What went wrong? We’d laid the plan like lacquer on armor, layer by layer. Why…

Men in dark gear closed in, an iron ring tightening like dusk. They were from the Divine Ling Family, maybe the Flamebu Family too, wolves in black silk. Either way, the truth slammed down like a falling gate—we’d hit the worst crisis in our history.

On a battlefield, people are never in short supply, like reeds on a riverbank. Numbers crush. A weakling alone is a stray spark; a hundred together can burn down a tree. The Special Task Force was caught in that tide, our footing sucked by the undertow.

“When did this…” Aya stepped back, face storm-dark, the color drained to winter ash. I’d never seen that look, iron and despair fused like frost on steel. Lixiang saw her lady and wavered too, a candle shaking in a draft.

We were only a handful, lone lanterns under a sky of arrows. They were near a hundred, a swarm like locusts over wheat.

Tyrant and the others gripped their weapons till knuckles blanched, jaws locked like drawn bows. One breath and they’d charge. A ring means death close at hand, like a blade resting on the throat.

The field always carries danger like a river carries silt. Even away from the brink, death’s shadow walks beside you, a cold hand near your sleeve.

“Why…” Mizuki edged back and met a wall of bodies, nowhere left to step, like a deer pressed to a cliff. Her heart cinched tight as a knot. Sham saw it and, though fear bit her too, she took Mizuki’s hand, palm warm as tea in winter. She tried to calm her with touch, a tether in a gale.

What happened? This kind of ambush means our position leaked, like ink through paper…

Yun Shi’s thoughts raced like arrows by torchlight, seeking a gap.

The enemy wouldn’t move troops blind, not like fishermen casting nets into empty dark. They knew we’d be here, unless someone fed them the map. A traitor among us? No. If so, the rat would’ve slipped away by now, not stayed through a back-breaking assassination run.

More likely, we spared someone on the road, left a mouth breathing to whisper upstream. After they slipped the fight, they sent our position up the chain, and the net shrank like a noose. In war, to keep your footprints clean, you silence the ones who see them. The surest silence is a corpse. The dead don’t speak, like stones in a well.

Another chance—carelessness during the mission let them spot us, fireflies seen by a waiting owl.

Either Mizuki didn’t kill, and that crack let the flood in. Or Yun Shi and the Thunder Lady horsed around, and a watcher marked them, a bell rung in the fog.

Whichever it was, one truth stood like a gallows. This is bad. Very bad.

“Target confirmed: Witch. And that one”—the leader’s eyes slid over the Witches and the remnant of the Single Leaf Clan like knives over lacquer—“take that Witch alive.”

His gaze halted on Yun Shi, and he turned to remind his men, voice flat as iron. His master had ordered it: any Witch in a black cloak and a mask must be captured alive. No lethal wounds. He had doubts, but he was a blade, not the hand. Blades don’t question the wrist.

“Open fire!”

At the barked command, muzzles flared like a field of fireflies, and bullets poured out like summer rain, hissing toward the cornered Witches.

“All units—engage!” Aya didn’t have the luxury of breath. She leapt forward, and explosions flowered from her steps, peonies of flame cracking the night, pounding the men ahead.

“Yes!” Thunder Lady scraped herself together, spine like a rod of bronze. Lightning gathered in both hands, snakes uncurling and striking in every direction. She hurled every hidden card she had, sparks wreathing her brow like a crown of thorns.

Tyrant took her greatsword and plunged into the press, a storm threshing a wheat field. She spun in an open patch, blade scything down anyone reaching for her life. Blood burst like pomegranates, red seeds drenching the dirt.

“Mizuki!” Sham shoved Mizuki aside and threw up a shield of air, a clear current like glass spun from wind. It caught the hail of bullets like a river catching leaves. While Mizuki still stood in a daze, Sham spat scarlet, a petal of blood on snow.

“Sham!”

“Don’t be scared. I’m okay…” Her voice wavered like a reed.

“That’s not the point! You—you’re hurt!” Mizuki’s words trembled like a wounded kite.

“I’m fine. I’ll protect you, Mizuki.” Sham’s smile flickered like a lantern in rain.

…

A heavy helplessness flooded Mizuki, cold as deep water. Why… She’d vowed to protect Sham. Yet here she was, protected again, vow gone thin as smoke.

“Out of the way, Miyuki Kiseki!”

The roar yanked Mizuki back like a snap of thunder. She looked up, eyes stinging. A girl in a black cloak danced with a Light Blade, steps as elegant as falling petals and as lethal as a guillotine. Mizuki’s Night Phantom carved the air, that blade catching bullets like meteors against a night sea.

Bullets have no pattern, like hail in a squall. Catching a storm with a short Light Blade should’ve been a madman’s dream. But the Witch called Night Phantom did it. If she couldn’t with her strength, that would’ve been the strange part. Even so, she wasn’t a god. The strain showed like cracks in ice, and grazing rounds stitched shallow wounds across her skin.

