By the time Illumina returned to the dorm, night had already settled over Radiance.

They had gone to see Tetsuo first. He was still asleep in the healer hall, his face and chest bandaged, his breathing slow beneath the sheets. Aiko had stood closest to him, Yoshinori near the foot of the bed, Ryuji seated only because his ribs forced him to be. Itsuki had watched with only that empty, distant stare, as if even the sight of their friend lying wounded and unconscious could not fully reach wherever her mind had gone.

After that, there was nowhere else to go but back.

The dorm waited inside the castle like nothing had happened.

That was what made it cruel.

The door opened to the same common room they had left behind before everything changed. The furniture was where it had always been. The chairs sat around the low table. The shelves along the wall still held the books and supplies they had gathered since becoming a guild. The faint smell of old wood, clean cloth, and lived-in warmth remained in the air, familiar enough to hurt. The room had not prepared itself for grief. It had not shifted to make space for absence. It had simply stayed the same, as if expecting Shunjiro to walk in behind them, as if expecting Tetsuo to complain that someone had taken too long to unlock the door.

Yoshinori was the first to move. He crossed the threshold slowly, then stopped just beyond it, his eyes drifting toward the side of the room where Shunjiro had left a folded piece of clothing over the back of a chair. It was nothing important. Not a treasured keepsake. Just clothing he had probably meant to put away later and never did. A small, careless sign that he had expected to come back and continue living here.

Aiko noticed it too.

Her face tightened, but she said nothing.

Ryuji entered behind them and closed the door with more care than necessary. The click of the latch sounded too loud. Itsuki stepped in last, moving only because the others had moved. Her eyes passed over Shunjiro’s belongings and Tetsuo’s untouched things without stopping. When Aiko touched the chair beside her, Itsuki sat, and the four of them remained around the table with too much to say and nothing useful enough to break the room open. 

Eventually, Ryuji exhaled. “We should sleep.”

Aiko looked at him, then toward Itsuki. “Together?”

No one misunderstood what she meant.

Ryuji leaned his head back against the couch. “I would not mind staying out here.”

For a moment, it seemed like they might. The common room had enough space. It would have been uncomfortable, but comfort was not the point. Staying together would mean no one had to walk into a bedroom and face the emptiness alone. It would mean no one had to lie in the dark wondering who else was awake. But exhaustion had already worn through them, and the healer’s warnings had not left Ryuji’s body just because grief wanted to ignore them.

Yoshinori shook his head slightly. “You need a bed.”

Ryuji gave him a tired look. “I hate when you are right.”

“I am usually right.”

“Now is not the time to become proud of it.”

The exchange was quiet and thin, barely enough to count as humor, but Aiko’s eyes softened for half a second before the weight returned.

Aiko rose and looked toward their room. “Come on.”

Itsuki stood without answering.

Aiko did not take her arm. She only walked slowly enough for Itsuki to follow. The two girls disappeared into their shared room, and the door closed most of the way, leaving a narrow gap of darkness.

Yoshinori and Ryuji remained in the common room.

Neither moved at first.

Then Ryuji pushed himself up with a quiet sound of pain he failed to hide. Yoshinori stepped toward him, but Ryuji lifted one hand.

“I can walk to the room,” he said.

“I know.”

“You looked like you were about to carry me.”

“I considered it.”

“Do that and I will never forgive you.”

Yoshinori nodded once. “Then I will not.”

They went into the room they shared with Tetsuo and Shunjiro. That was worse. Tetsuo’s things were scattered in the careless pattern only he could defend. Shunjiro’s side was neater, his clothes and small belongings waiting near the bed as if he had only stepped out for a while. The room had been made for four. Only two of them entered it. 

Ryuji’s voice was quiet when he finally spoke. “Feels wrong.”

Yoshinori nodded. “Yes.”

They changed in silence. Ryuji moved slowly, every careful motion proving how badly his ribs still hurt no matter how steady he had looked at the funeral. Yoshinori turned away to give him space, then prepared for bed with mechanical focus. He folded his clothes, put them away, sat, breathed, lay down, and closed his eyes. The order of simple tasks gave his mind something to hold, but once the lamp was lowered and darkness filled the room, there was nothing left to distract him from the quiet.

