The castle gate closed with a sound. Heavy. Dull. The sound of wood and iron meshing together, the final gap sealing shut. Riko felt it through her back. She did not turn around. If she turned around, she felt her knees would give way beneath her. It was dawn. The ridgeline of the Souga Mountains was beginning to stain a pale violet. The castle town of Hibika was still sleeping. From the chimney of a smithy on Kajiya Street, a thin white plume rose into the morning air. The air was cold, carrying the scent of cedar. Toki had squeezed her hand as they passed in the corridor. There were no words. She simply pressed something into Riko's palm and, keeping her eyes downcast, turned back toward the inner chambers. When Riko looked, there were two rice balls. And wrapped in cloth, a single small blade. Toki's back disappeared around the corner of the corridor. That back was the only warm thing left in the castle. During the walk through the hallway, none of the other maids looked at Riko. Some cast their eyes down. Others turned toward the walls. Some suddenly began sweeping. All of them, in unison, treated Riko as if she did not exist. As though her presence had simply vanished. Only one person was different. Sawa, the head maid, stood at the edge of the corridor, waiting for Riko to pass. She was past forty, perhaps. Narrow eyes. Thin lips. A woman with a cool expression. In the instant Riko passed before her, the corner of that mouth rose slightly. A smile. No voice. No words. Only a smile. Riko bit her lip. She tasted blood at the back of her teeth. *I won't cry*, she thought. If she cried now, it would feel like losing to that smile. She left through the castle gate. Her feet moved. --- She walked down Kajiya Street. The main thoroughfare lined with smithies. The morning market was beginning, and merchants were setting out their wares in front of their shops. The smell of dried fish. The smell of charcoal. The smell of earth. By Riko's modern sensibilities, it was a lively morning scene. When she approached the first merchant, the man looked up at her for a moment. Then, without a word, he picked up his goods and withdrew into the back of his shop. The next shop was the same. The proprietress of the dried fish shop across the way averted her eyes the moment she saw Riko's face and disappeared behind the noren curtain. A child tried to look at Riko, but his mother pulled his sleeve. Riko understood, in her mind, what was happening. A cast-off concubine. A woman thrown out of the castle. In this era, associating with such a person meant social death for those who did. To maintain any connection with a woman who had betrayed those who served Souma would undermine one's standing within the domain. It affected business. It affected livelihood. No one would help. That was simply how things were. She understood it in her mind. Her feet stopped in front of the tea shop Komachi. The noren was hanging. The sweet smell of chestnut cakes drifted out. It was a shop run by a young girl named Sayo, Toki had once told her. One of the few places Riko had been allowed to visit when she was permitted to go out. Grasping at straws, she reached for the noren to enter. A young girl's face appeared from within. Their eyes met. The girl's expression hardened immediately, and without a word, she shook her head. Then she quietly closed the door. The sliding door shut without a sound. For a while, Riko stood before that closed door. *(I knew. I knew all along.)* She had known. In her mind, she had known from the beginning. But her feet would not move. Her body still wanted to believe. That perhaps someone—just one person—might call out to her. She began walking. With no destination in mind, she simply walked. She passed through Kajiya Street, and the road grew narrower. The wall of Jourin Temple appeared on her right. A Soto Zen temple—she had heard there was an abbot there who had been acquainted with Souma's grandfather. If she went, she would be turned away. Thinking this, she passed by. As the sun began to tilt, the flow of people through the castle town began to ebb. Riko stopped for the first time at the edge of a road where no one passed. Where could she go? She did not know. Truly, there was nowhere to go. In her hand were Toki's rice balls. The small blade wrapped in cloth. That was all Riko had now. --- She reached the entrance to Hayate Forest as the sun was nearly gone. A deep forest five kilometers west of the castle. Tall cedars and cypresses stretched upward, their roots covered in moss. A single great cedar at the entrance had a trunk so thick that three grown men could not encircle it with their arms. Riko sank down at its roots. When the sun fell, the cold came suddenly. The night air of the autumn mountains seeped into her body. She hugged her kimono around herself, drew her knees up to her chest. She tried to eat one of the rice balls. It would not go down her throat. Unable to swallow, she returned it to her hand. For a while, she tried not to think of anything. But the dam did not take long to break. A sound came from her throat. A sob. A voice wrung from deep within, shameful, childlike. Even when she covered her mouth with her hand, it would not stop. Tears fell, soaking into the fabric of her kimono at her knees. *(I want to go home.)* Home to the modern world. She wanted her smartphone. She wanted to go to a convenience store. She wanted to call her friends. She wanted to take a bath. She wanted to sleep in her futon. She knew she could not go back. She knew it, and yet her body screamed for it. Souma's face surfaced in her mind. Red eyes. A shallow sword scar on his left cheek. The four characters: "Make it again." That night when the corner of his mouth rose for just an instant. *(I wanted to be by his side.)