Dawn came too quickly and not quickly enough. Haru stood in the courtyard of the Knights of Favonius headquarters, watching the final preparations for what was essentially a military expedition. Horses were being saddled, weapons checked, and supplies distributed with the kind of efficiency that spoke of serious preparation.
"Nervous?" Lumine asked, appearing beside him with her own gear.
"Terrified," Haru admitted. "But also weirdly excited. Does that make sense?"
"Perfect sense. It means you're taking this seriously but not letting fear paralyze you."
"Or it means I'm having a psychological breakdown and my brain is trying to protect me from the reality of the situation."
"That's... also possible."
Kaeya approached them, looking unusually serious. "Final briefing in five minutes. Jean wants to make sure everyone understands the plan before we move out."
"Got it," Haru said.
The briefing was straightforward: ride to the eastern hills, establish a forward camp, scout the enemy position, and then execute a coordinated assault designed to overwhelm their defenses and rescue the prisoners. Simple in concept, terrifying in execution.
"Remember," Jean concluded, "our primary objective is the rescue of the missing adventurers. Everything else is secondary. If we can accomplish that without a major battle, all the better."
"And if we can't?" asked one of the knights.
Jean's expression hardened. "Then we make sure the hilichurls understand that taking hostages was a very poor decision."
The ride to the eastern hills took most of the morning. The party consisted of Jean, Kaeya, Amber, a dozen knights, and various adventurers who'd volunteered for the mission. Plus Haru, Lumine, and Paimon, who insisted she was providing "essential aerial reconnaissance and moral support."
Haru rode Caesar, who seemed to sense the serious nature of the expedition and carried himself with even more dignity than usual. The horse's presence was oddly comforting—at least one member of their party was completely confident in his abilities.
They encountered scattered hilichurl patrols along the way, but nothing like the organized ambush from the day before. Still, the frequency of contacts was concerning.
"They're definitely more active than usual," Amber reported after scouting ahead. "And they're all moving toward the same general area."
"Reinforcing their main position," Jean concluded. "Which means they know we're coming."
"Or they're preparing for something else entirely," Kaeya suggested. "This level of coordination suggests outside influence."
"Like what?"
"Like someone with intelligence and tactical knowledge directing their activities."
The implications of that were unsettling. Hilichurls were dangerous but predictable. Hilichurls with competent leadership were a much more serious threat.
They made camp in a defensible position about two miles from the target area, with a clear view of the surrounding hills and multiple escape routes if things went wrong. It was a good spot—strategic, practical, and with enough space for their horses.
As the sun began to set, Haru found himself sitting by one of the campfires with Lumine, watching the flames dance while trying not to think about all the ways tomorrow could go catastrophically wrong.
The firelight painted her face in warm gold and amber, and Haru found himself memorizing every detail—the way her hair fell across her shoulder, the thoughtful expression in her eyes, the gentle curve of her smile when she caught him looking.
"Mora for your thoughts?" Lumine asked, shifting closer to him on the fallen log they shared. The movement brought her thigh against his, and Haru felt that familiar electric warmth.
"Just wondering if I'm actually ready for this," Haru admitted. "I mean, I've been in fights before, but this is different. This is war."
Lumine reached over and took his hand, her fingers intertwining with his in a gesture that felt both natural and earth-shaking. "You'll be fine," she said with quiet confidence. "I've seen you fight. You're stronger than you realize."
"What if I'm not, though? What if I've just been getting lucky, and tomorrow's the day my luck runs out?" His thumb traced across her knuckles, and he felt her shiver slightly at the contact.
Lumine was quiet for a moment, staring into the fire, her hand still clasped in his. "Do you know what I think makes someone a real hero?"
"Overwhelming magical power and good timing?"
She turned to face him fully, and suddenly they were closer than ever, their joined hands resting between them like an anchor. "Showing up anyway, even when you're scared. Even when you're not sure you can win."
"That's a very optimistic way of looking at it."
"It's the only way that makes sense. Otherwise, heroism is just having better stats than the other guy." Her free hand came up to cup his cheek, and Haru felt his breath catch. "You show up, Haru. Every time. Even when you're terrified."
"Lumine," he whispered, leaning into her touch.
"I know tomorrow is scary," she continued, her voice soft and earnest. "But whatever happens, we face it together. Promise me?"
