Toki grabbed Utsuki, then Tora, then the old man.
"Out! Now!"
They rushed through the back, coughing, ducking beneath fire and falling beams. The inn groaned as its skeleton burned.
Outside, they collapsed, eyes wide with firelight.
Toki turned, watching the building he had fought to protect die in a blaze.
The flames of the burning inn licked the night sky, spitting embers into the air like fireflies in a storm. Behind them, the crackle of collapsing wood and the groan of dying beams filled the silence that followed the battle. The heat singed their backs as they walked away, step by heavy step.
Toki's legs trembled, not just from blood loss, but from the weight of what had happened. Tora was small in his arms, curled like a kitten, her breath shallow but steady. Her tiny fingers still clung to the hem of his shirt, even in sleep.
The old man stood beside them, a shadow against the fire, his sword now a twisted length of metal, no longer fit for war.
— "You saved our lives, boy," he said, his voice rough, scraped raw by pain and smoke.
Toki didn't answer right away. His lip was split, his brow bleeding, and his entire body was wrapped in agony. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and cracked.
— "It's my fault," he muttered. "If I hadn't... If I'd done things differently from the start..."
He looked down at the girl in his arms, then back to the old man. The blood on his shirt was not all his. Some of it had been hers — from that first moment, when the knife nearly found her instead of him.
— "I'll help you rebuild," he added quietly, almost as if speaking to himself.
The old man shook his head and smiled — a tired, broken smile, but warm nonetheless.
— "No need. The inn was just wood. Life is the real home. And you've protected it."
He stepped forward, resting a bloodied hand on Toki's shoulder.
— "But..." he added, his voice turning softer, almost hesitant. "Could you take care of Tora for a while?"
Toki didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the girl again, her lashes long against her cheeks, the faintest rise and fall of her chest visible beneath the soot-streaked blanket she was wrapped in. He swallowed hard.
He had no home either. No family. No direction. But somehow, in this ruined night, in the shadow of ash and blood, she had found her way into his arms. And stayed.
He nodded once, slowly.
— "I will."
Utsuki stepped out of the smoke, her robe half-burned, hair tangled, but her presence still serene — like a candle that had refused to go out.
— "You can come with us," she said gently. "To my master's villa. There's room for everyone."
The old man gave a faint nod. Utsuki stepped beside Toki, looked down at Tora, then at him. Her expression was unreadable for a moment — tired, thoughtful, maybe even proud.
Toki shifted the girl slightly, adjusting her weight. His arms were numb. But his hold on her didn't loosen.
— "Everything will be fine," he whispered, the words more for her than anyone else.
And for the first time that night, she moved — just a little. Her brow relaxed. Her grip loosened. Sleep came fully, like a heavy blanket drawn over her tiny frame.
Behind them, the last beam of the inn groaned, cracked, and collapsed in a burst of sparks.
None of them looked back.
They walked on through the night, bruised and burned and barely holding together — but alive.
The road ahead was uncertain. But for now, they walked it together.
And above them, the stars began to return.
"The spell you used was quite weak, why didn't you use a higher level technique?" Utsuki said in a mocking tone.
Toki with a ashamed tone says, "I have the necessary mana but when I try to draw it out, I can't maintain the shape and that's why it's dangerous for me to use spells in confined spaces. I often choose to use mana to strengthen my body or weapons because that way it's much easier for me to use the correct amount of mana."
— Why did you hesitate to kill her? she asked.
Toki looked into the night.
— You can't blame fire for burning. That's its nature. So is man. You can't force it to be anything
Toki could barely walk, each step leaving a smear of blood on the dirt path. His shoulders sagged, and his left arm trembled uncontrollably. His ribs were bruised black and blue, deep cuts stretched across his back and chest, refusing to close. Still, he clutched the old man's sword tightly — though his hand was torn open, blood dripping through his fingers with every movement.
Utsuki caught up to him in silence, watching how he carried the sleeping girl in his arms and moved forward through the night with the stubbornness of a statue rather than a man. Without a word, she tore the lower part of her dress — clean, sharp, with surprising precision — and began to gently wrap strips of fabric around his wounds.
— "Hold still," she said softly, but firmly. "Or you'll bleed out before sunrise."
Toki stopped, but didn't meet her gaze. He let her lift his arm, wrap the gash in his palm, bind his wrist with careful tension. Utsuki's hands trembled slightly, but they didn't stop. She cleaned a wound across his collarbone, then tightened a strip of cloth around his shattered ribs.
When she reached for the gash on his forehead, he instinctively pulled back.
— "Leave it…" he muttered.
Utsuki didn't stop.
— "Be quiet."
She lifted his chin gently and began wiping his forehead — dried blood, dirt, sweat. She pressed the edge of another clean piece of fabric to the cut, now seeping red once more.
— "Why are you doing this?" he asked quietly, finally looking at her.
She paused, then resumed without answering right away.
— "Because this is what people do when they don't want to lose the ones who matter."
Utsuki's voice trembled slightly as she said it, not from weakness, but from the weight of what the words carried. She wasn't merely tending to a wound. She was preserving something fragile, something that had only just begun to take form amidst fire and ruin.
