(Kenji Katsuragi POV)
They crossed the ruined bridge into Giggleburg on soft feet and taut nerves. The town's skeleton of twisted timber and collapsed roofs had once been a carnival of color and sound; now it lay quiet, bones bleached by whatever catastrophe had fallen on it. Kenji moved like a shadow through the wreckage, longbow slung across his back, eyes always measuring distance and angles. The wind smelled of wet earth and burnt resin. Each step a promise: make no sound, leave no trace.
Behind him, Kuroba Rykeri moved like breath—silent, coiled. Hanah Kyouka kept the staff in hand, fingers brushing the runes as if calming them; an aura of soft light clung to her, the kind that stilled small children and steadied bleeding men. Ryuji Rei walked at the rear, hands idle around his staff but the hairs on Kenji's arms prickled with the quiet promise of heat waiting to be unleashed.
They had come for ruins—remnants of kobold nests, old caches, maybe survivors. That was the plan. Reconnaissance. Observe. Report. No trouble, no engagement. The last thing they expected was an army.
They saw it long before they understood the meaning. Bodies moved between shattered buildings with a practiced rhythm: not chaotic scavengers but organized detachments. Torches bobbed in regular intervals. Supply caravans rolled like slow, living waves. Men—no, not men only—figures they recognized from banners and command rosters moved among them without alarm.
Kenji's breath stopped on intake. Faces on the road that ought to have stood with Korvath stared blankly as they passed: Rick Kaiser's scarred jaw riding a light carriage, Hilaria Lachen's quick hands directing a team of looters with a smile that did not reach her eyes. And at the center of the bustle, like a chess piece gone traitor, was the largest figure of all—General Varric Drayen—helmet tucked under his arm, cloak clean, stride purposeful. He spoke with a Valerian officer; people gathered close as if listening to orders. Varric's laugh, when it came, rolled over the square like a fast blade.
Kenji felt the world tilt a fraction. Familiar faces were not always friends. He lowered his head and signaled—two knuckles tapped the palm: stay silent. Kuroba's eyes met his and flicked to the side; the rogue's mouth was a line. They moved deeper into alleys and shadows, ghosts among ghosts, breathing the stale heat of forges and the metallic tang of reclaimed armaments.
They passed a caravan forming a ring around a hulking shattered crystal—one of the same giant shards the Kobold King had used, now split and sluiced into facets. Men pried at it with crowbars and hammers; other hands packed the fragments into crates. The shard's inner light leaked like bruised marble. This was not salvage for Ostoria's need; it was plunder.
Kuroba's ear caught speech the wind might have swamped. He motioned for Kenji to edge closer, lips moving silently as he mouthed what he heard.
"How dare Ostoria use us," a voice snapped—low, angry, familiar in the way old resentments are.
"They should just obey us," another answered, laced with contempt.
"We are only after this loot and treasure," a third said, greed like wet cloth in his tone.
"We will make them pay," the last vow came, bitter and bright.
The names on the lips were not just mercenary; they were names plucked from their own ranks—people Kenji had fought beside, people who had trusted the same banners. The words hung in the alleys, heavy as iron. Betrayal has a sound; now he heard it.
Kuroba's hand closed on Kenji's sleeve. "Enough," he breathed. "I have heard enough."
Kenji did not argue. He'd always preferred action to words. He kept his posture slack but ready; every muscle coiled, every sense filtered through the notch of his bow. The team slipped away from the crate-strewn square, following a narrow lane that took them behind a row of half-collapsed houses. They should have been triumphant: proof of enemy strength, intelligence to be carried back to Korvath. Instead each step became a weight.
Hanah stepped lightly and touched Kenji's forearm—nothing spoken, only a pressure that meant "we go, but we carry the cost." Ryuji's fingers ghosted the staff; the faint heat of his magic hummed like a restrained bell. Kuroba's boots left no mark in the dust. Kenji tasted iron on his tongue and thought of the arrows he could loose and the corpses they would make; but for now killing would only exchange one wrong for another, and that was not the point.
At the city gate, the four paused to look back. The forges glowed, the roads ran like veins of ember, and the figures they knew as friends and commanders moved easily through the work—a seamless tide of occupation. Varric's silhouette stood framed against the blaze of a forge; his laugh came again, full and careless, a sound that seemed to mock wounds and names.
Kenji felt something in his chest twist, a tight, hot thing that was not fear. It was the slow, bitter flame of betrayal. His hands itched for his bow. Kuroba's jaw flexed as if to speak sharp, cutting things that could not be unspoken. Hanah's light flickered like a candle in draft. Ryuji's knuckles whitened on his staff.
They left without making a sound.
Outside Giggleburg, standing on the ridge with the town shrinking into the valley below, the team gathered close. No one spoke for a long time. The night wind pressed icy fingers against their faces.
Finally, Kuroba let out a sound—a humorless half-laugh that tasted of metal.
"How long has this been going on?" he asked.
Kenji did not look away from the city. The laughter from within—Varric's—rolled out to them like a thrown stone.
It sounded like a triumph.
It sounded like a knife.
And in the hollow where trust had been, Kenji felt the echo: the laugh of betrayal.