Morning came to Illumina’s dorm with a knock.

It was not loud. Whoever stood outside did not pound on the door or call through it, but the sound still pulled every awake person in the common room toward attention at once. Yoshinori had been seated at the table with a cup of water he had barely touched. Aiko sat near the couch, arms folded loosely. Ryuji rested against the cushions with a blanket over his lap.

Itsuki had not come out of her room.

Aiko had checked on her once after waking. Itsuki was still asleep, curled beneath the blanket with her face turned away from the door. Aiko had not woken her. Sleep was the first mercy Itsuki’s body had accepted without being led to it, and none of them were willing to steal that from her.

The knock came again.

Yoshinori stood before Aiko could move.

He already knew.

He crossed the common room and opened the door.

Kaito stood in the hallway.

He was dressed properly again, blue cloak resting over his shoulders, his black hair neat, the exhaustion from the healer hall no longer controlling his face. He did not look fully recovered, but he looked like himself. That alone would have comforted Yoshinori if the man’s eyes had not been so sharp.

Kaito did not step inside.

“Where is Mars Guild?”

There was no greeting, no gentle approach, and no pretending he had come for another reason.

Yoshinori kept one hand on the door. “I don’t know.”

Aiko’s eyes moved toward him immediately.

Ryuji’s expression stayed calm, but Yoshinori could feel him listening more carefully from the couch.

Kaito’s gaze did not shift from Yoshinori. “You do not know.”

“No.”

“Their dorm is empty.”

Yoshinori did not react.

“Two courier horses are missing from the outer stable,” Kaito continued. “The night guard at the west service route reported that one gate latch had been reset incorrectly. No one saw them leave, which means they either planned well enough to avoid attention or got lucky enough to survive being stupid.”

Aiko’s mouth tightened.

Yoshinori answered before she could. “That sounds like Mars Guild.”

Kaito studied him.

It was not the kind of stare that demanded confession. It was worse than that. It made lying feel childish. Yoshinori had faced monsters that wanted to tear him apart, but Kaito’s calm attention carried a different pressure, the pressure of someone who knew the answer and was waiting to see what kind of person Yoshinori would become while hiding it.

“You spoke with Sora last night,” Kaito said.

Yoshinori felt Aiko go still behind him.

Ryuji did not move at all.

Yoshinori chose his answer carefully. “He came by.”

“When?”

“Late.”

“What did he want?”

“To say goodbye.”

Aiko inhaled softly through her nose, the sound so small it was almost nothing. 

Kaito’s eyes shifted toward her for half a second.

Yoshinori continued before that half second could grow teeth. “He did not tell us where they were going.”

That was the lie, though maybe not the whole one. The world outside Radiance was large, and knowing the direction Mars intended to travel did not mean Yoshinori knew where they were now. But he knew enough. He knew the mountains. He knew unmanaged dungeons. He knew danger by shape if not by exact location.

Kaito heard all of that in the answer anyway.

Aiko’s hands tightened around her sleeves. “They were going to leave whether we liked it or not.”

Yoshinori almost closed his eyes.

Kaito’s attention returned to him. “Were they?”

Yoshinori kept his voice steady. “Yes.”

Ryuji finally spoke from the couch, not to smooth the lie, not to decorate it, only to give the cleanest truth he could. “Sora had already decided.”

Kaito looked past Yoshinori into the common room. His gaze touched Ryuji, then Aiko, then the closed door to the girls’ room.

For a moment, Yoshinori expected anger.

Instead, Kaito sighed.

It was short, controlled, and somehow more irritated than if he had raised his voice.

“They are children,” he said.

Aiko’s eyes sharpened. “So are we.”

“Yes,” Kaito replied. “That is part of the problem.”

Yoshinori did not argue.

Kaito glanced down the hall, then back at them. “Mars Guild is no longer in Radiance. I have no confirmed route, no witness, and no time to search every road outside the capital. So I will say this once, and I expect you to hear it clearly.”

Yoshinori nodded.

“You are not going after them.”

Aiko looked away.

Ryuji’s fingers moved once against the blanket, but he said nothing.

Kaito’s voice remained calm. “Mars choosing to do something reckless does not change your orders. Illumina remains inside Radiance. You do not leave the kingdom. You do not follow rumors. You do not decide that one vanished guild is permission to become another.”

Yoshinori met his eyes. “We understand.”

Kaito held his gaze a moment longer.

He knew they were hiding something. Yoshinori was certain of it. Kaito could have pressed. He could have used command, guilt, authority, or simple patience until one of them cracked. Aiko was too angry to hide her feelings for long. Ryuji was a bad liar. Yoshinori was only holding because someone had to.

Kaito let them have the lie.

That was what unsettled Yoshinori most.

The older adventurer’s expression hardened, not at them exactly, but toward the direction Mars Guild had taken without leaving anyone a clean trail to follow. “If they contact you, use sense before loyalty. If they are injured, trapped, or being hunted, tell someone with the strength to help. Pride gets people killed faster than enemies do.”

“We will,” Yoshinori said.

Kaito gave a small nod. Then his eyes lowered briefly, and for one second the irritation in his face became something closer to tired hope.

Mars Guild, wherever you went, do it smart. Do not die proving what everyone already knows.

He did not say it aloud.

Instead, he stepped back from the doorway. “Take care of yourselves.”

Then he turned and left.

Yoshinori kept the door open until Kaito reached the end of the hall and turned the corner. Only then did he close it.

Aiko released the breath she had been holding. “He knew.”

“Yes,” Yoshinori said.

Ryuji leaned his head back against the couch. “He let us think we got away with it.”

Aiko frowned. “That somehow feels worse.”

“It means he had too much else to do,” Yoshinori said.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Kaito returned to the guild hall with Mars Guild still sitting like a thorn beneath his ribs.

