Ifas' new giant silver ant carriage waited under the blanket, rainy hush of pre-dawn in a narrow alley of Salaqa Ik'Balam.

Well, Zora thought 'new', but it really was the same old style of carriage that one wouldn't bother casting a glance at for more than even a single second. The wood was scratched and scarred. The wheels were chipped and slightly uneven. The folded curtains, the warding crystal talismans hanging outside the windows, and the ornate decorations—or the lack thereof—were utterly unremarkable. It was quite inconspicuous in that sense.

Just how he liked it, he supposed.

Zora hurried up into the carriage with his staff first, eager to get out of the rain, and then Enki followed in without a word. The wood creaked under their weight. As they both took their usual seats and Zora closed the door with a spell, Ifas immediately whipped the reins of his giant ant and started the carriage. No time wasted. All serious business. Except for Ifas pulling the horizontal slit open behind Enki's head to squint back at them.

"Like ghosts on their way to a funeral," he remarked. "Masked up and stiff as bolts, the two of you are. You sure you can go through with this?"

Zora reached up, fingers brushing against the ornate mask that hid just eyes. "I've always dressed for the wrong occasions," he murmured. "And besides, there's a certain poetry in hiding one's identity while walking into an institution built on it."

Then he scratched the back of his head lightly. He had dyed hair, hazel now—at least, that's what Machi said when she'd dyed his hair. It could be bright pink for all he knew. He trusted Machi's delicate hands when it came to makeup, but then again, Cecilia had always said the same of herself before completely botching her powders and creams before early morning classes in the academy.

Curious, Zora tilted his head towards the other side of the carriage.

Enki was sitting perfectly still. No shifting cloth. No restless fingers. It was a soldier's stillness.

"And you're surprisingly calm about this," he said, offering the boy a dry smile. "Not many people can be so serene when heading into enemy territory dressed in an academy uniform."

Enki didn't blink. "I have infiltrated human camps before," he said flatly. "Sabotage, information retrieval, and precision assassinations are part of a Bullet Ant Soldier's duty."

From the front, Ifas' voice slid in through the open slit. "I've heard nothing about the mission. What kind of mission are we talkin' about here?"

Zora smoothed the lapel of his borrowed uniform. Their academy uniforms were crisp and convincing. Zora's was ironed to near perfection by Machi's standards, complete with the sigil of the Salaqa House's interlocking army ant stitched beneath the collar and a pinned ribbon of false commendation to signal minor nobility. Enki wore the same cut and colours, but instead of just a lacquered bone mask covering his eyes, his entire face—and every inch of his exposed skin—was covered. His half-flesh, half-metal skin was too recognisable, after all. They had to hide his skin with gloves, bandages, and everything else that'd look relatively normal on a boy his size.

"... We're going back to school, Ifas," Zora said, gesturing loosely at their attire.

A week ago. Dinner with the Salaqa Lord after returning from the northwest. While Zora was still merrily chowing down on his feast of meat, Baya clasped his hands together and rested his chin on it.

"For the past few months while you were in the northwest, my own spies and soldiers across the empire have been reporting their findings," Baya said low and stately. "And I've come to a conclusion: the Divine Capital isn't just giving up on the northwest. The northeast, the east, the west… they're pulling back everywhere on soldiers and resources. All of it is being drained towards the south, into the Capital."

Zora tilted his head, letting the words settle. He already knew that, but the way Baya's tone hardened on the last sentence…

"More than ninety percent of the empire's population will suffer for it," Baya continued, "and not just from the withdrawal of troops. The increasing taxes, seizures, and raw resources taken from the outer regions will hurt even more in the coming months and years, but more specifically, the one resource the Empress and Her Four Families have been taking more and more of from the outer regions is—"

"Yura," Zora said.

"... Yura," Baya finished with a heavy nod. "You know them?

He was inclined to say 'yes', but he didn't really. He knew of them. After all, unlike a few other neighbouring kingdoms and sovereignties, the Attini Empire didn't practice chattel slavery, but it did practice forced labour for certain classes of people.

In the empire, a man born to an iron household would die with soot in their lungs. A man born to a warrior household would leave their legacy in the soil they rotted in. Every man, woman, and child in every household, Capital or outer region or even in the smallest of towns and settlements, is born into a role that they must play the part of to keep the empire running. Those who desire to break out of their roles—a born farmer who doesn't want to farm, or a soldier who wants to dodge their conscription—would essentially be disowned from their household, and they would become vagrants while looking to enter a new household for a new profession.

