Morning came too quickly, and Itsuki knew it before she even opened her eyes.
The dorm was quiet around her, touched by the pale gold of early sunlight slipping through the curtains. For a few seconds, she remained beneath the blankets and stared at the ceiling, allowing herself the small comfort of pretending there was no carriage waiting somewhere outside Radiance Castle. No Mariah preparing supplies. No strange site two days away. No promise that she would leave the people she had only just begun feeling close to again.
Then she heard movement from the boys’ room.
A drawer opened. Someone whispered something. Tetsuo answered too loudly, received an immediate shushing from at least two people, and the ordinary sound made Itsuki close her eyes again.
They were awake because of her.
Aiko shifted in the bed across from hers.
“You’re awake.”
Itsuki turned her head.
Aiko was already sitting up, purple hair slightly messy from sleep. The scar along the left side of her face caught a narrow line of morning light. She looked tired despite having gone to bed earlier than usual, and judging by the way she had been shifting throughout the night, Itsuki suspected neither of them had slept particularly well.
“Yeah,” Itsuki said.
Aiko watched her for a moment. “Still going?”
Itsuki almost smiled.
“You asked me that before we went to sleep.”
“And I’m asking again.”
“Yes.”
Aiko sighed and dropped backward against her pillow. “Worth trying.”
Itsuki pushed herself upright.
Her silver staff rested beside the bed, along with the small travel bag she had packed the night before. Five days did not require much: a few changes of clothes, basic supplies, and some personal things. Mariah had made it clear the expedition would carry everything important, while the knights traveling with them would handle most of the practical protection.
Still, the bag felt heavier than it should have.
Aiko sat up again and watched Itsuki reach for it.
“I can carry that.”
“I can carry my own bag.”
“I know.”
Itsuki looked at her.
Aiko crossed her arms. “I’m still offering.”
Itsuki smiled faintly and handed it to her.
Aiko blinked, clearly having expected an argument.
Then she took the bag.
Itsuki stood and reached for her staff.
She had carried that staff through dungeons, training grounds, villages, missions, and the Coastal Kingdom. For so long, holding it had meant she could help someone if things went wrong.
Now she did not know what it meant.
Maybe that was why she was leaving.
By the time they stepped into the common room, Yoshinori, Ryuji, and Tetsuo were already waiting.
Tetsuo stood nearest the table with a piece of bread in one hand and another wrapped bundle beside him. His right eye tracked Itsuki carefully as she entered, and she noticed immediately that he turned his body slightly rather than only his head.
Rayne’s homework had already followed him into the morning.
Ryuji leaned against the edge of the table, dressed for the day but moving with the controlled caution his ribs still demanded. Yoshinori stood near the door, fully prepared, as if he had been awake long before everyone else.
They all looked at Itsuki.
For one uncomfortable second, no one spoke.
Then Tetsuo held out the wrapped food.
“For the road.”
Itsuki looked at it. “Mariah probably has food.”
“That sounds like a terrible reason not to bring more.”
Ryuji nodded seriously. “One of the few things he has said this morning that I agree with.”
Tetsuo looked offended. “I’ve said plenty of useful things.”
“You suggested tying Mariah to the carriage roof if she became suspicious.”
Itsuki stared at him.
Tetsuo immediately pointed at Ryuji. “That was supposed to stay between us.”
Aiko placed Itsuki’s bag beside the door. “I’m beginning to understand why Rayne gave you homework.”
Tetsuo shook his head.
Itsuki took the food.
“Thank you.”
Tetsuo’s expression softened. “Yeah.”
Yoshinori looked toward the window. “We should go.”
Itsuki nodded.
No one needed to ask whether she was ready.
She probably never would be.
The five of them left the dorm together.
Radiance Castle was only beginning to wake. Servants moved through the halls carrying clean linens and breakfast trays. Knights changed shifts near the outer corridors. A few officials passed with stacks of papers held beneath their arms, speaking quietly about whatever responsibilities had already begun demanding attention.
People recognized Illumina as they passed.
That had become more common since Oceanside.
Some offered nods. Others stepped aside. A few stared at Tetsuo’s face longer than they should have before catching themselves and looking away.
Tetsuo noticed every stare but said nothing.
Itsuki walked in the middle of the group with her staff in hand. Aiko stayed close on one side. Yoshinori moved slightly ahead whenever they reached a turn. Ryuji and Tetsuo followed behind, neither so close that it felt like they were guarding her and neither far enough that she could forget they were trying.
Kaito had been right. They did not want her leaving, even after the argument and even after accepting that they could not stop her. Their bodies still moved as though perhaps, if they stayed close enough, the morning might change its mind.
They exited the castle and crossed the open courtyard toward the eastern carriage road.
The sun was still low enough that the white stone beneath their feet had not yet become painfully bright. Gold trim along the castle walls caught the morning light, and red-and-gold Radiance banners stirred overhead in a gentle breeze.
The carriage was already waiting.
It was sturdier than the ordinary guild carriages Itsuki had grown used to. Dark reinforced wood formed the body, with narrow windows along both sides and metal bracing around the wheels. Two strong horses stood harnessed at the front, restless enough to occasionally stamp against the stone.
Mariah waited beside it.
She had traded her usual research clothing for travel clothes suited to several days on the road: dark trousers, boots, a fitted coat, and a long traveling cloak folded back from her shoulders. Her red hair had been tied more securely than usual, though several loose waves still framed her face. Her round glasses caught the morning light as she looked toward the approaching group.
Six knights stood nearby, none of them wearing ceremonial armor. Their equipment was built for travel and combat, reinforced plates layered over flexible clothing with weapons positioned for immediate use rather than appearance. Their spiritual presences were restrained, but even without trying to sense them deeply, Itsuki could tell all six were far beyond ordinary adventurers. They were SS-ranked, enough strength that Shadis had apparently decided whatever risks existed beyond the walls required serious protection.
