District 13 had known fire before. But not like this.
Not fire from rebellion or lightning strikes, but the slow, insidious kind—the kind lit by silk shoes stepping over starving children, the kind that starts with a whisper in a noble's drawing room and ends in an unmarked grave.
And that fire now had a face.
Arase Haejin—Kaito's older brother—stood in the heart of the school courtyard, spinning a child's wooden top on the edge of his snakeskin cane. Surrounding him were guards—his own—dressed not in armor, but in finely tailored coats of ash-grey with hidden seams. Men trained not to protect, but to prevent.
The schoolchildren stood at the windows again, their faces pressed to the glass. They knew instinctively what many adults took years to learn: the man in silk was more dangerous than the one with a blade.
Kaito emerged from the school with Seina at his side. The air was tense—tight, like a string pulled taut on a bow.
"Haejin," Kaito greeted. "Didn't expect a welcoming party."
"Little brother," Haejin said without looking. "Do you know how long it's been since I saw something built without rot?"
Kaito frowned. "Is that praise or prelude?"
Haejin flicked the spinning top into the air with his cane and caught it on his palm. "It's recognition. You've done what the Ministry of Restoration couldn't do in three decades. You've made the wretched believe again. That's dangerous."
Kaito stepped forward. "Then you came to shut me down?"
"No," Haejin said, smiling. "I came to invest."
That evening, in the newly cleared assembly hall—a space that had once been a plague dormitory—Haejin spread his offer like a tapestry of silk across the war-hardened table.
"I'll fund a second mill," he said. "Double the food output. You'll get guild licenses, access to noble-approved instructors for your school, and permission to hire Arase-trained guards."
Kaito leaned back in the chair Seina had repaired herself just three nights ago. "In exchange for?"
Haejin steepled his fingers. "Access. I want the records. The names. The ledgers of everyone you've helped."
Seina paled. "That's... that's a census. With that, he can control debt, labor migration, even marriage routes—"
"I know," Kaito said softly.
Haejin's smile didn't break. "I'm not here to ruin your dream, Kaito. I'm here to help you scale it."
But Kaito heard it. The unspoken second half.
"And own it," he said.
Haejin's eyes gleamed. "Is that so terrible? Better the devil you know than the priest you don't."
There was a long pause.
Then Kaito reached for the teacup before him. It was chipped—one of the many they hadn't replaced. He drank from it slowly. Then set it down.
"I remember when you burned the Dakuen Breadfields," Kaito said. "They called it strategy. You called it purification."
Haejin's smile faded.
"I'm not the same child you bullied in the atrium halls," Kaito said. "And these people? They aren't pawns. They're firewood. They remember who let them burn."
He stood.
"You won't get the records."
Haejin rose slowly. "Then you'll get the wolves. Don't say I didn't warn you."
He left with a rustle of silk, his guards falling in behind him like a procession of crows.
That night, Seina found Kaito in the under-vault again, cross-referencing old tax ledgers with refugee entries.
"We're not ready," she said. "If Haejin turns on us, we won't survive. He has his own spy ring. Mercenaries. Even a sanctioned assassin unit—"
"I know," Kaito said without looking up.
"You need allies."
"I'm building them."
Seina hesitated, then pulled out a wrapped scroll from her satchel.
"I got this from a contact in the southern docks. A woman named Aoi. She used to run an unlicensed shipping lane under the nose of the Guild. Now she traffics in something else."
She unwrapped the scroll.
It was a map.
But not of land.
Of bloodlines.
Specifically, of noble bastard lines—children born from servants, concubines, and one-night errors. Hidden across the empire.
Kaito studied it, eyes narrowing.
"You think we can convince them?"
"No," Seina said. "I think you can. Because they've lived in the cracks of power. Just like us."
Kaito folded the map carefully. "I'll start with the nearest one."
The next morning, Kaito left District 13 disguised as a merchant accountant. He wore worn robes, carried two ledgers, and had nothing but dried rice and salt beef in his pack.
His destination: Takemura Village, a minor wine-producing town two districts over.
According to Seina's map, the woman there—Takemura Yunji—was the illegitimate daughter of Lady Asuka Munakata. She ran a brewery now, but had once been a bloodscribe-in-training.
Kaito found her outside her stone vat room, arms elbow-deep in grape mash. She didn't look up when he approached.
"If you're here to buy wine, we're sold out."
"I'm here to ask for an alliance."
Yunji wiped her hands, glanced at his eyes, then frowned. "You're Arase."
"Not officially," Kaito said. "They buried my name years ago."
She studied him. "What do you want?"
"To protect the people the world forgot. To unite the cracks into something unbreakable."
She didn't laugh. But she didn't agree either.
Instead, she walked to a shelf and retrieved a bottle. Not of wine. But of black ink.
She handed it to him.
"You know what this is?"
Kaito opened it. The scent was strange. Familiar. Blood.
"Memory ink," Yunji said. "Illegal since the Doctrine of Fire. I used to write spells with it before the Munakatas ordered the scribes burned."
She held out her hand.
"If you can write a binding oath in blood, I'll consider your offer."
Kaito didn't flinch. He pulled a dagger from his sash. Cut his palm. And began to write on the stone wall of her ferment room.
> In dust we kneel. In ash we build.
My name is Kaito Arase, and I will not sell the poor to purchase peace.
Let this blood bind me to truth. Let this oath be the foundation of flame.
When he was done, Yunji placed her hand over the drying ink.
And for the first time in twenty years, the bloodscribe magic shimmered.
A pact. Silent. Real.
"I'm in," she said.
Back in District 13, Seina was waiting with grim news.
"The Munakatas have moved," she said. "Temple agents have been sent to 'restructure' the refugee housing near the mills. The market guards are already being replaced. They're trying to collapse the infrastructure."
"Starve the people. Blame me," Kaito said.
"Worse," she whispered. "They've sent Judicars."
He froze.
The Judicars were fanatics with legal immunity. Black-armored enforcers of divine will. They didn't speak. They didn't bribe. They executed.
And they were here.
Kaito stood by the window. Across the courtyard, a group of robed figures stepped silently through the crowd, eyes cold behind their bone-etched helms.
"We have to move fast," Seina said.
"I know," he replied. "We'll lose the district in weeks if we don't act."
He turned to her.
"Call Yunji. Send word to Daeseok. Get the children out of the school. And prepare the vaults."
Seina blinked. "Are you... evacuating?"
"No," Kaito said.
He grabbed the old coat he'd worn the day the Temple came. The one stitched from plague rags.
"I'm retaking the city."