Rain fell like nails from the heavens, hard and unrelenting. It soaked into the cracked earth of District 13 and streaked down the weathered faces of those who stood beneath the mother-statue with the empty bowl. Children clung to their mothers, beggars knelt in the mud, and rebels stood tall beside merchants and laborers. None had slept since the fires began.
And Kaito watched from atop the bell tower, wrapped in a threadbare cloak still stained with sewer ash. His eyes were distant, but his mind was a steel trap snapping shut on the map of the city.
District 13 had declared defiance. The Ash Court had been born.
Now came the afterbirth.
Below, Yunji approached through the cold. "We've confirmed it. Three dozen Judicar scouts. They're probing for weaknesses."
"Who leads them?" Kaito asked.
Seina emerged from behind her, panting and flushed. "Not Kagen. Yet. But his second blade, Ardin Thal."
Kaito nodded. "The Plague Fang."
Yunji frowned. "I thought he was dead."
"No." Kaito's voice was quiet. "He just lost his leash. Now he's hungry."
A moment of silence passed between them.
"They'll come soon," Seina said. "Within the week."
Kaito turned away from the edge of the tower. "Then we have six days to become unkillable."
In the hollow beneath the ruins of the old guild hall, Kaito gathered the Ash Court's growing council. Ten faces—some hardened, others desperate. All willing.
He stood before them with hands wrapped in rag-bands.
"We cannot meet their strength with strength," he began. "They are sanctioned. Trained. Armored. We are none of these things."
"But," he added, "we hold something more dangerous."
He slammed a ledger onto the table.
"Knowledge."
The council leaned forward.
"The Judicars rely on one thing above all: perception. To the rest of the capital, they are justice incarnate. Unshakeable. Merciful only when mercy benefits order."
Yunji flipped open the ledger. "And you mean to tear that veil down?"
"No," Kaito said. "I mean to wrap it around our own fists and strangle them with it."
He turned the page.
"We start by rewriting the truth."
The Plan:
Step One: Turn the upper guildhouses against the Temple.
Step Two: Create a public catastrophe that implicates the Judicars.
Step Three: Use both to declare a regional sovereignty claim, backed by forged ancient law.
Seina blinked. "You're going to lie to the world?"
"No," Kaito said calmly. "I'm going to tell them a better truth."
While the council began fanning out to stir unrest among the border guilds, Kaito turned to Yunji and handed her a sealed packet of papers.
"What's this?"
"An original script from the Pre-Concord Eras," he said. "Or at least, it will be by morning."
She opened it and blinked. "You forged a treaty document from the reign of Emperor Sae-Mun?"
"Not forged," he replied. "Improved. We plant this in the ruins of the old District 15 archive. When we lead the next wave of refugees there, they'll 'find' it."
Yunji stared at him. "If this works…"
He looked her dead in the eyes.
"It has to."
Two nights later, the trap was sprung.
Daeseok—the young lantern-runner Kaito had once saved—lit a pyre in the central plaza of the merchant quarter. It burned blue, laced with mage ash.
When the crowd gathered, the Ash Court appeared wearing their sigils: soot-smeared hands painted over their hearts.
Kaito stood at the front, holding the 'discovered' treaty aloft.
"By right of sovereignty granted in the Year of Ashes," he declared, "this land, this people, are not Temple-bound. We are a Free Quarter."
A stunned silence fell.
Then someone in the crowd cried, "He lies!"
Another: "Where's your proof?"
Kaito gestured to the open scroll.
"The original seal of the Ash Charter. Ratified in the reign of Sae-Mun. Hidden for centuries."
He stepped forward.
"We are not thieves. We are not rebels. We are the true heirs of forgotten law."
Yunji stepped beside him, holding the flame-lantern.
"We have followed laws written in blood. In tears. In chains." She paused. "No more."
The crowd stirred.
And then, as if fate had heard their cry, a Temple cleric burst into the square—flanked by Judicar blades.
"Seize them!" he screamed. "By the authority of the Trinity!"
The people scattered.
But this, too, had been planned.
Kaito gave a single whistle.
A dozen masked figures rose from the gutters, slinging tar flasks into the air. The flasks erupted in a haze of purple smoke—slumber essence, alchemically distilled.
The Judicars fell first. Then the cleric.
And Kaito knelt beside him.
"We do not beg anymore."
He stood, and the Ash Court raised their torches.
The square was theirs.
The Free Quarter had begun.
Back in the reclaimed schoolhouse, the council met again.
"We've gained three border guilds," Yunji said. "But we lost two informants. Executed."
Kaito rubbed his temple. "We knew this would escalate."
Seina pointed at the map. "Judicar Thal will come now. He has to."
Kaito nodded. "Then we prepare the next fire."
He turned to Daeseok.
"You'll deliver a message. Not to a rebel. To the Merchant Lords."
The boy's eyes widened. "But they'll kill me—"
"They won't. Not if you say the right words."
He handed him a letter sealed with the Ash sigil.
"What's in it?" Daeseok asked.
Kaito's gaze hardened.
"A bargain."
Three days passed in dread silence.
No word from Daeseok. No sightings of Judicar Thal.
Then came a body.
Pinned to the statue's base with a Judicar blade.
Daeseok.
Still clutching the letter.
Seina screamed. Yunji dropped to her knees.
Kaito didn't move.
He stepped forward and took the blade from Daeseok's chest.
Then turned to the people.
"They think they've silenced us."
He raised the blade.
"They've only sharpened our resolve."
He placed the blade on the altar beside the incense sticks.
"This," he said, "is now a relic. Not of death. But of defiance."
The people lit candles that night not for mourning, but for war.
In the Temple Citadel, Judicar Kagen watched the reports with cold interest.
"The fifth son," he murmured. "The cripple. The forgotten rat."
He turned to Haejin.
"You should have drowned him in the cradle."
Haejin, dressed in noble silk, did not respond.
Kagen poured a cup of spiced bloodwine. "We'll burn the quarter in three days."
Haejin blinked. "That long?"
Kagen smiled. "We want them afraid. Not dead."
Back in District 13, Kaito prepared for the siege.
He stood on the highest point of the wall—what little they had—and gazed toward the temple banners rising on the horizon.
"The storm's coming," Seina said.
Kaito looked down.
"I'm not afraid of storms."
He stepped back into the command room.
"Evacuate the children. The elders. All non-fighters to District 15."
Yunji frowned. "And what about the Ash Court?"
"We make our stand here."
He placed a map on the table, drawn in ash and oil.
"These are the choke points. Here, here, and here. We set the traps. Alchemical fire, collapse tunnels, boiling pitch."
Seina looked ill. "How many will die?"
Kaito didn't flinch.
"Enough to matter."
The night before the invasion, Kaito walked the streets alone.
He passed mothers whispering lullabies. Young boys whittling wooden swords. Men praying not to gods, but to memories.
He reached the statue.
Knelt.
And for the first time in years, he spoke aloud to no one.
"I failed Daeseok."
Silence.
"I won't fail the rest."
When dawn broke, the Judicars came.
Steel flashed.
Walls cracked.
Blood sang.
But the Ash Court held.
And the world would never forget the day a bastard son, born in sickness and shadow, stood against gods and kings.