And of course, vagrants without a household name are treated as 'outsiders' in the empire.

The empire may not be making slaves of its own people, but that only extends as far as to people the empire considers its own. The empire has plenty of 'foreign' slaves taken from outside the empire, and thus…

"Yura," Zora said again. "A word in the far southern Liloch tongue that means 'men without earthen blood'. The empire doesn't consider people who abandon their duties 'people of the empire', so they are very easily captured, bought, and used as forced labourers. It's not entirely unlike certain ant species that take foreign ants into their brood as workers, am I correct?"

Baya nodded grimly. "The taking of Yura is an old tradition to be sure—one that we should have abandoned a decade ago after we stabilised the empire—but I am not here to talk about the morality of it all, as I believe you are not here to talk about it either. That can come between us Noble-Bloods after we get Decima out of the Capital."

"What of the Yura, then?"

"They are the quietest people in the empire. Unclaimed, foreign, and usually dirt-poor… it is easy for them to fall through the cracks," Baya said, reaching into his robes. "In the last five years, the number of Yura taken from the outer regions and funnelled into the Divine Capital has increased tenfold. Nearly five thousand Yura enter the Capital a month without any paper trails and work records. They go in—and then they vanish. None of my spies have been able to locate them."

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Cloth rustled, followed by the soft whisper of parchment sliding across the long wooden table.

Zora didn't reach for the picture, though he did give the Salaqa Lord a sly smile.

"How many times must I teach you this lesson, old man?"

For his part, at least Baya chuckled apologetically. "Ah. My apologies. It has been a few months since I last spoke to you." Then he nodded at Enki, who was still staring blankly at the feast in front of him. "Give it to the Worm Mage. I assure you the sketch was done by an artist of the highest acclaim."

Zora flicked a "go" at the parchment, and it flew across the table with perfect aim. Enki caught it without looking, held it up, and stared at the sketch. The boy's expression didn't change.

"The man in that sketch goes by the codename 'Vantari', a researcher stationed in the Divine Capital," Baya said. "He is reclusive, well-protected, and deeply funded. According to my informants, he has been developing experimental weapons for the southern frontlines against the Swarm. Cruel weapons. Nothing the Empress and Her Four Families can openly sanction without great opposition from the outer regions."

Zora tilted his head.

"For the past five years," Baya went on, "nearly ninety percent of Yura and supplies routed to the Divine Capital have ended up—eventually—with him. His research lab has become a sinkhole. People and resources vanish into it and never emerge." Baya reached for his cup of tea, fingers brushing the smooth metal rim. "This man is the man the Empress and Her Four Families have chosen to invest in at the cost of the rest of the empire. By extension, he is the man 'Reverberator' Decima has chosen to invest in."

"And you're certain 'Vantari' is his codename?" Zora asked.

"So whispers my spies," Baya said. This time, it was his turn to frown. "Do you know of this man as well?"

"... No," Zora said, giving the Salaqa Lord a slow shake of his head. "Continue."

Baya was most certainly suspicious, but he didn't press the subject. "Now," he continued, "Vantari truly is the definition of a recluse, which makes him and his lab rather difficult to track, but he has been sighted—multiple times—entering and leaving the Royal Ayapacha Military Academy deep within the Divine Capital."

Zora let out a breath. "Here we go."

Baya allowed himself a short, humourless smile. "The academy trains the next generation of officers in the empire's Royal Capital Army. It is heavily surveilled. No outsiders can just walk in and snoop around… which is why I need you two to become insiders."

"Why can't your spies do it?"

"Because the Annual Grand Ayapacha Tournament is starting soon, and only the winner of this tournament will earn the right to a private audience with the academy's highest faculty. I believe Vantari will be among them, searching for prospective graduates to bring into his fold," Baya concluded. "My spies cannot win the tournament. They are not strong enough. That is where the two of you come in. While you attend classes as normal and participate in the combat-based tournament, find out what you can about Ventari—his lab, his research, and his true allegiance. If you get the chance to destroy his findings, do so. I will leave the finer decision to the two of you."

Across the table, Enki hadn't moved. The picture of Vantari still sat between his fingers, untouched by emotion.

"... And if we meet the man himself?" Zora asked.

"Press him for information on what he is researching," Baya said plainly. "I know you will not kill, and that's fine by me. For all we know, Vantari may not realise Decima is the one pulling his strings. I am willing to give him that benefit of the doubt."

"You are a kinder lord than most."

