What was Hawk Hunter to Mizuki? She couldn’t name it; the word vanished like fog at dawn. She only knew she’d held her like a lantern in winter, a reliable big sister.

They’d known each other two days, no longer than a falling leaf rides the wind. Yet that care for a junior, that gentle face, etched in her mind like ink on silk.

Now that gentle sister had stepped in front of her and caught the fatal bullet, like a sparrow shielding a nest from hail. When Mizuki blinked back to herself, Hawk Hunter’s back was soaked black-red, flesh ruined like fruit left to rot in rain.

In Mizuki’s eyes, there were no soft glances this time, no spring-warm smile. Only a calm face and closed lids, needles of ice driven straight into her heart.

She begged for a dream, for the world to rewind like a stream returning to its source. She wished Hawk Hunter would open her eyes the next second and smile like sun after snow, and soothe a girl untouched by life’s storms.

It was only a wish. Reality stood like a cliff, all frost and sheer drop. Despair pressed down like a night with no stars.

“Don’t…”

Please, open your eyes, just once, like a candle refusing to die in the wind.

“Miss Hawk Hunter…”

Please, don’t fall asleep, smile like before, say something, anything, before the tide takes you.

“No!”

Reality stays cruel, a blade that never dulls.

Leaning against the cold body, Mizuki screamed, a torn storm-note that matched Hawk Hunter’s earlier roar, two echoes in one ravine.

She’d never tasted farewell, never walked the shore where boats don’t return. Today she faced it twice; worst of all, she watched someone she knew die before her, hands tied like reeds in ice.

After today, Miyuki Kiseki might change from root to crown, a tree struck by lightning that grows another way. But right now, she wanted to pour it all out, like rain finally breaking.

Losing someone important hurt like ground glass in the blood. It was heartbone-deep, like a hand crushing her heart into salt, every breath a drowning.

She cried into a body that had lost its warmth like a hearth gone cold. In that embrace, Mizuki looked small and helpless, a fledgling in a storm.

A heavy thud hit the floor, a drumbeat in a silent temple. Mizuki lifted her head, tear tracks shining like wet ink. In the next heartbeat, her blankness turned to stunned haze.

A slender arm flashed past, a pale branch cut from the tree. It traced a bloody arc through the air and fell to earth like a dead bird.

Mizuki stared, mind empty as a winter field. Her gaze drifted a fraction, and her eyes blew wide like shutters in a gale.

In a pool of blood lay Comet, one arm gone, body light as willow straw. That pallid face and silent chest told everyone with glacier-cold clarity: this was a corpse.

Her slim body still leaked fresh red, a spring that wouldn’t stop. The severed stump screamed the loudest; her face showed no expression, like Hawk Hunter’s. She left quickly, like a comet vanishing at dawn—no time to adjust, not even one last look at her living face.

“…”

Another one died. Another life cut in this one battle, like candles snuffed in a row.

Why this, why now? Why did loss circle only her, a hawk shadow looping the same field? Why must she shoulder what no one should carry?

“Ahhhhh!”

Hands over her head, Mizuki’s mind frayed like rope under strain. She roared louder than she ever had, a volcano breaking snow, grief pouring like lava.

“Miyuki Kiseki…”

Yun Shi watched her, eyes complicated as stormlight on water. Long ago, she’d worn that same face, windbitten by loss. Death hits the mind harder than the body, a hammer on thin glass; Mizuki was taking that baptism now.

If she couldn’t cross this ridge, she’d never be strong, a seed that never splits the husk. If she crossed it, she’d stand like Yun Shi, the same iron in the spine.

This was the heart’s growth, a spring cracking rock. She had to accept it, or be buried by it like sand over a candle.

Yun Shi hadn’t wanted Mizuki to walk her road, that thorny track under a moon with no warmth. One person should be enough to carry that tragedy into the dark.

