It was another sunlit morning in the lush green hills of Mounagiri Gakuen. The sun and clouds played with one another across the clear blue sky, while the wind wandered gently, like someone with nowhere urgent to be. Birds began their chorus among the trees, their songs echoing across the slopes as students paused in courtyards — some laughing, some stretching, some closing their eyes to steady their threads.
Peace settled easily over the Gakuen. Eiroh stood alone on the silvery-threaded terrace overlooking the grounds. The calm unsettled him.
Below, students gathered in small clusters, voices overlapping with nervous excitement as they spoke of Kazan. Near the steps of the courtyard, Tamara, Kodo, and Tom stood together, heads bent close, their threads steady, grounded. They looked anchored in something Eiroh had never learned to touch.
Noolzai lands did not breathe like this. They commanded.
A quiet pressure crept into his chest. The light around him dimmed.
Without warning, jet-black threads erupted from the terrace floor, spiraling upward like restraints forged from shadow. Eiroh staggered back, instinctively raising his palms. Crimson threads flared, then recoiled, sinking back beneath his skin as if refusing him.
"What's wrong?" he hissed under his breath. "Bleed for me—" They would not answer.
The black threads tightened, and a purplish-black fold opened beneath his feet — not torn, not shattered, but pressed inward, as if reality itself had stepped aside. Noolzai threads were never meant to weave within a single plane; they were designed to summon, extract, and erase.
Eiroh was dragged down. Silence swallowed him whole. Then the impact as Eiroh landed hard.
He struck cold obsidian stone, breath tearing from his lungs. The air tasted metallic and old. Above him stretched a vast dome of purplish-crimson resonance, pulsing slowly, like a heart bound in iron.
The Noolzai War Hall.
At its center rose a massive jet-black pedestal. Upon it sat Commander Yurei, unmoving, absolute clad in layered black robes and crimson-veined armor. Beside his throne rested a colossal thread-forged axe, dormant and patient.
To his right stood Jaakuna, the Right Arm, molten red threads bound tight along his frame. To his left stood Vanjagam, the Left Arm, pale-veined and still, her gaze sharp as glass over deep water. Along the edges of the hall stood the inner council, silent, watchful, unmoved.
Eiroh pushed himself upright, heart hammering.
He dropped to one knee, folding his arms across his chest, bowing low. "C-Commander," he said, voice unsteady despite his effort to control it. "Is… something wrong?"
Yurei did not rise. "You know what is done to disobedient insects," the Commander said calmly.
The hall seemed to lean inward. Jaakuna and Vanjagam shifted — just a step.
Eiroh's breath caught. He dropped fully to his knees."Wait—Commander, please," he pleaded. "I do not understand. Tell me what crime I have committed."
Yurei lifted a single finger. The Arms froze instantly.
"Insect," Yurei said, his voice glacial, "you were ordered to observe. You were not ordered to act." Eiroh's throat tightened.
"You stirred a resonance prematurely," the Commander continued. "You awakened threads not yet meant to be seen. Mounagiri moved because of you."Yurei's fingers folded together. The Arms took another step forward.
Desperation cracked through Eiroh's composure."Wait!" he cried. "There is something more. Something important."Yurei paused."The Kazan Trial has been invoked," Eiroh said quickly. "Ahead of schedule."For the first time, Yurei's gaze sharpened, not with anger, but with interest."…I see," he murmured.
"The Kazan was inevitable," Yurei said. "But tension hastens revelation."His eyes settled on Eiroh.
"Then perhaps you are not entirely useless."Eiroh trembled and sighed with relief as if his crimson threads also sighed along with him.
"You will return to Mounagiri," Yurei said evenly. "You will observe. You will not interfere. You will speak only when commanded."
Jaakuna's voice cut in, precise and cold."Your relevance will be determined by the Trial."
Vanjagam added softly, "Survive, and you remain."
A pause.
"Fail," Yurei said, almost gently, "and you will not be remembered."
Eiroh pressed his forehead to the stone.
"Yes, Commander."
Yurei lifted his hand once more. "Leave."
The hall folded inward. Darkness swallowed Eiroh whole. He gasped as he reappeared on the Mounagiri terrace, collapsing to one knee. The sun was still warm. The birds still sang. Laughter still drifted upward from the courtyard. No one noticed him.
Eiroh rose slowly, staring down at the students below, at Tamara's quiet gold, at Kodo's steady white resonance. His threads felt thinner.
The Kazan had begun and this time, the loom was watching.