One moment, they were talking about the history of N’garu while the arrows still hung motionless above the canyon, hundreds of steel points suspended in the night, while the Archive pressed against the stone walls hard enough to make them groan. Then a low metallic sound rolled out from somewhere behind the gates of Thazir.

Sagiri was the only one to hear it first because of his sharp hearing. Sagiri felt it before he understood it, but he knew it was something deadly, heavy, and hot. The archive could feel the heat before he could even see it. His eyes shifted toward the gate as a thin red line appeared between the massive stone doors. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then the canyon turned white.

A sphere of fire erupted from inside the gate or within it in a place where he had not seen open. It all just happened too quickly.

It crossed the distance instantly.

It was so fast that he did not have the time to see the big yellow mass clearly.

The thing was not like the arrows he could hold back. Besides, he had not prepared for additional weight, and if he calculated wrong, his friends would be dead. He was given no time for attack, and this thing was bigger and faster than any arrow she had seen.

It looked more like the canyon itself had ignited and was rushing toward them. Heat struck first, violently enough to make the cloth snap and the air distort. Sagiri reacted immediately. His hand closed, and the Archive pocket ripped open behind the squad in a violent surge of darkness. One after another, he forced them backward into the pocket in a flash. There was no time to explain. No time to move carefully. The fire was already there.

Sagiri realized he could not shield them, shield against the incoming ball of fire, and still escape. The suspended arrows collapsed from the sky as the archive punched back. He shoved the last of the squad into the Archive and turned just as the fire hit.

The explosion swallowed the canyon in an instant. Stones shattered from the impact. Heat consumed the air. The shockwave tore through the walls and ripped entire sections of rock loose above him. Sagiri barely avoided the center by throwing himself sideways and pushing the archive out, but there was not too much time to hold it back completely. The edge of the blast still caught him.

Flames crashed into him and launched him violently through the canyon. His body struck the stone wall hard enough to split it before he bounced and rolled across broken ground. His clothes burned away instantly. His mantle caught fire. Heat tore through his shoulder, side, and back before he finally slammed to a stop.

For a moment, there was only burning air. The smell of flesh burning and fabric.

Then Sagiri moved.

He pushed himself up slowly through drifting dust and falling embers. Part of his outer robes had burned away completely. The fabric beneath was blackened and torn while red burns spread across one side of his body where the fire had reached him. Heat still rose faintly from him into the cold canyon air.

He looked toward the gate. Then, slowly straightened, and beneath the mask...

He smiled.

If he had anticipated the fireball, he could have stopped, but it was worth letting himself feel its weight, even by letting himself burn a little.

Now then...

Sagiri remained standing in the middle of the shattered canyon while heat rolled off the broken stone around him in waves. For a moment, he did nothing. Then the Archive stirred again.

The whole hit and impact might have only lasted seconds, but he needed to push out his squad. The archive hummed with the current impact. Sagiri pushed the archive out.

The massive invisible structure to others stretched across the canyon and reached upward over the cliffs before opening above one of the higher stone ridges overlooking the battlefield. One by one, his squad was released from within it, dropping safely onto the elevated ground far from the destroyed section of the canyon. They stumbled forward as they landed, turning immediately toward the impact site below.

He knew they would not remain still for long, and he wanted to finish what he had to do before they caught up.

Sagiri did not follow. Instead, the Archive folded inward around him. His figure disappeared, and for barely a second, the canyon remained empty.

The next moment, Sagiri landed at the place where the flaming ball had made contact. He did not attempt to soften the landing. His robes were burned black and torn apart in places, the outer cloth reduced to hanging fragments while soot and ash covered him from shoulder to boot. One side of his body looked darker from the burns, and the edges of his coat drifted behind him in loose, scorched strips. He fell through the smoke in complete silence.

The impact of his landing echoed through the canyon. Stone cracked beneath his feet, and more dust exploded outward. For several seconds, nobody could see anything.

The soldiers above the walls stared downward in silence. They waited patiently, relieved that they had been saved. They were busy loading another round of arrows. The fire launched from inside Thazir was meant to erase people. Even the commander had lowered his weapon already.

Little by little, the dust shifted and began to fade...

A shape stood inside it.

The smoke slowly separated, and Sagiri appeared beneath the canyon lights, standing exactly where the fire had struck. Burned. Blackened. Somehow, he was holding his weapon.

A sharp breath escaped someone above. Then another. Gasps spread through the canyon. One soldier took a step backward. Another lowered his weapon without realizing.

Whatever they were witnessing was an impossibility. Even more impossible was the fact that Sagiri was still standing. His mask had been burned off, and part of his clothes were gone, exposing the marks that were now crawling and glowing under his skin. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

His right was burning even more red now, and a laugh cut through his throat. A cold sharo laugh tore through his throat, so chilling that everyone shifted uncomfortably. Even his teammates, who were still processing what was going on, were startled. Sagiri laughed hard till he hunched over, but he did not stop. He looked like a mass of white teeth flashing because of how black he had become from the attack. The laugh echoed in the whole canyon. It rose higher and higher, then louder and louder, then..

He suddenly stopped.

"I only wish to enter a city my ancestors helped build... yet you have tried to kill me twice, how cruel," Sagiri said after a second.

"I, Sagiri, the last of N’folu, survived seventeen years ago. I am not easy to kill!!" His voice was not only cold but angry.

"I will enter this city tonight. If I have to kill everyone, then I will do it. If Thazir wishes to kill me, then you are going to have to try harder.... but wait. You had your moment..." Sagiri tilted his head slightly, a maddening smile taking over his face.

"Now it’s my turn." He said rather too calmly before he disappeared from his place on the ground and from sight.