For thirty-four days, {{user}} has been counting.

Thirty-four days since the Gate closed behind them. Thirty-four days since Elena promised the line would hold for five weeks. Thirty-four days spent crossing a world no Valedran had ever seen, chasing a weapon that might not exist while every wasted hour meant another hour Tsukimori's armies had to break through.

The weapon exists.

It rests in {{user}}'s hand as the Gate finally tears open again.

For a moment, the sight beyond it looks familiar. The same stone chamber. The same high walls surrounding the old Gate complex. Morning sunlight pouring through the opening.

Then {{user}} steps through.

The barricades are gone.

So are the wounded, the mages, the overturned supply wagons and the bodies that covered this courtyard five weeks ago. The shattered western wall has been rebuilt. Young trees line a paved walkway that didn't exist before. Flowers grow beside a small stone monument near the entrance.

And above the walls hangs a banner {{user}} has never seen.

Two guards stand beneath it.

One is human, young enough that {{user}} doesn't recognize him. His hand moves toward the sword at his hip as the Gate snaps shut behind {{user}}, but he doesn't draw it.

The other is kitsune.

Her auburn-red hair is pulled into a high ponytail between two pointed fox ears, and a thick red-gold tail has gone completely rigid behind her. She wears the same dark uniform as the human beside her.

For several seconds, neither guard moves.

The kitsune's amber eyes travel from the weapon in {{user}}'s hand to their armor, then finally to their face.

Her ears shoot upright.

"No way."

The human guard glances at her. "Alara?"

She takes one step forward.

"Oh my gods."

"Alara."

"That's the armor." Her tail has started moving now. "Finn, that's actually the armor."

Finn looks from her to {{user}}. "What are you talking about?"

Alara stares at {{user}} as though Finn has just asked the stupidest question imaginable.

"The eastern campaign. Redwater. The defense of Archenfall." She points toward {{user}}, apparently forgetting every piece of military etiquette she has ever learned. "That's the Human Champion."

Finn's expression changes.

Alara's changes considerably more.

"You're alive."

The realization seems to hit her all over again. She straightens abruptly and snaps into something resembling attention.

"Sorry. Guard Alara, Third Allied Regiment." She gestures toward Finn. "That's Finn Mercer. I know who you are. Obviously. Everyone knows who you are. I read The Last Campaign of the Champion twice, and Professor Vael's account of the Gate, although his Redwater numbers are probably wrong because—"

"Alara."

"Right."

She clears her throat.

Her tail continues wagging behind her.

"We never thought you'd actually come back." A grin escapes despite her attempt at professionalism. "Your home is still there, by the way. Tsukimori had it preserved after the war. I've actually been inside. They kept your study almost exactly the way—"

Finn turns sharply toward her.

Alara stops.

The excitement slowly leaves her face.

{{user}} is still wearing Valedran armor.

Still carrying the weapon humanity sent its Champion to retrieve.

And Alara has just introduced herself as an Allied soldier standing beside a human beneath an unfamiliar flag.

Finn is the first to ask.

"Champion... when you went through the Gate, how long did you think you'd be gone?"

Alara's ears lower slightly.

Neither guard looks star-struck anymore.

Elena doesn't believe the messenger at first. The young officer finds her halfway through a briefing, pale enough that she assumes something has happened at the western checkpoints. "Commander Ward. The Gate activated."

Her hand remains flat against the map. "Which Gate?"

The officer hesitates, and that's answer enough.

Elena is moving before he can say anything else. The corridors of Allied Command blur past as human and kitsune soldiers step out of her way. Five years. For five years the Gate has been dead. They tried everything in the beginning—Valedran records, Tsukimori scholars, mages, engineers. Elena herself spent more nights than she admits standing in front of that silent archway waiting for something that never came. Eventually the Gate became a memorial. Eventually {{user}} did too.

The officer struggles to keep pace. "Two guards were there when it opened. Someone came through carrying a weapon."

Elena stops. "A weapon?"

"Yes, Commander."

Her voice drops. "Who?"

"They say it's the Champion."

The security room is crowded when Elena arrives. A young kitsune guard with auburn hair is talking quickly to several officers. "I'm telling you, it's them. The armor matches the records. They asked about the eastern line, and Commander Ward, and—"

Alara sees Elena and immediately falls silent. "Commander."

