The second chapter opens with a flashback to during the war, back when Ky was only a child. On a battlefield, he runs into Tyr, who looks exactly like he does in the present day and appears to be working for Kliff Undersn. When Kliff asks what a kid like Ky is doing on the battlefield, Ky tells him both his parents are dead, and he wants to fight rather than running away. Kliff shows him how ridiculous this is, but tells him to survive for five years and come back to fight then. Ky takes off obediently, and Kliff and Tyr go back to the battle.
The scene flashes forward fifteen years later to the present day. Ky uses an ornate medallion to get through the barrier which protects the Japanese Colony, noting the bodies of the guards left behind when Geena went through shortly before.
Inside the shrine, Tyr asks about the autumn leaves falling outside, and is told that the kekkai protecting the colony has strange effects on the weather. The old man goes on to explain that although the Japanese are supposed to be under protection, it’s really treated more like the Japanese are people the rest of the world should avoid.
Ky arrives at the shrine at last, and knocks on the door only to have Tyr leap out of nowhere to greet him like an old friend. The scene flashes back to a battle from the closing years of the Holy War, when Ky was a captain in the Holy Order. Just as the Order is pulling out from a battle, a giant Manticore class gear attacks. Ky watches in horror, realising everyone won’t be able to get out of the way in time, but is even more amazed when the gear’s attack is extinguished without anyone being injured. A cryptic message relayed from Kliff about ‘babysitting’ leads him to find Tyr collapsed against a stone, presumably the one responsible for what happened to the gear. He brings the unconscious Tyr back to Kliff, but never gets the chance to ask just what Tyr really is.
Back in the present, they puzzle over how Tyr came to be at the shrine, and Tyr is mortified to learn that the Holy War ended without him. Ky begins to explain to the old man why he came to the colony, but is interrupted by Mizuha, standing and walking outside in a trancelike state. Mizuha says a cryptic phrase which translates roughly to ‘disaster from the sky’, and a giant hand falls from the air, crushing part of the shrine. Mizuha says one further cryptic line about a pillar to heaven and passes out.
The chapter ends with the old man making one brief statement about how much the kekkai is weakening.
To chapter 3 summary