Mariah smiled when she saw Itsuki.
“You came.”
Aiko’s eyes narrowed immediately. “She said she would.”
Mariah’s smile weakened by a fraction.
“I was speaking to Itsuki.”
“And I answered.”
Ryuji sighed quietly. “This is starting sooner than expected.”
Yoshinori glanced toward Aiko. “We agreed not to begin with threats.”
“I haven’t threatened her.”
Mariah adjusted her glasses. “The fact that you specified that makes me nervous.”
Tetsuo moved closer to Itsuki. “Good instinct.”
Mariah stared at all four of them.
“This reputation I apparently have is becoming exhausting.”
“You earned it,” Aiko said.
“I am a respected healer.”
“You’re terrifying.”
“A respected terrifying healer.”
“That does not improve it.”
Mariah’s eyes moved toward Itsuki as though silently asking whether these were really the people she had chosen to call family.
Itsuki gave her an apologetic look that did absolutely nothing to help.
One of the knights stepped toward Mariah and spoke quietly enough that Illumina could not hear every word. She nodded, checked the position of the carriage, then turned back toward them.
“We are ready whenever you are.”
Itsuki looked at the carriage.
The open door waited.
That simple dark rectangle suddenly made everything more real.
Aiko noticed the change in her expression and stepped closer.
“Five days.”
Itsuki looked at her.
Aiko’s face had lost the irritation she had been using against Mariah, leaving behind exactly what Itsuki had known was underneath it: fear.
“Five days,” Itsuki repeated.
Aiko looked toward Mariah.
The fear became anger again almost instantly.
“If she comes back hurt-”
Mariah sighed. “Here we go.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. Everyone keeps telling me that.”
Aiko stepped directly in front of her.
Mariah was taller, but Aiko somehow made the distance feel irrelevant.
“If something happens because you pushed her too far, if you ignore her when she says stop, or if you treat her like some interesting problem instead of a person, I will never forgive you.”
Mariah’s expression changed as the irritation faded. For all her strange humor and obsessive curiosity, she understood when something stopped being a joke.
“I will not force her to continue if she tells me to stop.”
Aiko held her gaze. “Promise.”
Mariah answered without hesitation. “I promise.”
That should have ended it.
Tetsuo stepped forward.
Mariah looked at him.
“No.”
Tetsuo blinked. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I know what the general theme is.”
Tetsuo crossed his arms.
“I’m still saying it.”
Mariah closed her eyes briefly.
Tetsuo’s usual humor had disappeared by the time she opened them again.
“If anything happens to Itsuki because of you, I will never forgive you either.”
Mariah stared at him.
Tetsuo stared back with his one remaining eye, and something about the seriousness in his face seemed to hit differently after everything he had gone through.
Mariah sighed. “Noted.”
Ryuji stepped forward next.
She looked at him in disbelief.
“You too?”
Ryuji smiled faintly. “I was actually going to be polite.”
“That would be refreshing.”
“Itsuki matters to us.”
Mariah’s expression softened slightly.
“I know.”
Ryuji’s smile faded.
“No. I mean she matters more than whatever you find out there.”
Mariah stopped.
“If you discover something important and continuing would put her in danger, you bring her home. The answer waits. She does not.”
That one landed more cleanly than any threat could have.
Mariah studied him for a moment.
Then nodded.
“Agreed.”
Ryuji stepped back.
Mariah looked toward Yoshinori.
He had remained silent.
She waited.
Yoshinori looked at the carriage, then at the six knights, taking in their formation. Two stood near the front, two closer to the rear, while the remaining pair positioned themselves loosely enough to react in either direction.
His gaze returned to Mariah.
“If the route changes, you send word.”
Mariah nodded.
“If you are delayed, you send word.”
Another nod.
“If Itsuki’s condition changes in any way you did not expect, you stop before trying to understand why.”
Mariah’s expression tightened slightly at that one.
Yoshinori saw it.
“That hesitation is exactly why I’m saying it.”
Mariah adjusted her glasses.
“I understand.”
Yoshinori looked directly at her.
“If anything happens to her because curiosity became more important than judgment, I will not forgive you.”
Mariah slowly looked across all four of them, Aiko, Tetsuo, Ryuji, and Yoshinori, before finally turning toward Itsuki.
“Does anyone in your guild like me?”
Itsuki considered it.
“You help me.”
Mariah stared at her.
“That was not the question.”
Tetsuo nodded sympathetically. “She avoided it expertly.”
Mariah placed one hand against her forehead. “I have saved people’s lives for years.”
Aiko crossed her arms. “And yet.”
“And yet what?”
“Here we are.”
Mariah looked toward the knights as if hoping one of them might defend her professional honor.
Not one moved.
“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Six SS-ranked guards and not one person willing to protect me from teenagers.”
One of the knights coughed into his fist.
It sounded suspiciously like he was hiding laughter.
Mariah looked at him.
He immediately became extremely interested in checking the straps on his armor.
Itsuki smiled, and some of the tension in her chest finally loosened. Then she looked toward the carriage again and knew it was time. Aiko seemed to realize it at the same moment, her expression changing instantly.
“Itsuki.”
“I know.”
Aiko stepped forward and hugged her.
There was no warning.
Itsuki barely managed to move her staff aside before Aiko wrapped both arms around her and held her tightly.
Itsuki closed her eyes.
Aiko’s voice was low beside her ear.
“You come back.”
“I will.”
“Not ‘I’ll try.’”
“I will.”
“Five days.”
“Five days.”
Aiko held her for another moment before finally stepping away.
Her eyes were bright.
She ignored that.
Tetsuo moved next, looking uncertain for perhaps the first time that morning before awkwardly holding out one hand.
Itsuki looked at it.
“What?”
