Uncertain future

Jarathia | Jarathia City | City Hall Gardens

Lanterns dapple the hedges with gold. Only a few guards patrol the garden paths. As they close in, Chisa smiles—because for a heartbeat she sees children…

Nine as a boy, Jerome, Sunthia—all running toward her. And from behind them, Jule lunges forward in an ambush.

“Typical.” The child-Nine laughs.

“Chisa’s always aware of who’s behind her.
Ahh, that hurt…” Jule mutters.

The vision snaps.

The greatsword flashes, severing the guard’s head behind her. The two in front flinch, stumble, turn to run—
One clean motion. Death claims them before they can get anywhere.

“Of course I’m always aware, Nine.” Chisa mutters, wrenching the sword free. “I’m a prodigy too after all.”

She strides over to the mayor’s tower. The double doors are locked and barred. She closes her eyes, breathes once, and draws a line with the greatsword. Locks crack. The doors swing open.

Three guards wait—and drop to their knees. Surrendering.

Chisa passes them with a crooked grin. On the marble floor ahead…

A vision. Jerome appears, kneeling, smiling up at her.

“Chisa—the princess.” He teases.

She spins, half-dancing in front of the guards. “If Nine comes back, will he really marry me?”

“He told me he loves you.” Jerome smiles.

“Jerome—” she begins, but then Torvea walks over to them.

“He’d love you as a wife.” Torvea says gently. “But live out your childhood first, little girl.”

Reality returns like a slap.

All that’s left are scared guards.

Chisa shakes her head and climbs the stairs, every step heavy with her worsening condition, her fraying mind. She gathers what little strength remains—her final act.

The mayor’s office door opens beneath her hand. Inside, Rizario stands with his wife. The woman clutches a kitchen knife in a trembling hand. A small girl peers out from behind her skirt.

“Will you please let my wife and child go?” Rizario asks, his voice thin.

Chisa steps toward the girl. The mother slashes at her shoulder with the knife, but Chisa doesn’t even flinch—she wrenches it away and hurls it into the wall. Her gaze softens as she crouches before the child. “Your name is Sunny, right?”

The girl nods.

Chisa pulls a sealed letter from her pocket. “Have you heard of the hero? The new one.”

Sunny’s face lights up. “She beat a really bad woman! So cool! And— And Nine saves us from the beasts with crystals, right?”

Chisa lets her smile cut sideways toward Rizario. “Your father told you?”

“Mhm. And my mom.” Sunny nods.

“Take this.” Chisa says, tucking the letter into Sunny’s hands. “Give it to the Crystal Hero. What happens here today isn’t your fault. Sometimes adults just make a mess and then they have to atone.”

“Do you mean—you punish bad people?” Sunny begins.

“Sunny,” Her mother says softly, understanding at last, “we have to do some adult things. Please wait outside.”

Chisa takes Sunny’s hand and guides her to the door. “Don’t be scared. There’s some guards outside—a bad monster was here. But the guards killed it. They’re heroes, you know?”

She glances calmly toward a guard below and gives a subtle wave, beckoning him upstairs.

“What about Mom and Dad?” Sunny whispers.

“Listen to your mother, Sunny.” Chisa says.

Sunny nods and hurries down the stairs.

The door clicks shut. The room feels smaller, heavy with silence—three breaths, nothing more.

The woman’s tears spill as Rizario pulls her close. “Dyane, I’m sorry—”

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to be—” she begins.

Chisa leans on the wall, watching them with eyes like sharpened glass.

“Are you going to kill us?” Dyane asks, voice cracking. “You’ve killed everyone in these last hours, I take it. Are we next?”

Chisa nods.

“Why?” Her grief turns sharp. “Why couldn’t we fix things earlier? With less bloodshed? We could have talked.”

“We tried.” Chisa says. “We warned you. We stood in opposition. Otherwise this island would now be even more of a hellscape.”

Rizario swallows. “You’re the bandits’ vice leader… Why are you here, instead of fighting at the volcano?”