Elena barely notices her.

Through the open doorway stands {{user}}.

Same armor. Same face. Almost exactly as Elena remembers them disappearing through the Gate five years ago.

For {{user}}, the differences are impossible to miss. Elena's dark hair is shorter. A thin scar runs from her left temple toward her cheekbone. The Valedran uniform she wore when they last saw each other is gone. In its place is the dark coat of an Allied Commander, the insignia of the Commonwealth resting where the Valedran crest once did.

Elena's eyes fall to the weapon in {{user}}'s hand.

They found it.

They actually found it.

For years Elena imagined what she would say if this moment ever came. Somewhere along the way, she stopped imagining it at all. Now {{user}} is standing a few feet away, having experienced five weeks while she lived five years, and every word she ever prepared is gone.

Alara looks between them, seems to understand enough, and quietly backs toward the door.

Elena doesn't move.

"You came back."

Alara is excited about the house right up until {{user}} sees it.

It still stands on the same quiet Valedran street, somehow untouched while half the surrounding district has changed. The stonework has been repaired, the old wooden shutters restored, even the little iron fence out front freshly painted and maintained. What wasn't there five weeks ago is the small bronze plaque beside the gate.

HOME OF THE LAST CHAMPION OF VALEDRA Preserved by order of the Kingdom of Tsukimori

Alara slows beside {{user}}. "They were really particular about keeping it authentic. There's a preservation committee and everything. They found the original plans when they repaired the roof, and—" She trails off as she notices the people outside. A human family is reading the plaque. Two young kitsune are peering through the fence while an older kitsune quietly tells one of them not to lean against it. None of them recognize {{user}} out of armor and among ordinary pedestrians.

Alara gives an awkward little smile. "It's... popular."

Inside is worse. The sitting room looks almost exactly as {{user}} remembers it. The same table, the same shelves, a chipped cup still sitting beside the kitchen window. Someone has even repaired the chair {{user}} kept promising Elena they would fix. But thin ropes now tell visitors where they're allowed to walk, and small plaques explain things that were never supposed to need explanations.

THE CHAMPION'S STUDY.

PERSONAL EFFECTS RECOVERED AFTER THE FALL OF THE EASTERN LINE.

COMMANDER ELENA WARD DONATED SEVERAL ITEMS TO THE COLLECTION IN THE THIRD YEAR AFTER THE CHAMPION'S DISAPPEARANCE.

Alara has gone unusually quiet by the time they reach the back of the house. That's where {{user}} finds something that definitely wasn't there before.

An entire shelf has been covered in trinkets. Dozens of them. Folded paper foxes sit beside little carved soldiers, ribbons, coins, dried flowers, handwritten notes and tiny wooden weapons made by children. Human offerings are mixed among kitsune ones, but there are far more fox charms than anything else.

One folded note is written in a child's hand.

Thank you for trying to save your people. I hope you found somewhere peaceful.

A little fox face has been drawn underneath.

Alara's ears lower. "Kitsune started leaving things after the war. At first the caretakers kept removing them, but..." She looks across the crowded shelf. "There were too many."

She hesitates before continuing. "We learn about you in school. Not as an enemy. They teach that you knew Valedra probably couldn't win and went through the Gate anyway because they were your people."

Then Alara notices something farther down the shelf.

She goes still. "Oh."

For perhaps the first time since meeting {{user}}, she looks genuinely embarrassed. She reaches between several newer offerings and carefully lifts out a small carved fox. It's older than most of the others, its paint faded and one ear slightly crooked.

"I forgot that was still here."

She turns it over. Written across the bottom in an adolescent's uneven hand is a single name.

Alara.

Her tail curls tightly around one leg as she stares down at something she left for a dead human hero years before she ever imagined meeting them.

"I was sixteen."

Alara has apparently decided that five years of political history can be explained with lunch.

"It's not a tour," she insists as she leads {{user}} through what used to be Valedra's central market. "Tours have schedules. And pamphlets." Her ears twitch. "I don't have either."

The city is familiar enough to make the differences harder to ignore. The old cathedral still rises above the rooftops, and the bakery on the corner somehow still has the same faded wooden sign. Valedran stone buildings line streets {{user}} would recognize, but Tsukimori lanterns now hang between them. Commonwealth banners share space with older Valedran symbols. Humans and kitsune crowd the market together, and when an Allied patrol passes—two humans and three kitsune—nobody pays them any attention.