“Mizuki…”

Sham saw her and worry rose like floodwater, drowning reason. She staggered up on wounded legs, a stalk in hard wind, and reached for Mizuki.

Enemies still stood before them like broken stakes in a field. But their number had thinned, the tide pulled back. Tyrant, Hawk Hunter, and Comet had sacrificed like burning stars, and cut the foe’s strength in half.

Even so, Yun Shi couldn’t forgive. The word stuck like bone in the throat.

Yes, she admitted it: they had killed them—companions she’d clawed out of the dark, hard-won as fire from flint. Two of the dead had hated her; after living and dying together, she’d let that go like smoke.

But nothing she accepted ever stayed. Like dew on grass, it was gone by sunrise. Even this time was no exception, a pattern etched into iron.

“Die.”

Yun Shi pushed her Light Blade to its limit, the glow flaring like noon in a cave. She ignored the empty gauge, the cost after the sun goes down. She was out of everything—only this blade remained, a last ember in wind. So what if she burned out?

“I’ll kill every last one of you!”

Not one left, not a single shadow behind the door. She would cut this rot from the root, like fire through dry brush.

Kill.

With nothing but killing intent in her eyes, Yun Shi ran into their line like a storm breaking a sand wall, and fought until sparks were rain.

…

Outside, Witches in battle lines saw a flare spit up from an old building, a lonely flower of fire. It was a distress signal. But it came from an enemy stronghold, a great stone sealed with iron—heavy guard, sharp teeth. The Witches didn’t risk a blind charge; they turned like swallows and reported up the chain.

The woman commander looked bored at first, her mood flat as a lake. A rescue inside the enemy’s stronghold was unheard of, thunder from a clear sky. She hadn’t even ordered a strike on that cursed place.

But the Special Task Force team hadn’t sent word in far too long, the silence like frost creeping. Feeling the weight sink, she dropped hesitation like a cloak, snapped orders to mobilize, and went herself to the front.

When they reached the building, the Witches froze at the carnage, statues in a lightning flash. After that heartbeat, they plunged into rescue, a wave swallowing fire. The fighting was easy as a downhill run; numbers rolled over the enemy, a net pulled tight in one drag.

They wouldn’t forget what they saw first: the black-cloaked Witch ringed by chaos, a reef circled by wreckage. Bodies lay butchered, a butcher’s floor of red and silence.

That black-cloaked Witch bled herself, wounds open like cracked bark, yet she made the enemies hang back, wolves pacing a bonfire. The corpses at her feet were brutal, winter-hard. Only when reinforcements surged in did she sag and fold to the ground, a banner finally lowered. Then they believed it: this person was terrifying enough to carve a storm.

In this operation, the Special Task Force lost three, like three stars blown out. One lay gravely wounded and comatose, a candle under glass. The rest were wounded; no one was spared the blade. Their sacrifice erased the Divine Ling Family’s elite unit, wiped clean like chalk in rain.

“Xiang, Xiang!”

Witches worked in rhythm, lifting stretchers like oars through waves. They rushed the still-breathing Li Xiang to emergency care, while Aya, ignoring her own wounds, called hoarse as a crow in winter, naming the woman on the stretcher.

The other’s eyes stayed closed, a door barred from within. She looked like a corpse, blood running like a river the medics raced to dam.

Why did it become this, like a road turning into a cliff? Why wasn’t I the one lying there, cold as stone?

Why did Xiang become this for me, why couldn’t I protect a single leaf on this tree?

Aya didn’t know what she lived for, only what she’d trained for, breath after breath. She’d learned Mystic Power from childhood, a river dug from a spring. Young and fierce, she’d mastered her family secret—“Airburst”—a thunderclap in clear sky. Among peers she was a mountain apart, a demon-talented prodigy in the Underworld. With power like that, she should’ve carved her own realm in shadow.

Yet she couldn’t even guard her companions, couldn’t hold a hand against the wind.

“Xiang!”