He had sent men to check the obvious roads, not because he expected them to find anything useful, but because doing nothing at all would have been worse. Sora was not a prisoner. Mars Guild had not been forbidden from leaving by formal order. That technicality did not make their disappearance less idiotic. It only made it harder to drag them back.

The guild hall was already alive when he entered, not with noise or chaos, but with preparation. Messengers crossed the floor with sealed folders tucked beneath their arms. Clerks checked names against travel permissions and emergency authorities. Guild members moved in small groups, adjusting straps, confirming supply counts, speaking in lowered voices that carried more purpose than panic. News had not been given to the public in full, but the upper ranks knew enough to move differently now.

Near the central desk, Elian Stratos and Celia Arkwright stood with fresh documents in hand.

Kaito walked toward them.

Elian noticed first. The Azure Comets leader had none of the loose amusement Kaito had seen in the meeting room. His blue cloak was fastened for travel, his hair tied back more neatly, and the easy restlessness in his posture had turned into readiness.

Celia stood beside him in a white-and-gold traveling cloak, a sealed packet held against her side. Her expression softened when she saw Kaito.

“You look better,” she said.

“I am better.”

Elian studied him once, quick and assessing. “Good. I would rather not explain to my guild that Kaito Ishiro collapsed in the guild hall before we left.”

“That would have been inconvenient.”

“For morale,” Elian said.

“For paperwork,” Celia added.

Kaito almost smiled, but the moment did not have room to grow. His eyes moved to the sealed documents in their hands. “You are heading out?”

“Yes,” Celia said. “Our authority papers are finished.”

“Our guilds are waiting in the city,” Elian added. “Mine are getting impatient.”

Celia gave him a sideways glance. “Yours were impatient before the papers existed.”

“They are scouts. Stillness offends them.”

“You were supposed to leave yesterday,” Kaito said.

“We were,” Celia replied. “But leaving fast and leaving blind are not the same thing.”

Elian tapped the edge of his packet against his palm. “We spent the night comparing portal reports, old sightings tied to Tsubasa, criminal movement connected to Makoto, and every rumor that even brushed the name Eclipsed Abyss.”

“Anything useful?”

“Useful?” Elian’s mouth tightened. “Enough to know the useful things are hiding.”

Celia’s tone stayed measured. “We found no clean trail. But there are patterns. Sudden disappearances along older border routes. Reports of travelers seeing portal-like distortions that were dismissed because no one wanted to sound drunk. A few names tied to Makoto’s people vanishing before they could be questioned.”

“Nothing that points to Shunjiro directly,” Elian said.

Kaito had expected that.

Celia watched him with quiet understanding but did not soften the truth further. “We will travel together through the Shadow Realm before splitting. A larger group lowers the chance of ambush while crossing the worst stretch.”

“Good,” Kaito said. “Do not separate too early.”

Elian nodded. “Azure Comets will break toward the Nature routes once we clear the crossing. Sunveil heads toward Darkness. Until then, one moving force.”

“Keep communication active,” Kaito said. “Report before chasing anything uncertain.”

Elian’s mouth curved faintly, though his eyes stayed serious. “That order was written in three places.”

“Four,” Celia said.

“Four,” Elian corrected. “Apparently someone has heard of us.”

“I have,” Kaito replied.

Celia tucked her sealed papers more securely beneath her arm. “Radiance will hold?”

Kaito looked across the guild hall before answering. “It has to.”

That was not the answer of someone pretending confidence. Celia accepted it for what it was.

Elian extended his hand first. Kaito took it.

“We will send word when we reach the first crossing,” Elian said.

“Travel carefully.”

“We will.”

Celia offered her hand next. Her grip was steady. “We will follow the search as far as sense allows.”

“I know,” Kaito said.

He did not ask them to bring Shunjiro back.

The words were there. They stood behind his teeth, heavy and useless. Elian and Celia already knew what they were leaving to do. Adding emotion to the order would not make the Shadow Realm kinder, would not make Nature smaller, would not make Darkness safer, and would not make Shunjiro easier to find.

So Kaito kept it professional.

“Good luck,” he said.

Elian gave a short nod. Celia did the same.

Then they left.

Kaito watched them move through the guild hall doors into the bright morning beyond, where their guilds waited somewhere in the city. 

Then Kaito turned away.

His first task was not finished.

He crossed the guild hall without stopping for questions. A few people looked as if they wanted to approach him, but whatever they saw in his face convinced them to wait. By the time he reached his office, the noise of the hall had dulled behind the closed door.

The room was exactly as he had left it.

His desk held sealed reports, unfinished letters, a map with too many marked routes, and a small communication stone resting in a wooden case near the corner. The cracked katana on the wall caught a line of morning light. The painting of sun and moon hung opposite it, unchanged by everything below.

Kaito removed his cloak and set it over the back of his chair.

He finally allowed himself to feel how tired he still was, if only for a breath.

Then he opened the wooden case and took out the communication stone.

It was dark blue, small enough to fit in his palm, with a thin silver line running through its center like a vein of moonlight. Kaito placed it on the desk and pressed two fingers against the surface. Spiritual energy moved from him into the stone, steady and precise.

The silver line brightened.

Kaito waited.

The office remained still around him.

Then the stone answered.

A faint pulse moved through it, not loud enough to be called a voice from where anyone outside the room could hear, but enough that Kaito’s eyes focused fully on the object before him.

“Rayne,” he said.

The conversation that followed did not leave the office.

When the glow in the communication stone finally faded, Kaito did not move right away.

He sat with his hand still resting beside it, eyes lowered, his mind already turning from one responsibility to the next. He could not search for Shunjiro himself. He could not chase Mars into whatever foolishness they had chosen. He could not stand beside Illumina every hour until grief became strength.

But he could choose who did.

Kaito closed the wooden case.

Then he reached for the next report.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Itsuki dreamed of sunlight.

