The wind carried the scent of war.
It was a night painted in deep shadow, where even the stars dared not shine. A humid stillness settled over the village of Mactan, as though the land itself held its breath. Then—sharp and shrill—the horn rang out from the bamboo watchtower, its sound tearing through the silence like a blade.
Jomarie jolted upright, breath caught in his throat.
Outside, the world exploded into motion.
Warriors ran barefoot across the packed earth, the glint of their bronze armbands catching torchlight. Children were swept away by trembling mothers into hidden shelters. Roosters crowed in panic. Dogs barked at ghosts. Fire pits flared, casting flickering halos over sharpened spears and glistening kampilan swords.
This wasn't a drill. This wasn't training.
This was it.
Maira burst past his hut, tightening a strip of bark-armor across her waist, her eyes fierce and jaw clenched. "They're here," she said between breaths. "Spaniards. And they're not alone."
She didn't stop running.
Jomarie stood frozen at the threshold of his hut. His fingers clutched the dagger Lapu-Lapu had given him days ago. A weapon he still didn't feel worthy to hold. His heart thundered in his chest, not just from fear—but from the terrifying clarity that this was real. This wasn't some test. This was blood and death.
He stepped into the night.
---
From the edge of the treeline beyond the village, faint torchlight danced in unnatural rhythm. It wasn't the soft, warm light of home—it was cold, foreign. Marching in metallic precision, Spanish soldiers emerged like phantoms cloaked in steel. Their boots crushed the forest undergrowth without mercy. Beside them marched native Filipinos—warriors swayed by greed, fear, or promises of power.
Jomarie crouched behind a stone outcrop with Pula and Maira. Above them, the hill overlooked the outskirts of the village, where the defenders had taken position among rocks, thick brush, and bamboo traps.
"There are more than we expected," Pula muttered, peering through the shadows. His voice was taut with restrained rage. "If they get through the outer line, our kin are as good as gone."
Jomarie's hands trembled as he gripped his bamboo spear. His stomach churned with the sharp sting of fear and the aftertaste of bile.
"Let me fight," he said, surprising even himself.
Pula glanced at him with unreadable eyes, then offered a smaller dagger from his belt.
"Take this. Stay close to Maira. Watch her feet. When she moves, you move. Do not break formation. And no heroics."
Jomarie nodded once.
Below them, the forest ignited.
The battle began with fire.
Flaming arrows soared into the sky, arcing like dying stars before plunging into crates, trees, and unlucky soldiers. Screams split the night as chaos erupted. The clang of steel against bronze, the whoosh of blades, the cries of pain—it was a chorus of agony and rage.
Jomarie felt the world tilt. Smoke filled his lungs. The light of torches warped everything into nightmare silhouettes.
A Spanish soldier—taller than him by a head, wrapped in silver armor that gleamed with arrogance—charged from the chaos, musket raised like a club. Jomarie's instincts took over. He dropped low, the musket swinging just above his scalp, and drove the dagger hard into the man's thigh.
The soldier howled, crumpling with a crash of metal.
Jomarie shoved him with both hands, sending him sprawling down the slope, groaning in the dirt.
Blood.
Hot, sticky, real.
It stained Jomarie's hands. It steamed in the cold air. And in that moment, the boy who had once stood at the edge of a rooftop was gone.
He had drawn his first blood.
---
"Not bad," Maira said, appearing beside him in the smoke. Her voice was calm, but her face bore a new kind of respect. She moved like a flame—dancing, deadly, unpredictable—her blade finding flesh with brutal elegance.
Jomarie ducked to avoid a musket swing aimed at her back.
"Behind you!" he shouted.
She pivoted. He hurled his spear—not with skill, but with desperation—and struck the enemy's shoulder. The man faltered, just long enough for Maira to run him through.
She glanced at Jomarie again.
"You move better now. Less like prey."
Jomarie didn't answer.
His focus narrowed into a singular point: survive.
He threw dirt into a soldier's eyes, kicked another's knee out from under him, then slammed the hilt of his dagger into a face behind a helmet. He fought with clumsy grace, using everything—stone, sand, instinct. His muscles burned. His chest heaved. His vision blurred with sweat and blood.
But he kept going.
His tattoo—the Burda ng Katapangan—burned on his back like fire kissed into flesh. Each pulse reminded him: you were meant to die once.
Not tonight.
---
By dawn, the drums had stopped.
The smoke thinned. The cries quieted. The battle was over.
Corpses littered the ground—some armored, some not. Some familiar.
There were gaps in the village now where huts once stood. People wept for their lost. Others sharpened spears in silence. They knew this was just the beginning.
Lapu-Lapu stood at the center of the square, shirtless, his torso smeared with blood not his own. His eyes surveyed the ruin, but his voice carried strength.
"This was a warning," he declared. "A taste of the lion's hunger. They want our lands. Our lives. But we will meet them not with fear—but with fury."
The warriors pounded the ground with their weapons, a thunderous answer.
Then Lapu-Lapu looked toward Jomarie.
"You stood your ground," he said. "You did not flee. You fought."
He stepped forward, drawing something from the satchel tied to his belt.
Wrapped in red silk was a blade—shorter than the traditional kampilan, but perfectly balanced. The metal shimmered in the morning light. Carvings ran along its spine, ancient symbols that glowed faintly like embers.
"This belonged to my cousin," Lapu-Lapu said solemnly. "He died defending our home. It is now yours."
Jomarie took it reverently, the silk slipping through his fingers like memory. The weapon was light, but in his hands it felt like a vow.
"I won't let it break," he whispered.
Lapu-Lapu smiled—not kindly, but with a warrior's pride.
"No. You won't. Because you are no longer just a man from another time."
He placed a hand on Jomarie's shoulder.
"You are now one of us."
---
That night, long after the fires had died and the village returned to uneasy sleep, Jomarie sat alone beneath the stars. The kampilan rested across his knees, his fingertips tracing its blade as if trying to memorize its every scar.
He looked out over the horizon—the ocean dark and endless.
And for the first time since the wind had howled on that rooftop in the city of glass and shadows...
He didn't want to die.
He wanted to live.
And he wanted to fight for something more than survival.
For the first time—
He believed he could.