Toki didn't respond right away. The weight of the girl in his arms was growing heavier with every step, but he didn't shift her. He bore it like he bore his pain — silently, stubbornly. But something in Utsuki's words lingered in the space between them. They pressed against the silence like the warmth of a hand resting just above a bruise.
He looked at her again, really looked — past the singed fabric of her robe, past the soot on her cheeks, past the fierce composure she wore like armor. He saw the tiredness in her eyes, yes, but he also saw the truth in them. The tenderness. The fear. The hope.
And it struck him: this woman, who had no reason to stay, who could have vanished into the night the moment the flames rose — had chosen to remain. Not for obligation. Not for duty. But for them.
"People like you…" he began, his voice hoarse, "...don't owe anything to people like me."
She frowned slightly. "What does that even mean?"
Toki looked ahead, toward the uncertain road curling into the shadows of the hills. "It means I've spent my life running through fire without looking back. I'm not used to someone standing beside me when it burns."
Utsuki tightened the bandage around his ribs, then met his gaze again. "Then maybe it's time you stop running."
A moment passed. The fire behind them crackled low now — just embers smoldering in the bones of what once was. A place of safety turned to ash. A past that could not be rebuilt.
Utsuki sat beside him on the edge of a broken stone wall. "You know," she said, pulling her knees up, "when I was a child, my mother used to say that people are like lanterns. Some are full of light. Some are cracked, leaking it out. And some are completely dark inside, not because they have no light — but because no one ever stayed long enough to help them find it."
Toki looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. Tora had lost everything tonight. And yet, somehow, her hand had still clung to his shirt, even in unconsciousness. As if she'd known something he hadn't. As if she trusted him to keep holding on.
"She stayed with me," he said. "Even after I told her to run."
"She's a child," Utsuki replied. "They haven't learned how to lie about love yet. They just give it. Freely. To those who need it most."
Toki's chest ached — from the wounds, yes, but also from the weight of understanding. No one had ever taught him how to receive something like that. He had learned to survive, not to belong.
"I don't know how to do this," he whispered.
Utsuki tilted her head. "Do what?"
"Be someone people can depend on. Be someone who matters enough to fight for instead of just fighting against."
Utsuki's voice softened even more. "You're doing it already."
He shook his head. "I'm just trying not to fall apart."
"Then fall apart," she said. "But don't stop moving. Don't stop choosing. That's the difference between people who lose everything and those who build something new — the ones who matter don't wait to become strong. They choose to stay. Even when they're broken."
Toki blinked. His eyes burned again, not from smoke this time. He looked away quickly.
"This is what people do…" she repeated, more gently now, "...when they don't want to lose the ones who matter. They bind wounds. They share burdens. They sit in the dark and hold a hand, even when they don't know what comes next."
Utsuki stood and looked down at him. The wind tugged lightly at her ruined robe. Her silhouette was lit faintly by the fading glow of the dying fire, and in that moment, she looked less like a survivor and more like a guide.
"There was a moment back there," she said quietly, "when I thought we wouldn't make it out. When the beam fell. I saw it — saw the fire leap — and thought, 'This is how it ends.' And then you pulled us out. You carried her. You didn't think. You acted. You chose us."
Toki swallowed hard. The memory hit like a blow — the weight of smoke, the searing heat, the shriek of splintering wood, Tora's tiny cry. His own name, called not in command or scorn, but in fear. In need.
"I wasn't fast enough," he said. "She almost—"
"But she didn't," Utsuki interrupted. "Because you were there."
They stood in silence again. Then, quietly, she reached out and brushed a piece of ash from his shoulder.
"I've spent my life among warriors, mages, priests. People who believe that power is the same as purpose. But tonight?" She looked at him, her expression unreadable but tender. "You taught me something different."
Toki frowned. "What?"
"That even a broken man can hold the world together — if he chooses to hold someone else first."
He didn't know what to say to that. Words felt too small. Too fragile.
So he just looked down at Tora again. Her hair was matted with soot, her cheek resting against his arm. Still asleep. Still safe.
He adjusted his grip on her, more gently this time. Not as a burden, but as something precious.
Utsuki turned toward the path again, then looked back. "Come on. The road's long. But there's warmth at the end of it. And maybe… something worth staying for."
Toki nodded slowly.
And as they walked, step by step, through the smoke and into the unknown, the meaning of her words followed him like a second heartbeat:
This is what people do when they don't want to lose the ones who matter.
They stay.
They choose.
And they walk on.
Toki lowered his eyes again.
In his arms, Tora slept peacefully, protected. In front of him, Utsuki was keeping him alive. Behind them, the inn burned — but now the fire didn't feel like the end. It felt like the start of something else.
When she finished, she tied the last bandage around his palm and gave him a faint smile — a flicker of light amid all the wreckage.
— "There. You're no longer just a fighter," she said. "You're a guardian now."
Toki let out a long breath. The pain was still there. The exhaustion, too. But for a reason he couldn't quite explain, his back felt a little straighter.
— "Let's go," he said.
And so they walked on, toward the master's villa, the fire behind them and a new silence between them — not born of fear, but of something stronger. A bond. A promise.