The Road Forward (道のり / Michinori)

Far from Zebulum’s depths and Solarii’s burned towers, under a sky that finally looked clean again, three figures walked through the open plains of the Celestine Order.

Grass rippled around their boots in long, wind-brushed waves. Distant hills rose and fell like the backs of sleeping beasts. The air still carried a faint taste of ash if you breathed too deeply, but the smoke that had choked Solarii had thinned to a pale memory on the horizon.

Hajime adjusted the strap of his pack and tried not to wince.

Kazuki’s healing and the bandages around his ribs kept everything from grinding together, but every step still nudged at the cracks inside his chest. He had fallen into a rhythm of breathing that hurt just enough to remind him he was alive without dropping him to his knees.

Izumi walked beside him, cloak flapping at her calves. Her hair caught the sunlight in dark strands, still singed at the ends from the fires but moving more freely than it had in days. The exhaustion had not left her eyes, but it had softened. The shadows under them were no longer bottomless.

Rei walked a few paces ahead, as if he were cutting a path only he could see.

His right arm was bound close to his body in a fresh sling. White cloth wrapped his wrist and thumb beneath it. Bruises bloomed along his jaw and under one eye. The healers had straightened his nose, but a faint swelling still bent the bridge a little off center. He moved like a man who had decided pain was simply another thing the day would have to share his space with.

Solarii had already said its goodbyes.

There had been handshakes, salutes, quiet words from Raiden and Kazuki, a steady look from King Sorahiko II that felt heavier than any weapon. There had been promises to return, promises to send word, promises that none of them could know if they would live long enough to keep.

Now there was just sky, grass, and the road.

The silence between them was not the same as it had been at the end of the war.

Back then, it had been thick, clotted with too much death and too many names. Now it was thinner. The kind of silence that lets your mind wander without immediately falling into a pit.

Hajime scanned the horizon, more out of habit than fear.

“Hard to believe this is the same world that was so peaceful just two days ago,” he said.

Izumi’s mouth twitched. “The world is always like this,” she said. “We can't let it get to us. All we can do is keep pressing forward.”

“Comforting,” Hajime muttered.

“You asked.” Izumi giggled.

He glanced at her. She had that small half-smile she used when she was too tired to smirk properly but wanted him to know she wasn't completely broken inside.

The wind tugged at the edge of her cloak. A few red petals clung to one of her sleeves, stubborn leftovers from a technique she had used and already half-forgotten in the blur of battle.

“You could have stayed in Solarii,” Hajime said after a moment. “Helped with the reforms. Watched over the Verdant refugees. Let someone else make this trip.”

Izumi shook her head immediately. “No, absolutely not! Who the hell would heal you fools?”

“That quick, huh?” Hajime laughed as he scratched the back of his head.

“If I stayed, I would be sitting in meetings all day, arguing with men the entire time. I can do more from Barakos. If the Crimson Legion even listens, I have a feeling it will be because of me.”

Hajime snorted. “You just want to bully us, don't you?”

“That too,” Izumi replied

Her smile grew a little more real.

Hajime looked at her in profile, at the way the wind brushed strands of hair across her cheek, at the careful way she was walking so she did not jar his ribs when their shoulders occasionally bumped.

“How are you holding up?” he asked quietly.

“Better than you, it looks like,” she said.

“Then what's going on with you?” Hajime asked.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see the lower ring,” she admitted. “The people we couldn't get to. The ones who fell from the sky bridges. The look on Hayate’s face when the sunfire went out.”

Hajime’s grip on his pack tightened.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I won't pretend this is easy,” she went on. “Or that I am not afraid of what happens if we fail in Barakos. But I would rather be walking toward a chance of eventual peace than sitting still wondering what the world will become.”

Hajime blew out a slow breath that pulled at his bandages.

“I don't know if that makes you brave or crazy like me,” he said.

“Both,” she said, and the corners of her eyes crinkled.

He stared a little too long.

She noticed.

“Watch your step,” she said lightly as she blushed. “You are about to walk into a hole.”

He looked down and realized she was right. A small sink in the ground, half covered by grass, waited just ahead. He sidestepped it and tried to pretend he had seen it first.