It came through the window of a house that no longer existed the way dreams remembered it, spreading across wooden floors, faded curtains, and the low table where two girls sat facing each other with their knees tucked beneath them.

Itsuki was a child again.

So was Suzu.

Her older sister sat across from her with her hair loose around her shoulders, wearing the same gentle face Itsuki had spent years trying to protect inside her memories. No black veins marked her skin. No blood curved around her hands. No corrupted pressure bent the room into terror. She looked like the sister Itsuki had once chased through hallways, the sister who had brushed dirt from her knees, the sister who had smiled before the world found a way to take that smile apart.

For one impossible second, Itsuki felt relief.

Then Suzu looked at her and said, “You failed.”

The room changed without changing. The sunlight stayed warm. The curtains moved softly. Somewhere outside, wind passed through leaves. Everything looked peaceful, and that made Suzu’s voice worse.

Itsuki tried to speak, but the child’s body she wore would not answer quickly enough. Her hands rested on the table, small and helpless, fingers curled against the wood.

Suzu tilted her head. “You could not save me.”

Itsuki shook her head.

“You could not save Hikari.”

The name struck like cold water.

“You could not save Shunjiro.”

Itsuki’s throat tightened until breathing became painful.

Suzu leaned closer, her normal eyes fixed on her with a calm that felt crueler than screaming. “You could not even save yourself.”

“No,” Itsuki tried to say, but the word came out thin and broken. “I tried.”

Suzu’s mouth curved, not into a corrupted smile, not into something monstrous, but into the hurt expression of an older sister who had already decided the younger one had left her behind. “You tried for them.”

Itsuki froze.

Suzu looked down at their hands on the table. Hers were steady. Itsuki’s were trembling.

“You found new people,” Suzu said. “You found friends. You found a boy who made you smile. You found a place where you could be loved without me.” Her voice softened, and somehow that made every word sharper. “Was it easier that way?”

Itsuki shook her head harder. Tears blurred the room, turning the sunlight into streaks of gold. “No. That’s not true.”

“You chose them.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.” Suzu’s voice did not rise. She did not need it to. “I was lost, and you kept living. I was alone, and you made a family. I became something horrible, and you stood with them against me.”

Itsuki tried to reach across the table, but the distance between them stretched. The room pulled wider. The sunlight thinned. Suzu remained just out of reach, still looking like the girl she had been before all of this, which meant Itsuki could not hide behind the monster she had become.

“I wanted to save you,” Itsuki said.

Suzu’s eyes filled with tears.

That was worse than anger.

“Then why didn’t you?”

The question tore through the dream.

Itsuki woke with a cry trapped halfway between Suzu’s name and a sob.

She sat up too quickly, breath breaking, one hand clutching the blanket while the other pressed against her chest as if she could hold herself together by force. The room around her was dim with late morning light. Her bed. Her walls. Her folded clothes on the chair. The quiet space she shared with Aiko. No sunlight from childhood. No table. No Suzu sitting across from her with tears in her eyes and blame in her voice.

Only the ache the dream had left behind.

Itsuki bent forward and wept.

She tried to stop at first. Habit made her press a hand to her mouth, trying to hold the sound down, trying not to become another thing someone had to come fix. Then she remembered there was no one in the room to wake. The dorm felt too quiet beyond her door, and that quiet gave her permission to break in a way she had not meant to.

The sobs came harder.

She cried for Suzu. For Hikari. For Shunjiro. For Tetsuo sleeping in a healer bed with half his face hidden. For the warmth that had vanished from her hands. For every person she had wanted to protect and every answer she could not give when the dream asked why she had failed.

Then, somewhere beneath the grief, a face rose in her mind.

She thought of Shunjiro, not as he had looked on the battlefield, disappearing or hurt or beyond reach, but as she remembered him before everything had gone wrong. She remembered him smiling at her with that bright, foolish confidence that always seemed too large for his body. She remembered his voice saying her name like it mattered that she was there. She remembered the way he made fear feel less lonely, not because he erased it, but because he stood inside it with everyone else and refused to pretend they had to face it separately.

A fresh sob broke out of her.

“Shunjiro…” His name left her in pieces. “Please come home.”

The room gave no answer.

Itsuki cried until her throat hurt and the tears slowed on their own. After that, she remained sitting in bed with the blanket twisted in her hands, breathing unevenly, too drained to keep weeping and too awake to return to sleep. 

Eventually, she rose.

Her body was not weak. That almost bothered her. She could stand. She could walk. She could move her arms and dress herself and breathe without pain. Everyone else carried bandages, scars, broken ribs, wounds that made their bodies tell the truth for them. Itsuki looked fine. She hated that most of all.

She changed slowly into her gray sweater and black skirt, fingers fumbling once at the sleeve before she forced them steady. When she opened the bedroom door, the common room waited empty.

Aiko was gone.

Yoshinori was gone.

Ryuji was gone.

No note sat on the table. No message waited beside a cup or tucked beneath a book. There was only the quiet dorm, Shunjiro’s absent things, Tetsuo’s untouched belongings, and the space where her friends had been earlier.

Itsuki stood in the doorway for a long time.

Part of her understood. They had probably let her sleep because they thought she needed it. They had probably moved carefully, spoken softly, and left without waking her because they did not want to drag her out of the first rest she had managed to take. If Aiko had checked on her, it would have been with kindness. If Yoshinori had chosen not to knock, it would have been because he was trying to be gentle. If Ryuji had agreed, it would have been because he believed sleep mattered more than another painful morning.

Itsuki knew that.

It still hurt.

The pain was not fair to them, and knowing that did nothing to make it smaller. She was tired of waking up alone. Tired of sitting in rooms where everyone waited for her to become someone again. Tired of doing nothing while grief moved through her body with nowhere to go. The others could leave the dorm and find something to do with their fear, training, reading, planning, speaking to Kaito, pretending to be useful until usefulness became real. 

