The scent of smoke drifted lazily through the clearing, curling between the trees and up into the black sky, where no stars dared to shine.

  A deer carcass sizzled above the fire, the meat turning golden-brown over time. Fat dripped onto the flame with a faint hiss, and the heat pulsed gently against their skin. It was the first warmth Takahiro had felt all day that didn’t come from chaos or fire.

  He sat with his knees drawn up, staring blankly into the flames, his school jacket hanging limply off one shoulder.

  The princess—Selenya Valen—sat across from him, sleeves rolled, a small knife in her hand as she turned the spit with practiced efficiency.

  “I hunted it earlier,” she said, her voice calm, almost casual. “I’ve had lessons in survival since I was a child. Tracking, skinning, preservation. It’s part of the royal curriculum.”

  She glanced up at the night sky, letting the silence hang for a moment.

  “We’ll sleep out here tonight,” she added. “I’m not… particularly skilled in shelter magic. You’ll have to forgive me.”

  Takahiro didn’t respond. He just nodded, slowly.

  Kana sat beside him, one leg folded under her, gaze flicking between the meat and her friend’s face. When the first piece was ready, she tore it loose, wrapped it with a cloth to keep from burning her fingers, and held it out.

  “Here. Eat something.”

  Takahiro hesitated.

  Then, slowly, he reached out and took it. “...Thanks.”

  He stared at the meat in his hands for a long time, the smell rising up to meet his senses, but… he didn’t bite. His stomach rumbled faintly, but his throat tightened.

  It felt wrong to eat. Not with everything they’d seen. Not after the city.

  Selenya didn’t push. She just turned another piece of meat and kept talking—to the fire, to herself, maybe to the gods.

  “Something went wrong with the ritual.”

  Her voice was softer now. Uncertain.

  “I reviewed every word of the incantation in my head. I remember the circle. The timing. Everything. And yet…” She looked at them both. “We brought two people. Two… ordinary people.”

  Takahiro looked up at her slowly. His jaw clenched.

  “…No,” he said. “There were three of us.”

  Selenya’s brow furrowed. “Three?”

  He nodded. “Me, Kana, and… Riku.”

  He didn’t look at Kana when he said it.

  “He was in the classroom with us. The light—whatever it was—appeared under our feet. But Kana…” His voice grew quieter. “She pulled him back. She jumped into it with me.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  Selenya turned to Kana.

  Kana didn’t speak. She just stared at the fire.

  The princess opened her mouth—ready to reprimand, maybe even accuse—but something in Kana’s face stopped her. There was no guilt there. Just weight. Exhaustion. Confusion.

  And Selenya exhaled instead.

  “…Of course. You didn’t know what the light was.”

  “Would you have left someone behind?” Kana asked flatly.

  Selenya didn’t answer.

  The fire cracked again. The meat continued to cook. The night grew colder.

  Finally, Selenya broke the silence once more.

  “We’ll head for Velmira at dawn. My mother… she will know what to do.”

  She didn’t sound confident.

  She sounded like someone grasping for structure, for a next step, for a higher authority to carry the burden.

  Takahiro finally brought the meat to his lips.

  But he still didn’t bite.

  The night deepened, and the forest settled into a fragile stillness.

  The crackle of the fire was the only sound that broke the silence, a steady rhythm that grounded the three around it—three strangers bound together by accident, or fate, or a summoning gone wrong.

  Selenya adjusted the spit over the flames, the meat of the deer slowly turning golden and crisp. Its scent curled into the air, mingling with the smoke and pine. She watched Takahiro from across the fire with the kind of gaze reserved for someone sick, or grieving.

  “You should eat,” she said quietly, but with firmness. “We’re on foot. The journey ahead won’t forgive weakness. Especially not from the one we hoped to rely on.”

  Takahiro didn’t respond right away.

  He stared at the fire as if trying to see something inside it—maybe a way back home, or some kind of answer. But eventually, with slow, deliberate movements, he lifted the strip of roasted meat Kana had given him earlier.