“I was going to shake your hand.”
“That seems strangely formal.”
“I panicked.”
Ryuji laughed softly.
Tetsuo immediately changed plans and hugged her instead.
Itsuki smiled against his shoulder.
“Be careful,” he said.
“You too.”
“I’m staying inside the kingdom.”
“You managed to lose an eye inside a city.”
Tetsuo pulled back and stared at her.
Aiko covered her mouth.
Ryuji’s eyebrows rose.
Even Yoshinori looked surprised.
Itsuki realized what she had said.
Then Tetsuo began laughing.
It came out so suddenly that he had to place one hand against her shoulder for balance.
“That was terrible.”
Itsuki’s face warmed. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no.” He pointed toward her. “Keep that. That was good.”
Aiko finally laughed too.
Tetsuo shook his head. “She leaves Radiance once and becomes vicious.”
Itsuki smiled.
“Maybe Mariah is already affecting me.”
Mariah, standing near the carriage, looked personally offended.
“Why am I taking blame for that?”
Ryuji approached next.
He did not hug her immediately.
Instead, he held out one hand.
Itsuki took it.
“Don’t spend the whole trip worrying about us,” he said.
“That seems unfair.”
“It is.”
“You’re going to worry about me.”
“Obviously.”
“Then why can’t I worry about you?”
Ryuji considered that.
“Because I said so.”
Itsuki gave him a flat look.
He smiled.
“Fine. Worry a reasonable amount.”
“That sounds more fair.”
“And when you get back, I expect you to tell us everything.”
“I will.”
“Even if Mariah says something is secret.”
Mariah called from behind them, “I can still hear all of you.”
Ryuji glanced toward her. “Good.”
Mariah sighed again.
Ryuji turned back to Itsuki and hugged her carefully. His ribs still prevented anything too tight, so Itsuki kept her arms gentle around him.
“Come home safe,” he said.
Itsuki nodded against his shoulder.
“I will.”
Then Yoshinori was the only one left.
He stood a short distance away.
For some reason, saying goodbye to Yoshinori felt different. Perhaps it was because he had been the last person to accept that she was going, or because he seemed to understand better than anyone what accepting her decision actually meant.
Itsuki stepped toward him.
Yoshinori looked at her travel bag, then the carriage, then finally her.
“Five days.”
Itsuki smiled faintly.
“You too?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be back.”
“I know.”
The confidence in his answer surprised her.
Yoshinori reached into his coat pocket and held out a small folded piece of paper. Itsuki took it.
“What is this?”
“A list.”
Aiko groaned immediately.
“Of course it is.”
Yoshinori ignored her.
Itsuki unfolded the paper.
Three short lines had been written neatly.
Stop if your energy becomes painful.
Do not hide symptoms because you think they are unimportant.
Come home.
Itsuki read the last line twice.
Her throat tightened.
“You made me a safety list?”
“Yes.”
“There are only three things.”
“They are the only three that matter.”
Itsuki folded it carefully and slipped it into her bag.
“I’ll keep it.”
Yoshinori nodded.
Then, after the smallest hesitation, he hugged her.
Itsuki froze.
Aiko’s eyes widened.
Tetsuo whispered, “Historic.”
Ryuji immediately elbowed him as carefully as possible.
Yoshinori ignored all of them.
The hug was brief, but real.
When he stepped back, he looked slightly uncomfortable with the attention.
“You did not see that.”
Tetsuo nodded seriously. “What hug?”
Aiko smiled. “No idea what you mean.”
Yoshinori gave them both a look that promised consequences later.
Itsuki laughed quietly.
Then she looked at all four of them.
The morning wind moved through the courtyard.
Behind them, Radiance rose bright beneath the sun.
Itsuki wished Shunjiro were standing there, though she knew he would have made the goodbye far worse by immediately trying to come with her. Kaito had been right about that.
Itsuki could already imagine him arguing that he could simply ride with the knights, that he would not interfere, that nobody would even notice him, as though his entire existence had ever allowed him to go unnoticed for long.
The thought hurt.
But it also made her smile.
He would come home.
And so would she.
Itsuki picked up her travel bag.
Aiko immediately took it away again.
“I can carry it to the carriage.”
Itsuki did not argue this time.
Together, they walked the last few steps.
Mariah moved aside as Itsuki reached the carriage door.
Before climbing in, Itsuki turned around.
The four of them stood together.
Not six.
Rayne had apparently told them that yesterday.
Itsuki had not heard the lesson herself, but Yoshinori had explained enough of it that she understood the point.
They were not supposed to pretend missing people were still standing in their places.
That did not mean forgetting them.
It meant moving until they returned.
Itsuki tightened her grip on her staff.
“I’ll see you in five days.”
Aiko nodded.
“Five days.”
Tetsuo lifted one hand. “Bring us something.”
Aiko looked at him. “She’s going to study spiritual abnormalities, not a festival.”
“There could still be souvenirs.”
Ryuji shook his head.
Yoshinori looked at Itsuki.
“We’ll be here.”
She believed him.
Itsuki climbed into the carriage.
Mariah followed after her, though before entering she stopped and turned toward Illumina.
Four suspicious faces stared back.
Mariah looked genuinely tired of the situation.
“I am going to bring her back.”
Aiko folded her arms. “Good.”
“In one piece.”
Tetsuo nodded. “Important detail.”
“Preferably with answers.”
Yoshinori’s expression sharpened. “Answers are third.”
Mariah stared at him.
“Right,” she said. “Itsuki first. Safety second. Answers third. I have been thoroughly educated.”
Ryuji smiled faintly. “Glad we understand each other.”
Mariah climbed into the carriage.
The door closed.
Outside, the six knights mounted their horses. Three positioned themselves ahead of the carriage and three behind, creating a protective formation around it. The driver gathered the reins.
