The sun didn't rise in Kyōgai.
It bled.
Molten streaks of bruised amber spilled through the crooked canopy like the sky had been gashed open by some ancient claw. The light didn't warm—it brushed. Like a fingertip over cracked skin. The trees groaned with the effort of waking, bark twitching with a slow shimmer as if digesting something foul. Vines coiled tighter around trunks, and from somewhere in the beyond, a bird-like creature wailed—long, aching, and deeply personal.
It sounded like heartbreak.
Six hundred years old.
Still fresh.
Rakan stirred, breath catching in his throat as the dream dissolved. The fire had died to ash. The world glowed in deep rust and dim gold. And somewhere nearby, something was chewing.
Not soft chewing.
Not even remotely normal chewing.
It was the kind of sound that made your molars hurt just by hearing it—wet and crackly, like someone gnawing on a gemstone wrapped in dry leaves.
He sat up abruptly, his hair sticking up on one side, eyes bleary and flickering with Ka'ro's unsettled pulse.
"What… is that noise?"
Shugoh sat cross-legged by the fire pit, chewing triumphantly, mouth half-full of something green and fibrous. His expression was too bright for this hour—like he'd already lived an entire chaotic morning before anyone else dared to blink.
"Morning snack," he chirped, waving the half-eaten thing like a prize. "Ka'ro-bark wrapped in nutrient vine. You want some? It makes your teeth itch."
Rakan stared at it. Then at him.
"I'll pass."
"Suit yourself," Shugoh said through a grin. "It also gives you temporary hallucinations."
There was a long silence.
Rakan blinked. "What?"
Shugoh blinked back, completely innocent. "What?"
Before Rakan could unpack the deep emotional betrayal behind that exchange, a sharp snap broke the hush—a branch, somewhere behind them. The kind of snap that made your instincts flicker, before memory caught up and reminded you who you were traveling with.
Sure enough, Teruko emerged from between two warped trees, looking like she'd never slept a day in her life.
Hair neatly pulled back into a tight braid. Blade resting against her back like a spine extension. Her boots were clean. Her eyes were not.
She was already fully dressed and visibly irritated, which meant it was probably a normal morning.
Rakan let out a groan, flopping backward onto the moss. "You've already been out scouting, haven't you?"
"Twice," she said, brushing a speck of something from her sleeve. "We're surrounded by seventeen minor glyph-trails and three unstable zones. None of them are fresh. But one of them's moving."
Shugoh tilted his head. "You counted the glyphs?"
"Of course I did. I have a functioning brain."
Rakan winced, still half-asleep. "You mean functioning like a knife in a lightning storm."
Before Teruko could retaliate with a dagger-shaped insult, a groan echoed from above.
Mazanka rolled out of his hammock like a man slowly descending from a dream where he was worshipped. One sleeve hung halfway off his shoulder, his blond hair tangled with Ka'ro threads and a single glowing leaf stuck to his cheek.
"Functioning brains are overrated," he said with a majestic yawn. "Brains are for people who like consequences."
Teruko glared. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Not really." Mazanka stretched luxuriously, spine cracking. "Meditated. Watched Rakan twitch like a nervous fox. Listened to you mutter in your sleep."
She froze. "I did not—"
"'No, Mazanka, you're not better than me,'" he intoned dramatically, hand pressed to his chest like a wounded romantic. "'I'm stronger, faster, emotionally more composed—'"
"I will end you," Teruko snapped, her face going crimson.
Rakan wheezed, flopping sideways in laughter.
Shugoh, delighted, tossed a strip of moss-jerky into the air. "Breakfast diplomacy!" he declared. "Come together over trauma snacks!"
Teruko batted the jerky out of the air. "Stop feeding us plants you find on the floor."
"They're not from the floor." Shugoh grinned. "They're from Koko."
The camp fell into eerie silence.
Mazanka blinked. "Wait. Where is Koko?"
Rakan sat up slowly. "The… parasite?"
Shugoh nodded, still chewing. "He left at dawn. Said the taxes were too high."
Rakan stared. "You… talked to it?"
