They'd been riding hard all morning.
A smoke column was rising ahead of them—thick, dark, deliberate. The kind of smoke that says "this town is not having a normal Tuesday."
Kaelith leaned forward on her horse. "It's Emberfall."
Darin's knuckles whitened on the reins. "We've passed through there before. That place had kids. Teachers. Bakery discounts."
Vera clenched her fists. "We have to go."
Kazuki didn't move.
"Wait," Kaelith said, "Kazuki. Why aren't you saying anything?"
Kazuki didn't look up. "It's already gone."
The others froze.
"What do you mean, it's—"
Kazuki finally turned to them. Calm. Even.
"I saw it three nights ago. In an echo. It was removed by a corruption bloom."
Mistral growled. "That was before you rewrote that shrine."
Kazuki nodded. "I saw the town vanish from the system. I couldn't stop it then."
Vera narrowed her eyes. "But you could now."
A beat.
Then Kazuki said it:
"No. I could interfere. But I didn't."
The group rode ahead anyway.
They reached the town just in time to hear the screaming.
Fire everywhere. Buildings collapsing into ash. An echo flare pulsing in the air, like reality was coughing up a bad save file.
Darin ran in without hesitation.
Kaelith followed.
Vera stayed behind.
With Kazuki.
"You let this happen?" she whispered.
"I didn't cause it."
"But you could've stopped it."
"I could have," he said, voice steady. "And that would've meant exposing the rewrite. Drawing the gods. Tearing more holes in the system than I'm ready to fix."
Vera stared at him, eyes full of something broken.
"You made a cost-benefit analysis."
"Yes."
"And you let children burn."
Kazuki didn't respond.
He didn't look away, either.
The system pinged softly:
[Kazuki: Echo Loyalty -10%][Vera's Trust: Fractured]
Mistral whispered, low:
"You're not wrong."
"But you're not right, either."
When the others returned—soot-covered, bloodstained, furious—Kaelith slapped Kazuki across the face.
Hard.
He took it.
She didn't say anything.
Neither did he.
That night, Kazuki stood at the edge of the ruins, watching the smoke.
Darin sat beside him. Quiet. Not smiling.
"You used to joke more," Darin said.
Kazuki exhaled.
"I used to think I was redeemable."