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  He took a bite.

  The flavor hit hard—smoky, rich, earthy. And heavy. Too heavy.

  He forced himself to chew, then swallow. The food stayed like a stone in his stomach.

  Across from him, Selenya gave a slight nod and resumed tending the meat.

  Kana sat beside Takahiro, arms around one knee, gaze distant. Her usual sharpness had dulled, replaced by something quieter. She stared into the flames a moment longer before speaking.

  “…Isn’t there a way to summon him too?”

  Selenya blinked, confused. “Him?”

  “Riku,” Kana said softly. “He was supposed to be with us. If the summoning worked once, can’t it work again?”

  Hope lingered in her voice—fragile, stubborn, the kind of hope that clings even after everything else breaks.

  Selenya sighed, setting down the knife she’d been using to trim the meat.

  “The Supreme Summoning is not a spell you cast lightly,” she began. “It requires ten high-ranking priests—each trained in a different school of magic, each bound to the Temple of the Sphere. They don’t just perform the ritual. They become part of it. One mistake… and the entire structure collapses.”

  Kana’s expression tightened. “So… if we found them again—”

  “They’re dead,” Selenya interrupted. “Or missing. Or too injured to ever cast again. I watched two fall in front of the circle before the light faded.”

  Her eyes dropped.

  “And even if one survived, even if we found them, it would take years to train nine others. And that’s assuming we could even recreate the conditions.”

  The words hit hard. Kana swallowed them in silence.

  “The ritual,” Selenya said, almost to herself, “was the last gift of a dying institution. With its loss… our fate returns to time. To chance.”

  She lifted her head again, eyes hardening slightly.

  “With the summoning gone, our only hope is for a new hero to be born. Naturally. But such births are rare—and unpredictable.”

  Kana clenched her jaw. “So then you could’ve waited.”

  Selenya’s voice dropped cold. “Waited? For what? For another child to grow up in the middle of a war?”

  She stood slowly, the firelight flickering in her eyes.

  “The last hero vanished five years ago. Since then, the demons have taken everything. They’ve burned cities, turned kingdoms into dust. Half the continent is theirs. The capital was our last stronghold, and now it’s gone. There is no more time to wait for a prophecy to fulfill itself.”

  Takahiro looked down, his fingers limp around the piece of meat.

  And we weren’t even supposed to be here.

  Selenya turned her back to them and brushed dirt from her cloak.

  “I’ll raise a barrier,” she muttered. “It won’t keep out demons, but it’ll discourage beasts. We may at least sleep undisturbed.”

  She walked into the darkness of the trees, her figure soon swallowed by the shadows.

  The forest seemed even quieter after she left.

  Kana’s voice came low, soft as a whisper.

  “…If Riku had come with us…”

  She didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to.

  Takahiro understood.

  “If he had been here,” she went on, “he’d have known what to do. He would’ve fought. He wouldn’t have just… stood there.”

  Takahiro didn’t argue.

  He nodded, slowly, staring into the fire like it held the answer to everything he wasn’t.

  He hadn’t saved anyone. He hadn’t helped anyone. He had just watched.

  Riku would’ve fought. Riku would’ve known what to do.

  Kana turned to him, brow furrowed. “You’re pale. You look like you’re going to collapse.”

  “I’m fine,” he lied.

  “You’re not,” she said flatly. “Lie down. Rest. Just… shut your eyes for a while.”

  Takahiro hesitated, then nodded, his body aching with every movement.

  He curled up beside the fire, the warmth welcome but incomplete. He didn’t close his eyes.

  Instead, he looked up.

  Above the forest canopy, the sky stretched wide—far wider than any sky back home. And there, glowing cold and quiet, were two moons.

  One silver. One pale blue.

  They hovered together in the sky like twin eyes, watching a world that no longer made sense.

  Takahiro stared at them, his thoughts slowing, his breath evening out.

  That was the moment it truly hit him.

  He wasn’t on Earth anymore.