Itsuki had only been sleeping and breaking.

Her hands tightened around the hem of her sweater.

She could not stay there all day.

The decision came quietly, almost too quietly to feel like a decision at all. She crossed the common room, stepped into her shoes, and left before the stillness convinced her to sit down again.

Radiance Castle felt too large from inside her own silence.

Itsuki did not know exactly where the Titans were staying. She knew they had not left Radiance. Someone had said they would remain for a few weeks while they healed and decided what came next, but Itsuki had heard those words through the fog that had swallowed most of the days after Oceanside. Now she followed memory in pieces, taking corridors that seemed familiar, passing guards who looked at her and then looked away too quickly, moving through the castle like a ghost that had finally remembered it owned feet.

She thought of turning back more than once.

By the time she reached the section of the castle where guest guilds had been given rooms, her heart was beating too fast, not from the walk but from the thought of what she was about to do.

The Titans had lost Hikari.

Suzu had killed her.

Suzu, whose face had just filled Itsuki’s nightmare. Suzu, whose blood and corruption had torn through the people Itsuki now wanted to approach. The thought made her stop at the end of the hall, one hand pressed against the wall.

What right did she have to knock on their door?

Aira had tried to save Hikari. Daichi had stood beside Hikari from the beginning. Rei had spoken at her grave. Roki had cried over flowers. Akima had held Aira while she shook. And Itsuki was Suzu’s sister. She was not Suzu and was not guilty for Suzu’s choices in any clean or logical way, but grief did not care about clean logic. It twisted connections until every thread became a noose.

Maybe Daichi would answer.

The thought made her stomach drop.

Daichi had every reason to hate the name Nozomi, even if he never said it. Itsuki did not think she could survive seeing blame in his eyes. Not today. Not after the dream. Not while Suzu’s voice still echoed in her head asking why she had failed.

She almost turned away.

Then she remembered Aira’s face in the healer hall, pale and hollow with the same kind of helplessness Itsuki could not scrape out of her own chest. Aira was a healer who had run out of power when someone needed her. Itsuki knew that shape of pain. She did not know if Aira could help her. She did not even know what help meant anymore.

But she knew she wanted to find her.

Itsuki lifted her hand and knocked.

The door opened a few seconds later.

Daichi Takeda stood on the other side.

Itsuki’s breath caught.

He looked better than he had in the healer hall, though not whole. The cuts across him had been treated properly now, and he wore clean clothes instead of bloodstained wrappings, but recovery sat on him like something he tolerated rather than accepted. His green eyes lowered to her face, and for one terrible moment, Itsuki waited for anger.

It did not come.

Daichi did not scowl. He did not ask why she was there. He did not say her sister’s name. He only looked at her long enough to understand that she had not come for him and did not know how to say who she had come for.

Then he stepped aside.

The simple movement stunned her more than words would have.

Itsuki entered carefully.

The Titans’ room was quieter than she expected. Rei sat near the table with papers spread in front of her, though her attention shifted to Itsuki the moment she stepped inside. Aira stood near the window, sunlight catching the pink of her hair. She looked tired, but no longer emptied out. Color had returned to her face, and the spiritual energy around her felt present again, nearly whole, like water that had finally risen back into a dry riverbed.

Aira saw Itsuki and came toward her immediately.

“Itsuki?”

The sound of her name almost broke her again.

Itsuki tried to answer. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out at first. Daichi closed the door behind her and remained near it, silent. Rei did not interrupt. Aira stopped close enough to reach her but did not crowd her yet.

Itsuki looked down at her own hands.

They felt useless.

“I…” Her voice cracked from disuse and crying. She swallowed, tried again, and still the words stumbled. “Can I… stay with you?”

Aira’s expression changed at once.

There was no pity or surprise that made Itsuki feel strange for asking, only something softer than both and sadder because Aira understood too quickly.

“Of course,” Aira said.

Then she hugged her.

Itsuki stiffened for only a second before the warmth reached her. Aira’s arms wrapped around her carefully but firmly, and the contact undid whatever fragile control had carried Itsuki down the halls. She leaned into the hug with a small, broken sound, hands lifting slowly before clutching the back of Aira’s clothes.

Aira held on.

“You can stay with me,” she said quietly. “As long as you need.”

Itsuki cried again, but this time the tears did not feel like the nightmare pulling her under. They felt like something leaving her body one painful piece at a time.

Rei stood from the table.

Aira looked over Itsuki’s shoulder. “Rei, I’m going out for a while. I’ll be back later.”

Rei’s gaze moved from Aira to Itsuki, then to Daichi. Her expression carried the weight of someone who had lost too much to pretend this was simple, but she nodded.

“Take your time,” Rei said.

Daichi said nothing.

He only shifted away from the door, giving them a clear path out.

Aira kept one arm around Itsuki as they moved. Itsuki did not ask where they were going. For the first time since waking, she did not need to know. She only needed not to be alone.

Together, they stepped back into the hall and left the Titans’ room behind.

Aira did not ask Itsuki where she wanted to go.

That was a mercy.

Itsuki would not have known how to answer. Every place inside Radiance Castle felt too full of something she could not handle.

So she let Aira lead.

They walked through the lower halls without speaking, Aira’s arm still resting lightly around Itsuki’s shoulders. She did not hold her tightly enough to trap her, only enough to remind her that someone was there. Guards glanced at them as they passed, but none of them stopped them. Itsuki kept her eyes lowered and followed the rhythm of Aira’s steps, letting the castle drift by in fragments.

Aira led her beyond the castle’s main gardens and down a narrow path Itsuki had never noticed before. It curved behind rows of trimmed hedges and flowering trees, away from the parts of Radiance meant to be seen by visiting nobles or proud guild members. The grass grew softer there, less perfect, and the sound of the city faded behind birdsong and the faint rush of water.