Across the dorm, Aiko and Itsuki changed for bed as well.

Aiko wanted to help her change, wanted to fix the sleeve caught against her wrist, wanted to ask if she needed water. Each time, she stopped. If Itsuki could still do something by herself, then maybe it mattered to let her do it. 

So Aiko only said, ‘I’m right here,’ and let the quiet answer for both of them. 

Aiko lay down and turned onto her side, facing Itsuki’s bed. Itsuki remained sitting for a while longer. Then, without a sound, she slipped beneath the covers and turned away from the room.

The dorm grew still.

Sleep came unevenly.

Yoshinori drifted first, though his rest was shallow and tense. Aiko followed after fighting it longer than she realized. Ryuji did not sleep much. Pain kept pulling him back every time his breathing deepened. If he shifted too quickly, his ribs answered with a sharp reminder. If he stayed still too long, his back stiffened and made the next movement worse. So he lay awake in the dark, listening to the room, to Yoshinori’s breathing, to the distant quiet of the castle beyond their door.

Sometime deep into the night, he heard it.

It was not a cry or even a sob at first, only a breath held too long, followed by another.

Ryuji opened his eyes.

For a moment, he thought the sound had come from his own room, from Yoshinori dreaming badly or from himself without realizing it. But then it came again, muffled and careful, from across the dorm and through the half-closed door of the girls’ room. It was Itsuki.

Ryuji did not move.

He listened, guilt already tightening in his chest.

Behind the half-closed door of the other room, Itsuki lay in bed with tears slipping silently across her face.

She had not woken with a scream. The nightmare released her slowly, cruelly, leaving her already crying before she fully understood she was awake. Her pillow was damp beneath her cheek. Her hands were clenched under the blanket. Her throat hurt from holding everything inside.

The dream had not exactly been about the battlefield.

There had been no ruined street beneath her feet, no red dome shrinking overhead, no flooded rubble, no desperate voices calling commands. Instead, she had seen a home she could barely remember clearly anymore and yet knew with painful certainty: warm light, the floor she had once sat on as a child, the shape of her mother from behind, and her father turning at the sound of something entering the room.

Then there was Suzu, neither the sister from every happy memory Itsuki wanted to keep nor entirely the monster from Oceanside. She shifted between both, older sister and corrupted killer, familiar eyes and empty ones, a face Itsuki loved and a presence that made the air rot with dread. Itsuki watched from somewhere she could not move, small and voiceless, while the scene unfolded with nightmare logic. Her mother reached toward Suzu. Her father said her name. Suzu stood in the doorway with blood on her hands before anything had happened.

Then it happened anyway.

Itsuki could not stop it, call out, or heal. She could only watch the person she had wanted to save become the person who took everything.

When she woke, the images stayed tangled behind her eyes: blood on Suzu’s hands, a grave beneath fading sunlight, bandages over Tetsuo’s face, and the hollow place inside her where healing should have answered. 

So she cried quietly.

Ryuji heard enough to know.

He sat up once, ribs flaring, and stared toward the half-closed door. He wanted to cross the common room. He wanted to tell her she did not have to be alone. But Itsuki was trying so hard not to be heard that going to her felt like taking the last piece of control she had. So he lay back down and stayed awake, hating that respect looked so much like doing nothing. 

The night stretched on.

Itsuki cried until her tears slowed, then began again when the nightmare returned in fragments every time her eyes closed. Ryuji listened until guilt became exhaustion and exhaustion became something duller. He did not tell Yoshinori. He did not wake Aiko. He did not go to Itsuki’s door. He kept her secret because he thought she would want him to, and hated that keeping it meant doing nothing.

Near morning, the crying stopped.

When sunlight crept into the dorm, Itsuki had finally fallen asleep. Yoshinori woke first, and the two empty beds brought everything back before he was fully sitting up. 

Ryuji opened one eye. “Morning.”

“You look terrible.”

“I always appreciate your honesty.”

“You slept badly.”

Ryuji pushed himself up with care, then gave a small shrug that barely moved his shoulders. “Ribs.”

Yoshinori watched him for a moment.