Inside, Itsuki moved toward the window and found Aiko already standing closer to the road. The carriage lurched gently as the wheels began to turn, tightening something in Itsuki’s chest.
At first, the movement was painfully slow as the courtyard shifted past the window, followed by the castle walls, the distant training grounds, and familiar paths Itsuki had walked countless times. Eventually, the carriage approached the northern gate.
Itsuki kept her eyes on her friends.
Aiko walked beside the carriage for several steps before finally stopping.
Tetsuo stood beside her, body angled carefully so his right eye could keep Itsuki in view. Ryuji raised one hand. Yoshinori remained still, but his gaze never left the window.
Itsuki lifted her hand.
Aiko lifted hers immediately.
Tetsuo waved far more dramatically than necessary.
Ryuji did the same with considerably less effort.
Yoshinori finally raised his hand too.
The carriage passed beneath the gate, the walls briefly blocking the sunlight before Itsuki emerged beyond Radiance.
She twisted slightly in her seat to keep looking back through the window.
The four figures grew smaller against the open gate behind them. Itsuki watched until distance made their faces impossible to distinguish.
Then watched longer.
Only when the road turned and the kingdom wall finally broke the view did she lower her hand.
Itsuki finally sat back and realized Mariah had remained quiet throughout the entire goodbye. That alone was unusual enough to make her glance across the carriage.
Mariah sat across from her, arms folded.
Her expression was deeply offended.
Itsuki blinked. “What?”
Mariah looked at her.
“I would like it officially recorded that I have never had this many people threaten me over one patient.”
Itsuki tried not to smile.
“You scare people.”
“I save people.”
“You can do both.”
Mariah stared at her.
Itsuki’s smile escaped anyway.
Mariah sighed dramatically and looked out the opposite window.
“Five days of this.”
Itsuki rested her staff across her lap.
“For both of us.”
Mariah’s eyes shifted back toward her.
Then, despite herself, she smiled.
Outside, Radiance slowly disappeared behind them.
The road stretched beneath the morning sun, carrying Itsuki toward an answer she did not know how to imagine yet.
She looked down at the folded paper Yoshinori had given her and touched the pocket where she had placed it.
Come home.
She intended to.
Back at the gate, Illumina remained standing long after the carriage disappeared.
Aiko was the first to lower her hand.
“I hate this.”
Tetsuo exhaled. “You say that a lot lately.”
“Because there is a lot to hate.”
Ryuji kept watching the empty road. “She’ll be fine.”
Aiko looked at him.
“You sound very confident.”
“I’m practicing.”
Yoshinori finally turned away from the gate.
“She made her decision.”
“I know,” Aiko said.
“That does not make it easier.”
“I know.”
Tetsuo looked toward the distant road one last time. “Five days.”
Yoshinori nodded. Five days sounded short until someone you cared about was the person leaving.
A voice came from behind them.
“You are wasting the first one.”
All four turned.
Rayne stood several yards away.
None of them had heard him approach.
His broadsword rested across his back as always, and whatever emotion he might have felt about finding four teenagers staring after a departing carriage did not show clearly on his face.
Aiko frowned. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough.”
Tetsuo narrowed his right eye. “That is very vague.”
“Yes.”
Rayne looked toward the road where Itsuki had disappeared.
“She left?”
Yoshinori nodded. “Five days.”
Rayne’s gaze returned to them.
“Then you have five days.”
Something in Rayne’s tone changed the air immediately. Ryuji straightened as much as his ribs allowed, Aiko’s expression sharpened, and Tetsuo finally stopped looking toward the road. Yoshinori seemed to understand first.
Rayne turned toward the castle.
“Yesterday I learned what is wrong with you.”
Tetsuo stared at his back. “That sounds encouraging.”
Rayne kept walking.
“Today we begin fixing what can be fixed.”
Aiko exchanged a look with Yoshinori.
Rayne stopped just long enough to look over his shoulder.
“Training begins now.”
Then he continued toward the private grounds.
For one final moment, Yoshinori looked toward the road leading away from Radiance.
Itsuki would return in five days.
Shunjiro would return someday after that.
And when they did, the people waiting for them could not be the same ones who had watched them leave.
Yoshinori turned first, with Aiko following beside him. Ryuji adjusted his breathing before moving after them, while Tetsuo checked his left side before taking his first step. Together, the four of them followed Rayne back into Radiance.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
The carriage had been on the road for nearly an hour before Itsuki realized Mariah had barely spoken.
Mariah sat across from Itsuki with one leg crossed over the other, a book resting open against her knee and a pencil balanced between two fingers. She had been staring at the same page for long enough that Itsuki suspected she had not actually read a word of it.
Itsuki rested her silver staff beside her and looked out the window. Radiance had disappeared behind them some time ago. At first, she had kept glancing back anyway, as if the kingdom might somehow reappear if she stared long enough. Eventually, the road curved between low hills and the last glimpse of the city vanished completely.
Her hand drifted toward the small travel bag beside her. Yoshinori’s folded note was tucked safely inside.
Itsuki pressed her fingertips lightly against the outside of the bag.
Across from her, Mariah turned another page.
Itsuki looked up. “You know you’ve been on the same page for a while.”
Mariah’s eyes lifted over the top of the book. “I’m offended.”
“Why?”
“Because I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
Itsuki smiled faintly.
Mariah closed the book and rested it on her lap. “If you’re about to ask whether I’m still upset that your entire guild threatened me before departure, the answer is yes.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good. I’d hate to reopen the wound.”
“They were worried.”
“I noticed.”
“They like you.”
Mariah stared at her.
Itsuki tried to keep her expression neutral, but the longer Mariah looked at her, the harder it became.
“No, they don’t.”
Itsuki’s smile slipped through.
Mariah sighed. “Your inability to lie convincingly is reassuring. It suggests your personality survived whatever happened to your spiritual system.”