“Thanks,” he said.

“You're welcome.” She replied with a smile that could melt a man to the bone.

Ahead of them, Rei adjusted the sling on his arm and had not looked back, but Hajime had known him long enough to recognize the slight tilt of his head when he was listening.

By midday, they had crested a long ridge that gave them a broad view of the land.

The plains rolled out on both sides, patched with old farmland and the remains of outposts that had not survived the last attacks. Far in the distance, the color of the earth began to change. Greens faded to duller browns and deep rusty reds, where iron sat closer to the surface, and the soil bore the stain of ore and furnace smoke.

“Crimson territory,” Izumi said quietly.

“Not yet,” Rei replied. “But we're definitely getting close.”

They paused there for a short rest. Hajime sank on a rock and stretched his legs, trying not to groan out loud. Izumi sat beside him and pulled a small canteen from her pack, taking a sip before passing it over.

He drank and handed it back, watching Rei stand a little apart from them, eyes on the distant red line of earth.

“You going to keep pretending you're fine?” Hajime called.

Rei’s mouth ticked, which was about as close to a smile as most people ever saw from him.

“I failed my duties as a commander for my insignificant personal feelings,” he said. “I failed Hayate, Mirae, and all those kids I killed during the games as a child.”

“Liar!” Hajime said. “You did exactly what you thought was right, and didn't let your Will take action for you. Led the entire army to a path where Solarii still stands! I won't let you keep beating yourself up like this. You're our friend and a good person, damn it!”

Hajime's Seiki flared in his arm as he punched Rei square in his jaw, actually dropping him to the ground.

Rei glanced over his shoulder, surprised. “Thank you...Hajime. I needed that, truly,” he said.

Izumi’s laugh was soft but real.

The moment settled into something almost peaceful.

Hajime let his gaze drift up to the sky. It was still streaked with faint gray, but small patches of blue had begun to push through. He tried to imagine what Barakos would look like. Forges. Weapons. Men and women who treated battle the way farmers treated planting seasons.

“I've never been this far from Eryndral,” Izumi said quietly. “Not on foot.”

“You regret it yet?” Hajime asked.

She shook her head. “No. Just thinking about what it will look like when I finally go home again.”

He hesitated, then said, “They'll be glad you left.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That's a strange way to encourage someone.”

“I mean, they'll be glad you left to do this,” he said quickly. “They will get to say that their Lord walked into hell with two lunatics and lived. That their ideas reached a king who actually listened. That has to count for something.”

Izumi looked at him for a long time.

“You really are terrible at resting,” she said at last. “But at least you're getting better at talking.”

“I'll take that,” he said.

Her shoulder brushed his, just for a heartbeat, before she stood.

“We should keep moving,” she said. “We don't know what waits between here and Redforge.”

Hajime pushed himself back to his feet with a quiet groan.

As they walked again, the road narrowed into a more defined track where wagon wheels had carved grooves over the years. Small clusters of trees began to appear, twisted by wind, roots gripping stubbornly at the earth. Birds circled high above, their calls thin and distant.

The mood lightened in small ways.

Hajime’s shoulders eased a little. Izumi’s steps lost some of their drag. Even Rei’s expression shifted, the hard lines around his eyes softening as the sound of screaming cities faded into memory instead of immediate reality.

They walked for another hour before Hajime realized the silence had changed.

It wasn't empty anymore.

It was cleared.

He glanced at Rei’s back, then at Izumi.

“Feels weird, doesn't it?” he said.

“What does?” Izumi asked.

“Not being surrounded by soldiers. Not hearing orders every five seconds. Just... this.”

He waved a hand at the swaying grass.

Rei finally spoke without turning.

“Don't get used to it,” he said. “Redforge will remind you very quickly that peace is a fairytale here. They live for strength and fighting.”

Hajime rolled his eyes. “You could let us enjoy the moment for more than ten minutes.”

“I did,” Rei said.

Izumi hid a smile.

They walked until the sun tilted toward late afternoon, shadows stretching longer under their feet. The temperature dipped just enough to be comfortable, the heat of the day bleeding away into the breeze.

