"Standing among the rubble, I choke, staring into an unending living hell."
(Then, a trembling voice came from the other side of the flames… Kyoji.)
Kyoji (in a choked voice): "Enough… Hikaru, please…"
(Tears glistened on his cheeks, and he made no effort to hide them. He raised his hand to his face, as if trying to erase an unerasable image. He looked like someone who felt each word as a blade to his own chest.)
Kyoji (his voice breaking): "You… you lived through an unbearable hell, and I thought you were just strong because you never spoke. I had no idea you were burning in silence all these years… My God… a nine-year-old seeing all that… how did you stay standing? How did you survive?"
(He falls silent for a moment, wipes his face harshly, like trying to pull himself together, then whispers a confession-like truth:) "If I were in your place… I don't think I would've ever left that village."
(Hikaru looks at him—a long, silent look filled with unspoken gratitude. But when he speaks, his voice is deeper, steadier.)
Hikaru: "I didn't leave… not really. Part of me is still there, Kyoji. In the ashes. In the bodies of my friends. In my grandfather's hand that fell before it could finish the final blow.
My body survived… but my soul? I left it with them."
(He pauses, takes a slow breath, then continues like he's speaking to the shadows themselves:)
Hikaru: "It's been nine years since the massacre, but time wasn't kind to me— it was a cold blade twisting in the wound night after night. I was like a lone figure in a distant desert, drowning in an endless sea, searching for a reason to exist, for a meaning to stay alive, lost between the darkness of light and the light of darkness, walking a path into the unknown… and the unknown became my only companion.
Searching for vengeance… searching for peace."
**"One day, I just walked away. I didn't know where to go. I followed the wind… or maybe I was running from it.
Days passed. I lived off scraps, hid from people, from wolves, from memories. I grew up faster than a child's heart should bear."**
(He pauses again, then smiles faintly with a bittersweet longing.)
"… And before my light completely faded… I met him."
(He looks directly at Kyoji.)
Hikaru: "I met you."
Kyoji (surprised): "Me?"
Hikaru (softly): "I was fifteen, exhausted, starving, barefoot. I had fallen into a valley near the outskirts of the capital, bleeding from my feet, and I thought I was going to die."
"But suddenly… I heard a sound. A boy, just a little younger than me, fighting off three thieves… with bare hands."
(For the first time since the story began, Hikaru smiles lightly.) "He was reckless… brave, and quick-tongued. But he saved me without even knowing who I was."
Kyoji (laughing, wiping away a final tear): "Oh… I remember now… You were groaning in pain, but you didn't say a word… You looked at me like you couldn't believe someone would help without asking for anything in return."
Hikaru: "Because I truly didn't believe it. In my world… people steal, kill, burn. But in that moment… I realized the world wasn't just darkness."
"From that night on, we walked together. I didn't tell you everything then, nor in the days that followed… But you were the first person I reached out to again."
(Hikaru looks into the fire, then breathes deeply.)
Hikaru: "And that's why… When I decided to return… When I chose to face those who did this to me… You were the first person that came to mind. Because you're the only one who didn't abandon me when I was at my lowest.
And that's why… I'm grateful you're here with me tonight, in this forest."
(Then he whispers, voice nearly breaking:)
"I want to end this, Kyoji. Not just for revenge… but to bury their ashes the way they deserve."