"But if you find proof," Baya added, "concrete evidence that Decima has infiltrated the Empress' inner circle—and that Vantari, a man of the empire, is working with her—bring it back. I can use that evidence to expose her to the outer regions, and the more we can peel back her disguise, the weaker her hold on the empire."

The mask over Zora's eyes itched slightly beneath the bridge, ornate and fitted snug against his face. It wasn't just for show. Baya had been thorough, and apparently, their cover stories were already sewn tight and sent to the faculty beforehand: they were going to be noble scions from Yiru Salaqa's northwestern settlements, wounded by war and forced to hide the ruins of their faces. It was a neat little fabrication. The two of them would pose as exchange students transferred midway through the term into the Royal Ayapacha Military Academy's Summer Semester.

Anonymity was a sword in this mission—sharp on both ends.

Zora couldn't help but lean back in his seat and sigh, though. He'd rather be the one doing the teaching, but he had to admit, he was a little excited to attend an academy in a uniform again. He wasn't that old to begin with. The Royal Military Academy enrolled students aged between fourteen to thirty in a five-year-long course, meaning he probably wouldn't look out of place there… and neither would Enki, for that matter. As long as he kept his hair dyed and every inch of his skin covered, they shouldn't be discovered very easily.

"Still," Zora mused, "being a student again does make me feel about sixty years younger."

Ifas laughed through the slit. "Exciting mission, isn't it? I know a few assassins who'd kill for an infiltration job like this. Schools have got plenty of places to make someone disappear without a trace—"

"I will not be participating much in the academy," Enki suddenly said, voice clipped and clean. "I am not there to learn. I am there to hunt."

There was a faint pause as the carriage dipped over a rut in the road.

Then Ifas' voice slid back through the open panel, this time low and uncertain. "Do you two actually know what the Salaqa Lord's planning with this mission?"

Neither Zora nor Enki answered right away.

Ifas went on, more solemn this time. "Because if you guys succeed—if you two really pull it off and expose Decima's grip on the Empress and Her Four Families—then the whole empire could split at the seams. Imagine it: all those nobles, all those families, learning they've essentially been ruled by a bug these past ten years. The chaos and instability would bring about…"

He trailed off.

Zora heard the unspoken words. He'd thought them himself.

But surprisingly, it was Enki who spoke.

"Have you been outside the empire recently?" he asked quietly.

Ifas blinked. Evidently, he wasn't expecting the boy to speak either. "Not recently. I've been around, sure, but the last time was almost a year back."

"Then you would know," Enki said, "that beyond the empire's borders, humanity is losing. It used to be that the Six Swarmsteel Fronts could still hold the edge of the continent. But not anymore."

The rain thickened. Wind pressed gently against the sides of the carriage.

"One by one," Enki continued, "the Six Swarmsteel Fronts are breaking. Humanity is pushed further inland by several hundred metres every month. In a few years—maybe two, maybe three—it will not just be the Attini Empire that falls to the Swarm. Every front will fall. Every city. Every people. And that will simply be the slow and steady end of humanity."

"..."

"So no," Enki finished. "It does not matter if this plan has the potential to ruin the empire. The empire will ruin itself if it does not change, so we might as well be as reckless as we can to bring about… a proper 'miracle'."

There was no anger in the boy's tone. No weight of bitterness. It was just quiet. Cold. Like a blade unsheathed and laid flat on the table.

Murmuring something under his breath, Ifas gave the reins another flick. "You're a grim little bastard, huh?"

Enki said nothing to that

Ifas chuckled. "So, then what? You trust the Salaqa Lord? That he's not just using you both like pawns?"

"I have never thought of him as someone to trust," Enki said simply. "He wants Decima dead and I want to kill bugs. Our goals align. Trust has nothing to do with anything, and worrying about the collapse of the empire is a luxury for people with time to sit and worry about things."

Zora, listening, smiled faintly into his collar.

The boy had more clarity than most lords he'd met—and far less self-deception.

And whatever the case, Decima needs to die.

If we can expose her presence, I'm certain the Salaqa Lord will strive for internal stability as best as he can in the aftermath.

We're just the ones doing the fighting.

Outside the carriage, Ifas let out a sharp laugh. "The two of you are never boring, eh? Hell, I'll keep driving the two of you around 'till the worms eat me, long as the coin keeps coming."

Then he gave the reins another flick, and the wheels rolled on.

"Now sit steady!" Ifas called back. "We'll be pulling up to the Royal Military Academy before the evening bell rings!"

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