It was Hajime who broke the quieter, deeper silence that had settled between them.

“So,” he said. “When are you going to tell us why you spared her?”

Rei did not answer immediately.

Izumi glanced at Hajime, then at Rei’s back. She had been waiting for this, too, but she had not pressed. Hajime's asking was its own kind of healing. It meant he had enough space in his chest to care about something beyond the next breath.

“You saw what she did in Solarii,” Hajime went on. “You noticed what she is planning. You know what she is walking toward. You could have tried to stop it there. You broke your own arm rather than let Uriel take the choice away from you. That is not nothing.”

Rei slowed.

He didn't stop, but his steps lost some of their automatic efficiency, as if every pace now had weight he was feeling on purpose.

“I didn't spare her because she looks like Mirae,” he said.

“I know,” Hajime said. “That would have been too simple for you.”

Rei’s shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath.

“When I killed the king,” he said, “everything in me went quiet. Years of orders. Years of rules. Years of pretending I didn't want to tear the world apart. All of it snapped in one night when I was off on a mission for the council.”

Hajime and Izumi walked a little faster, closing the small gap so they were almost shoulder to shoulder with him.

“I left Solarii, and I did exactly what people expected,” Rei continued. “I cut down anything that moved. Bandits. Demons. Men who deserved it. Some men who didn't. I fought because it was the only way to keep my head from filling with the sound of all my victims' blood pouring out.”

Izumi’s jaw tightened.

“One night,” Rei said, “a girl walked into my path and tried to kill me with the most perfect smile on her face.”

Hajime didn't need him to say the name.

“Same age as me,” Rei said. “Same hunger in her eyes. The same way of moving, like the only thing that mattered was whether the next strike landed. She didn't pray as we did. She didn't flinch either as we did. She didn't ask why I was there. She just fought with all her might.”

He looked out over the plains, but his eyes were not seeing them.

“We fought until we were both half dead and could barely stand,” he said. “Neither of us could land the last blow. Neither of us wanted to. The next night, she was there again. And the next. And the next. I didn't ask her to meet me. She never asked me either. We just kept finding each other whenever the blood built up too high in our heads.”

Izumi breathed out slowly. “That sounds like the Rei I know.”

Rei’s mouth curved without humor. “She was the only person who didn't look at me like a weapon or a monster,” he said. “She looked at me like a mirror of herself.”

“And you fell for her,” Hajime said, not as an accusation, just a fact.

“In a way,” Rei said. “Not the way people mean when they talk about love. There were no quiet dinners. No shared beds. No promises of a house with a warm hearth. Just the certainty that if I needed to feel alive again, I knew where to go and who would meet me there, blade in hand and eyes bright. She would never let me down, and the same goes for me.”

He paused.

“One day,” he said, “I told her something.”

Hajime waited.

Izumi did too.

“I whispered it to her after a fight,” Rei said. “I told her what I wanted from the world that was coming. I told her what I wouldn't accept. So, I made her promise me something in return.”

“What was it?” Hajime asked.

Rei shook his head once. “That's between her and me.”

Hajime grunted. “Figures.”

Izumi didn't press. “She agreed?” she asked.

“She promised,” Rei said. “Akane doesn't go back on her word to me.”

Hajime’s voice dropped. “And you think you can still save her?”

Rei finally looked at them.

His eyes were steady.

“I know what she did in Solarii,” he said. “I know she's walking toward Abaddon. I know she will kill anyone who gets between her and whatever she thinks the end of this story looks like.”

He didn't look away.

“But yes,” he said. “I want to save her, the world, and the next generation.”

Izumi’s expression flickered through several things before it settled.

“That isn't going to be easy,” she said.

“Nothing worth doing ever is,” Rei replied.

Hajime rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “And if you can't?” he asked.

Rei didn't answer right away.

“Can't isn't an option for me. It never will be.”

His voice didn't harden. It didn't soften either. It stayed level, which somehow made the words heavier.

“In a twisted way,” he went on, “I do love her...”

Hajime swallowed.

“Thank you for telling us,” Izumi said quietly.

