Yamaoka's gates creaked wide as Hikari stumbled into the village, her skin pale and her face streaked with sweat. Her judgment beads glowed faintly, the warmth against her chest a fleeting comfort as she screamed into the quiet evening.

  "Everyone!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "Prepare yourselves! S-something terrible is approaching!"

  The villagers stiffened where they stood, their faces contorted with terror and bewilderment. Haruka rushed to her sister, her healer robes billowing as she latched on to her. "Hikari! What happened? Where is Father?

  Hikari shook her head, her hand grasping Haruka's arm as if to hold herself up. "Hakari. the mask. he's stronger than we thought. Father stayed behind to hold him back. I don't know if." Her voice shook, on the verge of breaking.

  Haruka stiffened, her face paling. "Then we need the elders. We'll—"

  "No!" Hikari shouted, her beads flashing momentarily. "The elders can't save us! They're the ones who are doing this! They've only hidden behind their laws while everything disintegrates!"

  A wave of puzzlement went through the assembled villagers. Fear and doubt mounted as rumors spread among them.

  “Quiet!” Haruka shouted, her trembling hands belying the strength in her voice. “We’ll figure this out. Just stay calm!”

  Chaos was the rule for the next hour. Guardians dashed to prepare their arms, villagers prepared their homes, and Haruka prepared the shrine for the injured she expected to come. Hikari was at the outskirts of the village, her eyes into the woods, her heart racing in worry for her father.

  And then, a light on the horizon, shining like gold.

  It began life as a tiny spark, growing and growing until the entire forest edge was alight as if a second sun had exploded among the trees. The villagers drew in their breath, their terror exchanged for wonder as a single figure emerged from the trees.

  "Father?" Hikari panted, taking one step closer.

  Takashi entered the village with slow tread, his physique streaked with mud and sweat, his clothes worn from fighting. He walked with the handle of his katana—but not with steel extending from it. Instead, there was a golden-bladed point thrusting up from it, its hot fury near too hot to look upon. The fire clawed and rolled as though it were living, its burning diffusing around the quiet glade.

  Hikari sprinted towards him, but stopped herself when she saw his expression. There was no pleasure in his face, no satisfaction in his victory—only a cold resolve that soured her stomach.

  "Father!" Haruka cried, dashing to stand by his side. "Is it over? Where is Hakari?"

  Takashi halted, his eyes distant. "He ran," he whispered, his voice rough and low. "The mask drained him. He'll return when he's gaining his strength to move again."

  Hikari stepped forward, her hands trembling. "Then we have to prepare. We have to mobilize the village—

  "No," Takashi interrupted, his gaze cutting to hers. His tone, while even, had a snarl of anger that froze her. "There is no time to think. This did not start with Hakari. This started with the elders. This started with their lies, their rules, and their fear of magic."

  Haruka stiffened. "What are you talking about?

  Takashi turned away from them, his sunfire blade casting leaping shadows as he walked towards the center of the village.

  Hikari followed him, catching his arm. "Father, wait! You can't—"

  "I can," Takashi replied, shaking his arm free and facing her. His eyes flared with the same intensity as the fire on his blade. "And I will."

  Hikari's voice trembled as she pleaded, "If you do this, everything that you have worked for will be destroyed!"

  Takashi's eyes darkened, and his voice dropped to a growl. "They already destroyed it!" He shout, the weight of his words hanging in the air. "Everything I built—everything I fought for—they destroyed. Hakari. The son I raised, the family I promised to protect. they poisoned him, Hikari. They also poisoned me!... I've been trapped with lies. That magic we cant rely on it. But it is something we can use. And study... They are hiding it. They trampled everything I created with their fear and greed. They did not want us can use magic. And now they'll pay for it."

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  Hikari’s breath caught, her judgment beads flaring dimly. “Father, please—”

  Takashi softened slightly, his fiery blade lowering. He cupped her cheek briefly, his touch warm but firm. “You are the future of this village, Hikari. But the future can’t grow in poisoned soil. Stay here. Protect your sister. This is my fight.”

  Haruka inched ahead, tears streaming down her face. "Father, you will kill yourself if you do this! Don't let anger control your action father!"

  Hikari shaking as she tried to say something. But her father legs is fast even its as if running. Hikari trying to catch up.

  The villagers moved aside in unison as Takashi approached the house of the elders, sunfire sword raging with a second sun. Hikari and Haruka brought up the rear, their hearts filled with regret, as the man who had kept tradition close for so long now set out to incinerate it to cinders.