The answer was true enough to be convincing and incomplete enough to be suspicious. But Yoshinori did not press. Everyone in the dorm had earned the right to keep a little silence if they needed it.

They dressed quietly and stepped into the common room.

Aiko emerged a few minutes later, hair still slightly messy, scar uncovered, eyes heavy in a way that told Yoshinori she had slept but not deeply. She looked toward Ryuji almost immediately.

“You look like you did not sleep,” she said.

Ryuji gave her the same tired half-shrug. “Broken ribs are rude.”

Aiko’s eyes narrowed slightly, but before she could question him further, she glanced back toward the room she shared with Itsuki. “She’s still asleep.”

Yoshinori looked toward the door.

Aiko followed his gaze. “Should we wake her?”

“No,” Ryuji said.

The answer came softly, but with enough certainty that both of them looked at him.

Ryuji leaned back against the edge of the couch, one hand resting lightly near his side. His face was calm, maybe too calm. “Let her sleep as long as she needs.”

Aiko hesitated. “She barely ate yesterday.”

“She needs sleep more right now.”

Yoshinori studied him. “You are sure?”

Ryuji did not look toward Itsuki’s door. “Yes.”

Something in his tone made Yoshinori understand there was more behind the answer, but not what. Aiko seemed to sense it too. Her expression softened with worry, and her eyes flicked once toward the closed room before returning to Ryuji. He did not explain.

He would not tell them Itsuki had cried through the night. That belonged to her, and he would not take it from her just because hearing it had hurt. 

Aiko sat down slowly. “Then what is the plan for today?”

Aiko was not asking because she needed a schedule. Staying in the dorm with empty beds and closed doors would make them rot from the inside. 

Yoshinori looked down at his hands.

They still felt weaker than they should have. His energy had recovered some from the battle, but not as much as he wanted or as much as he would need if anything came again. The thought of training violently made something in him recoil, not from fear, but from the knowledge that his body and spirit were not ready for another fight. He needed control before force, breath before lightning, and a steady center before he let grief decide how hard to push.

“I’m going to meditate,” he said. “Not long enough to exhaust myself. Just enough to start regaining control.”

Aiko nodded. “Where?”

“The training area.”

Ryuji raised an eyebrow. “You are going to a training area and not training?”

“I am going to sit still.”

Aiko leaned forward slightly. “After that?”

Yoshinori’s eyes moved toward the shelves, then away. “The Grand Library.”

Aiko blinked. “To read?”

“Yes.”

“What are you reading?”

“I do not know yet.”

Ryuji watched him with quiet understanding. “Knowledge is power?”

Yoshinori nodded. “Something like that.”

Aiko stood. “I’ll join you.”

Yoshinori looked at her. “You do not have to.”

“I know.”

The answer was simple enough that he did not argue with it. She was not joining because she wanted to meditate. Maybe not even because she wanted to read. She was joining because she did not want him walking through the kingdom alone with grief folded behind his face. Yoshinori understood that and accepted it without making her say it.

Ryuji sighed and pushed himself upright. “I might as well join too.”

Aiko looked at his ribs. “Are you sure?”

“No.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I am not planning to fight the library.” Ryuji adjusted his shirt carefully. “Besides, if I stay here, I will think too much. That sounds dangerous.”

Yoshinori’s gaze moved to Itsuki’s door again. “We will be back by afternoon to check on her.”

Aiko nodded. “She’ll be safe here.”

“She will,” Ryuji said.

He said it gently, and for a moment Yoshinori wondered if he was saying it for them or for himself.

They did not leave a note. Itsuki was asleep, and the dorm was not far from the training area or the Grand Library. If she woke before they returned, she would know where they had gone soon enough. Maybe she would come find them. Maybe she would stay in bed. Maybe she would sit in the common room and stare at Shunjiro’s belongings without seeing them. None of them knew what would be best, and that uncertainty followed them as they gathered what little they needed.

Before leaving, Yoshinori paused near Shunjiro’s chair. His hand almost reached for the folded clothing, then stopped. No. Shunjiro would come back and move it himself. 

Yoshinori turned away.

