Mizuki looked at the slash across her palm, a red line on white snow, and sighed like wind over ice.

It didn’t hurt much, just asked for blood, yet unreality hovered like mist over water.

To make the Crystal Tower self-immolate, you needed a special key, like flint to tinder under rain.

Mizuki was that key, a stray snowflake outside any Clan Head’s bloodline, not born of shadow, a clear spring in a dark well.

Her blood poured into the Crystal Tower was the perfect fuse, a thorn in the heartwood, the surest way to drive it berserk.

Yun Shi had asked her for this, a quiet knock under a storm, and Mizuki hadn’t refused, because a few drops fall like dew.

“Berserk…”

Outside, the battlefield flared, a crimson pillar like a wound in the sky, and Sham murmured like a gust through reeds.

The Thunder Lady tensed to the limit, a bowstring drawn under thunderclouds, and watched with winter-still eyes.

On the rooftop, Yun Shi returned like a raven to a ruined spire, and faced the stunned Shen Ling Zou, her face a frozen lake.

“You lost, Shen Ling Zou.”

The short line fell like a stone in a well, telling the whole tide of war in one ripple.

With the Crystal Tower rampaging, the Divine Ling Family would soon lose its sword arm, like a tree stripped of its crown by storm.

Defector became fulcrum, and Yun Shi pried at the war’s axle like a crowbar under a fallen gate, flipping the board.

It wasn’t all on her, yet a strand of fate in this net wrapped her wrist like ivy.

“Why…”

Shen Ling Zou lowered his head, fists knotted like roots, teeth grinding like grit, his face warping like clay in flame.

He’d offered her road after road, leniency like sheltering eaves, persuasion like steady rain, and got only drought and dust.

Night Phantom never took the hand he set out like a bridge, ignoring his effort like fallen leaves under boot, and chose to stand against him like a cold moon.

He did so much, and the wheel still spun back to the start, like footprints washed clean by tide.

He loved her like wildfire, and still she refused him, a closed blossom before frost, why!

Without meaning to, his features twisted, a mask cracking like old lacquer under heat.

Yes, he liked Night Phantom; he poured in everything like a river into a gorge, and even ignored his father like a storm snuffing lanterns.

Yet she trampled his effort like rain on ash, and still chose to be his enemy, a blade turned to his chest.

No, that can’t stand, only this can’t, Night Phantom is mine, he vowed like a wolf howling at a red moon.

“Shen… Shen Ling Zou?”

Yun Shi watched him clutch his head, writhing like a trapped serpent, and a chill fog crept over her spine.

The air thickened with danger like ozone before lightning, and she stepped back as if a cliff opened behind her.

She knotted her brows like a tightened cord and held no slack, ready to raise a shield like a shell in surf.

She reached for her Light Blade, and despair clicked like an empty scabbard, its energy gone like a burned-out star.

She drew her gun, and the chamber answered with silence, a dry well, every bullet spent like rain long past.

All she had left were a few knives, silver fish in a shallow net, their glint thin as dawn.

“You don’t understand, no, you’ll never understand, how could you grasp my heart!”

Shen Ling Zou snapped his head up, a mad wind in his eyes, and roared like a beast loosed from its cage.

Unreturned love curdled like milk under heat, and his grin went sickly, a crescent dull with rust.

It was her first time seeing him like this, a storm wearing a boy’s face, and tension climbed like ivy around her ribs.

He lunged, a hawk stooping; she stabbed, a needle of moonlight; he raised crystal like a shield of frozen seas.

Mystic Power burst from him, a geyser under stone, and crystals bloomed in the air like a field of glass flowers.

They were beautiful and poisonous, all tilted toward Yun Shi like thorns after rain, finding the soft of her throat.

She spun up the power in her body, a whirlpool under skin, and twisted space until shards shattered like sleet on rock.

But it wasn’t enough; in berserk he wasn’t himself, a river in flood hiding depths.

The crystal storm was a feint, a fox’s brush in dust, and when she broke the last layer, his hand was already there.

He clamped her wrist like an iron cuff and slammed her to the wall, a shadow pinning a moth.

“Let go!”

A deep-cold dread poured over her like night tide, and every pore shivered like leaves in a black wind.

She recoiled from the contact, a flame from oil, and shouted as she struggled, her breath a torn sail.

His grip was iron in frost, and she couldn’t break it, like a snared deer tugging at wire.

Despair rose, a black wave that swallowed shorelines, and fear budded in her chest like bitter ice.

“Night Phantom, I really like you, why can’t you be mine, for me—”

“Let me go! No—help!”

He clutched her harder, words slurring like mud, and leaned in, aiming for her small cherry mouth like a thief for a jewel.

His breath grew rough, a saw on wet wood, and his other hand went for her cloak like claws for silk.

In that dangerous press, Yun Shi’s calm shattered like thin glass, and panic thrashed like a netted fish.

