I AM EXTRA IN A SHONEN MANGA

The words cracked into sobs. Moe's chest heaved, but he forced the final plea through his tears:

"My hero… save us…"

Silence pressed against the chamber, the weight of prophecy and history settling like an immovable mountain. Kaen, Toren, Lys, and Kiro stood frozen three young hearts and one cursed soul all of them wide-eyed, as if they too could feel the invisible current of fate winding its way around Khael. Even children, untouched by legends, knew instinctively: this moment was sacred.

Khael stepped forward. He did not tower over Moe, he knelt. The Dragon Knight lowered himself until their eyes nearly met, his presence humbling yet impossibly kind. His gaze carried centuries, the sorrow of endless battles, yet also the warmth of an unyielding fire.

"I won't fail you…" he said softly, the words like a vow etched into the marrow of the world.

Inside, his thoughts stirred like storm winds.

"(This fisherman… no… this aura… I've seen it before. In the old pages of the manga, in the tales of Ignisar Dominion. The Uska tribe. There was a warrior, the last of his people—Urogway. He fought with Kaen, a man who found family despite living as a fisherman. Urogway swore his clan was gone… so how is it possible? Another Uska… alive, here… before me?)"

His scaled hand hovered above Moe's bowed head, shimmering faintly with Dragon Bloodline aura. A warmth spread through the chamber, making the lanterns flicker brighter, as if the world itself acknowledged his presence.

Moe sobbed openly, his shoulders shaking like a child's. "Finally… my dream comes true. To think… that in this fading life of mine… I would behold a Dragon Knight with my own eyes… before my span ends…"

Khael's voice dropped to a near whisper, solemn yet piercing. "You are from the Uska tribe… aren't you?"

Moe lifted his weary head, his tears shining like jewels in the dim light. He nodded slowly. "Yes… the last one of my kind."

For a long heartbeat, Khael said nothing. His eyes darkened with a storm of memory, recognition, and sorrow. Then, finally, he breathed a single word:

"Hmm…"

It was neither judgment nor dismissal. It was a promise unspoken, a vow restrained, a recognition that the Uska's story was not yet finished.

The chamber seemed to pulse with that truth. The children felt it, Kaen felt it, even Neria felt it in her bones: the past and future had just collided, and nothing in their world would remain the same.

Khael's hand hovered a moment longer above Moe's bowed head before he drew it back, his eyes narrowing slightly. His thoughts stirred, sharp as blades.

"(No need to tell him for now… his heart is too fragile, and the truth of Urogway's line would only break him further. For now, what matters is that monster.)"

He straightened, his shadow stretching across the chamber, cast long by the trembling lantern flames. His voice cut through the heavy silence like a command from the heavens.

"Elder Moe… do you know about that monster?"

Moe shuddered at the question, his frail hands gripping the stone floor as if to steady himself against the weight of memory. His cloudy eyes darted toward Neria, then to Kaen, then finally back to Khael.

Blood still clung to his lips, but his voice carried the weight of an ancient witness.

"Thal'ryx… the Drowned Calamity. The sea-born terror that devoured coasts, shattered fleets, and drowned entire cities. Seventy years ago, it nearly consumed the world."

He coughed violently, crimson spraying against the floor, yet forced the words through gritted teeth.

"Even we… the Uska… could not contain it. Our duty was only to guard the seal. It was not us who bound the beast, it was the Dragon Knight of old… your predecessor."

The room chilled at the confession, as though the sea itself had pressed against the walls of the hall.

Kaen's fists clenched at his sides, his voice cracking with frustration.

"That thing again! Everyone keeps throwing names and legends around—Thal'ryx, Dragon Knights, Uska tribes while waves big enough to swallow us are already rising outside! Just tell us what it means!"

Moe's weary gaze locked onto Khael's, ignoring Kaen's outburst entirely. His voice lowered into a trembling whisper, reverent and terrified all at once.

"If the seal is broken… then Thal'ryx has awakened. And if you, Dragon Knight, are truly real… then the world's hope rests on you. Because no one else can stand against it."

Khael's jaw tightened, his dragon blood resonating, the faint echo of a roar vibrating in the chamber's walls.

"(I know it in the manga… this monster died by the hands of the eclipse vanguard but the village is gone… and that monster was the calamity, Yuna once sealed? Tsk.. If it's true, then this era will drown in blood and waves unless I stand against it.)"

The children clung to Kaen, their small eyes wide with terror. Even Kaen, normally brash, felt his mouth dry.

The hall lurched as if the earth itself had taken a breath and then screamed. Lanterns swung, spilling sputters of light that trembled across Elder Neria's pearl mosaics. Outside, the sea answered with another roar longer, deeper, as if something vast had woken and was testing its voice.

Moe's fingers dug into the stone. He spit blood and pointed with a shaking hand. "NO— it's stronger than before. I can feel it. It's using—" He swallowed, eyes wide and haunted. "—fifty percent of its strength."

Khael's brow narrowed. "Only fifty percent?"

Moe nodded, a racked, exhausted motion. "The seal Master Yuna embedded holds a shard of its power, but the seal is breaking. If it reaches full power…" He didn't finish the sentence; none of them needed him to.

Khael's voice was quiet but unshakable. "Which means we have a chance."

Moe laughed, a sound like someone coughing up the sea. "A chance? You mean to seal it?"

Khael's jaw tightened. "Not seal it, slay it. If it can't call its full strength, it's not the monster of legend yet. If we strike fast and strike together, we can end this before it wakes."

Silence slammed into the room, sharp, brittle. The children clung to Kaen's sleeves; Toren's chipped tooth trembled with worry. Kaen's usual bravado fell away, replaced by something raw and honest. "If we fail… they die," he said, voice ragged. "I'm not letting that happen."

Then Khael's hand curled into a fist so tight his knuckles blanched white. The roar from the sea trembled through the hall like a struck gong, and every skin on his arms prickled with the same cold fire that had lived in his veins since the mountain. He looked at Moe, at Neria, at Kaen and the children clinging to him then he stood.

"Let's go."

The words were small. The air around them made them feel enormous.

Moe's eyes flickered with something like relief and then, immediately, age and pain. He tried to rise but the room spun; Neria and a pair of Pearl Guardians steadied him. Through the cough that tore from his chest he managed a thin, steady voice.

"My name is Moe. I am of the Uska tribe, guardian of that seal for three generations."

Khael dipped his head just once, solemn and unshowy.

"I am Khael." He let the name hang in the hall as if it were a promise. "Dragon Knight or not, I won't let Thal'ryx drown these people."

To be continue