A small stream ran beneath a line of low trees, cutting through the green with clear, quick movement. It was not grand. It was not the River Aria or some sacred place marked on maps. The water slipped over smooth stones, shallow enough to see the brown and gray rocks beneath the surface. Wildflowers grew along the bank. A single flat rock sat beside the stream, worn smooth by weather and time.

Aira stopped there.

“I come here sometimes,” she said.

Itsuki looked at the stream.

The water kept moving.

Aira stepped onto the flat rock and sat, leaving enough space beside her. Itsuki stood for a few seconds before joining her. The stone was cool beneath her legs. The stream filled the air between them with a sound that did not demand anything from her.

They sat that way for a while.

Aira was the first to speak.

“I don’t think anyone teaches healers what to do after someone dies in front of them.”

Itsuki’s fingers curled into the hem of her sweater.

Aira watched the water rather than Itsuki’s face. “They teach us how to close wounds. How to slow bleeding. How to keep breathing steady. How to decide who needs help first when everyone is hurt at once.” Her voice trembled, but she did not stop. “They teach us all the things we are supposed to do with our hands. They never teach us what to do when our hands are there and it still isn’t enough.”

The words slipped beneath Itsuki’s ribs and found the place that had been hurting since the battlefield.

Aira drew in a shaky breath. “I keep thinking about Hikari. I keep thinking there had to be something else. More water. More pressure. More energy. A different angle. If I had been faster. If I had noticed sooner. If I had saved more of myself instead of spending so much before that.” Her eyes shone, and she blinked hard, but the tears broke free anyway. “I know that is not fair. I know healers are not gods. I know bodies can be too damaged, wounds can be too deep, time can run out before we arrive. I know all of that.”

Itsuki looked at her.

Aira’s mouth twisted as she tried and failed to keep herself composed. “But I still keep seeing her there. I keep feeling my energy disappear under my hands. I keep remembering the moment I understood that I could press every bit of myself into that wound and it would not change anything.”

Her voice broke on the last word.

Itsuki’s throat tightened until it hurt.

“Hikari,” she said.

The name came out small, but it came out.

Aira covered her mouth with one hand and cried.

Itsuki did not know what to do at first. Aira was the one who had brought her here. Aira was the one who had held her in the Titans’ room. Aira was the one whose energy had returned, whose voice had been steady enough to lead them away from everyone else. Seeing her fall apart made Itsuki’s own grief shift, not smaller, but less alone.

“I’m sorry,” Itsuki whispered.

Aira lowered her hand and shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” Itsuki said again, stronger this time and worse for it. “Suzu killed her. Suzu did that to Hikari. She hurt all of you. She hurt everyone, and I…”

Aira turned toward her.

Itsuki forced the rest out before fear stole the words. “She was my sister. I loved her. I still love her, and I hate that I do, because every time I think about her, I think about what she did. I think about Hikari. I think about Daichi and Rei and Roki and Akima and you, and I feel like I brought that pain with me just by being connected to her.”

Aira’s face folded with hurt, not because she blamed Itsuki, but because the words had reached a place inside her that was already bruised.

“Itsuki,” she said softly, “you are not Suzu.”

Itsuki shut her eyes.

A part of her believed it, though not enough to make the guilt disappear. But a small part did, and that small part hurt too, because if she was not Suzu, then the guilt had nowhere clear to go. It could not be solved by punishing herself. It could not be carried neatly. It was just there, heavy and tangled, refusing to become justice.

Aira reached for her hand.

Itsuki let her take it.

“You didn’t bring that pain,” Aira said. “Suzu did. The corruption did. The people who turned her into what she became did. I don’t know all of her story, and I won’t pretend I do, but I know Hikari would never want you sitting here thinking her death belongs on your shoulders.”

Itsuki’s breath hitched.

Aira squeezed her hand. “She would hate that.”

Itsuki opened her eyes. “I dreamed about Suzu.”

Aira did not look away.

“We were children,” Itsuki said. The words came slowly, like she had to pull each one through thorns. “She looked normal. She looked like she used to. She said I failed. She said I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save Hikari. I couldn’t save Shunjiro. I couldn’t save myself.” Itsuki’s lips trembled. “She said I chose them. My friends. Shunjiro. She said I found people who loved me while she was alone.”

Aira’s expression tightened.

“I told her I wanted to save her,” Itsuki whispered.

The stream moved over stone, soft and relentless.

“She asked me why I didn’t.”

Aira pulled Itsuki into her arms again.

This time Itsuki did not stiffen. She folded into the hug at once, clutching Aira’s back while the tears came hot and sudden. Aira cried too, her face pressed near Itsuki’s shoulder, and for a while neither of them tried to sound brave.

When Itsuki could breathe again, Aira eased back but kept both hands around hers.

“My hands feel empty,” Itsuki said.

Aira’s brows drew together.

Itsuki looked down at her palms. “I can’t feel anything inside them. No warmth. No healing. No spiritual energy. Mariah said there’s nothing there. Not even a trace.” She swallowed. “I keep looking at them and thinking they should belong to someone else. A healer should be able to heal. That’s what I am supposed to do. That’s what I was for.”

Aira’s voice sharpened gently. “No.”

Itsuki looked at her.

“You are not a tool that broke,” Aira said.

The words struck hard enough that Itsuki could not answer.

Aira wiped at her face with the back of her wrist and continued, voice still shaking but steadier beneath it. “I understand why it feels that way. I do. When my energy was gone, my hands felt heavy. Like they were still full of every person I couldn’t save. Every choice. Every second I was too late. I kept thinking, if I can’t heal, then why am I here?” She looked toward the stream. “But that thought is cruel. It sounds true because pain says it loudly, but it is still cruel.”

Itsuki stared at her hands.

