The battlefield was dying.
What once thundered with the roars of ogres and the screams of men now simmered into the broken hush of aftermath. Black smoke coiled from shattered ground where Kaito stood, his greatsword dragging at his side like a wounded limb. Each breath rasped through the inside of his helmet, carrying the scent of burnt leather and blood.
He hadn't realized his knees were shaking. Not from fear—his body simply couldn't tell the difference anymore. It just moved, cut, survived.
Beyond the smoke, the Valerian mage remained untouched. Impeccably dressed even here, the man adjusted his silver cuffs as though conducting an experiment rather than a slaughter. Behind him, the ogres lurched in obedient ranks—eyes glazed, veins pulsing with alchemical corruption. They didn't breathe so much as twitch, puppets of his craft.
Kaito raised his blade again. The steel hissed as if protesting. His armor's runes sputtered out one by one. His thoughts, however, stayed knife-sharp.
If I fall now, she dies. If I hesitate, everything I am ends here.
He stepped forward. His sword ignited, the black steel flushing red as it drew the heat of his spirit into the edge. The ogres lunged, and Kaito met them with the precision of ritual—one stroke for each abomination. Each strike a prayer to something no god had ever answered.
The glyph burst apart in a flash of red and white. Shattered runes scattered like glass shards, and the backlash scorched his armor, searing the flesh beneath. He barely registered the pain. Pain was a language he spoke fluently.
The mage's smile wavered.
"Impossible—those ogres were—"
"Predictable," Kaito said, voice flat.
Then he felt it—movement behind him. Subtle, sharp. A flare of mana that wasn't his. He turned just enough to see her.
Anzuyi.
Her body trembled as she knelt, one arm pressed to her wound. But it wasn't weakness that made the air shimmer around her—it was something darker. Black mist bled from her veins, twisting up like smoke from a candle. Her eyes were glassy with focus and fear, the color draining into violet-black.
Kaito froze. He'd seen corruption take hold before. Once it began, there was no stopping it. The body rotted; the mind dissolved. He raised his sword slightly—not in attack, but in readiness.
"Not you too…" he murmured.
Her gaze flicked to him. Through her trembling, she managed a single, defiant breath. And he saw it: control. Not surrender. She was fighting the corruption, holding it back through sheer will. Her own power was turning against her—and she refused to yield.
Kaito's jaw tightened.
"She's not breaking," he realized aloud. "She's choosing."
An ogre thundered toward him. Kaito pivoted, but before he could move, something whistled past his ear—a dagger, spinning end over end. It buried itself deep in the ogre's leg. The creature roared and stumbled, its massive frame crashing sideways.
Kaito seized the opening.
He drove forward in a blur, blade trailing heat. The greatsword cut through the ogre, split its spine, and never stopped. The swing carried into the Valerian's barrier, which shattered like a mirror. Sparks rained between them.
For the first time, the mage's face cracked—eyes wide, sweat beading along his temple.
"You…" he hissed. "You're no knight. You're a mistake."
Kaito met his gaze, eyes calm and depthless. "And yet here you are, dying from one."
The sword drove through flesh and bone, pinning the mage to the earth. A flash of alchemical light burst around the impact, then guttered out. The man convulsed once, whispering through bloody teeth, "The experiment… still lives…" before collapsing into silence.
The ogres faltered. Their glowing veins dimmed. The field went still.
Kaito exhaled slowly. His grip slackened, and he let the blade sink into the ground beside the corpse. Around him, the fires dwindled, replaced by a heavy, almost sacred quiet.
He didn't move for several breaths. The muscles in his arm twitched, and his burned hand shook uncontrollably. His body was finished. His mind wasn't.
A faint sound broke the stillness—a cough. Then another.
He turned.
Anzuyi sat slumped against a shattered root, face pale but breathing steady. The black mist had faded. She met his eyes with a tired, wry smirk.
Kaito walked toward her, each step deliberate, his armor creaking in protest. He stopped a few paces away and knelt, sword tip buried in the dirt between them.
"Next time you throw a knife at an ogre," he said, voice low, "aim higher."
Her smile ghosted wider. "Next time," she rasped, "warn me before you burn the ground."
Kaito allowed the faintest exhale through his nose. It might have been a laugh, or just relief pretending to be one.
For a while, neither spoke. The wind tugged gently at the grass around them, carrying away the last of the stench. Smoke thinned to gold as dawn broke beyond the hills, light crawling slowly across the battlefield's wreckage.
He looked at her silhouette against the light.
She shouldn't have survived. She should have run when he told her to.
And yet—she had stayed. Fought. Saved his life without promise of reward or recognition.
He remembered his words before the battle: "If help comes, let them clean the ashes. I'll handle the fire."
A bitter smile tugged at his mouth. She had come—not to clean the ashes, but to burn beside him.
Kaito rose. His hand trembled as he reached for the greatsword's hilt. The blade was black again, steam rising faintly from the steel. He looked at his reflection in it—blurred, bloodied, alive.
"Maybe it's not the fire I handle anymore," he muttered.
Anzuyi tilted her head. "What?"
He shook his head, lifting the sword to rest it on his shoulder. "Nothing. Rest while you can. Reinforcements will arrive soon."
She frowned faintly. "You actually sent a signal?"
"I didn't," he said, eyes on the horizon. "But someone will notice the fire."
She gave a soft, exhausted laugh. "Then you really are impossible."
Kaito didn't answer. The rising sun cast their shadows long over the broken ground—his, broad and burning; hers, thin but steady beside it. The two merged briefly in the wind, indistinguishable from one another.
The fire in him no longer asked to destroy.
It asked to protect—something far more dangerous.
.