Aiko noticed but said nothing. Ryuji noticed too, his expression unreadable beneath the tiredness he was still pretending came only from pain.

The three of them stepped into the hallway and closed the dorm door quietly behind them.

Inside, Itsuki slept at last, worn down by a night of silent crying.

Outside, the castle had already begun another day.

Yoshinori started walking toward the training area with Aiko and Ryuji beside him, carrying no plan strong enough to save anyone yet, only the fragile decision to keep moving until one appeared.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Sora woke to the smell of clean sheets, medicine, and morning light.

For a few seconds, he did not move. His eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the brightness spilling through the tall windows near the far side of the room. The ceiling above him was not cracked stone or ruined wood. There was no crimson barrier overhead, no floodwater pressing cold against his legs, no broken buildings leaning over him like they were seconds away from collapsing. 

Radiance.

He recognized it before anyone told him.

The distant murmur of movement reached him from somewhere beyond the room, but nothing close enough to break the stillness around him. For a moment, Sora simply stared, letting his thoughts drag themselves together one piece at a time.

He remembered the blade tearing into him. He remembered the sudden wrongness that followed, black and cold, not like pain exactly but like something opening inside him that should have stayed sealed. He remembered Yuki’s face. He remembered trying to move, trying to understand why his body no longer felt fully like his own.

Then nothing.

Sora’s hand twitched against the blanket.

Pain tugged across his palm.

He lifted it carefully and saw the bandage wrapped around his hand, covering the place where Suzu’s blood blade had sliced him open earlier in the battle. The injury still stung when he moved his fingers, but the rest of his body felt strangely light. Tired, yes, but not ruined. No deep wounds pulled at him. No fever burned beneath his skin. His limbs answered him without resistance, and the absence of pain was almost more unsettling than pain would have been.

His gaze shifted to the side of the bed.

Yuki sat there asleep in a chair, her head resting against the mattress beside his arm. One hand lay near the blanket as if she had fallen asleep while making sure he was still there. Her blonde hair was messy, and exhaustion softened the sharpness usually present in her face. Dark circles rested beneath her eyes. Even asleep, her posture did not look peaceful. It looked like her body had finally forced her under after she had refused rest for too long.

Sora stared at her for a long moment.

Then he reached over with his uninjured hand and gently shook her shoulder.

“Yuki.”

Her reaction was instant.

She jerked upright with a sharp inhale, one hand already lifting as cold energy flickered faintly around her fingers. The temperature around the bed dropped before she was even fully awake. For a split second, her eyes were wide and defensive, searching for danger that was not there.

Then she saw him.

The frost at her fingertips vanished.

Sora watched her expression change. The fear did not disappear so much as break apart beneath disbelief. Her eyes widened further, and her lips parted slightly, but no words came out. She blinked once, as if afraid he might vanish if she looked too long.

“Sora?”

His throat felt dry. “Morning.”

Yuki’s face twisted. She turned away quickly and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, trying to erase the tears before they could fully fall. It did not work well. When she looked back at him, her eyes were still bright.

“You’re awake,” she said.

“That seems to be the situation.”

She moved before he could say anything else, wrapping both arms around him in a hug that was firm but careful, as if some part of her was terrified he might break and another part needed proof that he was solid. Sora froze for half a second, surprised by the force of it. Yuki was not someone who grabbed people easily. Not like this. Not with her face pressed against his shoulder and her breath shaking once before she forced it steady.

Then he lifted his uninjured hand and rested it against her back.

Yuki pulled away first, though she stayed close, her hands still gripping the edge of the blanket. She searched his face with a focus sharp enough to make him uncomfortable.

“Do you remember anything?” she asked.

Sora looked down at his bandaged hand. “Renjiro cut me with the Hell Scythe. I remember that. I remember you being there. Then everything went black.”

Yuki’s expression tightened.

“That’s it?” she asked.

He looked back at her. “That’s it.”

For a moment, she did not answer. She only studied him, as if trying to decide whether his eyes looked right, whether his voice sounded like his, whether something hidden might still be waiting beneath his skin. Sora noticed the way her gaze flicked briefly to his arms, his neck, and the corners of his face, searching for veins, black marks, or anything that would prove the corruption had not truly left.

