mechanical in her efficiency. But here she was, speaking more words in two minutes than she normally would in a day.
Kaelthorn finally answered, though his eyes remained closed.
Kaelthorn: You also no longer have the determined, spirited look in your eyes you had back then.
A mirror in response.
Not addressing her question, but returning it.
Yukina fell silent. Not offended—just exposed.
The engine hummed, metal groaning beneath the weight of their unspoken truths. After several long breaths, she sighed softly, the sound lost beneath the constant churn of gears.
Yukina: It's common for everyone on the Iron Fortress… …Wanna listen?
Kaelthorn did not reply, but his silence felt like acquiescence.
She gathered her thoughts—slowly, painfully—and began.
Yukina: A few hours after you left us… we reached Aragane Station. Everything was normal until nightfall. That was when one of the trains—Fusoujou—returned.
A shadow crossed her face.
Yukina: But it was already hijacked by the Kabane… when it passed through fallen Hayatani Station.
Kaelthorn heard the shift in her voice—the tremor she tried to hide.
Yukina: We realized it too late. It rammed into Aragane. The Kabane flooded the city and… overran everything.
Her grip tightened on the throttle.
The knuckles whitened.
Her jaw clenched.
Yukina: If not for the two Kabaneri, we wouldn't have escaped. Not even a fraction of us.
She paused, swallowing memories that clawed at her throat.
Yukina: The people didn't trust Mumei and Ikoma. They said Kabane and Kabaneri are the same. They locked them into a single carriage. Told them not to leave.
Her voice dimmed further, as if ashamed.
Yukina: When we passed through the mountains, Kabane attacked. If it weren't for that attack… certain chiefs might've… might've separated their carriage.
She hid the betrayal, but Kaelthorn already saw it.
He had read it in the chiefs' eyes earlier—their fear, their self-preservation, their thinly veiled spite. Humans were predictable. Fear made them cruel, and cruelty made them stupid.
Yukina continued, unaware he already knew.
Yukina: Among the Kabane… there was a Wazatori. A Kabane who retained skills from their human life.
Kaelthorn's eyes shifted slightly behind closed lids.
'Kaelthorn: The elites. Good. A classification.'
Yukina: The Wazatori killed more than half of the survivors. Many Bushi died. Ikoma managed to take it down… somehow.
Then she inhaled deeply, slow and deliberate.
Yukina: Since then, people began trusting the two of them. Our casualties… decreased.
Kaelthorn's thought was razor-thin.
'Kaelthorn: Decreased, not stopped.'
Then came her final words.
Yukina: And when we left the mountains… you came.
Kaelthorn opened his eyes just enough to stare at the lantern flame. Then he closed them again.
Kaelthorn: I see.
No comfort.
No condolence.
Just acknowledgment.
Yukina felt no disappointment. She didn't want pity. She didn't want promises. She simply needed someone to unload her burdens onto. Someone who would not judge or lie or sugarcoat. Kaelthorn, in his stillness, was perfect for that.
Her shoulders loosened slightly, a weight lifting.
Minutes passed.
Then the engineers returned carrying trays.
They handed Yukina her food.
Then approached Kaelthorn hesitantly.
Engineer: T–Tass-san? We brought food for—
Kaelthorn didn't open his eyes.
Didn't nod.
Didn't breathe differently.
He simply ignored them.
After a few failed attempts, they retreated, returning the untouched tray.
The door clicked shut behind them.
The room fell silent again—
except for the engine's heartbeat
and the sovereign presence that made the steel itself feel as though it feared him.
.
.
A few days passed.
Not quietly — but in a heavy, stagnant way, as if time itself refused to move anywhere near the engine room.
No one bothered Kaelthorn anymore.
Not because they trusted him —but because being within arm's reach of him felt like walking on thin ice stretched across a black ocean.
They worked faster.
Spoke less.
Moved carefully, as though sudden noise might draw his attention.
Even Mumei and Ayame only approached him sparingly, making cautious attempts at conversation that he dismissed without opening his eyes.
When Mumei spoke, her irritation grew louder each time.
Mumei: Tch! Fine, don't answer then!
She stormed off, boots clicking sharply against metal — a sound that faded too quickly, as if she herself feared leaving it echoing for too long in his presence.
