Leave

"Even amidst the fiercest fire, some leaves remain untouched—bearing witness to what once was."

— Letter from Hotaru no Yakusha

---

The ground where the battle had raged was now a blackened wasteland.

Scorched earth, shattered weapons, and the scent of burnt flesh lingered like a curse, pressing on the lungs of any who dared to breathe there.

Shindō Motsura stepped carefully among the ashes, nodachi sheathed but close at hand.

His eyes scanned the ruin, searching for something—anything—that defied the destruction.

Then he saw it: a cluster of green leaves, clinging stubbornly to a broken branch, untouched by flame or decay.

They trembled faintly in the cold wind, as if they carried a secret only the earth itself remembered.

His fingers brushed the leaves, rough and calloused from years of bloodshed, and for a moment, he felt the fragile pulse of life beneath his skin.

The leaves did not speak, but they bore witness.

They held the silent testament of survival, of resilience in a world bent on annihilation.

---

The battle had not been won—not really.

Hotaru no Yakusha's cultists had retreated, but their shadows loomed larger than ever.

Each skirmish left more scars on the land, and deeper wounds in Shindō's soul.

Beside him, Yuuki stood quietly, her blind eyes gazing at the leaves as if she saw far beyond their surface.

"Even in ruin," she whispered softly, "there is hope. But hope is a blade that cuts both ways."

Shindō turned to her, the weight of those words sinking in deeper than any wound.

Hope was dangerous.

Hope could blind a man to the darkness creeping at his back.

But despair was no refuge either.

He had tasted both—and knew that survival demanded walking a razor's edge between them.

---

That night, beneath a sky smeared with stars, Shindō sat by the dying embers of a fire.

The leaves lay beside him, wrapped carefully in cloth—a token of defiance against the encroaching shadow.

He thought about the path ahead: a road riddled with blood, betrayal, and impossible choices.

Yet, within that bleak horizon, those unburned leaves whispered a quiet truth.

That sometimes, amidst destruction, life stubbornly endured.

And sometimes, that stubbornness was the only salvation left.