Time edged forward like frost creeping over stone.

February 30th, 23:00 sharp, a cold moon pinned the sky like a silver nail.

Sais and her people braced the gate with Wind Magic, then dozed in the hall like birds huddled against rain.

Crack—

Clatter—

Shards of tile skittered like dry leaves, and the women jolted awake like rabbits startled under moonlight.

Fear bit first, sharp as sleet on bare skin; Rita swallowed and whispered, “What was that?”

Only now did she admit that her heart wasn’t iron; her courage scattered like sand in a gust.

A new kind of terror surged like a black tide and made her bow-hand tremble like a reed.

Her past foes were wolves she could cut without guilt, the edge that let her match Medith’s “devil” mark like a blade honed on bone.

Mountain Bandits had raided their home like a pack, and sisters and parents fell like cut wheat.

The hunter squads deserved a thousand cuts; mercy was a winter with no fire.

Now she faced people mired in the same mud, fighting for their own justice like brittle grass in the same wind.

Right and wrong blurred like ink in water; she couldn’t separate white from black under this dusk.

“Rita, draw and hold,” Sais said, her voice a steel wire in cold air. “If they strike, we strike back. Or we die, simple as dusk falling.”

She snapped Dark Blade out like a shadow-leaf.

Lina clasped Rita’s soft hand like a budding leaf and, with a calm look, told her to breathe like a lake.

Peggy stood beside Melia with a silver longsword, spine straight as a spear under thunder.

Melia, the big sister, drew her longbow like a crescent moon; emerald sparks danced in her eyes like fireflies, and she sheltered Peggy behind her like a wall of willow.

“Captain, the Kuso Guild—”

“I know,” Sais cut him off like a knife through thread. “Take up your arms and hold. One wave, that’s all.”

He swallowed like choking on dust and joined the line, the hall a ship riding a dark swell.

With the dorm blocks sealed, their main force lay ringed by the Kuso Guild like a net thrown over deep water.

For safety, Sais ordered them to keep their heads down no matter what, like turtles beneath ice.

Only fifty members and the Sprite officers held the main hall, a flotilla adrift on a night sea.

The roof’s graveling grew fierce, and figures swam around like shadows in a river; moonlight spilled monstrous silhouettes like ink poured over paper.

Everything went still, a pond so quiet a pin-drop rang; the women fixed on the warded wooden door, knuckles white like frost on steel.

Time held its breath like a hawk in a snare.

Suddenly the door blew like a breached dam and let out a tearing wail—ROAR—

The whole house shuddered like a drum; thin streams of dust sifted down like dry rain.

ROAR—

THOOM—

The keening from door and roof needled their nerves like wasps trapped in a jar.

Even hands set for Magic Breaker trembled like leaves, though the women stood before them like a palisade.

The shadow outside, blood turned to demon, scraped their souls like cold iron dragged over bone.

The uproar ripped half the city from sleep like midnight thunder cracking a mountain.

Guilds, nobles, mercs, passersby, residents, even the guard, all chose silence and stone—windows latched, doors shut, breaths held like deer in brush.

House to house, people hugged family like clutching warmth against a storm, praying the fire wouldn’t jump their walls.

Only a few powers dared watch from a safe rise, like wolves staring down into a burning valley.

“‘Evil Ghost’ Jade, ‘Falcon’ Eddie, ‘Mad Beast’ Haywood, ‘Walrus’ Gill, ‘Fox’ Gus,” a thin voice counted, brittle as dry twigs.

“Half the elite cohort, thirteen hundred in all, a tide under a scarlet moon.

“Without the half-dead ‘Lion-Tiger’ O’Neil, and ‘Iron Lotus’ Cecilia who left with Medith.

“The Kuso Guild emptied the nest; even Bloodhand Andrew would step back three paces.

“Too bad—I thought I’d found a decent shore.”

A frail youth shambled toward the city gate, his back a lone silhouette under rain, heavy with sorrow like a wet cloak.

Boom—

Crack—

The gate’s spell-seal shattered like glass; the wooden door blasted back meters like a kite snapped from its string.

Sais, front of the line, took one cut and turned it to splinters like chopping a wave’s crest.

At the same heartbeat, a demon-masked man dropped from above like a raven; a pale hand drew the long samurai blade off his back, night-stalker black wrapped tight like shadow.

He looked like an Eastern warrior carved from midnight.

Behind him surged the Kuso Guild like a tide; anger and eager hunger mixed on their faces like storm and flame.

Longswords gleamed cold, meteor hammers swung in tight arcs, knives twitched like snakes; every hand itched for blood like drought craving rain.

Then Haywood’s frame loomed in, mountain-large; the door was too low, so he smacked the wall apart like crushing chalk to enter.

Eddie followed with a face like a winter cliff, and Gus’s eyes burned bright as stars in deep water.

Gill wore blood-red cloth under a crimson coat like a banner; in his right hand, a bloodthirsty longsword shone red as blood-jade, crystalline and cold as a river in frost.

Wrapped in sovereign red, he stood like a war god of blood, a scar to the soul.

“So?” Melia’s gaze met him, a blade of ice in moonlight. “Can’t take our boss, so you came for easy pickings?”

Gill’s mouth tipped in a cold curve, contempt thin as a fox’s smile, insight like knives under silk.

Gus strode to Gill’s side with a storm cloud for a face. “Sais, with Medith away, you’re the one on top,” he said, voice smooth as oil over stone.

“Offer your head, and I’ll keep your people unharmed like chicks beneath a wing.

“Give up. Even if Medith comes back, she won’t stop this river.”

The women ground teeth like flint, and the Crimson Sun members tightened grips like iron rings; Sais cooled at once, calm as a still lake under wind.

“If I’m dead, why would you spare my people?” Sais asked, tone light as ash, eyes sharp as winter stars.

“I’ll guarantee their safety,” Gus said, solemn as oath-stone. “I swear it on my life.”

Lina snorted, a thorn under the tongue. “Your oath?”

“Who was it who said we wait till Medith returns to decide?” Her words cut like a reed-whistle turned blade.

“You call yourself a strategist, yet you can’t smell this cheap frame-up? Laughable—like a fox caught by its own tail.”

Gus blinked, stunned into silence like a bell struck once; respect flickered in his eyes like a faint lamp.

Gill spoke slow, like a judge from hell weighing souls. “Evidence is iron; witnesses and proof stand like pillars. What’s left to say?”

“I won’t trust you painted dolls again,” he hissed, hate rising like smoke.

“You used pretty skin to trick me, trick Herbert, trick us all, a honeyed lie over poison.”

“You left my brother to rot in the wild for days, no grave, no stone, only wind and pain for company.”

“Even his death was agony, ground slow like grain under a mill.”

Blood tears traced twin lines from his tiger eyes, and his teeth ground so hard they rang like breaking porcelain.

“Kill them! Blood for blood—” Gill threw his head back and roared, a storm that flipped tables and chairs like leaves.

The howl speared the roof, climbed the clouds like lightning, and echoed through the city like a bell that wouldn’t die.