“Night Phantom!” Mizuki’s cry broke like glass.

“Shut up. Stay put!” Yun Shi’s snarl cut sharp, a lash in the din. She said nothing more. She needed both hands for the storm.

“Detonate.”

Aya clenched a small fist, and the ground around her crazed like dry clay, fissures racing outward. The world boomed like a drum of thunder. Missile-bright blasts blossomed on all sides, flaying flesh from men like bark from a struck tree.

Her nerves twanged tight as bowstrings. She hadn’t seen this coming. A plan she’d forged without seams had split like silk in wind. She—no, all of them—stood on a cliff edge. The foes before her were all elites of the Divine Ling Family, each a blade honed on harsh stone. One against a hundred wasn’t bragging for them; it was a simple count. Against one strong foe, your strengths weigh heavy. Against a pack, the math bleeds you out.

Aya kicked skyward, and fireworks burst under her soles, wreathing her in smoke that smelled of salt and iron. She slammed both hands onto an enemy’s chest, and an explosion bloomed there like a cruel flower. He shot back like a cannonball, his flight bursting midair into red pulp, dragging a cluster of comrades into that grim blossom.

Even that cost Aya breath like coins. She blinked, and a knife-man filled her sight, blade hewing down like a falling moon.

Damn.

No room to dodge, no time to guard, no chance to meet steel with flesh. If she didn’t stop it, she’d be split like firewood.

Her feet rooted like stakes. Her body wouldn’t answer, frozen like a stag in torchlight. What else could she do but wait for the cut…

A wet sound, and blood sprayed, spring rain turned crimson. Beauty and terror mingled, a peony painted in gore. The world washed red, a tide across her eyes. The air’s stench thickened, copper and smoke tangled like old incense.

This is dying, she thought. But where’s the pain? Oh. Maybe there’s no feeling left, like a hand gone numb in snow…

“Aya!” That was Mizuki’s voice, a bell through fog. Was it? She cares that much? Miyuki Kiseki is, through and through, a good person, Aya thought, voice in her head thin as thread.

“Miss!” Lixiang? She worried too, a swallow beating against a window. If she cried, Aya would ache worse than any wound…

No. Wrong. I shouldn’t be dead. I’m still here. My body doesn’t hurt at all. I’m not dead!

Aya wrenched her thoughts to heel and snapped her head up. No wound split her. Not one fatal cut. She was whole, shock bright as lightning.

A man held her tight, his face paper-pale, his blood speckling her like plum blossoms in snow. She touched her cheek and found wet red on her fingers, a seal she hadn’t asked for.

He had taken the strike with his body, a wall of flesh, a shield built of vows. He’d saved her life with his. Simple as rain falling.

“Tiandao…” Aya’s voice shook like a leaf. Her body trembled too, an arrow vibrating after it strikes. She couldn’t believe the shape of reality.

“Good… Miss, you’re safe…” His words were dry reeds in wind.

“Why…” Her breath snagged, a fish in a net.

“Do I need to say it… Miss is… the hope of our Single Leaf Clan…” He spent his last breath like a coin pressed into her palm, words meant for the one he honored most.

Aya had grown up with Tiandao. He was never just a servant to her, but a brother cut from the same wood. In danger, in the hour when a shield is needed most, this brother always stepped forward, arms wide against storm and knife, for the girl named Yie Caiyin.

This time, he did what a man should do, and what an elder brother must.

He was a true man. No other reason. Nothing fancy. Just that.

The arms holding her slid away like falling leaves. His breath vanished, warmth bled to cold, summer turning to stone. A moment before, she’d felt the rise and fall of his chest. Now, there was only silence.

After finishing his duty, Tiandao left the world as quietly as a candle guttering out.

“No… Tiandao!” Aya’s cry tore like cloth.

Lies, she thought. Didn’t we agree not to die…

“Wake up. Wake up! Wake up!” Her words hammered his name like fists on a locked door.

We said we’d go back together…

“You liar…”

Brother…

Aya hugged the cooling body and wept, a river with no banks. Her pride cracked, her leader’s poise crumbled like frost under sun. In the end, she was only a girl. A loved one’s death hits like a tidal bore, stealing breath and breaking the will to fight.

Yie Caiyin was still just a girl. Faced with a comrade’s death, calm was a stone she couldn’t hold.

“Miss, look out!” Lixiang’s voice split the air like a whip crack. Aya looked up, and another scatter of blood painted her face, warm as rain and twice as cruel. Her expression froze again, a mask of ice.

Lixiang coughed blood, scarlet threading from her lips. She yanked the blade from her abdomen with steady hands, a red stem pulled from flesh. Ignoring Aya’s stricken eyes and the fire in her gut, she planted herself like a pine against snow.

“If you want Miss Aya’s life, you pass through me first…” Her voice was a low growl, a mountain in a storm.