The world comes back, not in a rush, but in a slow, agonizing bleed of sound and sensation. The first thing I hear is my own name. "Mizuki...?"
It is Kizawa. His voice is a raw, torn thing I have never heard before. It is the sound of pure, undiluted panic.
I am floating in a black, cold, empty ocean. I have no body. I have no thoughts. I am just... an echo.
"...on her knees! She is not breathing!" That is Erima. Her voice is sharp, thin, and terrifyingly high-pitched.
"Out of the way!" A guttural roar. Yogawa. I feel... a presence. A crackle of energy, not mine. A jolt, like lightning, hits my chest. "Vitae-Impulsa!" Yogawa screams. WHUMP. My body arches off the ground. I gasp. The sound is a hideous, wet rattle. Air, cold and tasting of rust and ozone, floods my lungs. The black ocean recedes, and the world returns, slamming into me like a physical blow. Pain. Agony. Exhaustion. I am on the ground. The ceiling of the foundry is spinning, a lazy, sick circle, far above me.
"She is back! She is breathing!" Erima cries, and I feel her hands on my face. They are shaking. "Mizuki! Stay with us! Do not close your eyes!" "I... I..." I cannot form words. My throat is sand. "Do not... try to talk," Kizawa says. I turn my head. It feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. He is on the ground next to me, his face the color of ash. His hand is still clutching mine, his grip so tight it is the only part of me that does not feel like it is floating away.
"We are not safe," Yogawa pants. He sounds like he just ran a marathon. "That... thing... that spell. It took everything I had left. We have to... move." "Move where?" Hachiro's voice is low, the first time I have ever heard him sound... small. "We just killed a General. Is it not over?" "Over?" Yogawa laughs, a harsh, ugly sound. "You think the Spinner King has only one? You think he does not know his General just got extinguished? Every demon in a fifty-mile radius is going to be converging on this foundry. We are not hunters anymore. We are prey. Get her up. Now."
I feel hands on me. I try to resist, but I have no strength. My body is a dead weight. "I... I can't," I whisper. My new skin, the raw, tender patch on my shoulder, flares with a dull, throbbing ache. It is... empty. "I have her," Kizawa growls. He is trying to stand, using his one remaining katana as a cane. He gets to his feet, swaying, his entire body trembling with the effort. "Kizawa, you are in no state-" Erima starts. "I. Have. Her." He sheathes his sword and leans down, sliding one arm under my back and the other under my knees. He grits his teeth, a low sound of exertion and pain, and lifts me. I am cradled against his chest. I can feel his heart hammering, a frantic, unsteady rhythm. He smells of sweat, steel, and ozone. "You are... an idiot," I mumble into his shirt. "You... lost your... sword..." "Be quiet, Mizuki," he says, his voice rough. "Or I will drop you." "Promise?" I rasp. A ghost of a smile. I feel his chest hitch. It might be a laugh. It might be a sob. "You are the idiot," he says.
"Which way?" Kizawa demands, adjusting my weight. I feel like a bundle of sticks. "Out the back," Erima directs, her bow nocked, her eyes scanning the shadows. "The way we came in is too open. Hachiro, take point. Yogawa, you have our six. I will move with Kizawa." "Got it!" Hachiro's voice is tight. He cracks his knuckles, the sound sharp in the sudden, vast silence of the foundry. "Just... do not... make me run," Yogawa pants, pulling his grimoire shut. "I think... I think I am bleeding internally." "We all are, Grumpy," Hachiro says. "Let's go."
The journey back is a nightmare. It is a blur of gray, decaying buildings, of Kizawa's strained breathing, of the constant, paranoid scuttling sounds from the alleyways. My 'Sacred Ground' and 'Phoenix Lance' purified the miasma, but the basic-level demons, the scavengers, are already creeping back in, drawn by the psychic echo of the General's death. They are too afraid to attack five people who smell like a dead General. But they watch. Hundreds of little red eyes in the dark. I keep fading in and out. One moment, I am staring at the side of Kizawa's face, at the tight line of his jaw, the sweat dripping from his blue hair. I see the fragments of his shattered sword, the hilt of which he has tucked into his belt. A broken half. A partner lost. The next, I am... somewhere else. A vast, warm, golden place. It is like being inside the sun, but it does not burn. It is just... empty. I am floating. I feel no pain. I feel no... anything. It is peace. And it terrifies me. "You gave," a voice rumbles. It sounds like my grandfather, but deeper, older. Like the grinding of mountains. "You poured out the cup. You emptied yourself to fill the void." I try to speak, but I have no mouth. "It was a good, true act. But it was reaction. It was instinct. It was not control. Look at yourself, child. You are an empty vessel. What happens when the next void comes? You have nothing left to give." A single, sharp thread of silver light appears in the golden emptiness. It is cold. It is sharp. It is precise. It is the color of my daggers. "The gold is your life. The silver is your will. You have one, but not the other. You are... unbalanced. You are an inferno without a shape. You are a heart without a mind. Find the balance... or you will be extinguished." The silver thread floats closer. I try to... reach for it...
