Ki drifted in a place that didn't feel like dream or memory.
Kenji stood in front of him, bathed in a soft, white glow. His expression wasn't angry. It was worse. It was disappointment, deep enough to carve someone open.
"What does this make you now?" Kenji asked quietly. "What does it make me?"
Blood leaked from his eyes, thin and steady, as if his grief was draining straight out of him.
"I trained a murderer."
His finger lifted, accusing him. The ground split beneath Ki as countless bloody hands burst upward, latching onto his ankles, his wrists, his shoulders. Their grip was desperate, furious, pleading.
"You took our lives… give them back…"
Faces rose from the darkness, twisted in pain, the same villagers he killed. Their nails dug into his skin as they begged and cursed and wailed. Ki thrashed, screaming for Kenji to help, but Kenji didn't move. He only stared, the sorrow in his eyes turning colder.
"You're just like him now."
A laugh crawled across the air.
Scarface stepped into view, slow and deliberate, dragging those heavy blades behind him. His smile warped the world, stretching like something alive.
Ki felt fingernails tearing into him. The hands multiplied, clawing deeper. Scarface kept walking, the blades scraping closer and closer.
From the corner of his eye, Ki saw another face rise from the blood-soaked ground.
The barbaric man.
"You should've let me take your life," he sneered.
Ki's scream tore through everything.
And he jolted awake.
He sat bolt upright on the bench of a wooden carriage, sucking in air like he'd been drowning. Sweat clung to his skin. His clothes stuck to his back. His heart refused to slow down.
"Nightmare?"
The driver didn't even look back. He held the reins lazily, guiding the carriage down a narrow forest path choked with trees.
"It's nothing," Ki muttered. "I'm fine."
"That's how people lie to themselves," the man said, voice low but unsettlingly casual. "Say you're fine until you start believing it. Even when you're not."
Ki stared at his hands. Bruised. Calloused. Raw. His fingers twitched. He dragged his palms over his face, feeling the roughness scrape against his skin. He couldn't tell if he was grounding himself or trying to wipe the nightmare off.
The driver began humming a slow tune. Something old. Something meant for people who'd seen too much. He tapped his fingers against his own chest, then slipped one hand beneath his coat.
The carriage started to slow.
In the middle of nowhere.
Ki felt the shift in the air. That quiet heaviness before violence.
The man hopped off the front of the carriage. His humming didn't stop. He walked toward the back, each step punctuated by the whisper of steel sliding free.
Ki didn't move.
So the man attacked first.
A dagger flashed. Ki twisted aside on instinct, the blade slicing the air where his throat had been a heartbeat earlier. He hit the ground hard, rolling to his feet.
"Nice reflex," the man chuckled. "Shame you won't keep up once you see how many of us are here."
Leaves rustled. Bushes shook.
One by one, rugged men stepped out of the forest, circling him with jeers and wolfish grins. Rusted weapons glimmered in the fractured sunlight.
They'd been waiting.
Ki's pulse didn't spike. His breathing didn't break. Compared to the crushing terror Scarface once forced into his bones, this felt almost clear.
He wasn't strong enough to win.
But he was smart enough to live.
Ki exploded forward, leaping straight at one of the men. His shoulder crashed into the man's chest, knocking him flat. Ki didn't stick around. He launched himself deeper into the trees before the man even hit the ground.
"GET HIM!"
The forest erupted with shouts, metal, and pounding footsteps.
Ki ran, weaving between trunks, ducking branches, ignoring the ache in every part of him. He risked a glance back.
The men were gaining.
Mercenaries? Hunters? Sold blades?
Didn't matter.
There was only one truth.
Survive.