Chapter Ten:

  “Earned Moments”

  Kagemura watched them return.

  Not with fanfare. Not with welcome. But with the quiet, watchful weight of a village that remembered too much and trusted too little.

  The cobbled path wound through the town’s heart, worn smooth by centuries and patched in places with newer stone, each mark a testament to time’s resilience. John walked in silence beside the others, the soft clink of his gear underscored by the distant rhythm of a blacksmith’s hammer and the low voices of vendors who didn’t bother to lower their tone.

  Villagers paused mid-routine. Some stared openly. Others turned away—only to whisper a moment later. Children peeked from behind doorframes, eyes wide with stories they weren’t supposed to believe anymore.

  "Feels like they’re more wary now than before," John muttered.

  "Because last time, we were passing through," RW said quietly. "Now they’re wondering why we’re still here."

  Ahead, the Eternal Veil glowed faintly in the mid-morning light, its roots threading through the village like veins, its massive trunk rising in silent vigil. Blossoms still clung to its branches, luminous with magic, their colors rich and vibrant against the soft glow of day.

  Yumi walked close beside John, her face calm but distant. Her twin tails swayed in a slow rhythm—neither relaxed, nor tense.

  "It’s beautiful here," she said, eyes following the pink and white blossoms drifting through the air.

  Akira said nothing, but John noticed how his hand never strayed far from the hilt of his blade.

  They passed a row of small shops. An older woman stepped back inside as they neared. A younger man at a dumpling cart kept serving food, but his hands trembled slightly. In front of the blacksmith’s stall, a young apprentice fumbled with a crate of tools and nearly dropped a lantern.

  A boy stood nearby. Maybe twelve. Single fox tail. Wooden sword in hand.

  He stared at John like he'd stepped out of a campfire tale.

  "Are you really one of them?" the boy asked. "The kind from the old stories?"

  "Kenji!" his mother snapped from across the square. She rushed over, grabbing his shoulder. Her eyes met John’s with something sharper than fear. Not hatred. Not anger. Just the quiet, unshakable judgment of someone who'd already made up their mind.

  "Your kind burned bridges we’re still standing in the ashes of," she said. "Don’t expect warmth just because you wear different faces. When Players return, war follows. Everyone here knows that—even if they won’t say it out loud."

  RW exhaled a slow stream of blue fire. "She’s not wrong."

  John glanced toward the Eternal Veil, where a few villagers knelt in quiet ritual beneath its branches.

  Yumi’s ears flattened. "Do you think they will ever come to trust us?"

  Akira’s voice was low. "No. Not if they still see us as the reason everything broke."

  RW looked up. "Trust isn’t built on apologies, it’s built on time. And most of these people were raised on stories where we were the reason the world fell apart."

  The street bent left, revealing the warm flicker of The Sleeping Fox's lanternlight. The inn stood just as they’d left it—quiet and weathered, smoke curling from its chimney.

  Mistress Tsubaki stepped out as they approached, her presence calm and deliberate amid the uneasy silence.

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  "Your rooms are ready," she said, voice soft but steady. "I’ve prepared something warm. A proper lunch. You’ll need it, I think."

  John hesitated on the threshold.

  The whispers had followed them all the way back. And the door in front of him didn’t feel like a place of rest anymore. It felt like the edge of a dream you didn’t know you were in—one step from waking, one step from falling deeper.

  He stepped inside.

  The Sleeping Fox was warm. Not just from the hearth, but from the scent of fresh rice and seared fish that drifted through the inn’s quiet corridors. Mistress Tsubaki had laid out a midday meal in a side room off the main dining hall. Simple, but carefully prepared. Bowls of rice, seared fish, clear broth, pickled roots, and steamed greens.

  John sat with the others at the low table. No one spoke for a long time. Even RW was quiet, curled near the doorway, her flame dimmed to a low, steady ember.

  It wasn’t silence born from tension. It was the weight of too many questions not yet asked. The village hadn’t thrown them out. But it hadn’t truly let them in, either.

  Mistress Tsubaki refilled their tea without a word at first. Her hands were steady, her face calm in that way unique to people who’ve seen panic before and simply chosen not to feed it. Then, gently, she said, "The heart speaks loudest in quiet places. Don’t fear their hesitation to listen. Some stories are waiting for the right moment to be heard."

