The wind howled like it remembered war.

  Kazuki Arata opened his eyes to a sky scorched amber. Smoke rose in thin spirals from the dead around him. Spears jutted from blood-soaked soil like broken teeth. The scent of rot, metal, and wet earth clawed its way into his lungs. His head throbbed. His uniform—no, it was armor now—was half-burned, caked in mud and blood that wasn’t his.

  He sat up slowly.

  “Another battlefield,” he muttered. “Same smell. Same silence after screaming.”

  He looked at his hands. Callused. Tanned. Older. He was sure he had died. Tokyo. Knife. Screaming girl. Then nothing.

  Now—this.

  “Where the hell…?”

  No answer. Just the groaning of a dying world.

  Movement. He snapped to it instinctively.

  A boy—barely ten—crawled toward a corpse, trying to pry a sword from its hand. His ribs stuck out like sharpened bones. Another figure—older, hunched, missing an eye—stood watch behind him, holding a rusty axe.

  Kazuki’s mind kicked in like an engine.

  “Scavengers. Survivors. Not soldiers.”

  The old man spotted him, stumbled back, and made a sign—three fingers pressed to his brow, a trembling salute. Reverence.

  Kazuki rose to his feet. Slowly. Deliberately. Every motion calculated.

  The boy dropped the sword and ran behind the old man, whispering frantically. The elder fell to his knees.

  “It can’t be…” the old man croaked. “The Ghost General. He walks.”

  Kazuki blinked.

  “What?”

  The old man pressed his forehead to the dirt.

  “Ten thousand years we’ve waited. They said you’d return when the blood never dried. You—your armor—it bears the sigil.”

  Kazuki glanced down. On his chestplate, nearly rusted over, was the faint imprint of a wolf’s skull impaled by a sword. He hadn’t seen it before. Didn’t recognize it.

  “Tactical insignia,” he muttered to himself. “Someone’s idea of a symbol. Not mine.”

  He studied the boy and the old man again.

  “I’m not your Ghost General,” he said aloud. “I’m just a man. A strategist.”

  The old man looked up with hollow eyes.

  “Then save us.”

  Kazuki turned slowly, taking in the battlefield. Maybe fifty corpses. Smashed shields. Makeshift spears. Horses half-eaten by vultures. Not a battle—more like a slaughter. And in the distance, smoke rising from a village.

  “Who did this?”

  “Lord Hentar’s riders. Raiders. They come every few moons. Take food, take children. Sometimes kill. Sometimes worse.”

  Kazuki inhaled, then exhaled slowly.

  “Tactical review: Small village. No walls. No militia. Raiders with horses. No discipline needed. No resistance expected. Casualty rate... total.”

  He looked back at the old man.

  “How many still alive?”

  “Maybe twenty. Counting children.”

  “And if I help you?”

  The old man’s voice cracked. “We’ll follow you. To the end.”

  Kazuki narrowed his eyes. “Wrong answer. I don’t want worship. I want obedience.”

  The old man nodded, trembling. “Yes… General.”

  Kazuki’s lips curved slightly. Not a smile. Something colder.

  “Then gather every able-bodied person in the village. Bring every blade, farming tool, and scrap of metal you have. You have one hour.”

  He turned, scanning the field again. “If I’m going to survive this world… I’ll need an army. And fear makes a good foundation.”

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  ---

  The village looked like it had been forgotten by time.

  Mud huts. Broken fences. Starving eyes peeking from doorways. When Kazuki entered, silence fell like a blade.

  Twenty-one souls, including the boy and the old man, stood in the central square. They had gathered what they could—cleavers, pitchforks, sticks with nails. Their expressions were hollow, but desperate.

  Kazuki stood atop a stone stump in the center. “You think this is the end of the world,” he began, voice loud, clear, and calm. “It’s not. This is just the beginning.”

  “The raiders come because you let them. Because you believe you can’t win.”

  He paused. Let the silence breathe. “But war isn’t about strength. It’s about advantage.”

  He pointed to the boy. “You. What’s your name?”

  “T-Toma,” the boy stammered.

  “You’re a scout now. Tonight, you’ll mark the road with red stones where the mud is softest.”

  To a woman holding a butcher’s cleaver: “You—Mira, right? You’re in charge of boiling tar. Yes, tar. We’ll need every drop.”

  To the group: “We’ll fight. But not with swords. With traps. With fear. With noise.”

  He let his voice drop. “When they come, they’ll see peasants.”

  “What they’ll face is a goddamn nightmare.”

  ---

  Two days later, the riders returned.

  Ten of them. Loud. Confident. Laughing as they saw no resistance. Just smoke from cook fires and children playing.

  They never saw the stakes beneath the road—sharpened bamboo angled to maim horses.

  They never heard the whisper of tripwires stretched between trees, until two riders were flung off, necks broken.

  They never expected the tar pits hidden under camouflaged leaves, lit by fire arrows the moment they screamed.

  By the time they realized it was an ambush, half were dead. The other half tried to flee.

  That’s when the nets came down.

  Kazuki stepped from the shadows. Calm. Composed. Blood-splattered cloak. Sword drawn. “Leave one alive.”

  They obeyed.