“A healer is not only hands,” Aira said. “And a person is not only their power.”

Itsuki wanted to believe that.

She wanted it so badly that it scared her.

“What if it never comes back?” she asked.

“Then we figure out who you are without it,” Aira said. “But not today. Today, you are allowed to hurt because something precious was taken from you. You are allowed to be afraid. You are allowed to miss your power and still be more than it.”

Itsuki’s tears slipped down her face again, quieter this time.

“I don’t know how,” she said.

“I don’t either,” Aira admitted. “Not fully. My energy is almost back, and I still don’t feel fixed. I thought maybe when it returned, I would stop hearing Hikari’s breathing in my head. I thought I would stop feeling the moment I failed.” She shook her head. “It didn’t work that way. Power coming back does not carry grief out with it.”

Itsuki looked toward the water.

“I kept thinking if mine came back, I could breathe again,” she whispered.

“You might,” Aira said. “A little. But not because healing makes you useful again. Because it is part of you, and losing part of yourself hurts.”

That answer reached somewhere deep.

Itsuki pressed both hands against her skirt, fingers trembling. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Aira’s expression softened. “Then don’t be.”

“I woke up and everyone was gone.” Itsuki hated how childish it sounded, but the words had already started and she could not stop them. “I know they let me sleep. I know they would not leave because they didn’t care. I know that.” Her voice cracked. “But I opened the door, and the room was empty again, and I couldn’t stay there.”

Aira nodded. “Knowing why something happened does not always stop it from hurting.”

Itsuki wiped her face. “I feel selfish.”

“You are grieving.”

“That feels like the same thing sometimes.”

“It isn’t.”

Itsuki gave a small, broken laugh that did not sound much like laughter. “You sound sure.”

“I am saying it because I need to hear it too.”

That made Itsuki look at her again.

Aira’s eyes were red from crying, but her face held more life than it had in the healer hall. “I keep thinking everyone else lost Hikari more than I did. Daichi knew her from the beginning. Rei has to lead without her. Roki…” She stopped for a second, then continued. “Roki loved her so loudly that everyone could see it. Akima keeps trying to hold us together. So sometimes I tell myself I should not fall apart because other people have more right to hurt.”

Itsuki whispered, “That’s not true.”

“I know.” Aira gave her a faint, painful smile. “See? Easier to say to someone else.”

Itsuki lowered her head.

Aira brushed a thumb gently over the back of Itsuki’s hand. “Your friends love you.”

Itsuki’s lips trembled.

“They do,” Aira said. “Aiko, Yoshinori, Ryuji, Tetsuo, Shunjiro. I know you feel far from them right now, but they are still there.”

“I know.”

“But knowing is not the same as reaching back.”

Itsuki’s chest tightened.

Aira hesitated, then asked quietly, “Shunjiro… who is he to you?”

The question made Itsuki’s face heat even through the grief.

She looked away quickly.

Aira did not tease. She only waited.

Itsuki watched the stream until the moving water blurred. “He is…” She stopped, pressed her lips together, and tried again. “He is loud. And reckless. And kind in a way that makes me angry sometimes because he doesn’t always understand how much people worry about him.”

Aira’s mouth softened.

“He makes things feel less dark,” Itsuki continued. “Not because he knows what he’s doing. He usually doesn’t. But he keeps trying anyway. He keeps standing up even when he’s scared, and when he looks at me, I feel like…” Her voice thinned. “I feel like I am still here.”

Aira’s hand tightened around hers.

Itsuki drew a shaky breath. The word she was avoiding pressed against her tongue, too terrifying and too precious to give fully to the air. “I don’t know what he is to me. I know what I want to say, but if I say it and he doesn’t come back…”

She could not finish.

Aira understood anyway.

“Sometimes one person becomes the place your heart keeps reaching for,” Aira said. “That does not mean the others matter less.”

Itsuki closed her eyes.

“I feel guilty,” she admitted. “For needing him this much. Aiko is here. Yoshinori is here. Ryuji is here. Tetsuo is alive. I should be grateful. I am grateful. But I keep thinking if Shunjiro came back, maybe I could…”

“Breathe?” Aira offered.

Itsuki nodded as another tear fell. “Yes.”

Aira did not tell her that was wrong.

She only said, “Then I hope he comes home.”

“And until he does,” Aira continued, “you still have people you can reach for. Not instead of him. Beside him. There is room for all of that.”

Itsuki wanted to say she understood.

What came out was smaller. “Can I stay with you today?”

Aira answered immediately. “Yes.”

“All day?”

“All day.”

Itsuki looked embarrassed by the need in her own voice. “I don’t want to go back yet.”

“Then we won’t.”

Aira stood first, then offered both hands. Itsuki took them and let Aira help her off the rock. The stream continued moving beside them, carrying sunlight in broken pieces across the water. Itsuki looked at it one last time and realized the ache in her chest had not disappeared. 

But she had spoken.

She had said Hikari’s name. Suzu’s name. Shunjiro’s name. She had asked not to be alone and had not been rejected for it.

It was the first step toward something that might become healing if she kept walking.

Aira stayed beside her as they left the stream behind, their steps slow beneath the trees.

“You can come find me whenever you need to,” Aira said.

Itsuki looked at her. “Even if I don’t know what to say?”

“Especially then.”

Itsuki nodded, holding the answer close.

Aira and Itsuki stayed away from the castle longer than Itsuki expected.

They did not walk anywhere important. Aira simply followed the stream for a while, then led them back along a different path, one that curved through quieter streets near the edge of Radiance’s central district. The city had begun to move around them in its ordinary way, carts creaking over stone, shopkeepers calling out prices, children darting between adults with the careless speed of people who had not learned yet how quickly safety could disappear.

Itsuki stayed close to Aira.

