Chapter 100: Guilty Second Star
The bridge looked like a letter that decided to become a blade.
One arm of steel, stone and glass thrust out from the Council Spire and stopped above open air, a single-ended platform shaped like a T with no rail at the far lip - just the white roar of Neoshima below. From that height the city was a breathing machine of light: seven petals half-opened around its core, roofs and silver arteries flashing as banners lifted and fell in the noon wind. Drone lenses hovered in clean arcs. Air screens threw the Spire’s reflection back at itself until it seemed the building could applaud.
At the center of the bridge, two ranks stood in the glow - Division Three and Division Four - eight cadets in new uniforms: white cut close to the body, black seams along the chests, silver edging that answered the sun each time they shifted. On every chest, above the heart, a new emblem caught and held the light: the second star, larger and sharper than the first, lines embossed like a vow.
To one side, on a raised run of the bridge, the city’s rulers and invited officials watched in a neat row: Solomon at the center, the Council on the far sides, at the edge, the visiting banners of Atlan, Ukai, Haldor and others hanging with diplomatic grace. On the opposite side, Academy captains and delegations from other cities - warriors who knew how ceremonies felt from the spine out. Between power and proof, in the middle of the T where the light was most honest, stood the eight.
Kori waited a step behind them, jaw set like a lock. "Breathe like it’s a skill" she said earlier, low enough that it carried only to those who needed it. "And if you trip, do it with intent. Symbolism’s messy to mop."
Esen almost smiled and then remembered where he was.
The Spire’s resonance grid murmured on, a low harmonic that settled bones. Solomon stepped to the dais, and the bridge learned silence.
"Today" he said, and the Spire made his voice a bell "Neoshima marks its promise renewed."
Light walked the length of the bridge – thin, clean. Not new, though. The city’s roar softened into a breath held in thousands of throats.
"These scholars have learned what the walls cannot teach" Solomon went on. "That survival is not strength, but purpose. That courage is not a noise, but a choice repeated until it becomes a language. Today you carry the Second Star."
Raizen felt the heat settle through cloth and into rib, not pain but weight. The kind of weight that asked for an answer.
"May your second star" Solomon said "cut cleaner than the first."
Applause rose from the plaza like surf against metal, layered with whistles and cries and a thousand recordings blinking red. Banners leaned forward as if to hear better. Kori tilted her head toward the eight and didn’t bother hiding the threat under the pride.
"Smile" she murmured. "Convince them you meant to be here."
Arashi already was.
Kori didn’t take a step forward. She just leaned, and didn’t need to raise her voice. "Representative" she murmured. "Division Four."
Lynea moved to the center light with a precise economy that made the bridge look like it had been measured around her. The wind touched her braids and thought better of it. When she spoke, she didn’t chase volume; she found a stillness and spoke into it.
"To defend is to fight" she started, gaze steady on the horizon beyond the crowd. "To defend is to understand what must never fall."
Her words built a quiet that felt like safety, not silence.
"Neoshima stands because we choose to stand together" she went on. "Because no one fights alone. Because the moment we forget that, the city ends long before its walls. Our duty is not only to hold ground, but to remind people why this ground matters."
The line of visiting officials from Atlan, Ukai, and Haldor nodded in practiced approval. Down in the plaza, hands found hands. Even the drone lenses seemed to steady their hover, as if not to blur the moment.
Lynea inclined her head, an exact bow to the idea of the city, and returned to rank without a ripple. Keahi’s chin dipped a fraction - respect. Something rare from her. Ichiro blinked like a blessing. Kori leaned toward Raizen just enough for sarcasm to be a whisper.
"Good politics" she said.
Raizen’s mouth tilted. "Then I’ll be a bad politician."
Kori’s eyes didn’t leave the bridge. "Division Three."
He walked.
The wind met him mid-span, tugged thin at the back of his coat, set the silver threads to a slow pulse. The bridge floor hummed under his boots. From here, the city’s face was a single upward stare - thousands of eyes, polite and hungry.
He didn’t look at Solomon. He didn’t look at Kori. He looked at the far lip where the bridge ended and air began, because that was the point of this, wasn’t it - standing on edges and making them lines...?
"Neoshima built walls" he said, voice steady enough that it surprised him. The resonance grid caught it, warmed it, made it larger without making it louder. "And we’re grateful. We built petals that close. Gates that answer. A grid that sings when we need it to."
A chuckle moved through the plaza and died.
"But danger doesn’t always climb" he said. "Sometimes it waits. It waits in habits. It waits in the way we tell ourselves we’ve already won. It waits for us to stare at the city and forget why we trained."
The crows was throwing intrigued looks.
"I won’t stand here and promise perfection" he went on. "We’re not stars because we point. Those stars are hidden. We’re stars because we shine. Because when fear reaches up, it won’t find us stepping away."
He didn’t say Nyx. He didn’t have to. The word sat between his ribs where the second star lay hot, and the city heard it anyway.
"We will move first" he said. "Not for banners. Not for applause. For the people who don’t get to stand this high and look down. For the ones who don’t have the time to believe yet."
He placed his palm lightly against the emblem, just enough for the silver to flash. Not pride. Reminder.
"This isn’t a badge" he finished. "It’s a promise."
No one clapped at first because silence, when it’s true, doesn’t like to be interrupted. Then the noise broke over itself - cheers rising, hands slamming rail, the strange sound a crowd makes when it realizes it was waiting to be told the thing it hoped was true. It wasn’t Lynea’s clean faith; it was a different electricity - unruly, a little afraid, very alive.
The sad truth is that everyone wanted to see their enemies fall. But not from a warrior’s perspective. Being the one always being kept safe is convenient, isn’t it?
Solomon’s profile, backlit in the Spire’s black ribs, was unreadable and intent. Kori’s mouth did the almost-smile. A rare naturally-occurring phenomenon. Hikari’s eyes were bright. Like stars.
The applause peaked. Cameras blinked white in time with heartbeats. Somewhere below, a child on his father’s shoulders shouted something that sounded like a name and a future.
Then the bridge shook with a sound that wasn’t the crowd.
It wasn’t loud. It was precise - the dry snap of a security latch disengaging, the hiss of a sensor overridden, the thock of the Spire’s inner door striking shut. Wardens at the threshold flinched a half-beat too late. The door had been opened from within.
He walked out of the Spire like a line drawn in ink.
No insignia beyond a lapel pin as black as the suit that wore it. Crisp, spare, predatory in how much it did not need. A man built on posture and timing. His shoes struck the bridge with the neat, exact cadence of someone who had practiced sounding inevitable. He did not wait to be announced. He did not look left or right. The Wardens moved to flank and then thought better of being seen.
The resonance grid hadn’t given him a microphone.
He didn’t need one.
"Unworthy!" he shouted, and the bridge learned a new silence. It was the kind that folds applause in half and puts it away.
He stepped into the white of the uniforms and made it feel like shade. "Neoshima! And everyone else! Look at your future!"
The city’s breath stumbled. The visiting officials lifted chins exactly one notch. Kori’s clipboard lowered two centimeters. Solomon’s head turned a fraction, that was all.
"Unworthy. Guilty. Traitors." he went on.
The words hit the bridge and went through.
Applause died. Banners forgot they were supposed to move. The city, for a long painful second, did not know how to breathe.
Kori’s whisper cut the shock like a scalpel, not for the crowd, only for the eight. "If it isn’t you... Long time, no see... Marcus Valerius."