Scene 3: The Road to Amestrias – Day Three

  The fog hangs thick over the forest, draping the trees in a heavy silence. The caravan creaks along the muddy road—wagon wheels sticking, horses anxious. No birds. No wind.

  Too quiet.

  Yuya sits chained, still and watching. The others mutter, uneasy.

  Then—

  Snap.

  A scream.

  The treeline splits apart as something massive crashes through—pitch-bck flesh, twisted limbs, and bone-white fangs snarling beneath a cracked, mask-like face. Glowing red markings pulse along its back, jagged and unnatural.

  Prisoner (screaming):“What the hell is that!?”

  Ruri (drawing her sword):“Form up! It’s a beast!”

  The royal guards scramble—but too te. The beast charges, tossing them like ragdolls. A whip of its tail impales one through the chest. Its breath is a heatless corruption that warps the very air. One guard melts screaming. Another vanishes in a blur of cws and bck mass.

  Ruri leaps forward, bde fshing silver. Her strike carves a deep wound into the monster’s fnk, forcing it back—but it howls and sms her aside with a spiked tail swipe. She hits the ground, blood already soaking through her cloak.

  Ruri (gasping, clutching her arm):“Damn it…”

  The beast lurches forward, eyes locked on her. Ready to end it.

  But before it can—

  Clink.

  Chains drop.

  Yuya (ft, cold):“…That’s enough.”

  He steps over the wreckage of broken wagons and bodies, calm as a shadow. A fallen soldier’s bde lies in the mud—Yuya picks it up with one hand.

  The beast turns toward him, growling.

  Yuya doesn’t flinch.

  The monster lunges.

  He sidesteps the charge, dragging the bde upward—scraping sparks against the beast’s hide. The impact jars his arm, but he keeps moving. A second swing cshes against jagged cws. The steel groans. He ducks under a sm, pivots, and drives the sword deep into the beast’s leg.

  It roars and reels back, giving him space.

  Yuya lifts the bde, now cracked and scorched.

  Yuya (calmly):“This sword’s not enough.”

  Bck fire coils up his arm, surging into the weapon like it’s feeding on his rage. The bde burns brighter—dark fmes writhing like serpents around it.

  Yuya (low voice):“Getsuga… Tenshō.”

  He swings.

  A wide arc of bck magical energy erupts from the bde—raw, devastating, and silent. It tears forward like a bde of night itself, splitting trees in half and igniting the earth. The bst rips through the beast’s torso, hurling its shrieking body backward in a spiral of fire, ash, and wind.

  When the light fades—

  The creature is gone. Disintegrated.

  The entire clearing is changed.

  A deep gouge now runs across the forest floor where the Getsuga Tenshō struck. Trees are fttened in its wake, the ground scorched to gssy bck. Smoke rises from cracked stone and smoldering roots.

  Silence falls.

  ?

  Aftermath

  Smoke curls from the trees. The caravan is in shambles. Bodies everywhere. The only ones still breathing are Yuya and Ruri.

  Ruri kneels, panting, her shoulder drenched in blood. Her sword lies somewhere behind her. She stares up at him—disbelief slowly shifting into something harder to name.

  Ruri (quietly):“…You’re not a prisoner.”

  Yuya kneels beside her, ignoring the weight of her stare. He finds a bloodied medic satchel nearby, pulls out gauze, and starts wrapping her shoulder. Gentle. Efficient.

  Yuya:“You’d have bled out trying to fight that thing alone.”

  Ruri:“…Why did you help me?”

  He doesn’t look at her.

  Yuya:“…Because you would’ve done the same. Even if they hated you for it.”

  She says nothing. Just watches him finish the wrap, still stunned by everything she just saw—and what it means about this stranger.

  The bck fire is gone.

  The sword in Yuya’s hand cracks—

  Crack.

  —and disintegrates into ash.

  He lets the pieces fall from his fingers.

  And Yuya—unarmed, unreadable—stands in the wreckage of what was supposed to be a simple prisoner transfer.