Ryn didn't wait long.

"You know something," he said, eyes forward as they walked. "Spill it out."

Kato hummed softly, hands tucked into his sleeves.

"I wouldn't say that," he replied. "It's just a guess."

Ryn shot him a look.

"That's a convenient word."

Kato smiled faintly. "It's an honest one."

He stepped over a collapsed section of stone and continued, unhurried.

"Creatures behaving erratically. Predators roaming places they usually avoid." He gestured lightly to the surrounding ruins. "And cities built like this."

"You don't build like this unless what you're afraid of isn't people."

Ryn slowed a step.

"That's still a leap."

"Maybe," Kato agreed easily. "But when different signs point in the same direction, it stops feeling like a guess."

"And also…" the kid paused. "This isn't the only one."

Ryn watched him for a long moment, not sure whether he should believe the kid's words or not.

They emerged into a wider chamber a few minutes later.

Ryn slowed instinctively.

The space opened upward, the ceiling arching high above them in a way that was completely different than the rest of the city. Long stone benches were arranged in neat rows, dust-coated but undisturbed, all facing the same direction.

A cathedral.

Ryn's gaze settled on the far end of the chamber.

A massive pedestal stood there, its base still intact—but whatever had once rested atop it was gone. Only fragments remained. Broken stone scattered around the base, the remaining pieces of what came before.

Ryn frowned.

"That's not right," he muttered.

Kato stopped beside him.

"You don't recognize it," he said, not as a question.

Ryn shook his head slowly. "It's not any of the Five Gods."

Even in ruin, the silhouette didn't match any god he knew. No familiar iconography. No symbols tied to the current pantheon.

He scanned the rest of the cathedral.

There were no other altars, areas of offerings, or inscriptions of the deity itself. Nothing that he was used to seeing in the cathedral was present here.

Ryn took a few steps forward, boots echoing softly against the stone floor, then chose a bench near the center and sat down. The ache in his back flared as he did, forcing a quiet exhale through his teeth.

Kato took the bench opposite him, leaving a wide stretch of empty stone between them.

For a moment, neither spoke.

The cathedral held its silence, heavy and expectant, like it was waiting for someone to remember what had once been worshipped here.

Ryn broke it at last.

"…So," he said, eyes still on the ruined pedestal. "What was this place?"

Kato didn't answer immediately, instead starting with something else.

"I found some writings here," he said quietly. "Not many. Most of them didn't survive."

Ryn glanced at him. "Writings about what?"

"Daily things," Kato replied. "But the parts that interested me most were the complaints."

That earned Ryn's attention.

"Complaints?"

Kato nodded once. "About going outside."

Ryn frowned.

"At first, it didn't kill them," Kato continued. "Not immediately. People would step beyond the city's boundaries and come back feeling weak. Dizzy, sometimes even feverish."

His fingers tapped lightly against the stone bench beneath him.

"Then they started dying."

The words settled heavily in the vast space.

Ryn's eyes drifted back to the city beyond the cathedral doors, the accessible ramps and transport lines were still there.

"…That explains the architecture," he murmured.

Kato inclined his head. "They stopped building outward. Stopped exposing themselves more than necessary. Even light was controlled."

Ryn swallowed.

"So they hid."

"Yes," Kato said. "At first."

He looked up then, yellow eyes reflecting the pale light filtering down from above.

"And then," he added, "some of them didn't get sick anymore."

Ryn's breath caught.

"What?"

"They went outside," Kato said. "Stayed there longer. Came back unchanged." His voice didn't raise or dramatize the moment.

"Their bodies adapted."

Ryn leaned forward despite himself.

"And the sickness?"

Kato shook his head slowly. "Still there. Just… no longer fatal. For a few."

A silence stretched between them.

"…They gained power from it," Ryn said carefully.

Kato smiled faintly.

"Eventually," he replied. "Yes."

Ryn leaned back against the bench, unease creeping into his chest.

Power drawn from the Evernight itself.

His mind drew back to the Isles. To the dragon's words, to the story he'd been told about humanity retreating when the disaster arrived.

That a choice had been made.

Ryn's gaze slid back toward the cathedral doors, toward the city carved into stone and shadow.

Then who, he wondered, had stayed behind?

Kato's gaze drifted upward, toward the fractured ceiling far above them.

"There's another part," he said. "It shows up in most of the writings."

Ryn looked back at him. "What kind of part?"

"A story," Kato replied. "One they kept retelling."

He leaned back slightly, hands resting on the bench at his sides.

"They wrote about a time when the sickness was at its worst," Kato continued. "When even the adapted couldn't hold it back forever."

Ryn waited.

"That's when they recorded the arrival of someone new," Kato said. "A figure who didn't belong to this place."

Ryn's eyes narrowed. "…A traveler?"

Kato shook his head.

"They didn't describe him that way." His lips curved faintly. "They said he came down from the heavens."

The words echoed softly through the cathedral.

"A Hero," Kato went on, voice calm, almost detached. "That's the term they used. Someone who promised he could help them extinguish the disaster. Push it back. End the sickness entirely."

That's…Asteris.

Ryn exhaled slowly.

"And they believed him."

"Yes," Kato said simply. "Why wouldn't they?"

He gestured lightly around them, to the city beyond.

"They were desperate," Kato continued. "And he was powerful."

His gaze returned to the broken statue at the far end of the cathedral.

"For a time, he kept his promise," the kid continued. "Driving back the disaster and ending the sickness."

Ryn's brow furrowed.

"For a time?" he echoed.

Kato nodded once.

"The sickness stopped spreading," he said. "The creatures calmed. The land recovered." His voice remained steady, almost distant.

"By every measure they cared about, the disaster was over."

Ryn let out a quiet breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"So it worked."

"Yes," Kato said.

Then, after a pause—

"But the ones who'd been sick didn't change back."

Ryn stiffened.

"And the ones who'd adapted," Kato continued, "changed even more."

His gaze lowered, settling on the worn stone floor between them.

"They were stronger," he said. "Hungrier. The power they'd drawn from the sickness didn't leave when the danger did."

Ryn's throat tightened.

"They needed it," he murmured.

Kato didn't correct him.

"They fought over it," Kato said instead. "Over scraps of what remained."

He looked up again, yellow eyes unreadable.

"In the end," he said quietly, "they didn't die to the disaster."

A brief silence followed.

"They tore each other apart."

Before Ryn could continue, a low rumble spread across the whole city.

Ryn stiffened, Enhanced Senses flaring as his hand went instinctively to Snow's hilt. Another low rumble rolled through the cathedral, dust shaking loose from the fractured ceiling above as a few pebbles skittered across the floor.

He rose to his feet despite the protest in his back and turned toward the source, scanning the darkened arches beyond the cathedral doors.

But there was nothing.

He frowned and turned back.

The bench opposite him was empty.

Ryn froze.

"Kato?"

The kid was gone.

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