The sun rose anyway.

  It did not hesitate.

  Light slid slowly across the horizon, thin and pale at first, then warmer—brushing the tops of distant trees in quiet gold. The sky shifted in gentle gradients, blue deepening above, orange softening below.

  Morning arrived as if nothing had happened.

  As if someone had not been buried beneath stone.

  The road ahead stretched narrow and uneven, cutting through tall grass that bent easily in the wind.

  Two figures moved along it.

  Neither spoke.

  They had walked through the night.

  Boots pressed into dirt. Breath steady. Eyes forward.

  Yukito walked first.

  He did not look back.

  But he knew where Havencrest would be if he did.

  He knew exactly the angle at which the light would hit the Temple steps.

  He knew the hill. The memorial wall. The empty place beside it.

  He didn’t look.

  If he looked, he might stop.

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Takumi’s voice broke the quiet.

  Yukito kept walking.

  The question lingered in the air between them.

  “Yuki.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “I don’t really have one.”

  Takumi stopped.

  Yukito took another step before slowing.

  “You don’t have a plan,” Takumi said.

  “I just know I need to find it,” Yukito replied. His voice sounded calmer than he felt. “And kill it.”

  The word kill felt heavier in daylight.

  Takumi stepped closer.

  “You left in the middle of the night. We’ve been walking for hours. And you don’t even have a fucking plan.”

  “You didn’t have to come.”

  Takumi’s jaw tightened.

  “The fact that you don’t even have a plan,” he said evenly, “is exactly why I did.”

  The wind shifted through the grass.

  Yukito didn’t respond.

  He had replayed it all night. Every possible path. Every imagined version of the fight. Every version where he moved faster. Where he shouted sooner. Where he dragged Ojiro back.

  None of them ended differently.

  He swallowed that thought before it reached his face.

  Takumi rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at the rising sun.

  “We’re stopping.”

  “We just started.”

  “We’ve been walking since last night.”

  Yukito hesitated.

  His legs were heavier than he’d realized.

  “We need to eat,” Takumi continued. “We can think of a plan. Then we move.”

  After a moment, Yukito nodded.

  They stepped off the road when the land opened.

  The tall grass thinned into a wide stretch of wind-brushed field, pale green and silver under the rising sun. It dipped slightly in the middle, and there—almost centered—stood a lone tree. Its trunk was thick enough to split the wind, its branches wide enough to cast a long shadow across the flattened grass beneath it.

  Yukito angled toward it without thinking.

  Takumi veered toward the edge of the field where brush grew thicker.

  “Where are you going?” Yukito called without looking.

  “Not starving,” Takumi replied, already crouching near a cluster of low shrubs.

  Yukito dropped beneath the tree and leaned back against the bark. It was rough and cool against his shoulders. He slid down until he was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him.

  The field felt exposed.

  Open sky. No walls. No rooftops. No lanterns.

  Just wind.

  Takumi pushed through the brush for a minute—leaves rustling, a branch snapping, a quiet curse when something scratched his hand.

  He came back with a small handful of dark berries, dusted faintly with morning dew.

  He let them fall into Yukito’s lap.

  “Breakfast.”

  Yukito looked down at them.

  The berries were small. Slightly wrinkled. One still had a leaf stuck to it.

  “…You can’t be serious.”

  Takumi dropped down beside him, stretching one leg out while propping the other knee up. He wiped his fingers on his pants and popped one of the berries into his mouth without hesitation.

  “They’re called Shō berries,” he said around the bite. “Supposed to be good for you.”

  Yukito stared at the fruit in his palm.

  He studied it for another second, clearly unconvinced. Then, with visible annoyance, he tossed one into his mouth.

  The sourness hit instantly.

  His face tightened.

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  He coughed once, sharply. “These are awful.”

  Takumi swallowed.

  “Never said they were good.”

  Yukito picked up another berry between two fingers, holding it up like evidence.

  Takumi finally looked over at him, unimpressed.

  “If you don’t want yours, I’ll eat them.”

  Yukito sighed through his nose and dropped the berry into his mouth anyway.

  The wind shifted through the field, brushing the grass in low silver waves around them. The lone tree creaked faintly above, leaves stirring in the morning light.

  For a second, it almost felt like one of their old training breaks—sitting somewhere too quiet, pretending they weren’t exhausted.

  Takumi leaned his head back against the trunk, eyes half-lidded.

  He glanced sideways.

  Yukito wasn’t looking at the field.

  He wasn’t looking at the sky.

  He was staring at nothing.

  The berries rested forgotten in his hand.

  Takumi watched him for a few seconds longer than usual.

  Then he let out a slow breath, annoyed that he was going to have to be the one to say it.

  “Alright.”

  Yukito didn’t move.

  “What’s actually going on with you?”

  Yukito didn’t answer.

  The wind moved through the field again, pressing the grass flat before letting it rise.

  Takumi waited.

  Yukito rolled one of the berries between his fingers. The skin split slightly beneath the pressure, staining his thumb dark.

  “Nothing.”

  Takumi let out a short, humorless breath.

  “You’ve been like this since Ojiro.”

  Yukito didn’t look at him.

  Takumi’s voice stayed steady, but there was edge under it now.

  “I get it. I do. You need time to grieve. We both do.”

  The wind moved through the field, brushing the grass flat for a second before letting it rise again.

  “But that doesn’t give you an excuse to be an idiot and cut off the world.”

  Yukito’s jaw tightened.