Mazanka rubbed his face. "Did it talk back?"
Shugoh leaned in solemnly, as if revealing ancient truth. "He said your snoring was an affront to nature."
Mazanka placed a hand over his chest like he'd been stabbed. "Rude."
Teruko groaned and threw her arms in the air. "I can't keep doing this."
"You can," Mazanka offered. "And you will. Because without us, you'd be alone. And alone, you'd die of stress-induced cardiac failure after arguing with a boulder."
"Don't tempt me," she said.
Shugoh stood up and spun a vine like a lasso. "Alright, team-building activity: we catch breakfast using only Ka'ro and hope."
"No," Teruko and Rakan said at once.
"Too late," Shugoh grinned. "Hope has already begun."
Morning in Kyōgai was less of a beginning and more of an endurance trial. The air still buzzed with Ka'ro remnants from the night before, and the trees—twisting and towering, adorned with iridescent glyphs that pulsed like veins—looked somehow hungover.
Shugoh, of course, was as eccentric as a toddler on caffeine.
He stomped into the clearing with the swagger of a man on a mission, arms full of random glowing ingredients—roots, shards, a vine that tried to bite him mid-step.
"I shall now," he announced proudly, "bless us with a culinary masterpiece born of chaos and desperation."
Rakan looked up groggily from where he was brushing dirt from his sleeves. "Oh no."
"Oh yes," Shugoh grinned, already clearing a space with dramatic sweeps of his arm. "I call it… Ka'ro-Patterned Flame Waffle Deluxe!"
Teruko didn't even look up. "Absolutely not."
Shugoh turned to her, wounded. "You don't even know what it is yet!"
"I don't need to," she said, sharpening her tone like a blade. "I know how your little 'inventions' work. Yesterday I saw you try to filter swamp water using your sleeve."
"And you didn't get sick!" Shugoh shot back, triumphant. "That's results."
Mazanka, watching from a boulder with his long legs crossed and half a fruit in one hand, raised a finger. "He has a point."
"No, he doesn't!" Teruko barked. "That's not a point, that's a miracle."
"I believe in miracles," Shugoh said, turning toward the fire pit with the reverence of a monk. "And breakfast."
With a hum, Shugoh summoned a flat stone slab from beneath the jungle floor, tilting it with Ka'ro until it hovered gently above the moss. He began tracing glyphs across its surface with thick, glowing tree sap he'd collected in a cracked gourd.
Each motion was overly precise—like he was trying to convince the jungle gods themselves to give him a five-star rating.
"This here," he explained proudly, gesturing at the swirls, "is a modified Shintei-Ka'ro inscription with stabilizing arcs from Sōgen glyph theory. See? It stabilizes the outer heat flow and bends the Ka'ro current into a perfect cook zone."
Rakan crouched beside him, peering closer, curiosity fighting his better judgment. "Wait. That's actually... Is that a dual-inscription on the third ring?"
Shugoh beamed. "It is. You're learning, oh disciple of flavour."
"Do NOT encourage him," Teruko growled, stepping between them. "Rakan, back away from the madness."
"He's using real structure," Rakan argued.
"He's using Ka'ro inscriptions on bark to cook imaginary food!"
"It's not imaginary," Shugoh said, striking a dramatic pose. "It's conceptual."
Mazanka chuckled, lifting a glistening drink from his lap. The liquid inside shimmered like molten amethyst. Floating within were slivers of glowing fruit and half a cracked memory-stone that vibrated faintly with lingering voices.
"Where the hell did you get that?" Rakan asked.
Mazanka sipped casually, eyes twinkling. "Found it in my old coat. Either it's juice, or it's regret."
He handed the drink to Rakan with all the solemnity of a passing torch. Rakan took a sip.
And immediately gagged.
He choked so hard that a nearby tree visibly drooped.
"I think that touched my ancestors," he coughed, clutching his chest. "I saw my own birth."
Mazanka leaned back, satisfied. "Good. You've needed therapy."
Back at the floating slab, Shugoh had now begun chanting. The glyphs glowed brighter with each syllable—arcs of orange and teal sparking through the mist.