“I don’t look that bad, do I?” he asked quietly.

Yuki’s mouth tightened. “You looked worse before.”

“That’s comforting.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He let out a faint breath through his nose, not quite a laugh. Then his eyes narrowed slightly as he took in the exhaustion on her face again. “Did you sleep at all?”

Yuki looked away. “A little.”

“That means no.”

“It means a little.”

“That means no,” he repeated.

She ignored that and sat back down, though she kept one hand on the mattress near him. “A lot happened after you blacked out.”

“I guessed that part.”

Yuki’s gaze dropped. “You were corrupted.”

Sora went still.

He had already understood something was wrong. He was not stupid. The last thing he remembered was Renjiro’s cursed weapon cutting into him and something invading his body before darkness swallowed the rest. But hearing it spoken plainly made the truth settle heavier.

“What did I do?” he asked.

Yuki hesitated.

That hesitation told him enough.

“You attacked me,” she said.

Sora’s jaw tightened.

“And Renjiro was attacking me too,” Yuki continued. “It was both of you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing slowly through the answer. The image did not come back. There was no memory of his own hands striking, no fragment of Yuki standing against him, no sound of his voice speaking while the corruption moved through him. That absence made the guilt feel stranger. He knew it had happened, but his mind had no scene to attach the shame to.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Yuki answered immediately. “It wasn’t you.”

“Still my body.”

“Not your choice.”

Sora opened his eyes again. “That does not make it better.”

“It makes it true.”

Her voice held enough force that he did not argue further. Yuki had clearly decided where the blame belonged, and judging by the look in her eyes, she would not allow him to pick it up just because guilt gave him something to do with his hands.

He leaned back against the pillows. “How did you survive both of us?”

Yuki’s expression changed.

It was subtle, but he saw it. Her shoulders stiffened. Her eyes drifted briefly toward the door, checking without meaning to. Whatever answer came next was not something she wanted floating through the healer hall.

Sora lowered his voice. “Yuki?”

She looked back at him. “When you hit me, I thought I was done.”

The honesty struck harder than expected.

“You hit hard even when you’re annoying,” she said, trying to make it lighter and failing. “I was almost out. Renjiro was there, and you were corrupted, and I could barely keep standing. Then something happened.”

Sora watched her carefully.

“My father’s spiritual energy entered my body.”

His brows drew together. “Your father’s?”

Yuki nodded once. “I don’t know how. I don’t know when he did it. I don’t know if it can happen again or if it was only because I was badly injured. But his energy came into me, and suddenly I could move. Not like normal. Not even close. Everything felt stronger. My speed, my body, my ice, my spiritual pressure. For a short time, I could fight at SSS-ranked levels.”

Sora stared at her.

He had always suspected Yuki’s father was powerful. She never spoke about him much, but the few things she had let slip over time carried too much weight to belong to an ordinary adventurer. Still, hearing that his energy had been hidden inside her somehow, waiting until she nearly broke, made the room feel colder despite the sunlight.

“Does anyone know?” he asked.

“No.”

Sora studied her face. “You want it kept that way.”

“Yes.”

The answer came without hesitation.

He nodded slowly. “Then it stays between us.”

Some of the tension in her shoulders eased, but not all of it. “I’m still recovering. My energy was close to gone for the last few days. It’s coming back now, but slowly. I don’t know what using his energy did to me.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It saved my life.”

“Those can both be true.”

Yuki looked at him then, and for the first time since he woke up, something like her usual sharpness returned. “You are very calm for someone who just learned he tried to kill me.”

“I’m not calm,” Sora said. “I’m organizing the panic.”

“That sounds like something you would say.”

“It is something I said.”

The faintest smile touched her face, then disappeared beneath exhaustion.

Sora flexed his bandaged hand slowly. “You stopped me?”

“I froze you.”

“That tracks.”

“Not like usual,” she said. “I pushed the cold deeper. Muscles, joints, spiritual flow, maybe even your mind. I don’t know. You stopped moving, and after that…” She glanced at his arms again. “The corruption faded. Or it disappeared. Or it went quiet. I don’t know which.”

