Chapter 20: Are you all right?

 The sun was barely filtering through the dense foliage of the trees, drawing dancing patterns on the uneven path. Ren walked forward at a measured pace, his breathing slightly labored from the training he had just completed, but an amused smile grazed his lips as he thought of Mizuki.

“Mizuki is a girl who is more easily frightened than she cares to admit,” he thought to himself, his voice imbued with tender admiration. That Mizuki, whom he had come to know, was not only the angry girl ready to defend herself with gritted teeth, but also a fragile creature behind that armor. Fragile, yes, but capable of surprise.

Just as he was about to call out to her, a sudden silence hit him, “Mizuki?” His voice cracked in his throat, confused. Where the hell had she gone? He turned slowly, looking for her figure in the trees, but there was no sign of her.

A shadow of worry crept into his chest as he began to call for her in a more insistent, then increasingly firm voice, "Mizuki! Where are you?!"

Her footsteps became hurried, breaking off dry branches and making dry leaves crunch under her shoes. "Don't play tricks like that, especially here, not now! Please show yourself!" But the forest seemed to engulf him with its merciless silence.

Anguish gripped his heart like a vice. It was not easy to keep calm in an unfamiliar place, without landmarks, without Mizuki beside him to show him the way. The thought that she might be lost, or worse, that something had happened to her, made him clench his fists.

With a heavy sigh, he gave up on going any further and retraced his steps, heading for the bee area, the place where he had seen her moments earlier collecting that precious honey. Perhaps she had returned there, or perhaps she needed something else. But when she arrived, she found it empty, as silent as a faded memory.

“If not for the honey... then why?” The thought haunted him, yet he kept looking for it, with the hope that the silence might break at any moment.

And finally, in the distant trees, a scream ripped through the air: a call charged with emotion, fear and perhaps hope.

He paused for a moment, his heart pounding, ready to run toward that voice.

He did not waste a single moment. His heart was pounding in his chest as he ran at breakneck speed toward that desperate voice that had torn through the silence of the forest. When he finally emerged from behind a bush, the sight before him froze his blood for a moment: Mizuki stood there, motionless, her face pale and her eyes wide open, as a huge boar, muscles tense and fangs gleaming, was hunting her with a menace that seemed to come from another world.

“I-I should never have strayed so far... just to look for a place to do my business...” his voice trembled, as fragile as a leaf in the wind. Yet beneath that palpable fear, there was a sense of desperate determination.

Mizuki was alone, and she did not even have her sword with her. It was an unequal confrontation, and she knew it. “Now either I run, or... die here.” An icy thought, but the only way left for her.

The boar made a hoarse sound, a grunt that vibrated in the boy's chest, making the ground shake beneath his feet. Each step of the animal was an echo of impending danger, a drum of war in the stillness of the forest.

The girl tried to flee, but her body, still shaken by fear, did not allow her agility or decision. And what she had not noticed, with bated breath and heart in her throat, was the fact that the boar was standing exactly behind her, a few steps away.

When she slowly turned around, she barely held back a scream: any slightest sound could have triggered the sudden attack. “M-Mr. b-boar...” her voice became almost a whisper, charged with a hope that defied the absurdity of the situation, “I-I have honey with me...w-will you have it?”

But the wild giant did not answer. There was no anger or threat in his eyes, only curious inquiry, an instinct that drove him to sniff the air around Mizuki, perhaps searching for the sweet aroma she held tightly in her trembling hands.

Ren held his breath, time seemed to slow down as he observed that fragile yet tension-filled scene.

He tried to take a step forward, determined to reach Mizuki, but a thunderous thump of the boar's paws nipped him in the bud. The sound, powerful and roaring, expanded like a storm wave through the trees, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Instinctively, he raised his hands protectively, as Mizuki, covering her ears, muttered in despair, “Ahhh, you're stunning me!”

She backed away slowly, her heart in her throat. That boar was not like the first one they had encountered, it was different, and this difference conveyed a sense of unease to him. It did not show the blind fury of the common enemy, but seemed in deeper anger, almost searching for something or someone.

He did not move a step away from Mizuki, as if he was there for her, and only for her.

He tried to shout her name, but his voice was swallowed by the roar of the beast. Frustrated, he leaned forward, his hands clenched around the hilt of the sword he wore on his belt. "W-what can I do? I can't leave her alone..."

He knew he had the sword, but getting closer meant risking being swept away by the vibrations of the ground, now unstable and shaken by the animal's heavy footsteps. “If this continues, I will fall and he will be the last thing I see.”

Meanwhile, she, still trembling, tried to keep calm. With hesitant but firm hands, she placed a jar of honey on a large leaf and brought it close to the boar's snout. "L-look...it's sweet, so sweet. Fresh, just picked... A-as soon as you taste it, you will feel reborn. It will make you feel really good."

The boar, as if understanding those words, slowly lowered his head, dipping his snout into the sweet aroma floating in the air. He sniffed carefully, then, after a few seconds, began to lick the honey, slowly, almost with curiosity. Ren watched with frail hope, "H-have you seen it? It's good..."

But that hope was soon dashed. The energy that the honey seemed to have infused into the giant turned into an even more menacing force. With a fierce roar, the boar turned and began to violently strike the trees around Mizuki, uprooting them one by one, felling them like a living hurricane.

Each fallen tree removed a shelter, a protection, leaving her exposed, as fragile as a leaf in the wind. By now, all that remained around her was bare ground. Mizuki was on the ground, her legs trembling and unable to hold her up, sweat pouring down her forehead, streaking her face in a shiny trail.

That honey, which had provided relief for a moment, had awakened a destructive force in the boar. And Ren knew, with a chill in her soul, that he would not let her live.

The boar took up the chase, every muscle tense and ready to strike.
The world seemed to slow down for her, an instant suspended between life and death, until a sharp sound, sharp and clear, ripped through the air.
“ZACK.”

The boy's blade shone for an instant, a flash of silver piercing the beast's heart.

When she opened her eyes, she found Ren standing before her, his face taut and scarred with fatigue, the still bloody sword clutched in his hand. The boar lay motionless at her feet, finally silent.

He, with a wheeze of breath, bent toward her. “Are you all right?” His voice, relieved but still charged with tension, seemed to want to banish any remaining fear.

And in that moment, all of Mizuki's terror and loneliness dissolved, replaced by a confidence that only he could give her.

She barely held back her tears, a tight knot tightening in her throat as she stared at him. It was hard to believe that the very person - the one she had always thought evil, distant, unreachable - had saved her once again. The sudden warmth she felt in her cheeks seemed a mystery, as if her body was reacting to something deeper, a hidden emotion she could not explain even to herself.

Her heart, that fragile drum in her chest, began to beat faster, as if to shout to her that something was changing. Her legs were trembling, but slowly that feeling dissolved, replaced by an unexpected calm, a confidence that only Ren's presence could give her. It was as if, for the first time, she could really let her guard down, let go without fear.

A thought, slight and tentative, crept into her soul: perhaps she was beginning to feel something new. Perhaps his heart, closed for too long, was opening to a feeling he had never known before. A feeling that spoke of protection, trust, and perhaps... love.

Her lips wanted to say something, simple and sincere words, but they remained imprisoned, as if a spell had clamped them shut. That silence, however, was not empty: it was full of unspoken emotions, unseen promises that only the heart could hear.

She felt a quivering in her stomach, those light butterflies dancing in her gut, mixed with a sense of happiness that seemed too fragile to last, yet so real that it made her eyes shine. Those eyes that looked at Ren with a new light, the light of one who has found a savior, but also something more, a secret bond, an alliance of souls.