“That sounded like something you’d put in a report.”
“I might.”
“Mariah.”
“I said might.”
Itsuki shook her head and returned her attention to the window. The countryside had changed gradually since leaving Radiance. Open farmland stretched beneath the morning sun in long sections of green and gold, broken by stone fences, scattered trees, and small homes set far enough from the road that their occupants looked like tiny moving figures in the distance. A wagon approached from the opposite direction and slowed noticeably when the driver saw six heavily armed knights escorting the carriage.
Itsuki watched it pass, then looked back at Mariah.
There had been a question sitting quietly in her mind since the healer room, one that had nothing to do with the strange site waiting for them or the two-day journey ahead. It was about Mariah herself.
Itsuki had known her for months now, but knowing Mariah often felt like knowing only the outside of a locked room. She knew the confidence, the teasing, the way Mariah smiled whenever she encountered something medicine could not explain. She knew the sharp interest that entered her red eyes whenever someone described an unusual ability, wound, illness, or spiritual condition.
She knew Mariah was Radiance’s number-one healer.
She did not know how she had become that person.
“Can I ask you something?”
Mariah tilted her head slightly. “That depends entirely on whether I’m allowed to answer dishonestly.”
“No.”
“Then this has already become less entertaining.”
Itsuki ignored that. “How did you become the number-one healer in Radiance?”
Mariah’s expression shifted.
It was subtle, but Itsuki noticed the amusement leave her face.
“That is a larger question than you think.”
“We have two days.”
Mariah looked toward the window. “Apparently spending time with Shunjiro has damaged your sense of restraint.”
“Probably.”
Mariah tapped the pencil against the cover of her book, then finally set both aside.
“All right,” she said. “Everything, then.”
Itsuki nodded.
Mariah settled back against the seat. “I was very talented.”
Itsuki waited.
Mariah waited too.
“That’s it?”
“That is technically the answer.”
“I already knew you were talented.”
Mariah sighed. “You really are difficult when you decide to be.”
Itsuki folded her hands in her lap.
Mariah studied her for another moment before giving in. “Fine. I didn’t grow up wanting to become a healer.”
Itsuki blinked. “Really?”
“Surprised?”
“A little.”
“Most people are. They assume every great healer spent childhood rescuing injured animals and dreaming about saving the world.”
“You didn’t?”
“I dissected the animals.”
Itsuki stared at her.
Mariah’s mouth curved.
“I’m joking.”
Itsuki continued staring.
“Mostly.”
“Mariah.”
“All right, entirely joking.”
Itsuki did not believe her.
Mariah seemed pleased by that. “My family were scholars. Not famous scholars, not wealthy enough to have libraries named after us, and certainly not important enough for kings to invite us anywhere. But there were always books in the house. Medical texts, records of spiritual illnesses, anatomy, theories about the soul, old reports from healers who had encountered things they could not explain. My father studied the relationship between spiritual energy and physical injury. My mother focused more on disease.”
“So you grew up around healing.”
“Around knowledge,” Mariah corrected. “There is a difference.”
Itsuki nodded for her to continue.
“When I was young, I cared more about understanding injuries than fixing them. If someone cut their hand, everyone else saw blood. I wanted to know why one cut closed cleanly while another became infected. Why healing energy accelerated recovery in some tissues but seemed to resist others. Why two people could receive nearly identical wounds and recover differently.”
Mariah’s eyes drifted toward Itsuki’s staff.
“I was irritating.”
Itsuki smiled. “I can imagine.”
Mariah gave her an offended look. “You were supposed to disagree.”
“I’m trying to be honest.”
“Terrible habit.”
She adjusted her glasses. “My spiritual control manifested early. Very early. I didn’t have much raw power, but I could manipulate tiny amounts of energy with precision before most children my age could consciously direct theirs at all. Healing became the obvious path, so my family sent me to study properly when I was thirteen.”
“In Radiance?”
“Not immediately. I spent my first year with local healers.”
Mariah’s expression soured slightly.
“They hated me.”
Itsuki laughed softly. “Why?”
“Because I asked questions.”
“That sounds normal.”
“You have never heard thirteen-year-old me ask questions.”
Mariah leaned back, clearly remembering it with some amusement now. “If a healer told me to stabilize spiritual flow before closing a wound, I wanted to know why. If they said never to apply healing energy directly to damaged spiritual pathways, I wanted to know what happened if you did. If they told me a technique had been used for two hundred years, I asked whether anyone had bothered changing it during those two hundred years.”
Itsuki could picture it far too easily.
Mariah, younger and probably just as relentless, wearing down exhausted teachers with one question after another.
“The answer I hated most,” Mariah said, “was ‘because that is how it has always been done.’”
Her tone had changed.
The humor remained, but something deeper sat beneath it now.
“Tradition can contain wisdom,” she continued. “It can also contain mistakes nobody remembers making. I wanted to know which was which.”
The carriage rolled across a rough section of road, rocking them gently. Outside, one of the knights shifted closer for a few moments before returning to formation when nothing unusual followed.
Mariah waited until the carriage settled.
“When I came to Radiance, I was fourteen. The healer program here was far more advanced than anything I had seen before, which meant there were many more people for me to annoy.”
Itsuki smiled.
“I was good,” Mariah continued. “Better than I probably had any right to be at that age. Spiritual control came naturally to me, and because I had spent so much time reading material written for adults, I understood the body quickly. But I still treated healing like a puzzle.”
Itsuki tilted her head. “What changed?”
Mariah became quiet.
The shift was enough that Itsuki knew the real answer had arrived.
“My brother.”
Itsuki said nothing.
Mariah turned her gaze toward the window. “He was older than me. Not by much, but enough that when I was little, he seemed impossibly grown. He was one of the only people who never told me to stop asking questions. When everyone else complained that I was difficult, he brought me more books. When I was eleven and spent an entire dinner explaining why I thought common healing salves were inefficient, he listened like I was telling him something important.”
