Chapter Twenty-Four:

“Broken Fangs”

The descent into Luna Bay was shrouded in twilight. Darkness crept along the shore, swallowing the once-lively village in an oppressive gloom. The faint glow of the barrier overhead flickered like a dying ember under heavy winds, casting fractured light onto the abandoned roads below. Every step felt like an intrusion, as if the village itself had been frozen in the moment before disaster struck.

“It’s quieter than I expected,” Akira murmured.

The rhythmic crash of waves against the distant cliffs was the only response, a steady pulse against the silence.

Kimiko’s tail flicked, her ears twitching. “Most of the villagers fled to higher ground. The ones who stayed will be ready to fight! Her sharp green eyes scanning the darkened windows and empty doorways.

The village bore the marks of hurried abandonment. Torn lanterns swayed in the sea breeze, their paper skins fluttering like ghostly remnants of another time. Fishing nets lay tangled across the cobbled roads, and a half-eaten meal sat untouched on a wooden table. The chair its owner had sat in lay overturned, its last warmth long since faded. The air carried the scent of salt and distant fires.

Yet, despite its emptiness, Luna Bay did not feel dead. It felt suspended—waiting, bracing for the moment when the storm would finally break.

A distant roar echoed across the bay.

John looked up, a cold knot forming in his stomach. The fleet loomed on the horizon—three thousand strong—dark silhouettes against the night sky. Vassoth’s flagship stood at the center, its twisted metal hull a grotesque monument of steel and corruption. Its cannons, glowing with sickly purple fire, fired another volley into the heavens.

The golden barrier above them groaned under the assault. A jagged crack splintered across its surface, veins of light spidering outward. Fragments of the barrier peeled away and rained down, dissolving before they could touch the ground.

RW flinched, perched on John’s shoulder. Her flames pulsed in agitation. “Structural integrity is deteriorating rapidly.” Her voice held no room for doubt. “Total collapse is imminent.”

Another impact struck the barrier. This time, the crack spread like a gaping wound. But it wasn’t just the barrier breaking. John felt it—something beneath it all, something unraveling at the seams of reality itself, as if the very existence of this Realm lingered on whether or not they succeeded.

The relentless bombardment continued, multicolored flashes illuminating the sky like the pulsing glow of a Super Star. The shimmering waves of light reflected off the empty roads, casting brief silhouettes of abandoned structures. And yet, the villagers of Luna Bay carried on.

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John and the others found shelter at a large communal lodge at the heart of the village, The Drifting Lantern. Despite the silence outside, the interior was warm and lively, its walls adorned with ancient tapestries of sea gods and fox spirits. The scent of fresh fish and warm rice filled the air, an oddly comforting contrast to the devastation looming above.

John took a sip of the hot tea offered to him by a calico-furred Nekomijin-Elder Warabi. “How do you live with that?” he asked, gesturing to the constant assault against the barrier, its glow pulsing through the windows.

Elder Warabi took a long breath, exhaling as if releasing centuries of tension. “You get used to it,” she said simply. “Like living next to a foul stench—eventually, you stop noticing. And when you do notice…” She looked up at the flashing sky. “You remember why it’s there. You remember the sacrifice that made it possible.”

Kimiko nodded solemnly. “Every Nekomijin child grows up hearing the tales, about the ones who gave their lives to raise the barrier—and one in particular, the one who wielded the Broken Fangs.”

That caught Akira’s attention. He lowered his sake cup, his unusual sharp grin giving way to something more thoughtful. “Broken Fangs?”

The elder gestured to the far wall, where an old painting depicted a lone Nekomijin warrior standing before an encroaching darkness. In his claws, he wielded a katana and a tanto, their edges glowing with celestial fire. “The blades were forged in desperation. The warrior wielded them to cut down the corruption itself. He freed Luna Bay from the corrupted after Roland’s fall, but in the end, he fell, and his spirit remains—watching over the cove where the blades now rest.”

John exchanged a look with Akira. There was no doubt now—this was their next trial.

Akira let out a slow exhale, shaking his head before tipping back the rest of his drink. “Figures,” he muttered. “Always gotta be some haunted place full of spirits.”

“Scared?” Kimiko teased.

Akira grinned, but there was something wild in his eyes—the remnants of battle still lingering in his veins. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. “I don’t get scared,” he said, the faintest slur in his words. “I get excited.”

John raised a brow. “You sure? Because it kinda sounds like you’re—”

Akira cut him off by flicking a chopstick at his forehead with near-perfect precision. “Eat your rice, hero.”

Kimiko snorted, and even Hideo let out a deep roaring laugh. The tension in the room eased, the moment of levity giving them all a chance to breathe.

For the first time since arriving in Luna Bay, John felt at peace.

As the night deepened, the energy within The Drifting Lantern settled into a comfortable lull. The warm glow of lanterns slowly went out as the dying light closed the stories on the ancient tapestries. The faint rumble of the bombardment outside never truly faded, but within these walls, it became a distant echo—something endured rather than feared.

John found himself staring at the ceiling, the rhythmic rise and fall of conversation around him acting as a strange sort of comfort. Kimiko stretched beside the fire, her tail curling lazily, while Hideo meticulously sharpened his claws with quiet focus. Akira, sprawled out with his hands behind his head, let out a long breath, his eyes half-lidded with the lingering effects of sake.

“We should get some rest,” Kimiko murmured, her voice softer than usual. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

John nodded, exhaling as he let his muscles finally relax. Tonight, sleep didn’t feel like an impossibility.

The last thoughts John had before deep sleep claimed him, were of Yumi.