* Riko covered her face with both hands. Souma had known about the gravel. He had known, and yet he had not protected her. He had cast her out. Why, she did not know. Cast out without understanding, helped by no one in the castle town, now weeping alone in this place. She remembered a voice heard through a wall. "I'm sorry." Just one phrase. In a dark room, before a candle, spoken to someone. Before Kinue. When she heard those words, Riko had wept. She had thought Souma was not a demon. Only a person who had lost someone and was breaking apart. That certainty now hurt all the more. She had felt as though she had seen his true face. And yet, he had abandoned her. Riko held her knees and wept aloud. Her voice dissolved into the darkness of the forest. --- Footsteps sounded. Riko lifted her head. She wiped her tears with her sleeve and reflexively drew the small blade. She unwrapped the cloth and exposed the edge. Her hands trembled. *Bandits*, she thought. A figure emerged from between the trees. Black garments. Silver hair gleaming in the last light of dusk. Eyes of different colors on either side—gold and silver. A small scar mark at the corner of his mouth. It was Mizuchi. Riko could not lower the blade. She did not know how to lower it. She only stared at Mizuchi. Mizuchi knelt before her. It was not the posture of a shinobi. He simply knelt to meet her gaze. The odd eyes looked directly at her. The gold pupil. The silver pupil. Both trembled. "[gentle]I could not leave you alone," That was all. The code of the Shadow Sect—the voiceless oath—if broken by leaving the castle, the price upon discovery was death. Mizuchi must have known this. And yet he had come. The small blade fell from Riko's hand. Mizuchi drew her body gently toward him. He was cold. Mizuchi's body was always cold. But the strength in his embracing arms was certain and firm. Riko pressed her forehead against his chest and wept again. This time, the tears were different from her sorrow for Souma. These were tears of relief. Tears of being protected. Souma lingered in the back of her mind. That profile. That voice. They had not faded. And yet now, in Mizuchi's arms, Riko was truly being saved. Two emotions existed in her chest at the same time, and she could not tell what either of them was. She could not sort it out. She only clung to Mizuchi's chest. The forest was silent. No wind. No bird calls. Only the breath of two people. ——That silence shattered suddenly. Mizuchi pushed Riko away. In an instant. Without sound. Without roughness. Only sharp. He withdrew his body. He stood. Before Riko could even lift her face, Mizuchi's body moved forward. Three figures emerged from the darkness deeper in the forest. Black garments. Blades at their waists. There was no sound. There had been no sound from the beginning. How long had they been there? "[cold]The Orochi Sect," His voice was low. Spoken to Riko. His gaze remained fixed on the three before him. "[cold]It was a trap from the start to capture you. They bought Sawa with gold, had her plant the gravel, made Souma-sama cast you out—all to lure you outside the castle, defenseless, where they could strike," Riko lost her voice. *(Souma cast me out because he knew about the gravel—was it all for this trap?)* There was no time to think. The three moved. The moment the first one kicked off the ground, Mizuchi was already moving. Riko could not see it. By the time she realized what was happening, the first attacker's blade was caught on Mizuchi's arm. A sharp metallic ring cut through the night forest. The second one followed. Mizuchi's movements were honed to perfection. Silent. Without waste. His body wove through the gaps in the attacker's strikes, and Riko could not even follow what he was doing. Yet she smelled blood. Whether it was the attacker's or Mizuchi's, she could not tell. "[scared]Mizuchi!" She cried out. The first attacker fell. Mizuchi's hand-blade struck the second man's throat, and he collapsed. The third attacker changed his approach. Instead of charging straight, he circled. From Mizuchi's side, from behind—he ran toward Riko. As Mizuchi moved to block him, the third attacker's blade arced through the air. It struck his back. A dull sound. *Zu*. Riko did not immediately understand what had happened. Mizuchi's movement stopped. His knees buckled. His right knee touched the ground. His left hand pressed against the earth. The third attacker's sword was embedded in his back. A deep wound. Dark fabric slowly darkening as something seeped through. Blood. "[crying]Mizuchi!" Riko started to run. The third attacker turned. He raised his blade. He pointed it at Riko. "[cold]Do not move," His voice was low and without emotion. "[cold]Stay still. If you value this shinobi's life," Riko's body froze. Blood flowed from Mizuchi's back. It dripped to the ground. Mizuchi tried to lift his face, but could not, and remained bowed, breathing heavily. With each breath, blood seeped from the wound in his back. Souma had abandoned her. No one in the castle town had helped her. And Mizuchi, trying to protect her, now bled like this. There was nowhere to run. No help would come. No choices remained. Her mind began to white out. Then. A voice echoed back to life in her chest. ——"I'm sorry." The voice heard through a wall. Wrung out before a candle, just one phrase. Before Kinue. In an empty room, words meant for only one person. That night. Souma's profile. His eyes, grieving without shedding a single tear. The only one in this era who knew that man was not a demon was herself. That certainty, barely, held together what was crumbling. Riko slipped her hand into her sleeve. The hilt of the small blade met her palm. She was trembling. But she could grip it. It was not over yet. The blade was before her eyes. Mizuchi was collapsing. Everything was at its worst. And yet, in Riko's chest, a faint voice resonated. It was not over yet.