The sun rose heavy and slow over the battered coast of Kilwa. The morning light cast long shadows over the rubble that once formed homes, temples, shops, and lives—now reduced to dust and memory. The salty air carried the scent of the ocean, but also the sharp sting of blood and smoke. It was a city on its knees—and yet, it breathed. It lived, just barely.
The returning warriors did not pause to rest. There was no celebration, no feasting, no trumpets—just silence and motion. Boots crunched on broken stone. Voices were low and firm. Hands, rough with calluses, lifted heavy debris, pulling dead men and women from collapsed buildings.
They had been hopeless before—fractured, uncertain, burdened by shame and fear. Yet something in their eyes was different now: a glint of purpose, a seed of belonging. Perhaps they too would find their place in this growing body of Nuri—not as outcasts, not as relics of a defeated past, but as pieces of its future.