  “They think our arrival is a bad omen,” Yumi said at last, her voice soft.

  “They’re not wrong,” Akira replied, fingers resting on his teacup. “It's no coincidence this... barrier we heard of is suddenly starting to fail after three hundred years.”

  RW stirred. “This is all part of Gameweaver’s design. We must be ready. Whatever the villagers fear is going to happen… will happen. And it won’t be pretty.”

  John stared at the bowl in front of him. The food was good. Warm. Real. But it felt like eating at the edge of something—not quite danger, not quite peace. Just that gnaw before everything changes. “Why is she doing all this? It’s like she enjoys suffering.”

  RW considered the question carefully. "I don’t know. I’m sorry."

  "It doesn’t matter why," Rai said. "What matters is we are ready for whatever she throws at us."

  From outside, a faint murmur rolled in from the street. A cart wheel. A shout. The ordinary world carrying on just beyond the thin paper walls.

  “They don’t want us here,” John said.

  Akira didn’t look up from his tea. “Then we’d better give them a reason to want us here. Because if RW is right, and Gameweaver’s about to raise the stakes... this village will need us before it wants us.”

  Later that afternoon, the common room of The Sleeping Fox glowed with the soft amber light of late-day sun filtering through paper screens. The air smelled of cedar and tea leaves, and the warmth from the kitchen hearth clung to the walls like a lull.

  John sat near the window, legs folded, watching dust motes drift through a sunbeam. Yumi sat nearby, polishing her twin daggers with calm precision. RW perched overhead on a support beam, her tail swinging lazily like a pendulum. Rai stood near the doorway, silent but present. Even Akira had softened a fraction—his back was to the wall, arms crossed, but his posture didn’t scream ready to kill.

  It was quiet.

  Not the tense kind. The kind you earn.

  Mistress Tsubaki stepped through the side door with a fresh tray of tea and small rice cakes. She didn’t speak, just placed them on the low table, nodded once, and left the room with the same quiet grace she’d entered.

  “She’s different,” Yumi said after a while.

  John looked up. “How so?”

  Yumi nodded toward the door Mistress Tsubaki had exited through. “She’s the only one who’s shown us any real kindness since we arrived. I don’t know what that says about her. But I noticed.”

  RW flipped over and hung upside-down from the beam. “She does seem very wise indeed.”

  Yumi smiled faintly, her eyes still on the door, then nodded once.

  John glanced over at her twin tails as they swayed behind her, soft and rhythmic. He didn’t mean to stare, but their movement—graceful, instinctive—drew his eyes. She caught him looking. A subtle pink rose to her cheeks, and she looked away, pretending to focus on her daggers.

  He cleared his throat. “So, uh… what do the tails mean? I noticed Mistress Tsubaki has four. Yumi, you have two. Is it a rank thing?”

  “It’s not rank,” Rai said from the doorway without turning. “It’s age, experience, and sometimes power. But it’s not always linear. Some gain more with magic, some through trials. Some never earn another, no matter how long they live.”

  John blinked. “So it’s not a status symbol?”

  “It’s a story,” Rai said. “Written by time and spirit, not ego.”

  Footsteps sounded in the outer hallway.

  A knock.

  Then the paper door slid open and Mistress Tsubaki reappeared. This time, she didn’t carry tea.

  “They’re ready for you,” she said simply. “The Elders are waiting.”

  No one moved right away.

  John looked at the others. Yumi was already rising. Rai adjusted her sash. RW leapt down in a flicker of blue.

  Akira opened his eyes. “Time to meet the ones holding the pen.”

  John stood last, the warmth of the room fading behind him.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They followed Mistress Tsubaki out into the cool evening air. The village had quieted. Not empty, just hushed. Lanterns had begun to glow along the rooftops. Purple light. Silent flames.

  As they walked, John felt it again—that sense that the world wasn’t just watching, but remembering.

  A slow, deep drumbeat echoed from beyond the square.

  RW murmured beside him. “That’s not a call to war.”

  “That’s a summons.”

  John didn’t answer. He just kept walking, the summons already in his bones.