"She is seizing!" Erima's voice, sharp as glass. I am back in Kizawa's arms. My body is... wrong. I am twitching, a cold, violent shudder that has nothing to do with the temperature. "Hold on! Just hold on, Mii-chan! We are almost there!" Kizawa is running. His steps are heavy, pounding, desperate. The world jolts with every impact. "She is... she is burning up!" he pants. "No, she is... ice cold! What is happening?" "It is the recoil!" Yogawa yells from behind us. "She emptied herself! Her body does not know... what it is... anymore! It is trying to... to be! It is trying to find its baseline! Get her inside!"
A door splinters. Hachiro's work. We are inside. The old shrine. The air is still, smelling of incense and old wood. It is safe. Kizawa does not set me down gently. He drops me onto a row of futons, collapsing to his knees beside me. He is panting, his body slick with sweat. "Erima, water. Hachiro, the door. Yogawa, do something!" Kizawa barks, his voice taking on a command I have never heard. "I am trying!" Yogawa snaps, collapsing against a pillar. "I cannot fix this with a spell! This is not a wound! This is... spiritual exhaustion! She is... her soul is... overdrawn! She is in soul-debt!" "What does that mean?" Erima demands, pressing a canteen to my lips. I cannot drink. The water just dribbles down my chin. "It means," Yogawa says, his voice dropping to a whisper, "that her body is fine. Her self... her essence... is running on fumes. She gave too much. She literally... gave parts of her soul to re-write that curse. And I do not know... if she has enough left to... to come back."
Silence. A terrible, heavy, crushing silence. Hachiro is at the door, his back to us, his shoulders slumped. "So... we won. But we lost. Is that it?" "No." Kizawa's voice is a razor. He is on his knees, leaning over me. He has his one good hand on my forehead. His hand is rough, calloused, but it is... warm. "You are not allowed," he whispers, his voice for me alone. "You hear me, Mizuki? I forbid it. You... you still... owe me a sword." He is trying to joke. It comes out as a broken plea. "You are the Moonlight Phoenix Girl. So... so get up. You do not get to save us and then... and then leave. That is not how this works." He leans his forehead against mine. His hair is tickling my face. "Do not... leave me... in this stupid, demon-filled world... alone. Please, Mii-chan. Come back."
He is... warm. I am in the golden void. It is so empty. So peaceful. I want to... sleep. But there is a... warmth. A small, persistent pinprick of heat in the vast, empty gold. It is... him. It is Kizawa's hand on my head. It is his voice, pulling at me. The silver thread... the thread of will... is floating before me. You are an empty vessel. How will you refill it? I do not know how. You are not alone. The warmth... Kizawa's warmth... it is an anchor. I am not just... a 'giving' fire. I am a... hunter. I am a fighter. I have a will. I reach out. In my mind, in my soul, I grab the silver thread. And I pull.
It is not gentle. It is an icy, violent shock. The silver thread weaves into the golden emptiness, and the world tilts. The peace is shattered. The emptiness is filled. It is filled with... me. My pain. My anger. My fear. My stubbornness. My... life. It is an agonizing, freezing, burning return.
I gasp. This time, it is real. My eyes fly open. The first thing I see is Kizawa's face, inches from mine. His eyes are wide, his expression a mixture of shock, terror, and a hope so fragile it hurts to look at. The room is dark. The others are... sleeping. Erima is slumped by the door, her bow in her lap. Yogawa is a heap of robes by the altar, his grimoire on his chest. Hachiro is... snoring. Loudly. Kizawa is the only one awake. He has been... watching me. His hand is still on my forehead. "Kizawa...?" My voice is a dry leaf skittering on pavement. His shoulders... just... collapse. A breath he has been holding for hours, for days, rushes out of him. He does not cry. He does not shout. He just... slumps, his forehead still resting against mine. "You," he whispers, his voice thick, "are... the worst." "You... are... heavy," I rasp. He jerks back, his eyes searching mine. "How... how do you feel?" "Like... I got hit by a General," I whisper. I try to sit up. "Do not-" I push myself up on my good arm. My body screams. Every muscle, every joint, is on fire. But... it is my fire. I am here. "I am... okay," I pant, leaning back against the wall. "I am... empty. But I am okay." He just stares at me. His one good hand is clenched into a fist in his lap. His other hand... is on the hilt of his broken sword. "You... your hair," he says, his voice strange. "What?" "At your temple. By your ear." I shakily lift my hand to my head. My hair... it feels the same. "What about it?" "It is... gold," he says. "Just... one strand. It... it glowed. When you woke up. And then it... just... stayed." I try to see it, but I cannot. A single strand of golden hair, permanent, among the silver. "Huh," I say, my voice still weak. "A... souvenir." He stares at the golden strand, then at my new, raw skin on my shoulder, and then, finally, his eyes meet mine. He is not the boy I grew up with. Not anymore. The terror is gone, replaced by a cold, hard, terrifying resolve. "It is enough," he says, his voice a low vow. "What is?" "This," he says, gesturing to me, to his broken sword, to the sleeping, exhausted team. "This... 'losing to win'... this... 'surviving'. It is not enough. You... me... we are not strong enough. Not yet." He picks up the hili of his broken katana. "I am going to get stronger," he says. It is not a boast. It is a simple statement of fact. "I am going to get so strong... that I will never... ever... have to throw my sword again." I just watch him, my heart aching with a strange, new mix of pride and fear. The battle is over. The General is dead. But the war... the war has just truly begun.