Iris stepped out of the dropship first, her boots sinking slightly into the coarse sand. The dunes stretched for miles in every direction, broken only by the twisted skeleton of what had once been The Vanguard—a Northern blimp now half-buried in a ravine, its metal ribs jutting from the earth like the bones of a dead god.

The air shimmered with heat and the faint stench of ozone. Her visor flickered briefly before stabilizing, catching the faint traces of mana residue scattered through the crash zone.

"No signs of engine ignition," said Sergeant Vyne, kneeling beside a shattered propeller. "No impact crater either. It just... fell."

Iris didn't answer.

Her gaze traced the broken hull of the ship, painted once in Northern silver, now charred and scorched black. The banners of the North crest fluttered limply from the sand, the threads torn and burned.

The Chrome Hearts unit fanned out around her...six soldiers in polished cobalt armor, their lenses glinting under the sun.

The air was silent except for the faint crunch of their boots.

She climbed the incline of the ravine wall, gloved hand trailing across the cracked plating. When she reached the cockpit, she stopped.

Bodies.

All of them Northern.

They sat slumped in their seats, faces ashen and eyes hollow. Their veins were dark, streaked with black mana burns.

Their blood had been drained of its energy.

"Mana extraction," Iris murmured.

Private Darnel stepped up beside her, his breathing ragged

"Should we inform Base Omega?"

Iris crouched, brushing the edge of one of the pilot's gloves. His fingers were stiff, his expression strangely peaceful.

"Not yet. Mark every body...

We'll record before we move."

"Yes, ma'am."

As her unit moved to work, Iris's eyes drifted to the cracked windshield where sunlight poured through in long golden rays.

Her reflection stared back at her...pale red eyes, sharp and unblinking.

The reflection of someone she no longer recognized.

She was no longer the girl who once lived beneath the star-engraved ceiling of her childhood home.

The thought came unbidden as remembered where she had been all this time when the war was ongoing.

With still a mission from Main base she had decided to visit a place.

The Star House

The Star Mansion was still the same.

High marble pillars.

Wide staircases that smelled faintly of cedar.

And that same hollow stillness, the kind that echoed through the halls like a pulse missing a beat.

Iris stood in the foyer.

Her father's servants lingered at the edges of the hall, whispering behind their hands.

She hadn't been here in months...not since the night she'd run away.

Her father's hair had gone grayer, but his voice was still sharp enough to cut.

"You have some nerve," he said without looking up. "Walking back into my house after fighting against it."

"You left that right when you decided to follow that scum."

"Noah isn't—"

"Don't say his name in my house!"

"Do you know what they're saying about you? My daughter...a defector!

A child of the Star House fighting under a false banner...joining a nation you have never even grown under...all because of that BOY!"

The silence that followed was deafening.

Iris's eyes were cold, but her voice stayed even.

"You think you care about banners, Father? You never cared about me."

He looked up at her then, face twisted with fury.

"And what, do you think I should have followed your childish idealism?

You think war is a place for emotion?

You always were weak, Iris..."

"Weak?"

"No... I was sick."

The word hung between them heavy.

Her hands trembled slightly as she took another step forward.

"Do you even remember why I couldn't walk? Why I was in a wheelchair for a year?"

Her father's expression faltered for a moment.

"You were ill—"

"No," she said.

"I was poisoned."

He froze.

"Your servants," Iris continued, her voice steady now, quieter, colder. "They were feeding me tainted food. Tainted drinks. Every day.

And you never even noticed."

His mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.

"Do you know what it feels like," Iris said, "to lie in your bed, watching your body rot from the inside out while your father calls it a weak constitution?"

Her voice cracked, just slightly.

"Do you know what it's like to smile at your killers because you're too afraid to speak?"

She turned away, clenching her fists. The old anger burned fresh again, like acid.

"I learned to survive, Father. I started poisoning myself.

Every time when I visited the Southern Star Garden after discovering the Preval flowers...

Tiny doses every night of until I built an immunity.

I forced my body to live because no one in this house would save me."

Her father's face had gone pale.

"That's—madness."

Iris smiled bitterly. "No. It's survival."

"And Noah?" he asked quietly, almost trembling. "Was he part of that madness too?"

Her eyes softened for the first time.

"No...He was the only one who wasn't."

She turned to face him fully.

"So you ask why I joined the North," Iris said finally, stepping back toward the doorway.

"Because the man you call a traitor is the only reason I'm still alive."

Her father's voice shook as he rose. "If you walk out that door again, Iris—"

"You'll what?" she asked quietly.

"Disown me?

You already did that the day you let me die."

---

"Miss," a voice cut through the wind.

Iris blinked, the memory fading like mist. The sound of sand scraping metal brought her back to the present.

She was kneeling again in the desert ravine, her hand still resting on the cold, drained body of one of the Vanguard crew.

"We've finished recording," Sergeant Vyne reported. "Seventeen dead, no survivors. The blackening on their veins—definitely extraction magic. The mana cores in the blimp are completely empty."

Iris straightened slowly. Her gloves were dusty, the wind tugging at her hair. She looked once more at the wreckage ...the dead who would never make it home and her chest tightened with that same quiet fury she'd carried since childhood.

"What about communications?" she asked.

"Nothing from command yet, ma'am."

"Then keep scanning."

Her team dispersed again, setting up relay beacons and marking graves with temporary flags. The sand swallowed their footsteps.

She wandered to the edge of the ravine, looking out.

A gust of wind blew past her, carrying grains of sand that stung her face. She closed her eyes.

"You always did choose fire over comfort," she remembered Noah saying once.

"That's why people fear you, Iris.

Because you'd rather burn than bend...

...all thanks to one man."