  “How can you say that?”

  The words came out sharper than he meant them to.

  Takumi didn’t look away.

  “Because you’re not the only one who lost someone.”

  The wind shifted across the field, brushing the grass flat before it rose again.

  “Damn it, you’re not the only one who lost a friend,” Takumi continued. His voice was steady, but it wasn’t calm. “Or a brother.”

  Yukito’s throat tightened.

  Takumi leaned forward slightly.

  “We both trained with him. We both grew up with him. You don't think I'm upset too?”

  Yukito didn’t answer.

  “You’re acting like you’re carrying something the rest of us aren’t allowed to touch,” Takumi said. “Acting like the rest of us just… moved on.”

  The words weren’t loud.

  They were tired.

  “You don’t get to disappear to go play hero,” Takumi added. “That’s selfish.”

  The word hung there.

  Selfish.

  Yukito looked away.

  His fingers tightened around the crushed berries in his palm, staining them darker.

  Takumi exhaled slowly.

  “I get needing time,” he said. “I do. But you don’t get to shut everyone out and pretend that’s the only way to deal with it.”

  The field had gone quiet again.

  Yukito stared at the horizon.

  Yukito’s voice dropped.

  “I knew.”

  Takumi’s brow furrowed.

  “Knew what?”

  Yukito swallowed.

  “I knew it was going to happen.”

  The wind seemed to stop.

  Takumi stared at him.

  “Knew what?”

  Yukito swallowed.

  “The people,” he said quietly. “The Archon.”

  Takumi’s brow furrowed slightly.

  “What about them.”

  Yukito didn’t look away.

  “The building collapsing.”

  The wind shifted through the grass.

  Takumi didn’t move.

  “I knew it was going to collapse.”

  Takumi blinked once, like his mind had to reset.

  “You’re saying—”

  “I saw it before it happened.”

  Silence pressed in around them.

  Takumi’s expression shifted. Not disbelief.

  Calculation.

  “Do you think this is your virtue?”

  Yukito shook his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It has to be,” Takumi continued, leaning forward now. “Some kind of predictive function. Probability mapping. Future projection—”

  “I can’t see the future.”

  Takumi stopped mid-thought.

  Yukito’s voice wasn’t defensive.

  It was honest.

  “At least… I don’t think I can.”

  He looked down at his hands, at the dark berry stains on his fingers.

  “It’s not something I trigger. It just hits. And it’s not detailed. It’s just… certain.”

  Takumi studied him carefully.

  “You’re sure it wasn’t just fear? Or instinct?”

  “It wasn’t a guess.”

  The answer came immediately.

  “I felt it.”

  The wind returned, brushing the grass in slow waves around them.

  “I thought if I didn’t say anything,” Yukito continued quietly, “maybe it wouldn’t happen.”

  Takumi didn’t interrupt.

  “And by the time I realized I was sure…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  He didn’t have to.

  Takumi leaned back against the trunk again.

  “You think you could’ve stopped it,” he said.

  Yukito didn’t answer.

  That was answer enough.

  “And now you’re scared it’ll happen again.”

  Yukito swallowed.

  “Yes.”

  The word was barely louder than the wind.

  He looked out over the field.

  “If that’s what my virtue is… what happens next time? What if I see something again and I freeze? What if I don’t say anything again?”

  For the first time since they’d left Havencrest—

  Yukito didn’t look angry.

  He looked unsure.

  And that unsettled Takumi more than anything else.

  Takumi didn’t answer right away.

  The wind moved through the field again, bending the grass in long, slow waves.

  He stared ahead for a moment, jaw set.

  Then—

  “If my dad taught us anything,” he said evenly, “it’s this.”

  Yukito looked at him.

  “We don’t panic. We don’t isolate. We adapt.”

  The words weren’t loud.

  They were familiar.

  “You remember that,” Takumi continued. “He drilled it into us.”

  Yukito’s fingers tightened slightly against the berry stains on his skin.

  “We don’t carry things alone just because we’re scared of being wrong,” Takumi said. “We bring it forward. We deal with it together.”

  His expression hardened—not angry.

  Determined.

  “If this is your virtue,” he went on, “then it’s not something you bury. It’s something we learn.”

  Yukito looked down.

  “I can’t control it.”

  “Then we figure out how.”

  Takumi’s voice didn’t waver.

  “That’s what we were trained for.”

  The wind tugged at the leaves above them.

  “If you see something again,” Takumi said, quieter now, “you tell me.”

  He pushed himself up from the base of the tree and brushed grass from his pants. Then he straightened, shoulders squared, expression shifting into something almost theatrical.

  “Because if I’m the great successor to the Renshō family name—”

  He lifted a hand like he was addressing a crowd.

  “—then you, sir, are Yukito Yuki.”

  He pointed at him with exaggerated seriousness.

  “The second greatest Hunter in all of Havencrest.”

  A pause.

  “And all of Hajimeru Island.”

  Yukito stared up at him.

  Then slowly—

  A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “Second?”

  Takumi didn’t hesitate.

  “Obviously.”

  He crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back with exaggerated confidence.

  “There’s no way you’re a better Hunter than me.”

  Yukito let out a quiet laugh.

  Then both of them laughed.

  Not loudly.

  Not wildly.

  Just enough to loosen the weight that had been pressing down since Havencrest.

  The wind rolled through the field again, warmer now.

  Takumi glanced toward the road.

  “Besides,” he said casually, “I think I have a plan.”