Chisa looks past them to the window—the city beyond, drowning in smoke. “Your guards. My bandits. They have to vanish. Everyone who fed this conflict needs to die.”

Rizario goes pale. “That’s madness.”

“I know.” Chisa says. “But we lost everything.”

She exhales.

“We messed up. I messed up. Jerome did. Your nobles did. So badly that we have to trust outsiders to fix what we broke. Nine wasn’t born here. Hanla and he are fighting the Calamity in the mines right now.”

Rizario lifts a hand, desperate. “We can still—”

Chisa steps up to Dyane. “You know it’s too late. We have to entrust the future to someone else, or we’ll drag everyone down with us.”

“We can still—” Dyane tries again.

“Dyane.” Chisa says quietly. “May I speak to your husband alone?”

Dyane looks at Rizario and smiles through tears. “I love you, sweetheart.”

A clean stroke. Dyane crumbles, the light leaving her before she’s hit the floor.

“Dyane—Dyane—DYANE!”

Rizario drops to his knees, gathering his wife’s body in his arms, clutching it tight. Chisa watches and walks to the window, moonlight sharpens her profile like a blade.

“Why show this kind of compassion now?” She asks, voice low. “This kind of grief? We have both lost the true value of a life.”

“She was my wife.” Rizario chokes. “The love of my life.”

Chisa smiles without warmth and settles on the windowsill. “I envy you. You had time to enjoy your love. Truly—I envy you.”

“I’m next… aren’t I?”

Before she answers, the volcano over Jarathia convulses—smoke billows, the mountain’s throat blazing. Two colossal wings of fire unfurl from the crater—then the volcano crumbles shut, the top collapsing, swallowing the dragon before it can break free.

Rizario pales. “What… will you do about it?”

“Nothing,” Chisa says flatly. “We’ve had too many red-dust deaths. You attacked the mines. Half my bandits are already infected, the rest show high-dose symptoms. And still you wanted the mining rate to rise. We warned you.”

Her voice shifts, clinical and detached.

“A second calamity is coming. Because you kept raising the rates, kept sending everyone in the Outskirts to dig—with ‘good money’ or with weak threats. It’s impressive.”

She glances toward the volcano, her expression twisting into something almost proud.

“I didn’t expect that you’d blow it up, just to seal the dragon for a few hours… Truly impressive. And I even sacrificed you all for the cause, my bandits…”

Chisa smiles, strangely sentimental.

Then she leans in, her eyes sharp, threatening. “We warned you. And now a new mana calamity has awoken. I hope Mersa is alive—maybe together with Nine and Hanla he can fix what we broke. But you and I? We both need to die now, don’t you think?”

“If I had known—” Rizario begins.

“Torvea. Mersa. Jerome. Nine. Even the scientists. EVERYONE told you it would get worse.” Chisa nods toward the distant pit. “That golem below? Epic-rank. Stronger than most nations. A SINGLE wyvern equals ten soldiers. And still, you pushed the rate… You sold our souls—knowing our souls turn into monsters—and then called it a lie. We told you, again and again: there is no coincidence.”

He swallows. “Is THIS the right way, then? Killing fathers, mothers, young guards?”

“You judge ME for killing?” Chisa lays a palm on her belly. “For ten years we’ve lived with the casualties you ordered. Red dust syndrome: every scar reopens, pain never fades, healing fails. We’re stitched together shells. And when we die, we become beasts. We’re all doomed.”

“You’re no better than me just because your body suffers! You are scum!” He hisses.

“You hunted the opposition. Your orders killed my parents too.”

Moonlight washes over her face as the volcano’s glow dims from the explosion. “Jerome and I fought back. We killed to defend ourselves, that first time.” She studies him. “You give orders and don’t look at the consequences. Even with a dragon outside your window, you won’t admit you were wrong.”

Her voice thins. “We saw what they did to my mother. We saw how they ended my father. We were children. We didn’t want ANY of this.” A breath, cracking. “They were scientists—working with Torvea. If you hadn’t killed them, maybe they would have found a cure by now. A countermeasure.”