Teruko braced herself. "That's not a cooking spell. That's a Sōkai invocation."
"No, it's not," Shugoh whispered, too focused to hear her. "I'm gonna flip this waffle with the power of intent."
"Stop him, idiot," she hissed at Rakan, who now looked visibly torn between fascination and survival instinct.
"I kind of want to see what happens…"
Mazanka raised his hand. "Same."
Shugoh raised his arms, glyphs pulsing. "I summon the flame of fate—"
"Shugoh—"
"—and BIND IT TO BATTER!"
There was a sound like the jungle exhaling.
Then—
BOOM.
The slab exploded with a pulse of light so blinding it bleached the moss white.
Shugoh stood in the middle of a smoking crater, arms still raised, hair blasted backward like he'd tried to kiss lightning. His face was frozen in a triumphant grin… despite the fact that half of his shirt had disintegrated.
A tree behind him fell over in defeat.
Rakan lay on his back several feet away, laughing so hard his ribs hurt.
Teruko was completely coated in ash, eyes wide with fury and betrayal. "I JUST CLEANED THIS UNIFORM!"
Mazanka gave a slow, appreciative clap. "Ten out of ten. Needs more bacon."
Shugoh, coughing faintly, raised a hand in salute. "Next time… double glyphing…"
"Next time, I'm putting a muzzle on you," Teruko muttered, brushing soot from her eyelashes.
Rakan rolled over, wiping tears from his eyes. "You've got ash in your eyebrows."
"I WILL KILL YOU BOTH."
And yet some moments later, they found themselves eating, despite it all.
Mazanka eventually conjured a proper cooking flame and grilled what remained of their rations with the skill of a jungle-born aristocrat. The food was simple—dried root strips, charred leaf-meat, a few preserved fish cakes Teruko had packed—but no one complained. Not after that.
Shugoh tried to salvage his exploded recipe by scraping melted glyph-bark off the crater rim.
"No," Teruko said flatly.
"But the flavour—"
"No."
"I named it."
"No."
Mazanka passed Rakan a slice of something edible and leaned in. "See? This is teamwork."
Rakan snorted. "This is barely survival."
Shugoh tapped the stone with a stick, unfazed. "That's how all the great Kenshiki bonded. Over smoke. Over fire. Over food that made you question reality."
"You're not a cook," Teruko muttered.
"I'm not just a cook," Shugoh replied, turning dramatically toward the jungle mist. "I'm a visionary. A culinary prophet. Do you know the first Ka'ro user to ever break bread over a living flame?"
Mazanka raised a brow. "This should be good."
Shugoh held up a finger like he was reciting gospel. "Mitsukara-no-Kami. The Forgotten Flame. Said to have boiled the soul of the Rift into broth and served it to the other worldwalkers beneath the roots of Kyōgai's first tree."
Everyone went still for a beat.
Even the trees seemed to creak a little slower.
Teruko gave him a flat look. "That's not real. That's a myth you just made up."
"Is it?" Shugoh whispered, eyes suddenly far too serious. "Or is it a flavour history doesn't want you to remember?"
Mazanka squinted at him. "Did you just say 'flavour history'?"
Rakan chuckled under his breath, leaning over to Teruko. "He's totally making that up."
But Teruko didn't reply. Her eyes lingered on Shugoh just a moment longer than necessary.
Because for a heartbeat—just one—something in the jungle stirred.
Something old.
Something listening.
Shugoh spun back toward the crater and immediately tripped over his own foot. "Ow! Okay, okay, no more Ka'ro waffles today! I hear you, Mitsukara…"
Mazanka chuckled. "To dangerous idiots," he said again, raising his cup.
And the moment passed.
But the name lingered.
Mitsukara-no-Kami.
The Forgotten Flame.
The first to cook with Ka'ro.
The first to eat the Rift.
Rakan raised his hand. "To dumb waffles."
Teruko reluctantly lifted her canteen. "To… surviving breakfast."
Shugoh stood, fist in the air. "To Koko. Gone but not forgotten."
They clinked.
The jungle shivered.
And the day began.