Itsuki’s expression softened. “What did he do?”
“He became an adventurer.”
The connection struck immediately.
Mariah noticed.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Apparently our lives are full of those.”
Itsuki thought of Suzu. Of Shunjiro. Of Takeshi. So many people leaving home under the same title and finding completely different endings.
Mariah’s gaze stayed on the passing fields. “My brother was not extraordinary. He would hate me saying that, but he wasn’t. He was capable, reliable, careful. The kind of adventurer who probably would have lived a long life if the world only gave people dangers proportional to their strength.”
Itsuki already understood where the story was going.
She wished she did not.
“He was sixteen when it happened,” Mariah said. “I was fifteen. His team brought him back to Radiance barely alive after a dungeon incident. Physically, most of his injuries were survivable. Broken bones, internal bleeding, torn muscle. Serious, but nothing the healers here had not dealt with before.”
“But something else was wrong.”
Mariah nodded. “His spiritual pathways were collapsing.”
Itsuki’s fingers tightened together.
Damage like that could be worse than destroyed flesh. Spiritual energy did not simply sit inside the body. It moved through it, binding consciousness, power, instinct, and physical life together. Ordinary healing could repair muscle and organs while the person continued dying beneath it.
“The healers did everything correctly,” Mariah said.
The words sounded bitter.
“They stabilized his core. Reduced his output. Repaired the physical damage. Tried to stop the pathways from tearing further. They followed every accepted procedure perfectly.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No.”
Mariah drew in a slow breath.
“His energy kept collapsing.”
Itsuki considered reaching across the carriage, then decided against it. Mariah did not look like she needed to be touched. She looked like she needed space to finish.
“I had been studying a theory at the time,” Mariah continued. “A way to rebuild damaged pathways by temporarily linking the patient’s spiritual flow to an external framework.”
Itsuki’s brows drew together. “That sounds dangerous.”
“It was.”
“But you thought it could save him.”
“I thought it might.”
Mariah looked directly at her.
“That word matters.”
Itsuki understood.
“I showed the senior healers my notes,” Mariah said. “My calculations. Everything. I argued that his pathways were already collapsing and that continuing the accepted treatment would only delay death.”
“What did they say?”
“No.”
The answer came without bitterness this time.
Only weight.
“They told me I was an apprentice. The technique had never been tested. Using my brother as the first attempt would have been unethical.”
Itsuki swallowed.
“They weren’t wrong,” Mariah said.
That only made it worse. If they had been foolish or cruel, Mariah could have hated them cleanly, but they had been careful and responsible.
“They wouldn’t let you try.”
“No.”
“And he died.”
Mariah nodded.
“He died that night.”
The carriage continued moving.
Itsuki lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Mariah’s expression softened slightly. “Thank you.”
For a while, the only sound between them was the steady rolling of the wheels.
Then Itsuki asked the question she almost did not want answered.
“Do you think you could have saved him?”
Mariah stared at her.
Several seconds passed.
“I don’t know.”
Those words carried more weight than anything else she had said.
Mariah leaned her head lightly against the carriage wall. “That is the part that changed me. If I had tried and failed, I think eventually I could have lived with failure. I might have hated myself for years, but there would have been an answer.”
Her eyes lowered as she said, “I never got one.”
Itsuki began to understand Mariah’s obsession with impossible things, the way uncertainty seemed to offend her and the way she attacked unknowns rather than accepting them.
“I spent years wondering whether my brother died because he could not be saved or because no one knew how to save him.”
Mariah looked at her again.
“People think the worst thing a healer can say is, ‘I can’t save them.’ It isn’t. The worst thing is, ‘I don’t know if I could have.’”
The sentence settled heavily between them.
Itsuki thought of Shunjiro bleeding beneath her hands at Oceanside.
Her energy gone.
Her healing silent.
Nothing answering no matter how desperately she wanted it to.
She understood the cruelty of not knowing.
Mariah seemed to read enough of the memory in Itsuki’s expression to know not to ask.
“That question ruined me for a while,” she admitted.
Itsuki looked up. “Ruined?”
Mariah smiled faintly. “You thought I became this charming naturally?”
Itsuki did not respond quickly enough.
“Rude.”
Itsuki smiled.
Mariah continued. “After my brother died, I decided I would never stand beside another impossible patient without understanding why they were impossible. I studied everything. Healing, obviously, but eventually ordinary healing felt too narrow. I studied toxins, curses, monster venom, spiritual illnesses, corruption, soul damage, hereditary abilities, differences between human, beastkin, dwarven, and elven spiritual structures.”
“You studied elven healing?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Enough to know most human books about elves are embarrassingly incomplete.”
Itsuki thought briefly of Rayne, though she had no reason to connect him to the conversation beyond the obvious fact that he was an elf.
Mariah continued. “I studied offensive spiritual manipulation too.”
Itsuki remembered her training. Mariah had once told her that Yumi would teach her how to protect people, while Mariah would teach her how to hurt them.
“You told me healing and hurting weren’t as different as people think.”
“They aren’t.”
Mariah lifted one hand. “If you understand how muscle reconnects, you understand how it tears. If you know where spiritual pathways flow, you know where disrupting them does the most damage. If you understand exactly how a body remains together, you also understand how it comes apart.”
Itsuki glanced at her own hands.
The black power she had used against Suzu had done something horrifyingly similar.
Mariah noticed.
“That is part of why your power interests me.”
Itsuki looked up.
“Interests me,” Mariah clarified immediately. “Not delights me. Your friends have apparently decided those words mean the same thing.”
“They don’t always sound very different when you say them.”
Mariah looked wounded.
Itsuki smiled faintly.