Sora did not deny the possibility. He stared down at his hand, thinking of Renjiro’s scythe, the cut, the blank space where memory should have been. “Maybe freezing me slowed whatever was spreading.”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe my adaptation helped once you stopped me from moving.”

“Maybe,” she repeated.

Neither of them sounded satisfied with the word, but it was the only one they had.

Yuki leaned back in the chair, looking older than fifteen for a moment. “After that, everything kept getting worse. Kaito arrived. Suzu was defeated but taken. Tsubasa appeared. Eclipsed Abyss is real. Tetsuo is alive, but he lost his left eye. Itsuki…” She stopped, swallowing the rest of that sentence before reshaping it into something she could say. “Itsuki is not okay.”

Sora’s gaze lowered.

He knew enough from the battle to understand what that meant without needing every detail repeated. Hikari, Suzu, Itsuki, the field had been cruel to all of them in different ways.

“And Shrimpy?” he asked.

Yuki’s eyes softened with pain. “Still missing.”

Sora looked toward the window.

For a few seconds, his face gave away nothing. Then his hand closed slowly over the blanket, fingers tightening until the bandage across his palm pulled against the wound.

“Of course he is,” he muttered.

Yuki frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means the tiny idiot survives impossible things and then somehow finds a way to make everyone worry more afterward.”

Yuki stared at him.

Sora’s mouth tightened. “He’s alive.”

She did not argue.

Neither of them had proof. Proof belonged to officials, reports, and search parties. Mars Guild had something weaker and harder to kill. They had survived beside Shunjiro long enough to know that assuming he was simply gone felt wrong.

The door opened before either of them could say more.

An official stepped inside without knocking properly, already holding a clipboard against his chest. He wore the clean uniform of a castle administrator, though his expression suggested he had been sent on an errand he considered more important than whoever might be resting in the room. His eyes moved from Yuki to Sora, and the moment he saw Sora sitting upright, his posture sharpened.

“You’re awake,” he said.

Yuki stood.

The movement was quiet, but it placed her directly between the official and Sora’s bed.

The official noticed. His eyes narrowed slightly before he continued. “By order of King Shadis, Sora Ayanami of Mars Guild is to report for questioning regarding the corruption incident immediately.”

Sora blinked once.

Yuki’s voice dropped. “No.”

The official’s brows lifted. “Excuse me?”

“He just woke up.”

“I understand that, but this matter concerns a corrupted state caused by Renjiro’s weapon. The king’s officials need to confirm what he remembers before any details become unreliable.”

Yuki took one step forward.

The room temperature dipped.

“I said no.”

The official’s annoyance became more obvious. “This is not a request from a guild member. This is an order issued through official channels.”

“And I am telling you that he just opened his eyes after being unconscious for days.” Yuki’s voice hardened with every word. “He has not eaten. He has not stood. He has not even spoken to his whole guild yet. You will give him the basic human decency of waking up before you start dragging him through castle halls because a form needs filling.”

The official’s mouth tightened. “You are obstructing-”

“I am protecting my friend.”

“He was corrupted.”

Yuki’s eyes went cold.

Sora had seen her angry before. He had seen her irritated plenty of times, annoyed more often than that, and sharp enough to cut through Lars and Ryota whenever they were being stupid. This was different. The kind of anger that did not need raised volume because it had already decided exactly where to land.

“He was attacked,” Yuki said. “By Renjiro. With a cursed weapon. On a battlefield where people died while officials were nowhere near us. Do not stand there and talk about him like he is evidence before he has even had breakfast.”

The official flushed. “King Shadis will want to know he is awake.”

“Then tell someone higher up that he is awake,” Yuki said. “Tell them he will answer questions when he feels up to it. Tell them if they send another person in here before then, I will be less polite.”

Sora glanced at her back.

Less polite?

The official looked as though he wanted to argue. His fingers tightened around the clipboard, and his gaze briefly shifted past Yuki toward Sora, possibly hoping Sora would overrule her.

Sora did not.

He was too busy staring at Yuki as if trying to decide when she had become terrifying.

The official finally inhaled through his nose. “I will inform my superior.”

“Good.”

“This will be noted.”

“So will your lack of manners.”