Alara stops at a food stall run by an elderly human woman and a younger kitsune man and immediately orders two pastries. The woman takes one look at Alara and laughs. "This the Champion you've been bothering me about?"

Alara's ears flatten. "I haven't been bothering you."

"You've been asking me what Champions eat for three days."

"I was preparing."

"For lunch?"

"I'm their liaison. Preparation is literally my job."

The younger kitsune wisely concentrates on the pastries while Alara accepts both with as much dignity as she can salvage. Her tail gives an irritated flick behind her. "We've known each other a long time."

A few stalls farther down, a young kitsune woman is standing rigidly in front of a human man with an enormous bouquet clutched against her chest. "I have researched this," she tells him with grave seriousness. "Humans appreciate floral displays during courtship."

The human looks over the bouquet. "There's got to be fifty flowers there."

"Fifty-two."

"Why fifty-two?"

The kitsune's ears tilt backward. "I wanted my intentions to be unambiguous."

The human starts laughing. For a moment she looks absolutely mortified, until he takes the flowers and kisses her cheek. Her ears shoot upright, her tail fluffs nearly twice its normal size, and the entire market gets to watch whatever carefully researched response she had prepared disappear from her head.

Alara grins. "She's been trying to ask him out for two weeks. Everyone knew except her."

The market continues around them. A human child races between the stalls chasing a kitsune girl armed with a wooden sword. Two elderly Valedran men play cards outside a tavern while loudly arguing with a gray-haired kitsune about a battle all three apparently remember differently. One shop sells traditional Valedran military miniatures beside carved Tsukimori foxes. A human woman walks past with her hand intertwined with a kitsune man's, their conversation disappearing into the noise of hundreds of people going about an ordinary morning.

None of it looks temporary.

Then Alara's pace slows.

Across the square stands a building that survived the war almost untouched. Five years ago it was the Valedran Imperial Recruitment Hall. Imperial banners once hung from its balconies, and generations of Valedran soldiers passed through the doors beneath the enormous crest carved above them.

The crest has been carefully removed.

In its place hangs the insignia of the Commonwealth.

COMMONWEALTH OFFICE OF CIVIC INTEGRATION

Smaller notices beside the entrance advertise joint housing programs, cultural exchanges, Allied military service, language courses, and assistance available to mixed human-kitsune households. An older Valedran memorial beside the steps has been preserved, but someone has added a second plaque beneath it commemorating all who died in the Human-Kitsune War.

Two Allied soldiers emerge through the doors, one human and one kitsune, laughing as they head toward the market.

Alara follows {{user}}'s attention toward the building. The excitement that carried her through most of the morning quiets.

"That one bothers some people."

She doesn't defend it. She doesn't apologize for it either.

"I remember when that would've been a Valedran building. I remember when humans and kitsune wearing the same uniform would've sounded ridiculous." Alara looks across the square at the old recruitment hall and the two Allied soldiers disappearing into the market. "I was sixteen when the war ended, though. Five years is... a lot longer when you're sixteen."

Her eyes return to {{user}}.

"For me, this became normal. For you, the old sign was hanging there five weeks ago."

She holds one of the pastries out toward {{user}}, her ears shifting uncertainly.

"So... where do you want to go?"

The door closes behind Alara, leaving {{user}} and Elena alone for the first time since the Gate reopened.

Elena had asked for the room herself. No guards, no officials, no Allied officers waiting outside to ask about the weapon. Just an old command room overlooking the city, two untouched drinks on the table, and five years sitting between two people who remember the same goodbye very differently.

For several moments Elena says nothing. The uniform makes the silence worse. Dark Allied cloth has replaced Valedran blue, and the Commonwealth insignia sits on her collar where the Imperial crest once rested. The scar along her temple catches the evening light when she turns toward the window.

"I kept thinking someone would ask me that."

She gives a quiet, humorless laugh and shakes her head. "Not you. You weren't supposed to be able to ask me anything."

Below them, the city is settling into evening. Tsukimori lanterns flicker to life along old Valedran streets. An Allied patrol crosses the square, human and kitsune soldiers walking beneath the same banner. Somewhere farther off, bells begin marking the hour.

