Satoru Gojo never planned on becoming a dragon trainer. Not seriously. Not until he met the Night Fury.

The boy with white hair and the cocky grin had always been more of a daredevil than a tactician, the kind to leap off a cliff before checking if the wind would carry him. And yet, somehow, fate always seemed to wrap itself around him like a storm ready to bend.

The day he found the Night Fury—he didn’t tame it. No. That beast, dark as starlit void and quiet as death, didn’t want a rider. It didn’t need one.

But it chose him.

Their first meeting had been a standoff. Bright cyan eyes versus bright green. A stare-down of pride, of wildness, of what are you doing in my sky?

But it ended with laughter. With flight. With trust that came not from dominance, but from understanding.

Satoru named him Kuro.

Not long after, there was Suguru.

A boy with calm hands and eyes like steady fire. He rode a Light Fury—a rare, almost mythic dragon with scales like polished pearl and movement like silver mist. Her name was Shiro.

They met in the sky as enemies, warriors of different clans raised to believe the other should be grounded, wings clipped, ideals crushed. Their first clash was ferocious—sky-rending, tail-spinning, fire-scorched. And yet, even in combat, Satoru had felt it.

Kinship.

Not of blood, but of soul.

It started with rivalry, sharp and smug. With bets mid-flight, with stolen fish and crashing into one another just to laugh about it later. Their dragons played too—Kuro and Shiro weaving around each other like they were born in tandem. And soon, so did the boys.

The rivalry gave way to friendship. And friendship, to something deeper. They became unstoppable. Two streaks in the sky, black and white, fire and frost, laughing like gods above the clouds.

The strongest dragon riders their skies had seen.

Together, they trained others. They built a hidden cove in the cliffs, a sanctuary for dragons and riders. They weren’t just warriors—they were protectors. A myth themselves. “The Mirror Furies,” they were called—balance incarnate.

Then came the raid.

A night of fire and blood. The sky turned red with flame and betrayal. Someone had found the cove—sold its secrets. The attackers came with ropes and chains, flame-catchers, and steel nets.

They came for the Furies. For Satoru and Suguru.

They were cornered above the cliffside, Kuro howling through the smoke. Satoru remembered the panic, the way time slowed. He and Suguru had almost broken through the attackers’ line, wings slicing through air and fire.

But then—he felt it.

The shift. The pause.

He turned—and Suguru wasn’t beside him anymore.

Shiro was ensnared. Her cry rang out like a bell of mourning. And Suguru… he had veered off course.

He had gone back.

To buy him time.

Satoru screamed. Tried to double back, but Kuro was burning too fast, wings torn, blood trailing like comets.

The last thing he saw—Suguru, in chains, Shiro subdued, yet his eyes calm. Not afraid.

Resolute.

Then, they vanished into the smoke.

That was three years ago.

No word. No sign. No trail. Only whispers of a captured Light Fury, of a silent rider who never speaks. A ghost of a legend.

Satoru has been searching ever since.

He flies alone now, with Kuro. His hair is longer, his laugh rarer. The wind doesn’t feel the same without another streak beside him. He still hears Suguru’s voice in the sky sometimes—“You’re not faster than me, Satoru.”

And he replies, every time, to the clouds—

“Bet I am now, loser.”

But he’s not smiling when he says it.

He’s still looking. Because if anyone could survive, it’s Suguru. And Satoru doesn’t care how long it takes. He will find him.

He owes him that.

Not just for the sacrifice.

But because sky without him isn’t sky at all.