The night forest was calm, cold, and eerily quiet. Bushes rustled softly as someone crept past, careful to make as little noise as possible.
Every step was measured as he avoided anything that might give him away.
His destination was already in sight.
In a patch of grass illuminated by pale moonlight, she stood hunched over with a shovel in hand. Piles of freshly turned soil surrounded her.
"Wait, why am I even sneaking around if it's just her?" he thought as he looked at the mounds beside her.
He stepped into the clearing, the moonlight catching the bandages wrapped around his arms and neck.
No twig snapped. No stone shifted. Nothing should have revealed him.
Still, she spoke without turning around.
"I know it's you, Izumi," she said calmly as she kept shoveling. "There's no point sneaking around when I can sense your presence now. Or did you forget we're different?"
"Straight to the point, huh?" he replied, finally dropping the act as he walked toward her normally.
When he reached her side, he looked down into the shallow pits she was covering. Bloodied bandages wrapped around her hands as she shoveled dirt over three large graves.
"Are those…?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," she answered without looking up. "It's them."
He stared at the uneven graves. In one of them, a hand still protruded from the soil before another shovelful buried it completely.
"Ever since we ascended," he said, "everything alive started feeling… warmer somehow. Like you could sense it breathing."
His eyes lingered on the graves.
"But them… they just feel cold."
Takae paused for a moment, the shovel resting against the dirt.
"Is this what dying really is?" she asked softly. "Losing all warmth and being left in a freezing hole forever?"
"Maybe," he replied after a pause. "What else could it be?"
Silence settled between them again, broken only by the sound of soil falling.
Then she finally spoke.
"So why are you really here?" she asked, flattening the dirt into a mound. "You didn't just happen to follow me. If that were true, I would've sensed you much earlier."
Only then did she finally glance at him.
Her silky black hair parted down the middle, separating into two long strands that swept across her forehead, and her eyes glimmered in the moonlight, a dull shade of brown. The dark bags beneath them stood out clearly.
She looked exhausted. Empty, almost.
He hated seeing her like that.
"Quit staring," she muttered, looking away again. "If you don't want to answer, just say so instead of looking at me with those puffy eyes."
"Oh… sorry," he said, turning toward the graves as well. "I guess I've just got a lot on my mind."
"So what is it?" she asked. "You've been acting strange all night."
He sighed.
"That's putting it lightly," he admitted. "I can't even sleep."
"Because of the pain?"
"No… it's not that."
He hesitated.
"What is it then?"
"Aren't you awfully sharp tonight?" he joked weakly. "This new side of you feels weird."
Her expression lifted slightly, though not enough to become a smile.
"Maybe you're right," she said quietly. "Even I don't really know why I'm acting like this."
Another silence followed.
Then Izumi finally spoke.
"It was my fault."
Takae looked at him immediately.
"What was?"
"When you and Miyuki were evacuating the villagers, one of the kids hid inside his house. I found him during the fight."
His fist tightened unconsciously.
"I took him away and hid him in a cave nearby so I could hurry back and help Yuriko."
He stared blankly at the graves.
"We survived. But Yuriko got badly hurt because I didn't make it back fast enough."
He paused again.
"And on top of that…"
His voice faltered.
"It's my fault that kid ran out of the cave looking for safety, when the soundsof the fighting got closer to him."
Takae's grip on the shovel weakened.
"You mean…"
"Yeah," he said quietly. "That was the kid who almost died."
The shovel suddenly felt much heavier in her hands.
"And because of that," he continued, "the teach ended up getting hurt protecting him."
Silence swallowed the clearing again.
This time, Takae searched desperately for something to say, but nothing came.
What words could possibly make any of that lighter?
"That's why I can't sleep," Izumi admitted at last.
His eyes lowered to the ground.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see those claws going through his chest."
He opened the bandaged palm of his right hand and stared into it.
"I wonder how he must've felt," he said quietly, "having to watch all of that happen to him at such a young age."
"It must've been terrifying… traumatizing," he continued. "How would we have reacted in his shoes?"
He lowered his hand after taking a deep breath.
"But that's enough about me."
He turned to face her directly.
"So now you answer my question," he said, his voice low enough that only the silence of the night allowed it to carry. "Why did you come out here to bury them at a time like this? Couldn't you have waited until sunrise at least?"
Her hands shook for a moment, and he hesitated, not expecting the sudden shift in her expression.
"Well… it was… it was because…" she stuttered, her arms trembling slightly.
Then she took a deep breath and turned back to the graves.
"I just felt like it was my responsibility," she said after a brief pause. "They came here looking for me, and now they're dead, so the least I can do is bury them myself."
"I couldn't bear staying in that house after everything that happened," she continued, clutching the shovel tightly. "It's my fault that any of this happened in the firstplace."