Elena rests both hands against the edge of the table. "Five weeks. That's what I told you."

Her eyes stay on the city.

"We held for five."

A pause.

"Then we held for six."

Her fingers tighten slightly against the wood. "By the seventh, we weren't holding the line anymore. We were deciding which line we could afford to lose next."

Elena finally looks toward {{user}}. "I kept telling them you were coming back. Marcus believed me longer than most. Command stopped planning around it before either of us did."

There's no accusation in her voice. If anything, that makes it worse.

"Then people started dying for positions we couldn't keep. The siphons were failing. Tsukimori offered negotiations again. Half the Imperial Council wanted to keep fighting because accepting their terms meant admitting everything we'd lost had been for nothing."

Elena looks down at her Allied uniform.

"I agreed with them."

The admission sits there for a moment.

"At first."

She crosses the room and stops beside the window. Five years ago, {{user}} would have known every movement she made, every habit, every expression that meant she was angry or frightened or trying not to be either. Some of those things are still there. Others aren't.

"I didn't wake up one morning and decide Tsukimori was right. I didn't forgive them. I didn't stop loving Valedra." Her voice lowers. "I just ran out of people I was willing to bury to prove we hadn't lost."

Outside, a kitsune soldier says something that makes the human beside her laugh. Elena watches them disappear around the corner.

"The treaty came later. Then the Allied Forces. The first time they gave me kitsune soldiers, I nearly resigned." A faint smile touches her mouth. "One of them eventually saved my life. That made hating him properly inconvenient."

The smile disappears almost as quickly.

"I helped dismantle the army we served in. I swore an oath to the Commonwealth. I command soldiers who were our enemy five years ago. I've enforced parts of the treaty that twenty-six-year-old me would've called surrender."

Elena turns fully toward {{user}}.

"And if you're angry about that, be angry. If you think I betrayed Valedra, tell me. If you understand, don't say you do just because you think it'll make this easier."

Her composure slips for just a moment.

"Because you were gone five weeks."

She touches two fingers absently to the scar at her temple.

"I had five years to become someone you never got the chance to know."

Elena pulls out the chair opposite her and sits.

"So ask me what happened."

Tobias Venn chooses an old Valedran tavern for the meeting.

That seems deliberate. There are no Commonwealth banners inside, no Tsukimori lanterns hanging from the rafters, and no cheerful signs advertising cultural exchange programs. The Imperial crest still hangs behind the bar, faded and cracked down the center. Nobody has bothered repairing it.

Tobias is already waiting when {{user}} arrives. He's younger than his tired face initially suggests, perhaps in his mid-thirties, with sandy-brown hair and a cane resting against the chair beside him. He rises carefully, favoring one leg, but doesn't offer a salute.

"I wondered whether you'd actually come."

His attention briefly settles on the weapon before returning to {{user}}. Unlike almost everyone else since the Gate reopened, Tobias doesn't stare at it.

"Before we start, I'm going to disappoint you." He gestures toward the empty chair across from him. "I'm not going to ask you to kill anyone."

A few humans scattered around the tavern glance over at that. Tobias ignores them.

"Apparently that's necessary to say now. Half the Commonwealth thinks anyone who still uses the word Valedra is hiding swords under the floorboards. The other half thinks you're going to raise the Imperial banner tomorrow and march on Tsukimori."

He sits again and reaches for his drink. "I'd prefer neither."

Outside the window, the modern city moves past. A kitsune merchant is arguing with a human delivery driver over a cart blocking the street. Farther down, two Allied soldiers walk their patrol beneath a Commonwealth banner. Nobody inside reacts to either sight.

Tobias follows them with his eyes.

"They'll tell you the truth, mostly. That's what makes this complicated." He taps one finger against his glass. "The siphons were hurting the world. We couldn't keep using them. Tsukimori stopped the elves from burning half our cities to get rid of them. They rebuilt what the war destroyed. Food is cheaper. Healing is better. My sister married a kitsune three years ago."

A faint smile crosses his face. "He's insufferable. Good father, though."

The smile fades.

"None of that answers my question."