She had spoken more beside the stream than she had in days, and now her throat felt raw from it. The ache in her chest remained, but it had shifted. Before, it had sat inside her like something sealed away, pressing against her ribs with nowhere to go. Now it felt open and sore, exposed to air. It hurt differently, but breathing around it was easier.

Aira noticed when Itsuki slowed near the guild hall entrance.

“You okay?”

Itsuki looked toward the building. Adventurers passed through the wide doors in groups, some wearing armor, some carrying documents, some speaking in low voices. Life had not paused just because she had fallen apart. 

“I think so,” she said.

Aira did not question the uncertainty. “We don’t have to go in yet.”

Before Itsuki could answer, a bright voice called from nearby.

“Itsuki? Aira?”

Both girls turned.

A young woman stood behind a small food stall set up along the side of the guild hall courtyard. She held a wooden spoon in one hand and a folded cloth in the other, her hair tied back beneath a simple kerchief to keep it out of her face. She was a little taller than Itsuki remembered, though still short enough that the stall counter nearly hid half her apron when she leaned over it. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of cooking, and a streak of flour marked one side of her face. But the eyes, the warm smile, and the easy brightness in her expression were familiar.

Linda.

For a second, Itsuki only stared.

The name reached her before her voice did. Entrance exams. A carriage. A sick village. Yumi’s nervous instructions. Aira sitting beside her in the grass. The smell of herbs and bread while Linda called them to lunch like feeding people was the most natural answer to fear.

Linda’s smile softened as she took them in.

She noticed too much.

Itsuki saw the moment recognition changed into understanding. Linda’s eyes moved over Aira’s tired face, then Itsuki’s, then the way they stood close together as if the space between them still needed support. The cheerfulness did not vanish, but Linda gentled it before it could become too bright for the morning.

“Wow,” Linda said, setting the spoon down. “It’s been a while.”

Aira smiled faintly. “Linda.”

“I thought that was you two.” Linda glanced at the stall behind her with a quick, almost embarrassed laugh. “I would wave properly, but I’m borrowing someone’s entire workplace right now, and I’m pretty sure if I burn anything, he’ll never let me touch his pots again.”

Itsuki looked at the stall.

A wide pot simmered over a controlled flame, steam carrying the rich scent of herbs, vegetables, and broth into the courtyard. Beside it, thick slices of bread rested near a small grill, browning at the edges. The smell reached Itsuki gently at first, then pulled something old and tender from the back of her memory.

Aira’s brows lifted. “You’re cooking out here?”

“Technically, I’m helping,” Linda said. “Unofficially, the owner stepped away for supplies and told me not to change anything, which means I changed three things and improved everything.”

Aira gave a small laugh.

Linda’s eyes warmed. “You both look like you need food.”

Aira opened her mouth as if to decline politely, but Linda raised the spoon.

“That was not a question.”

Aira blinked, then looked at Itsuki.

Itsuki did not know what answer her face gave, but Aira must have understood it because she nodded. “Food sounds good.”

“Perfect.” Linda turned back to the pot with renewed purpose. “Sit. Please. Before either of you tries to claim you aren’t hungry.”

There were two stools beside the stall, probably meant for customers waiting on orders. Aira guided Itsuki toward one and sat beside her. Linda moved quickly, but not chaotically. That was different from what Itsuki remembered. During the entrance exams, Linda’s cheer had spilled everywhere, crumbs and laughter and excitement all mixed together. Now she still carried that warmth, but it had settled into something more practiced. Her hands knew where everything was. Her smile knew when to soften. Her joy had not disappeared. It had learned how to serve people without overwhelming them.

Linda filled two bowls with stew and set slices of freshly grilled bread beside them.

“There,” she said. “Same kind I made on the road back then, though I’m much better at it now. Herbed vegetable stew, grilled bread, and enough restorative energy folded in that even stubborn adventurers have to admit it helps.”

Aira looked down at the bowl, and something fond moved across her face. “You still make this?”

“All the time,” Linda said proudly. “After I became an adventurer, I realized I didn’t really want to join a guild. Not because guilds are bad,” she added quickly, waving the spoon as if defending herself from an accusation no one made. “I just kept thinking about how many people come back from missions exhausted, injured, hungry, and pretending they’re fine. So I started cooking for the guild hall. Then the kingdom made it official. Support adventurer, kitchen division, occasional emergency meal specialist.”

Aira’s smile grew a little. “Emergency meal specialist?”

“I gave myself that title. No one has stopped me yet.”

Itsuki looked at the bread.

Linda placed a cup of water beside her, then leaned against the stall counter. “I help wounded adventurers sometimes too. Healers patch the body. I handle the part where everyone forgets they need to eat afterward.”

Aira held her bowl with both hands. “That matters.”

Linda’s expression softened again. “I think so.”

Itsuki lifted the spoon.

For a moment, she hesitated. The steam touched her face. The smell was almost exactly as she remembered, warm herbs, soft vegetables, bread toasted just enough at the edge. It pulled her backward and forward at the same time, toward a version of herself who had sat beside Aira in the grass and talked about healing as if becoming stronger was only a matter of time.

That girl felt far away.

Itsuki took a bite anyway.

Warmth spread over her tongue first. Then down her throat. Then deeper, settling into her stomach with a comfort so ordinary that her eyes stung before she understood why. The stew tasted like the road before everything had become complicated. It tasted like a carriage ride toward a sick village, like Aira laughing beside her, like Yumi trying to lead despite her stutter, like Linda announcing lunch with crumbs on her sleeve.

Aira let out a quiet breath beside her. “This is really good.”

Linda beamed, then caught herself and toned the expression down into something gentler. “Thank you. I accept praise in all forms, especially seconds.”

Itsuki took another bite.

The warmth deepened.

Then something flickered.

It was so small she almost missed it.

A shimmer moved somewhere deep inside her, not in her hands, not in her chest, but farther down, beneath thought and breath, in the place Mariah had searched and found nothing. It was faint. Barely there. A speck of gold in a space that had been empty for days.