Unwillingness burned like a brand. She’d failed to guard them, failed to pull anyone back from the brink. Aya howled, heart wrung like cloth, pain flooding every seam.

Her stitches screamed when she moved, but that pain was a spark in snow. Compared to three lives snuffed, it was nothing. If she were stronger, maybe no one would have died; if she held more power, maybe Xiang wouldn’t be rolled into surgery. If…

If they hadn’t followed Night Phantom’s plan, maybe everyone would still be laughing under the same roof, like swallows in spring.

Watching Xiang vanish toward rescue, a thought rose in Aya’s chest like a black tide. It was ugly, and it grew teeth.

Right, Night Phantom came from the Clan Head’s family, cold as a jade seal. How could she truly help us, how could she become our companion? She was born from one of the three Clan Heads, notorious as thunder. How could she honestly strike at former comrades?

Yes. It had to be that. The thought crawled in and made a home like ivy.

Hatred climbed Aya’s face like frost, her gaze hardening into iron. Her features twisted, and something in her core began to sour, milk gone under a hot sun.

She turned. Resting there was Yun Shi, calm as a burned-out hearth. Yun Shi glanced back, puzzled by the glare, a cat hearing thunder.

“Night Phantom… Night Phantom!”

Aya snapped, voice cracking like a branch, grabbed Yun Shi’s collar with white-knuckled hands. While Yun Shi blinked in confusion, Aya drove a fist into her gut, a hammer blow, forcing Yun Shi to her knees, coughing like a bellows.

Not enough. Knees on stone wasn’t enough.

Mind gone white, Aya slammed Yun Shi to the floor, fists falling like hail. Yun Shi tried to push back; Aya’s fury only flared, one hand pinning her shoulder, the other smashing into stomach and cheek. If not for Yun Shi’s Goggles, they’d have been ripped away, eyes bared to the storm.

“Give her back! Give Xiang back to me—give her back!”

Her fist beat a drum on Yun Shi’s face; pain was a stranger knocking outside. Gone was the Aya who joked gently and commanded with a steady hand. Today she wore the same mask as those Witches—hatred sharpened into a blade.

Aya had never tasted the theft of a companion, so she’d never understood why those Witches glared at Yun Shi like wolves, why they marked her for their hate. She could spot talent like a falcon spies prey, but she hadn’t lived enough with hate to feel its weight, so she’d never turned it on Yun Shi.

But with Tyrant and the others dead, with Xiang’s life a candle in a storm, hatred finally bloomed, a night flower opening. She learned how to hate.

She couldn’t slaughter every enemy; the Divine Ling Family outmatched her, a stone wall against a wooden spear. So she changed targets, poured the poison somewhere nearer, onto a girl even younger than her. It had no logic, and it was the easiest logic in the world.

Aya knew nothing except the urge to vent. She heaped it on Yun Shi, dust and ashes and blame, and in her frenzy she didn’t see what her hands were doing to the future.

“Enough, Miss Aya!”

Thunder Lady couldn’t bear it and stepped in, pulling Aya away like rain breaking a fire. She wouldn’t watch comrades tear each other after the dead were already cold.

Pinned and pounded, Yun Shi didn’t fight back, didn’t twist away. She accepted it like night accepts the wind, taking every blow, every shard of hate.

While Aya raved, she didn’t notice the curve on Yun Shi’s lips, a thin, bitter smile like a crack in ice.

She’d known it. Yie Caiyin would come to this day sooner or later; once she lost a companion, the hate would drift like smoke, and settle on Yun Shi. It always did.

It had been so long that Yun Shi was used to it, a callus over an old wound. No matter where she went, there was no place to rest her head, no arms open, only doors shut like eyelids.

She was darkness, the part of night people throw away when dawn comes. One day, maybe she’d die holding nothing but endless hate and endless rejection, a stone sinking in a black lake.

After all, she was a ghost, not a person—Night Phantom, not a name in the sun.