  The surviving rider, shaking and soaked in tar, looked up at Kazuki like he was staring at a demon.

  > “W-What are you?” he rasped.

  Kazuki leaned in.

  “I’m what comes after kings.”

  After the bodies were burned and the prisoners buried, the villagers gathered again.

  This time, they didn’t look hollow.

  They looked dangerous.

  Kazuki stood before them, arms crossed. “You just beat ten mounted raiders. With garbage weapons and discipline. What’s next?”

  Toma grinned, blood on his cheek.

  “We take the next village?”

  Kazuki nodded. “Exactly.”

  The old man stepped forward.

  “The Ghost General… has returned.”

  Kazuki didn’t correct him this time.

  He turned toward the hills, where distant smoke marked another raider camp. “This isn’t resurrection,” he muttered. “This is conquest.”

  Kazuki didn’t sleep that night.

  He sat beneath the ruined shrine tree, sharpening the stolen blade, its edge whispering with each pull of the whetstone. Stars flickered overhead—alien constellations he didn’t recognize, set against a sky that felt too wide, too ancient.

  Toma approached silently, barefoot. “You don’t rest, General?”

  “I rest when my enemies do.”

  The boy sat cross-legged. “The villagers say you came from the soil. That the earth gave you back to us.”

  Kazuki chuckled softly. “That’s romantic. And wrong. I died in a world full of machines. Not swords.”

  “You really from another world?”

  Kazuki looked at him for a moment, then returned to his blade.

  “I remember screens. Steel. Concrete jungles. This isn’t home.”

  “But you’re here now.”

  “Yeah. And so are the problems.”

  Toma hesitated. “Do you think we’ll win? Really win?”

  Kazuki set the blade down.

  “Not yet. But we’ve made noise. That’s the first step.”

  “What’s the second?”

  “Making them afraid to sleep.”

  ---

  Two days later, scouts reported movement—banners flying under black stars, riders in formation. Thirty this time. Armored. Disciplined. No more bandits—this was a detachment. Military-trained.

  “They sent a lord,” Kazuki muttered, analyzing the crude map scratched in dirt.

  A woman—Mira—stood beside him. “We’re not ready for thirty.”

  “We don’t have to be.”

  “Then what?”

  Kazuki looked at the line of trees ringing the valley. “We make it look like the gods themselves are angry.”

  ---

  The plan was madness. But madness, Kazuki had learned, was a weapon too.

  They left the village empty—open gates, food on tables, fires still burning. A perfect trap.

  In the hills, Kazuki stationed the villagers with mirrors, drums, and pitch-soaked hay. Toma had rigged pulleys to drop smoke pots from trees. Mira and three others crouched behind walls with slings and sharp glass.

  As the detachment approached, the sun dipped low. Shadows stretched. The air turned dry and electric.

  Kazuki waited.

  Then gave the signal.

  “Now.”

  Mirrors caught the light—flashing wildly. Drums thundered from all sides. Smoke filled the air in sudden clouds. The riders paused, confused.

  Then the screaming started.

  Not real screams—but Kazuki’s idea. Hollow bamboo tubes with tied reeds, placed in the wind. They shrieked when the gusts blew right.

  The horses reared. Men panicked.

  Then the slings struck.

  The first rank fell in chaos. Not dead—but blinded, disoriented. Then came the fire.

  Hay ignited behind them, cutting off retreat.

  Kazuki watched from a ridge, calculating every second.

  “Break them. Make them question the ground under their feet.”

  It worked. The commander—distinguished by his red sash—rallied his troops and charged forward.

  Kazuki smiled. “There you are.”

  The second trap sprung—a shallow trench lined with sharpened bones. Horses stumbled. Riders fell. Kazuki moved in.

  He wasn’t a swordsman. But he was fast, efficient.

  He ducked under a halberd swing, drove his blade into a rider’s thigh, then slammed the hilt into the man’s throat. Another came—Kazuki kicked him into the trench.

  By the time the smoke cleared, fifteen were dead, ten fled, and five—wounded and gasping—were tied to poles in the square.

  The red-sashed commander bled from the temple, glaring at Kazuki. “You fight like demons.”

  Kazuki crouched. “No. Just tacticians.”

  The commander spat. “Lord Hentar will raze this valley to ash.”

  Kazuki tilted his head.

  “Good. Let him come. It’s easier to cut down a tree when you know which way it’ll fall.”

  He stood, turned to the villagers. “Tomorrow, we march.”

  “We?” Mira asked.

  Kazuki nodded. “We’re not defending anymore. We’re taking territory.”

  ---

  That night, the villagers—no, his troops—feasted.

  What little they had, they shared. Wine was passed. Laughter echoed. Someone started carving Kazuki’s face into a shield.

  He ignored it. Instead, he watched the captured commander, now chained near the fire.

  “What’s your name?” Kazuki asked.

  “Roh. I was knighted by Lord Hentar himself.”

  “Good. You’ll write him a letter.”

  Roh sneered. “Beg for mercy?”

  Kazuki leaned in.

  “No. You’ll tell him the truth. That the Ghost General has returned. That his men are dying in their beds. That every step forward is a trap.”

  He smiled coldly. “You’ll be my messenger. And my message is simple.”

  “This land is under new command.”