We reached Saganokoshi by sundown.
People here didn't look twice at a sword on your hip.
Kiyomi kept her hood up again.
Kaida found a place that served fish skewers.
And I?
I noticed the man in the corner.
Didn't look like much.
Average height. Average face, and his eyes? Didn't blink, not once.
Kaida noticed him too, she just moved her stool half an inch so her blade wouldn't catch the table leg if she needed it.
Kiyomi didn't seem to notice.
She was focused on the paper in her hands—a folded note she'd found slipped into her charm pouch when we entered town.
No name on it, just a single line: You were supposed to be dead.
She didn't show me but she didn't really need to, as her grip on the parchment said enough.
I leaned toward Kaida.
"He's not drinking."
The man finally stood, left the bar....that's it? He just left a brush of paper left on our table as he passed.
I opened it, and again only one sentence.
The bounty doesn't go to the fastest, it goes to the one who brings her back alive.
I looked at Kiyomi.
She looked at me.
Kaida was already standing.
No one was chasing us yet, but someone had just told the rest of the wolves that the hunt had begun.
Later That Night, in room above the inn sat Kiyomi cross-legged, the note clutched in her lap. I lean by the window, my arms crossed and Kaida cleans her blade without a word.
Kaida finally spoke,"You're a royal. A target. With siblings who probably don't like sharing inheritance. Especially not with girls who were supposed to die in secret."
I finally spoke. "I'll get you to the Imperial City."
Kaida raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you do charity?"
Kiyomi looked up at me, waiting.
"Not charity," I muttered. "A job. One I haven't finished yet."
Kaida snorted. "Right. Just a job."
But she didn't push it.
Kiyomi didn't thank me, but she did unfold the paper again, and whispered: "They'll try to stop me before I get there."
I met her eyes and said: "Let them try."
Early morning. The streets are still. I'm tightening the strap on my pack. Kiyomi adjusts the charm pouch at her belt. Kaida? She's leaning against the inn's wall, arms crossed, her bag at her feet.
"I'm not coming," she says casually.
Kiyomi stiffens.
I blink.
"…What?"
Kaida shrugs. "You two are marching into imperial territory. Assassins, politics, broken bloodlines—y'know. All the fun I can live without."
I stare at her for a second.
"…Oh. Alright."
That's all I say, because what else is there?
She's not bound to us, she isn't getting paid or has a contract.
She's just been here.
Kaida watches me for a beat.
Then scoffs. "Wow. No protest?"
"You said you're not coming."
She laughs. "You really are an idiot sometimes, Ronin."
She picks up her pack, slings it over her shoulder, turns. and walks the opposite direction.
Kiyomi doesn't say anything, she just stands there, eyes on the road ahead.
I exhale.
"Guess it's just us again."
We didn't speak much that day, not because we didn't have things to say, but because we both knew Kaida should've been walking beside us.
"I liked her," she said quietly.
"I didn't," I muttered.
Kiyomi glanced at me. "You did."
"…Yeah, I guess maybe a little."
We passed a line of old boundary stones. Most were cracked, some knocked over.
Kiyomi stopped at one, ran her fingers over the moss-covered kanji.
"Old language," she murmured. "Spiritual."
"Dangerous?"
"Only when ignored."
We moved on, and that's when we saw it, a figure ahead.
Limping, dragging one leg and covered in blood.
Collapsing into the dirt just twenty feet ahead of us.
I rushed over. Caught him before his head hit the stone.
His eyes were wide.
His lips cracked.
And in his hand—A scroll.
Tied in silk.
"For... the fox-child," he rasped. "You have to—"
He didn't finish and he won't be coming back, so I took the scroll, but didn't open it yet.
Kiyomi stared at the man.
"…He's from my mother's temple," she whispered.
And I stared at her.
"That a place you forgot to mention, or just another secret you hoped wouldn't get someone else killed?"
Kiyomi didn't look at me.
"I said I'd get you to the Imperial City. I meant it."
I stepped toward her.
"But if there's more—more places, more people, more things tied to your past—then you tell me, now."
Her eyes flicked up.
Her voice quiet, but sharp.
"I didn't think anyone knew."
"Someone always knows," I growled. "We just don't get to find out until they bleed on us."
She winced, but atleast she didn't argue.
She looked at the messenger, then back at me.
"I'll tell you," she said. "But not here."
I stared at her a second longer, then nodded, and tucked the scroll away.
We carried the man toward the nearest shelter.
And I didn't say anything else.
But in my head?
I counted the number of people who'd died for this girl already and wondered how many more it would take.
She broke the silence.