  The quarters of the elders were silent as Takashi entered, the hot glow of his sunfire blade sending leaping shadows across the wooden walls. The warmth of the flames was a stark contrast to the coldness in the air, an unfavorable contrast to the cold fury in his heart.

  He did not knock. The giant doors creaked open under the pressure of his palm, and he stepped into the council room, his body crushing the room with weighty heat. The elders, seated in their circle of tradition and power, regarded him with a spectrum of confusion through alarm.

  "Takashi!" Elder Miyako began, her silver hair aglitter in the firelight. "What is the meaning of—"

  The words were never spoken.

  The sunfire blade flashed, cutting through the air with burning velocity. The room echoed with the thud of a body on the floor, blood spreading as the two halves of Miyako's body fell from her chair.

  Gasps and screams filled the air as the other elders struggled to stand, their ceremonial robes hindering their panic.

  "Takashi!" another elder screamed, his voice trembling. "Have you lost your mind?"

  "You are crazy! Get hi—"

  Takashi didn't respond. His sword sang a second time through the air, slicing down two more elders before they could move. The sunfire burned so intensely that the wood beneath them blackened, the heat distorting the complex patterns of the council floor.

  "Cease this folly!" an elder begged, throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender that was doomed to fail. "You vowed to defend this village, to guard its traditio—"

  "Traditions," Takashi spat, his voice venom and low. He advanced on the man, his fiery blade throwing jagged shadows across his face. "Do you mean the traditions that gatekeep knowledge? The traditions that turned my son against me? That destroyed all I created?"

  The elder sank to his knees, trembling. "We only—"

  Takashi did not let him speak. The sunfire blade dropped, its flames screaming as it claimed another life.

  The room grew silent once more, save for the crackling of the fire and the slow, deliberate sound of Takashi’s breathing. The council chamber, once a place of control and governance, was now bathed in blood and the light of the sunfire.

  He stood amidst the carnage, his katana blazing in his hand, its heat licking at the walls and ceiling as though hungry for more destruction.

  The quick footsteps reverberated in the quiet. Takashi turned about, his expression not altering as Hikari hurried in, her beads gently radiating worry.

  "Father!" she screamed, her voice breaking as she glanced around the room. Blood clattered around her feet, the bodies of the elders scattered around the room like broken dolls. The stench of burned flesh filled the air, and the golden blade of Takashi's sword illuminated his featureless face.

  Her throat tightened as she gazed into his eyes. "F-father. What have you done?"

  Takashi's expression did not change. He merely looked at her, his voice even but heavy with resolve. "Didn't I tell you to not follow me."

  She stepped backward once, her shaking hands clenched around the beads at her throat. Her legs wobbled, struggling to hold her up. "Father, answer me!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "What is this? Why? This... You cant just do violence even worse killing them! There is better approach than this! This is slaughtering!"

  Still, he said nothing. His shoulders rose and fell with his steady breaths, his grip firm on the hilt of his burning katana.

  The silence was unbearable. Hikari’s beads pulsed faintly as if responding to her panic, but their warmth did little to steady her. “Please. talk to me,” she pleaded, her voice shaking. “This isn’t you... This. this can’t be you! Father!”

  The light of his sword illuminated the paths of tears running down her face as she approached.

  But Takashi did not stir, a stubborn form in the midst of ruin.

  Hikari trembled, her knees buckling under her. "You killed them," she breathed, hardly above a whisper. "You killed them all... Y-you..."

  The fire danced, the only sound in heavy silence.

  "Hikari... What will you have from them? Are they better than our family?" Takashi say, didnt give her to speak as Takashi walk away. When Takeshi did make his move, it was a sluggish one. He stood before the exit, his footsteps heavy on the charred floor. His expression was stone-cold, chiseled from granite, his eyes colder than the emptiness.

  "Father!" Hikari screamed, her voice shattered by desperation. She stretched out her hands as he walked past her, but her trembling fingers stopped short.

  Takashi in the doorway, his light long, dancing shadows on the bloody room. He did not turn, his face obscured by the brightness of the flames.

  "They burned Hakari," he murmured, his voice low and heavy with a thousand griefs. "And all that I made... What do you think they did if we let them alive."

  Without another word, he stepped out into the night, the gold fire of his sunfire blade fading from view as he disappeared.

  Hikari dropped to her knees, the world whirling around her as tears streamed in a deluge down her face. Her body trembled, her judgment beads fading as the fullness of the carnage and the harsh words of her father started to become real.

  She sat, surrounded by death and the smoky haze of the flames, unable to comprehend what she had witnessed—and how the man she once had admired had proved himself to be an agent of destruction so unyielding and inhumane.