“I became good because I stopped avoiding the cases other healers considered strange,” Mariah continued. “Whenever someone arrived with a condition nobody understood, I volunteered. If an injury resisted ordinary treatment, I wanted to know why. If a spiritual illness had no name, I wanted it documented before another person suffered from it.”
She began listing examples with the detached familiarity of someone recalling years of work. A knight whose spiritual energy had slowly begun calcifying his own joints. A child whose healing ability repaired injuries incorrectly and created additional tissue. An adventurer poisoned by something that only activated when healing energy touched it. A woman whose body rejected every healer except one whose spiritual resonance nearly matched her own.
Itsuki stared at her. “You treated all of them?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“Some took months.”
Itsuki leaned back slightly.
Mariah smiled. “I also failed plenty.”
That surprised her more.
Mariah noticed. “You think becoming the number-one healer means I stopped losing patients?”
“I don’t know.”
“No healer survives long believing that.”
The humor left her voice again.
“People die. Sometimes you do everything correctly and they still die. Sometimes you make the wrong choice. Sometimes the answer comes after it no longer matters.”
She tapped one finger against the book beside her.
“The difference is what you do with the failure afterward.”
Itsuki listened carefully.
“I wrote everything down. Especially the mistakes. Successful healers love recording what worked. I became obsessed with what didn’t.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It was necessary.”
There it was again.
That word.
Itsuki was beginning to understand how deeply it shaped Mariah.
“You said the question about your brother ruined you for a while,” Itsuki said. “What changed?”
Mariah went still again.
This time, the memory brought something closer to shame.
“I almost killed someone.”
Itsuki’s eyes widened.
Mariah did not look away.
“I was eighteen. By then I already had a reputation. The prodigy who was irritating enough to be hated and successful enough that nobody could comfortably tell her to stop.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“Thank you.”
Itsuki waited.
Mariah’s expression sobered. “A patient came in with severe spiritual pathway damage. Not exactly like my brother, but close enough that I became unreasonable. The patient agreed to an experimental treatment. I explained the risks. They gave informed consent.”
“And you tried your theory.”
“Yes.”
Mariah looked down at her hands.
“And it worked.”
Itsuki blinked.
“At first,” Mariah clarified. “The damaged pathways responded. For the first time, something I had spent years developing actually proved that my theory about my brother had not been entirely wrong.”
Itsuki understood immediately why that would have consumed her. After years of uncertainty, Mariah had finally been given proof that she might have been right.
“The patient started showing signs that the strain was becoming dangerous,” Mariah continued. “Their pulse destabilized. Their body began rejecting the energy. Another healer told me to stop.”
Itsuki held her breath.
“You didn’t.”
“Not immediately.”
Mariah said it plainly.
“I believed I was seconds away from stabilizing the connection. I thought stopping then would destroy the breakthrough and possibly lose the patient anyway.”
“What happened?”
“The other healer severed the technique.”
Mariah looked toward the window.
“The patient survived.”
Itsuki released a breath.
“Barely,” Mariah added. “They spent three weeks recovering from damage I caused while trying to save them.”
Itsuki did not know what to say.
“I was furious afterward,” Mariah continued. “At the healer who stopped me. At the patient’s body for refusing to behave according to my theory. At myself for getting so close and losing the answer.”
She paused.
“Then the patient thanked the healer who stopped me.”
That sentence seemed to sit differently in Mariah’s memory than everything else.
Itsuki understood why.
“They had consented to the treatment,” Mariah said. “They had not consented to me deciding their life became less important once the experiment started succeeding.”
Yumi’s warning came back immediately.
If Mariah pushes too far, stop.
It had not come from nowhere.
“What happened after that?”
“I was suspended from research involving patients.”
Itsuki blinked. “For how long?”
“Several months. I could still treat ordinary injuries under supervision. I hated every second of it.”
“And Shadis?”
Something changed in Mariah’s expression.
Respect.
“Shadis was the reason I was allowed to continue at all.”
Itsuki leaned forward slightly.
“The senior medical staff wanted my research privileges removed permanently. Some wanted me removed from Radiance’s healer program entirely. They had very reasonable arguments.”
“You almost killed someone.”
“Yes.”
Mariah did not flinch.
“Shadis spoke to the patient. Then the healer who stopped me. Then me.”
“What did he say?”
Mariah’s mouth curved faintly. “He asked whether I cared more about being right or keeping people alive.”
Itsuki could almost hear Shadis saying it.
“What did you tell him?”
“The wrong answer.”
Itsuki stared at her.
Mariah laughed quietly. “I told him that if I became right often enough, more people would stay alive.”
“That does sound like something you would say.”
“I was eighteen and unbearable.”
Itsuki started to speak, then stopped.
Mariah slowly narrowed her eyes. “Finish that thought.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought loudly.”
Itsuki smiled and looked toward the window.
Mariah shook her head before continuing. “Shadis did not throw me out because he understood what I was trying to do. He also understood that good intentions do not excuse recklessness. He gave me access to restricted records, difficult cases, rare materials, and research facilities, but only under strict conditions.”
Mariah raised one finger. “No experimental treatment without informed consent.”
A second. “Consent could be withdrawn at any moment, regardless of whether I believed stopping was a mistake.”
A third. “Anything involving soul manipulation, severe pathway reconstruction, or corruption required independent oversight.”
Then a fourth.
“No patient becomes less important than the research.”
Mariah lowered her hand.
“That was his wording.”
Itsuki thought of Sora refusing further examination and Shadis immediately accepting it.
“You still follow those rules.”
“Yes.”
“Because Shadis told you to?”
Mariah shook her head. “Not anymore. I follow them because he was right.”
Mariah picked up the book beside her but did not open it. Her thumb ran slowly along the edge of the cover.