Rizario stares at the volcano, then down at Dyane. “I won’t pity you.”

“I don’t want pity.” Chisa steps closer. “I accept my wrongs. I remember every face. Killing didn’t make me insane.”

She stops an arm’s length away. “People call killing gruesome… before you die—what do YOU think of it?”

“It’s gruesome indeed. Terrible.” His gaze flickers. “But if I hadn’t, everything would have spiraled because—”

“—I was right." They say together.

He shudders.

“Now you feel it.” Chisa whispers. “The hypocrisy. We need a new beginning—without our poisoned structures!”

She kneels, closes Dyane’s eyes. “She believed in you. Did you ever believe in YOUR PEOPLE? Believe we could grow stronger, build power, work with the Adventurer’s Guild? Support talents? No, you demanded absolute obedience, no matter the cost. That’s on you, Rizario.”

“I do believe in them—but the outside world is much stronger—”

“Do you?” Her grin is tired. “I was a prodigy. Jerome was a prodigy. Nine did return. Even without us, time could have created new talent. But you only wanted instant results.”

She lifts her blade to his throat. “And if Nine knew how you didn’t protect Sunthia—that you didn’t even post guards to watch her steps as promised… He would murder you. The thing about trauma, Rizario—”

He looks up, seeing regret finally flood his eyes.

“Is that it never really fades. It stays with you.”

One stroke. Silence.

Then she walks and opens the door.

Chisa steps into the hall. One guard stares at the corpses of his comrades. “Why… why did you kill them all?”

She walks outside, she unties her ponytail, hair falling around her shoulders. The tower’s flower garden is waiting for her—white chrysanthemums bobbing in the night breeze. She lies down among them.

Mana threads flicker under her skin—veins glowing bluish-red. She sets the greatsword across her stomach and draws a deep line, right where she is already hurting. It feels painless. The blossoms blush red.

She closes her eyes, flower petals tickling her face. She hears children’s voices drifting over:

“Your sister…” Nine whispers.
“Do you like her?” Jerome teases.
“Yes. How did you know?” Nine says.
“Whaaaat!” Jerome, louder than he meant to be.
“She’s looking at us.” - Nine, so calm.

Chisa smiles.

Because I’m always aware.

One last breath.

A different memory surfaces—plans whispered in the volcano’s mansion:

“Nine will come back.” Jerome says.

“Maybe we can reset everything then.” Chisa offers. “Leave with Nine. Take Sunthia with us.”

“We’re too far gone, Chisa.” Jerome answers. He peels a contact lens from his eye—the iris beneath is bright red. “And without us, he’d sell the country. We have to play—”

The scene shifts into the future, when rage burned away doubt:

“I don’t WANT this anymore!” Chisa snaps. “They’re disgusting. I can’t do it! He’s back anyway—we can free the country!”

“Leave.” Jerome urges. “Go live with him, somewhere better. Fill his sorrowful heart and be happy.”

“I can’t.” She whispers. “You’re my brother.”

“We’ll die on this path.” Jerome admits.

“And? This is the country our parents believed in.”

“All we can do is wait. Our only hope is an outsider as strong as Nine… We are too weak right now, even with him. And that Golem… is not the only calamity to be scared off…” Jerome says. “Raise the mine rate and the syndrome spreads. Mana beasts increase by the day…”

“Why can’t I be the one? The hero beside him!” She complains.

He only sighs.

The memory fades. The garden remains. At last, Chisa understands.

“In hindsight, you were right.” She breathes. “I could never be the girl beside Nine. I can’t live in peace. I was doomed from the start. I gave everything for an uncertain future—but at least… it means the future isn’t doomed, just uncertain… right, Jerome? Jerome… I’m coming to join you. I… sacrificed it all for our cause now. And for that, I—”

Her last words are barely a thread of air: “Lost my love.”
Amid a field of red chrysanthemums, Chisa dies with a faint, satisfied smile on her lips.