Rei shrugged, the movement tight with the sling. “You would have found out anyway,” he said. “Better you hear it from me than from someone who wants to turn it into something it's not.”

Hajime snorted. “That is growth,” he said. “The old you would have just vanished for a while, killing evil people.”

“Old me didn't have to drag you two into everything,” Rei said.

Izumi smiled faintly. “You don't have to,” she said. “We will always choose your side.”

The road dipped into a shallow valley, flanked by low rises of rock. The grass grew thinner here. Bare patches of earth showed through, stained red and brown. Old wheel ruts cut deeper into the ground, hardened by time.

The wind shifted.

It carried a new scent. Coal. Oil. Old metal.

“We are getting close,” Rei said.

Hajime nodded. “Smells like someone lit the world’s biggest forge and never turned it off.”

Izumi wrinkled her nose. “This can't be good for nature. Ick...”

They walked in silence for a few more minutes.

Then Rei stopped.

He did it so abruptly that Hajime nearly walked into his back.

“What is it?” Hajime asked.

Rei tilted his head, listening to something further ahead.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

Hajime shut his mouth and focused. At first, there was nothing but wind and the soft hiss of grass. Then he caught it. A faint metallic clatter. The creak of leather. Low voices riding the breeze.

“We're not alone,” Izumi murmured.

Rei stepped forward more slowly now, every line of his body shifting back toward battle readiness despite the sling and bandages. Hajime moved up beside him. Izumi stayed just behind, not hiding, but keeping a small space so she could move if she had to.

They came around a bend where the road narrowed between two outcroppings of rock.

Figures waited in the shallow dip beyond.

A dozen at least.

Some were on foot, others mounted on stocky, scarred horses. Their armor was a patchwork of plates and leather, but all of it bore some trace of the same mark. A red insignia painted over the heart. It didn't match any official standard Hajime had seen, but the color was unmistakable.

Crimson Legion red.

Weapons rested easily in their hands. Swords. Axes. A spear or two. One man leaned on a hammer that looked like it had been stolen from a forge anvil and never fully cleaned.

They were not lined up in a formal formation. They lounged. They smirked. They watched the road the way hungry men watched a table.

As Rei, Hajime, and Izumi came into view, the one in front straightened.

He was broad-shouldered, with a scar that cut across his lip and gave his mouth a permanent sneer. A faded crimson cloak hung from his back, frayed at the edges.

“Look what the wind dragged in,” he said.

His accent carried the rough edge Hajime had heard in mercenaries from the Crimson border before. A hardness born from too many fights and not enough rules.

“We're just travelers,” Izumi said, voice calm. “On our way to Redforge.”

The man’s eyes flicked over their clothes, their weapons, the way they carried themselves. He took in Rei’s sling, Hajime’s guarded posture, and the fatigue that no amount of washing could scrub from their faces.

“Redforge,” he repeated. “Big destination lately. A lot of refugees. A lot of scared people with nothing to their names.”

He smiled.

“Thing is,” he went on, “this road costs coin now. The Crimson Legion keeps it safe. It's people's blood that keeps the Doctrine from marching over every hill. So you pay a toll, you get to walk. You don't pay...”

His gaze settled on Rei.

“You don't walk.”

Hajime felt Izumi’s Seiki shift beside him, not flaring, but waking up like a hand closing around a familiar grip.

Rei’s face didn't change.

“You're part of the Crimson Legion?” he asked.

The man’s smile widened at the recognition. “Once,” he said. “Now we are... independent contractors. The Legion looks the other way as long as we keep trouble off their precious gates.”

“Bandits,” Hajime said.

The man shrugged. “Labels.”

He held out his hand.

“Pay the toll,” he said. “Or we see what those pretty faces of yours look like in the dirt.”

The wind tugged at the grass between them.

Hajime shifted his weight.

Izumi’s fingers curled slightly.

Rei’s left hand dropped just enough to hover near the hilt of Seraphion.

The leader’s smirk did not fade.

“Welcome to Crimson territory,” he said. “If you're not going to pay, then your journey ends here.”

The three of them stood on the road with nowhere else to go.

The plains that had felt so wide a moment ago suddenly seemed much smaller.