She turned back to him, remorse clear in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Izumi," she said softly. "I'm sorry for putting you through all of this."
A bitter smile tugged at her lips.
"Part of me wants to dig one for myself too… but I don't know what's stopping me."
Her hands trembled again, the same way they always did whenever she was distressed, but they slowly calmed when he gently took them into his own.
"Don't say that," he said softly. "Nobody wants that for you, so don't wish something like that on yourself."
Silence settled over them again as they stared at the graves.
"I wonder…" she murmured, "if things had gone differently, what kind of relationship I would've had with them."
"Would it have been kind, like the one I have with you and Yuriko? Or was it always fated to become something cruel?"
He didn't answer, so she kept staring at the graves.
"I guess I'll never get the chance to find out."
---
The chirping of birds at dawn replaced the silence that had blanketed the village through the night.
Sunlight poured through the window onto her face as she lay asleep.
Mei sat beside her, watching the soft complexion the morning light gave her face. The glow against her dull orange hair kept Mei's gaze fixed on her.
Suddenly Yuriko's brow twitched, and her eyes slowly opened.
She stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before turning toward Mei.
"Yuriko, you're awake," Mei said in relief as she helped her sit up. "Thank goodness. We were all so worried."
"What happened?" Yuriko asked before a sharp pain shot through her head.
"Are you okay?" Mei asked as she watched her press a hand against her forehead.
"I'm fine," Yuriko replied, gently brushing away her concern. "But more importantly… what happened?"
Mei hesitated.
"You've been unconscious since yesterday…"
Then she continued quietly.
"It happened after you fought that huge guy who came out of the forest and attacked Master Ichiro."
"Oh… right," Yuriko muttered as fragments of memory slowly returned to her.
She placed a hand over her stomach only to flinch from the sharp pain that immediately followed.
"What happened after that?" she asked, staring down at the bandage wrapped around her forehead. "After I passed out, I mean. Is everyone okay?"
"Thankfully nobody died," Mei replied as she touched the bandage on her own forehead. "This is nothing, so don't worry about me."
"But…"
She hesitated again.
"Master Ichiro suffered some serious injuries while protecting a child who wandered into the fight."
"Miyuki's been treating him for hours now," she continued. "She refuses to leave his side, and Juro's practically standing over her just to make sure she doesn't collapse from overexertion."
"How bad is it?" Yuriko asked quietly.
"From what Miyuki told us…" Mei began, her expression darkening, "part of his liver, right lung, stomach, and intestines were ruptured, on top of all the injuries he already had before that."
"The Healing Vahir she's using is barely holding him together."
She hesitated once more before continuing.
"And those black vein-like patterns spread across most of his body. Everything below his neck has gone completely limp."
"Miyuki keeps insisting it's temporary," she said softly, "but the look in his eyes says something different."
Silence followed as the weight of her words settled in.
"Oh… is that so," Yuriko said quietly, her gaze lowering. "To think I'd lose consciousness at a time like that…"
"Just how weak am I?"
Mei didn't answer. Instead, she noticed Yuriko's hand slowly drift toward her side.
That was when Yuriko felt it.
The familiar texture of her sword's hilt.
She looked down to see it resting beside her.
"Did you put this here?" she asked.
"Yes," Mei replied. "Ever since we brought you back, your hands wouldn't stop twitching, even after we bandaged them."
"I only placed it there on a whim," she continued, "but the moment your hand touched it, your grip tightened and the shaking stopped completely."
"I didn't know what else to do, so I just left it there."
"I gripped it?" Yuriko asked, confused.
"I was shocked too," Mei admitted. "Especially with how firm your grip was."
"Did you have any strange dreams while you were unconscious?"
"I don't think so," Yuriko replied. "But my mind's still pretty fuzzy right now."
"Maybe you've just gotten attached to it," Mei suggested. "After everything you've all been through, it's not that strange."
"It's okay," Yuriko said softly. "You and Juro have gone through just as much… maybe even more. I should be the one comforting you instead."
After saying that, she picked the sword up with both hands and partially unsheathed it.
"I never thought I'd actually hold one of these in my life," she said as she stared into the blade's reflection. "And now I'm getting so attached to it after only a few months."
"What does that say about me as a person?" she asked quietly. "Does it mean this was always something I was meant to carry?"
Mei stayed silent, and Yuriko slowly sheathed the blade again before resting it across her lap.
"If that's true…" she said after a brief pause, "then I won't treat it lightly anymore."
"I'll get stronger," she continued firmly, "so I never collapse like that again and leave Izumi and Takae in danger."
She carefully set the sword aside.
"I swear it won't happen again."
A series of flashes crossed her mind as she let go of it.
"Never again."