Itsuki’s spoon slipped from her fingers and struck the bowl.

Aira turned at once. “Itsuki?”

Linda straightened behind the stall. “Too hot?”

Itsuki stared down at her hands.

The shimmer remained.

It was tiny and fragile, so delicate that noticing it felt dangerous, as if fear alone might frighten it away. Her body went still around the sensation. She did not dare reach for it. She did not try to summon healing. She did not breathe too deeply. She only sat there with the spoon against the side of the bowl and the impossible golden glimmer trembling somewhere inside her soul.

It can’t be.

Her fingers curled slowly.

It had to be the warmth of the food, a memory, or hope pretending to be something real because she wanted it too badly. Mariah had felt nothing. Not a thread. Not an ember. Nothing.

But this was not nothing.

Aira leaned closer, concern sharpening. “What happened?”

Itsuki forced her hand back around the spoon. “Nothing.”

The lie came out too quickly.

Aira’s eyes narrowed with quiet suspicion, but she did not press in front of Linda.

Linda watched Itsuki for another second, then seemed to decide whatever she had noticed was not hers to pull into the open. “Well, if nothing happened, then nothing should keep you from eating the rest before it gets cold.”

Itsuki looked up.

Linda smiled, not knowingly exactly, but kindly.

Itsuki lowered her gaze and took another bite.

The shimmer did not grow much. It did not bloom into power. No glow gathered around her hands. No healing warmth returned to her palms. But the faint gold stayed, tucked deep inside her like a coal that had not decided whether it wanted to become fire again.

Aira finished her bowl slowly, the tension in her shoulders loosening with each bite. The food did not restore something she lacked anymore, not the way it might have days ago, but comfort still moved through her. Itsuki could see it in the way Aira’s breathing eased, in the way her face softened when Linda started talking about the guild hall and the strange eating habits of adventurers who thought a single piece of bread counted as dinner.

“Do you remember Kenichiro pretending he didn’t like my food?” Linda asked.

Aira laughed softly. “He ate all of it.”

“He ate seconds.”

Itsuki’s mouth moved before she meant it to. “He said he didn’t even like it.”

Linda pointed at her with the spoon, delighted. “Exactly! And then he betrayed himself with the cleanest bowl I had ever seen.”

Aira smiled at Itsuki.

Itsuki looked down quickly, embarrassed by how much that small sentence had taken from her and how much it had given back.

Linda kept talking, carefully choosing lighter things. She told them about guild members who tried to sneak extra portions before missions. About one knight who claimed soup made him fight better and then requested it before every patrol. About how she had once been asked to make emergency recovery biscuits for a squad that forgot to bring rations and returned from a dungeon looking more offended by hunger than by monsters.

Aira listened. Itsuki listened too.

For a little while, the world narrowed to food, warmth, and Linda’s voice.

When the bowls were empty, Aira stood first and bowed her head slightly. “Thank you, Linda.”

Linda waved both hands, flustered. “No bowing near the stew. It makes things too formal.”

Itsuki stood more slowly. The shimmer remained hidden deep within her, small enough that she still wondered whether she had imagined it. She wanted to tell Aira. She wanted to tell someone. But the words felt too large and too frightening to touch. If she said it and then it vanished, it would become another loss. If she said it and someone believed her, then she would have to believe it too.

So she looked at Linda instead.

“Thank you,” Itsuki said.

Linda’s face brightened with real emotion. “Anytime.”

Aira and Itsuki left the stall together, walking back toward the castle side of the guild hall. The city continued around them, but Itsuki carried the meal’s warmth with her, and beneath it, that impossible golden speck. She kept one hand lightly over her stomach without realizing it until Aira glanced down.

Aira did not ask.

When they reached the hallway where their paths split, Itsuki stopped.

Aira stopped with her.

For a moment, Itsuki did not know how to say goodbye to someone who had given her more than a day outside the dorm. The words felt too small. The silence felt too familiar. So she stepped forward and hugged Aira before fear could make the choice harder.

Aira stiffened in surprise, then hugged her back.

Itsuki held on tightly.

“Thank you for today,” she said.

The words came out clear.

Aira’s arms tightened around her. “You can come find me whenever you need to.”

Itsuki nodded against her shoulder.

“And you don’t have to know what to say.”

“I know.”

Aira pulled back enough to look at her. Her eyes were still tired, still marked by grief, but they held warmth too. “I’ll see you later.”

Itsuki nodded again. “Goodbye.”

They parted there.

Itsuki returned to Illumina’s dorm alone.

The room was still empty when she opened the door. Yoshinori, Aiko, and Ryuji had not come back yet. Only two hours had passed since she left, maybe less, but the quiet waiting inside the dorm no longer struck her the same way. It still hurt. Shunjiro’s things were still there. Tetsuo’s belongings still waited untouched. Itsuki still felt the old instinct pulling her toward the bedroom, toward the blanket, toward the place where she could disappear until someone gently decided whether to wake her.

She did not follow it.

Instead, she stepped into the common room and closed the door behind her.

The golden shimmer remained deep inside her, so faint she was afraid to breathe too hard around it. Maybe it was real. Maybe Linda’s food had reached something Mariah could not. Maybe crying by the stream had loosened whatever grief had sealed shut. Maybe both things mattered. Itsuki did not know, and for once, not knowing did not make her collapse under the weight of it.

She crossed to the table and sat down.

Not in the bedroom.

Not behind a closed door.

In the common room, where her friends would see her when they returned.

Itsuki placed her hands in her lap and looked toward the entrance.

She was not healed. She was not ready. She still did not know how to speak without breaking, how to face the empty places in their guild, or how to keep living with Suzu’s voice buried in her dreams.

But she wanted to try.

It was time to come back to her friends.