"My mother was called Yuzuka. A shrinekeeper. A scholar of old bloodlines. And not… entirely human. She lived outside the capital, in a temple so old even the gods forgot it. It didn't serve worshipers. It didn't accept offerings. It just existed."
Kiyomi's fingers rested over her charm pouch.
She didn't pull anything out, just… held it.
"She told me I was born in silence. No court, no nursemaids. Just her the moonlight, and something… watching from the forest."
"She said the Emperor came to her. Once. Only once."
Her jaw tightened.
"And when she was gone, the temple was buried, like it never existed."
I finally spoke.
"You think this scroll is from the same place?"
She nodded.
"Then someone wants you to remember."
"No," she said.
"They want me to return."
The messenger stirred. Groaned. But didn't wake.
Kiyomi looked at me. For the first time tonight.
And I saw it.
The fear she wasn't showing, the weight she carried behind every perfect word.
"I don't know if I want to see it again," she whispered.
I stood, walked to the fire, tossed in another log and then turned to her.
"Then we go together."
I wanted to see what the gods were hiding.
The next day we'd already been walking for hours.
No birds. No beasts. Just trees.
Kiyomi said nothing.
Neither did I, but I felt it, eyes on our backs.
On her.
She stopped suddenly, put a hand on the nearest tree and closed her eyes.
"This is the right way," she whispered.
I didn't even want to ask how she knew.
Every step closer was like a piece of her was waking up, that's when I heard the first sound that didn't belong.
A crack, then another.
Not branches breaking underfoot. Bones.
I stepped in front of her.
Drew steel without hesitation.
From the mist ahead, it emerged, not a man, not quite a beast either.
Something stretched too thin. Wearing a monk's robes like a joke. Face smeared with paint. Eyes rolled back. Mouth sewn shut with golden thread.
Kiyomi's breath caught.
She knew what it was.
"…A guardian."
It didn't speak.
It moved quite fast for it's size, straight for her, but I was faster.
My Blade met it's cloth, It screamed without opening its mouth.
I gritted my teeth.
This thing was guarding a secret, and it didn't care who it killed to keep it buried.
I slammed shoulder-first into its side, the impact rattling up my spine.
It didn't fall, didn't even budge.
Its head turned.
My blade came up—
Steel hit the bone and then stopped, not because I missed, because it caught the blade in its fingers.
Those long, rotting hands tightened around my sword.
Splinters of something snapped off, black fluid hissed against the steel.
It grinned through sealed lips.
I kicked it, full force.
It slid back—
Then bent backwards, its spine arching, still smiling.
Kiyomi shouted something.
Didn't hear it, didn't care.
I lunged.
No more blocks. No more precision. Just rage.
I slammed the hilt into its face, again, and again, until that grin caved in.
It slashed at me with it's fingers like blades.
I let it scratch.
Because while it clawed—I carved.
I drove the blade through its shoulder, twisted, ripped it out sideways.
It didn't scream.
But the forest did, Leaves shook, Birds took off miles away, the air itself recoiled from what I'd done.
It dropped, and I didn't stop.
I pinned it down with my knee and drove my fist into what was left of its jaw.
Over and over.
It opened its mouth and black smoke spilled out like curses and my knuckles bled.
I didn't stop until Kiyomi's voice finally cut through the noise.
"Toki—stop! You're hurting yourself!"
My breath caught.
Fist raised. Blood dripping.
The thing under me didn't move.
But my chest—
My chest was shaking.
Behind me, she whispered.
"You saved me."
But the way she said it?
Made it sound like she was trying to remind herself.
She hadn't said a word in hours.
Not after she cleaned my hands with trembling fingers, not after she watched the last of the guardian's smoke vanish into the trees.
She hadn't run, hadn't cried, but she hadn't looked at me either.
I didn't press it, because I'd seen the way she looked at the thing I became.
The part of me I buried just deep enough to walk around with a name.
"You did what you had to," she said, finally.
I didn't answer.
Because I know she didn't believe it.
She then turned to me.
"You didn't enjoy it. Right?"
I opened my mouth. Closed it and that was all the answer she needed.
"…I'll be ready next time," she whispered.
I looked up.
"What?"
"I froze. Again. If you hadn't…" She stopped herself.
Shook her head.
"I'll do better."
I stared at her.
"You shouldn't have to," I said.
She stood, tossed another log into the fire and this time, when she looked at me?
She wasn't asking for protection.
"I don't care."
She turned away before I could reply.
And the trees around us began to shift—
Later that day we reached the outer ring of the temple grounds, stone steps swallowed by moss, leading downward into the earth.
And the wind?
It whispered in a soft voice.
"Welcome home, daughter."