"Promise," he said, bringing their joined hands up to his lips and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles.
The gesture made her cheeks flush, and for a moment they just looked at each other, the space between them charged with unspoken possibilities.
"When this is over," Lumine said quietly, "when we're not constantly running toward danger..."
"Yeah?"
"I want to have a real conversation. About... this. About us."
"I'd like that," Haru said, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I'd like that a lot."
She smiled then, radiant and beautiful, and leaned forward to rest her forehead against his. They stayed like that, breathing the same air, sharing the same space, as if they could create a bubble of peace around themselves that nothing could penetrate.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"For what?"
"For being you. For making me believe in heroes again."
Before Haru could respond, before he could tell her that she was the one who made him want to be worthy of that belief, the sound of war horns cut through the evening air, loud and urgent and definitely not coming from their camp.
"Ambush!" someone shouted, and the peaceful evening shattered like glass.
What followed wasn't the clean, heroic battle from storybooks. It was chaos—raw, brutal, and terrifying.
Hilichurls poured out of the surrounding hills like a plague, their war cries splitting the night air. But these weren't the crude, disorganized monsters they'd fought before. These moved with military precision, their attacks coordinated, their equipment far better than anything hilichurls should possess.
"Defensive positions!" Jean's voice cut through the chaos, steel-edged with command authority, but even she couldn't hide the shock in her tone.
The camp dissolved into a nightmare of clashing steel and screaming. Knights fell with sickening thuds, their armor no match for the sheer overwhelming numbers. Haru caught glimpses of his companions through the melee—Jean moving like a whirlwind of destruction but bleeding from a dozen cuts, Kaeya's usual casual demeanor replaced by grim desperation as ice and blood painted the ground around him.
A knight near Haru went down with a crossbow bolt through his throat, gurgling wetly as life fled his eyes. Another screamed as a hilichurl's axe took his arm at the elbow, the sound of splintering bone mixing with his agonized cries.
"There are too many of them!" Amber's voice was hoarse from shouting commands and warnings, her arrows finding their marks but barely making a dent in the endless tide of enemies.
This wasn't a battle—it was a slaughter waiting to happen.
"Hold the line!" Jean commanded, but her voice carried the edge of someone who knew the line was already breaking. Blood ran down her sword arm, and Haru could see the strain in every movement as she fought off three attackers at once.
The horses were screaming now, some down with spears in their flanks, others rearing in terror as hilichurls closed in with crude but effective weapons. The smell of blood and smoke filled the air, mixing with the acrid stench of fear-sweat and death.
That's when Haru saw the real horror: through the hills, like a tide of nightmares made flesh, came the reinforcements. Not dozens—hundreds. A sea of torches and crude weapons, war paint and tribal masks, all moving with the coordinated purpose of a military force.
The moonlight caught on their weapons—axes, spears, crossbows—all aimed at the small group of defenders who were already struggling against impossible odds.
"Lumine," he said, his voice cutting through the chaos as he grabbed her blood-spattered arm. "We need to move. Now."
She followed his gaze and went white as death. "How many is that?"
"Enough to finish what they started."
A knight stumbled past them, clutching a wound in his side that was bleeding too fast, too red. His eyes were already going glassy with shock.
The reinforcements crested the hill like a breaking wave of violence and death, their war cries echoing across the valley in a sound that promised no mercy, no survivors, just the complete annihilation of everything that stood against them.
In the firelight, Haru could see the crude symbols painted on their shields and faces—not random tribal markings, but organized unit identifiers. Someone had turned these monsters into an army.
"We're all going to die here," someone whispered—Haru wasn't sure who.
The words hung in the air like a death sentence, and for a moment, the terrible truth of it settled over the battlefield like a burial shroud.
Then Haru felt that familiar cold clarity settling over his mind, washing away the fear and horror with something far more dangerous.
Not today.
His aura began to shift, red eyes blazing with purpose that cut through the darkness like twin stars, and when he spoke, his voice carried across the battlefield with absolute authority that made even the dying pause to listen.
"Everyone behind me. Now."
The combined forces of the hilichurl army saw him step forward, saw the way reality seemed to bend around his presence, saw something in his eyes that spoke of power beyond their understanding, and for just a moment, the tide of violence hesitated.
That moment was all Haru needed.
"Let's dance."