“Knowledge matters, Itsuki. More than most people appreciate. Ignorance kills people every day. It killed people before my brother, and it has killed people since.”
Her eyes lowered.
“But knowledge can become an excuse.”
Itsuki stayed quiet.
“You can convince yourself that hurting one person is acceptable because the answer might save ten later. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Numbers make cruelty very easy to justify.”
Mariah looked directly at her.
“I do not want to become that kind of healer.”
Itsuki thought again about Yumi’s fear.
About Aiko’s anger.
About Yoshinori’s warning that Itsuki had to come before whatever answers waited at the end of this road.
“You understand why Yumi worries about you.”
Mariah sighed. “I understand why everyone worries about me.”
Itsuki smiled.
“I still believe my reputation has been exaggerated.”
Itsuki said nothing.
Mariah stared at her. “You are supposed to reassure me.”
“I think Yumi knows you pretty well.”
“Betrayal everywhere.”
Itsuki laughed softly.
The carriage continued along the road while the landscape outside slowly changed. Farmland became less common, giving way to broad stretches of grass and distant tree lines. The settlements grew farther apart, and every mile carried them deeper into places Itsuki had never seen before.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
Itsuki looked at Mariah differently now.
The confidence had not disappeared. The curiosity had not become any less unsettling. Mariah was still the woman who could encounter an impossible spiritual condition and look as though someone had handed her the most fascinating puzzle in the world.
Beneath everything else, Itsuki could now see a fifteen-year-old girl standing beside her dying brother while everyone told her there was nothing else to do, left forever wondering whether they had been right or whether she might have saved him if someone had allowed her to try.
“I think I understand now,” Itsuki said.
Mariah raised an eyebrow. “That sounds dangerous.”
“Why you’re like this.”
Mariah stared at her. “That sounded considerably worse than you intended.”
“I didn’t mean it badly.”
“I hope not.”
Itsuki looked down at her staff. “When something happens that you don’t understand, you can’t leave it alone.”
“No.”
“Because you think someone might die the next time.”
Mariah’s teasing expression disappeared completely.
“Yes.”
Itsuki traced her thumb slowly along the silver surface of the staff.
“And that’s why what happened to me matters so much to you.”
Mariah did not answer immediately.
When she finally did, her voice was softer.
“You are not only interesting, Itsuki.”
Itsuki looked up.
“I know I make it sound that way sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
Mariah ignored that. “What happened to you should not have happened according to anything we currently understand. Your soul changed. Your healing changed. Something else appeared alongside it, and then after Oceanside your spiritual energy vanished entirely.”
She held Itsuki’s gaze.
“If I understand why, that knowledge may help other people someday.”
Itsuki waited.
“But you are sitting in front of me now,” Mariah said. “That means you come first.”
Itsuki thought about every warning Mariah had received that morning.
Apparently Mariah did too.
She leaned back with a long sigh. “I cannot believe four teenagers successfully prepared me for the emotional conclusion of my own life story.”
Itsuki laughed.
Mariah pointed at her. “Do not encourage them.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
The smile stayed on Itsuki’s face for a little while before fading into something more thoughtful.
“If I tell you to stop when we get there, you really will?”
Mariah did not joke.
“Yes.”
“Even if you think you’re close to understanding what happened?”
“Yes.”
“Even if we came all this way?”
“Yes.”
Itsuki studied her carefully.
Mariah seemed to understand what she was looking for.
“Your answer matters more than mine.”
Something inside Itsuki relaxed, though not completely. She was still afraid of what waited ahead, of what they might discover inside her, or perhaps worse, that they might find nothing at all and she would return to Radiance exactly as she had left it.
But she trusted Mariah more than she had that morning, not blindly, and maybe that was better.
“Thank you.”
Mariah nodded once, then picked up her book and opened it again.
Itsuki stared at her.
Mariah looked over the top of the page. “What?”
“That’s it?”
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.”
“A hug?”
“No.”
“Good. Your guild has already used Radiance’s weekly allowance.”
Itsuki smiled and looked toward the window again.
Several seconds passed before another question entered her mind.
“Mariah?”
“Yes?”
“Were you ever going to tell me any of that if I hadn’t asked?”
“No.”
Itsuki turned back toward her. “Why?”
Mariah flipped a page. “Because mysterious older healers are much more impressive when they refuse to explain themselves.”
Itsuki stared at her.
Mariah maintained the serious expression for several seconds before the corner of her mouth lifted.
Itsuki shook her head and returned her attention to the road.
The countryside continued rolling past beneath the afternoon light, carrying them farther away from Radiance with every turn of the wheels. Somewhere ahead waited the strange site Mariah believed might offer answers. Somewhere behind them, Yoshinori, Aiko, Ryuji, and Tetsuo had already begun another day of training beneath Rayne.
Five days.
Itsuki wondered how much they would change before she returned.
She wondered how much she would change.
Across from her, Mariah read quietly, but Itsuki no longer saw only the brilliant healer who smiled too easily at impossible things. She saw the girl who had once stood beside someone she loved and been forced to live with an unanswered question, the prodigy who later mistook knowledge for permission and nearly destroyed someone because she could not bear to stop before reaching an answer, and finally the healer who had spent years learning that curiosity needed boundaries, even when those boundaries hurt.
Understanding Mariah did not make every decision she made safe. It did not mean Yumi had been wrong to worry, and it certainly did not mean Itsuki intended to follow her blindly.
But understanding someone was not the same as excusing them.
Sometimes it simply meant seeing the wound beneath the behavior.
Itsuki rested her head lightly against the carriage wall and watched the road stretching ahead of them. For the first time since agreeing to the journey, she no longer felt as though she was traveling with a researcher who happened to be interested in her condition.
She was traveling with a healer who understood exactly how dangerous unanswered questions could become.
And somewhere at the end of this road waited the unanswered question that belonged to Itsuki.