Ayame handled it differently.
Her voice remained gentle and formal, but the disappointment in her eyes lingered each time he refused her attempts.
She eventually stepped back with a resigned sigh, one hand resting over her chest as if folding away the sting of being disregarded.
During those days, despite Kaelthorn's clear statement —
I don't need food or water — they continued offering him rations. He ignored every attempt.
Some thought him rude. Others thought him inhuman. All of them were wrong.
Kaelthorn simply understood something they did not:
Kindness is a currency.
And every currency demands repayment.
These offers of food and water were not generosity.
They were footholds — subtle hooks meant to draw him closer, to bind him with unspoken obligation.
Even Ayame's polite conversations had the hidden intent of weaving him into their survival, pulling him onto their side, securing another Kabaneri to protect their dwindling numbers.
But Kaelthorn did not play that game.
Their intentions slid off him like rain on steel.
Only Yukina received even a sliver of acknowledgement from him.
It wasn't warmth.
Wasn't camaraderie.
It was simply that when she spoke, she spoke without ulterior motives.
She didn't ask him to protect them, or to help them, or to join them.
She didn't even ask him about his power.
She just talked.
And Kaelthorn listened.
Yukina never mentioned her exhaustion, but her body revealed everything.
Her posture drooped.
Her shoulders sagged.
Her steps slowed.
Her breaths became shallow, strained by sleepless nights and unending responsibility.
She spoke of her time as an apprentice — the different stations she had seen, the life before everything collapsed, the people she had served under, and the landscapes she once thought she would never see again.
These small memories — mundane to others — steadied her.
They were a rope she clung to in a sea of dead and dying faces.
And perhaps it was Kaelthorn's presence — cold, still, immovable — that let her unravel safely in the engine room.
No judgment.
No pity.
No questions.
Only a presence that didn't lie, didn't flinch, didn't pretend.
Because of that strange security, Yukina began spending almost all her time in the engine room. Except for quick cleaning or trips to relieve herself, she never left. Even when she was exhausted to the bone, she refused to sleep in the passenger carriage.
Instead, she rested in a far corner of the engine room, away from Kaelthorn, curled beneath a thin blanket with her back against cold metal.
Ayame and the engineers objected at first.
Ayame: Yukina… please. You need proper rest.
Engineer: The beds are safer and softer than the floor here…
But Yukina shook her head each time.
Yukina: If something happens here, I'm closest. I can respond immediately.
That was her official excuse.
In truth, only she knew why she stayed so close to the silent figure leaning against the wall… and so far from everyone else.
Eventually, they stopped arguing and admired her resolve — or what they believed was resolve.
The truth was quieter, heavier, and more private.
Meanwhile, Kaelthorn never moved.
Not once.
He stood in the exact same posture — arms crossed, back to the wall, eyes closed — every hour of every day.
The engineers whispered among themselves that if they couldn't hear him breathe, they would have thought he was either dead…or a statue carved from shadow.
Some of the younger crew members were convinced he was conserving energy like a dormant predator.
Others believed he was somehow thinking in ways they couldn't comprehend.
No one dared to ask.
The weight of his presence was too much for them to bear.
.
.
Finally, after several days of relentless travel, the Iron Fortress approached Yashiro Station.
The usual procedures were followed.
Ayame sent signal after signal through the telegraph, waiting for the coded clicks to return.
Nothing came.
Silence.
Only the wind answered.
The Bushi tightened their grips on their steam guns.
Children huddled near their mothers.
Elderly survivors whispered prayers they had forgotten long ago.
Ayame tried again.
And again.
Still no response.
They had no choice but to bring the Iron Fortress to a halt just outside the station's barricades.
But stopping brought its own problems.
If they couldn't enter Yashiro Station, they would be forced to take a long detour through another mountain pass — a route that would require ten additional days of travel.
Their rations would never last that long.
The chiefs knew it.
Yukina knew it.
Ayame knew it.
Kaelthorn, despite ignoring them, had already done the math the moment the train stopped.
In the end, the council agreed on only one option:
Send a small scouting team into the station.
Confirm whether Yashiro still stood…
or had already fallen.
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*A/N: Please throw some power stones.
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