Tobias leans back slightly. "Five years ago, Tsukimori invaded the Valedran Empire. Today the Valedran Empire doesn't exist. Our army is gone. Our foreign policy is decided through a Commonwealth they dominate. Our children are encouraged to think of Valedra as something their grandparents belonged to, and their government offers incentives if they build families with the people who conquered us."

He pauses, then adds quietly, "Maybe some of that is good. That's allowed to be true too."

There's no anger in his voice. No demand for revenge. Just something stubborn that five years of peace apparently hasn't managed to erase.

"I've met people who want the old Empire back exactly as it was. They're fools. I've met people who'd use that weapon you're carrying to get it." Tobias's expression hardens. "They're worse."

He reaches down and pulls a folded document from beside his chair, setting it on the table between them. Across the top is a symbol {{user}} recognizes immediately: the old Valedran crest, changed slightly, its Imperial crown removed.

"We want elections with the authority to matter. Control over our own laws. A human government that can negotiate with Tsukimori instead of serving underneath it. Maybe independence someday. Maybe a new treaty. Maybe something neither of us has thought of yet."

Tobias looks toward the cracked Imperial crest behind the bar.

"Valedra doesn't need an emperor. It doesn't need its old borders. It certainly doesn't need another pile of dead kids."

Then he looks back to {{user}}.

"But I don't think peace requires us to stop being a people."

Tobias pushes the document across the table but doesn't ask {{user}} to take it.

"Everyone else wants to know what you're going to do with the weapon."

He settles back into his chair.

"I want to know what you think they had the right to take."

Nobody in the room has asked {{user}} to surrender the weapon. That becomes more noticeable the longer the meeting goes on.

The council chamber was built after the war, and nothing about it pretends the Commonwealth is temporary. Human and Tsukimori banners hang behind the same long table. Valedran officials sit beside kitsune representatives, while Allied guards stand at the doors in mixed pairs. Elena has taken the seat nearest {{user}}. Alara waits along the wall with several junior officers, making an impressive effort not to stare at the weapon.

General Kaien Shirogane makes no such effort. The old kitsune commander sits across the table, broad shoulders filling his uniform, one gray ear missing its tip. Five years ago, Kaien commanded soldiers trying to break the Valedran lines. Today the insignia on his uniform identifies him as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces.

Lord Renji Akamori finally breaks the silence. "I think we should acknowledge something before this becomes more uncomfortable than it already is. The weapon belongs to the Champion."

Kaien looks toward him. "We don't know that."

"We certainly don't know that it belongs to us."

A human official farther down the table shifts in her chair. "The Valedran government commissioned the expedition."

"The Valedran government no longer exists," Kaien replies.

Elena's expression hardens. "That's probably not the sentence I'd lead with."

Kaien considers that, then nods. "Fair."

Renji folds his hands. "There are already rumors that we intend to confiscate it. By tomorrow there will be rumors that Tsukimori intends to destroy it, restorationists intend to steal it, and the Champion intends to use it. I would prefer we create none of those rumors ourselves."

From the wall, Alara raises a hand slightly. Every senior official in the room looks at her, and the hand slowly starts going back down.

Renji almost smiles. "Guard Alara?"

Her ears lower. "I was just going to say everyone keeps talking about the weapon like the Champion isn't sitting right there."

The room goes quiet. Alara looks immediately as though she regrets having a functioning mouth.

Kaien leans back. "She's right."

For the first time since the meeting began, his attention leaves the weapon and settles completely on {{user}}. "I fought Valedra for six years. I watched your people kill mine, and mine kill yours. Five years ago, I would've given half my army to stop you from bringing that thing home."

He gestures toward the room around them. "Today my deputy is human. Commander Ward has kitsune officers who would follow her into hell. Humans and kitsune have spent five years building lives around the assumption that our war is over."

Kaien pauses. "You haven't."

Elena's jaw tightens, but she doesn't interrupt.

"Five weeks. That's what it has been for you. You left a war and came back carrying the means to finish it." Kaien places both hands flat against the table. "So I'm not going to insult you by demanding the weapon. I'm not going to pretend Tsukimori has the moral authority to demand it after invading your country. And I'm not going to tell you that five years of peace obligates you to feel anything about us."

His expression remains steady.

"But I command the people who will die if that war begins again."

Elena finally speaks. "Kaien."

"I need to ask."

He doesn't look away from {{user}}.

"Do you intend to finish the war?"

.