The official’s face tightened again, but he clearly decided the room was not worth freezing over. He turned sharply and left, closing the door with more force than necessary.

Silence followed.

Sora looked at Yuki.

Yuki did not look back right away.

“You know,” he said carefully, “I was only asleep for a few days, and somehow you became scarier.”

She sat down again. “Good.”

“That was not a complaint.”

“It better not be.”

Sora almost smiled.

Then the door opened again.

This time, it opened with the clumsy caution of someone balancing too much food and trying not to drop anything. Lars stepped in first, carrying a tray stacked with bread, eggs, fruit, and a covered bowl of something steaming. Ryota followed behind him with another tray, moving slower than usual but upright, a faint smirk already forming before he even fully entered.

Lars saw Sora first.

He froze in the doorway.

For one suspended second, he did not speak. He just stood there with the breakfast tray in both hands, eyes fixed on Sora as if the sight had knocked every thought out of his head.

Then his grip tightened around the tray.

“You’re awake.”

Sora looked at the food, then at Lars. “I was told there would be breakfast.”

Ryota’s smirk widened.

Lars blinked, and the emotion on his face folded itself away into something more controlled. He stepped inside, cleared his throat, and set the tray down on the small table near the bed with careful precision. “That’s your first sentence to us?”

“No. My first sentence was to Yuki. You lost your chance by leaving.”

Ryota let out a quiet laugh and moved toward the bed. “Still annoying. That’s a good sign.”

Sora looked him over and immediately noticed the way Ryota held himself. The chest wound was healed enough for movement, but not gone. It sat beneath his clothes like a reminder, changing the way he breathed, the way he stood, the way he kept his shoulders loose to hide the discomfort.

“You look terrible,” Sora said.

Ryota set his tray down. “That was my line.”

“You were too slow.”

Ryota shook his head, then stepped forward and pulled Sora into a hug before Sora could prepare for it. Unlike Yuki, Ryota did not try quite as hard to be careful. The hug was brief but firm, full of relief he disguised behind the smirk still sitting on his face.

Sora grunted softly. “You are injured.”

“Still stronger than you right now.”

“You were almost dead.”

“And yet here I am, winning the argument.”

Ryota pulled back, the smirk still there, but his eyes were warmer than his voice. Sora saw the relief in them. He also saw the grief sitting behind it, heavier and older than it should have been, but Ryota turned away before Sora could focus on it too long.

Lars stepped closer next.

He did not hug Sora. Not fully. He rested one hand on Sora’s shoulder and squeezed once, strong enough to say what he did not want to say out loud.

“Don’t do that again,” Lars said.

Sora looked up at him. “Get corrupted?”

“Anything that makes Yuki threaten half the healer hall.”

Yuki crossed her arms. “I did not threaten half the healer hall.”

Ryota raised an eyebrow. “Only because half was not brave enough to come in.”

Lars looked between Yuki and Sora. “What happened?”

“Official tried to drag him to Shadis before he ate,” Yuki said.

Lars’s expression darkened instantly. “Already?”

“He left,” Sora said. “Mostly intact.”

Yuki gave him a flat look.

Ryota lowered himself into a chair with a slow breath and began uncovering one of the bowls. “Then we eat before someone more important comes back and pretends they have better timing.”

The smell of warm food spread through the room.

Sora then realized he was hungry, not mildly or politely hungry, but starving in a way that made his body feel suddenly hollow. Yuki handed him a bowl before he could reach for it himself, and when he tried to take the spoon with his bandaged hand, she silently moved it to his other side.

He looked at her.

She looked back.

He used the other hand.

Lars and Ryota settled near the bed while Yuki returned to the chair she had been sleeping in, though she stayed upright this time. The four of them ate together in the healer room. 

Sora ate slowly at first, then faster once his body remembered what food was for. Ryota teased him for looking like a rescued stray. Lars told Ryota not to talk while eating with his mouth half full. Yuki said both of them were unbearable before taking a quiet bite of bread and looking, for the first time in days, like she might remain awake because she chose to rather than because fear forced her to.

Sora listened to them and let the room settle around him, alive in Radiance, surrounded by Mars Guild, and himself again.