She fought, all refusal and flame, not letting him come any closer, and his trailing words fell away like embers in snow.

So scared, so scared, so scared, the words beat in her skull like frantic wings.

She felt like a lamb at the block, soft throat bared to a wolf, and all her strength went soft as rain.

Her cloak was about to tear like old bark, and revulsion rose, a snake coiling tighter in her gut.

She suddenly understood, before boys, girls were born the weaker reed, not just in limb, but in the quiet of the heart.

A boy gone frantic was a beast in rut, a river in flood, no gate thick enough to hold.

She was truly afraid, more than ever, and in his shadow she finally felt the weight of the word man like iron.

Thinking was useless now, like counting beads in a wildfire, and she wished for rescue the way parched earth prays for rain.

Anyone, she thought, a spark in a cave, anyone, please.

But no one comes for me, she knew, like a winter road that hears only its own snow, because that’s how it’s always been.

“Night Phantom!”

A familiar voice cut the dark like a bell, and she looked up as purple ghost-flame fell from the sky like comets.

Shen Ling Zou sprang away, a stag from a trap, and the strike dug into stone like roots of thunder.

Weight vanished, a stone lifted from the chest, and Yun Shi pushed up as a demon hawk knifed through the air.

Mizuki stood on its back like a fir on a cliff, and she thrust out her hand, a lifeline of pale fire.

“Night Phantom!”

Her worry, her focus, her urgency, all rang true like clear water, and Yun Shi reached back with every trembling thread.

Their hands locked like clasped branches, and they didn’t let go, not even for the wind’s teeth.

Her center dropped out, and the wind slapped like surf, peeling her black cloak to drift like a raven away.

Mizuki hauled her in, a tide pulling a shell, onto the demon hawk’s back, and hugged her tight as if warding winter.

The hawk beat its wings like drums, and they climbed, two silhouettes against a paling sky.

“Night Phantom!”

Shen Ling Zou clawed at the air like a drowning man, and grasped nothing but cold light.

His scream tore the morning like canvas, and still it couldn’t haul back the girl he wanted.

Wildness and ignorance braided like storm and sand, and his excess curdled into an unpatchable sin.

He didn’t yet know what the aftershock would break, like ice cracking far from shore.

“Damn it!”

He slammed his fist down, a hammer on stone, and blood flowered on his knuckles like red moss.

Only he knew the shape of his unwillingness, a shadow tucked under a cloak.

“I’m sorry, I’m late.”

Mizuki held Yun Shi, clothes disheveled like wind-tossed reeds, and guilt threaded her voice like rain through leaves.

She didn’t loosen her arms, not even a finger, as if the girl would drift away like fog if she blinked.

Warmth slipped through Yun Shi’s chest like sunlight through shutters, and she didn’t push back; she leaned into that softness like a cat into warm straw.

“Night Phantom, you must’ve been so scared, I’m sorry,” Mizuki whispered, the words a balm like warm tea.

She remembered the boy pinning Yun Shi to the ground, and cold swept her spine like sleet, grateful she’d come in time.

If anything had happened to Yun Shi, Mizuki would not have let it slide, a dagger wouldn’t have gone back to its sheath.

The girl was a victim, a frost-touched bloom, and Mizuki could feel her trembling like aspen leaves.

Yun Shi wanted to cry, a storm at the dam, but she held it, her heart pounding like drums in a temple.

She came, Yun Shi thought, to save me, for me, only she came, like the first light after a long night.

“You’re so slow, idiot…”

She meant to scold, but it came out like a kitten’s paw, soft and wet with a hint of a sob.

“I’m here, don’t be scared, it’s over,” Mizuki said, rubbing her head, a hand like sun on snow.

Her smile burned bright enough to melt the hard edges, a lantern that makes shadows kneel.

It was the purest smile, a spring sealed within winter, and even dragged into the Underworld, she’d kept it like a hidden ember.

Yun Shi’s face went hot, a peach ripening under noon, and she cursed the heat that wasn’t there.

Their posture was close, two silhouettes plaited like vines, and Elana, in demon hawk form, couldn’t help a tease.

“Keep flaunting it and lightning’ll strike—just go get a marriage license already,” she chimed, mischief like a firefly.

“What nonsense, you jerk!”

To Elana’s surprise, the retort didn’t come from Mizuki with blush like rose, but from Yun Shi, spiky as a hedgehog.

“Uh… seriously?”

Elana glitched like a clock that skipped a beat, stunned that Yun Shi got baited at a time like this.

Yun Shi didn’t know what Elana was thinking; her face burned like a coal, and her clothes, though intact, felt like a banner in daylight.

So embarrassing, she thought, especially in front of this girl, shame fluttering like a trapped moth.

She hugged Mizuki tighter, an excuse like a thin shawl.

It’s just cold, she told herself, like frost on a window, that’s all.

“Hey, Miyuki Kiseki…”

“Mm?”

Mizuki answered with a gentle smile, a crescent moon over quiet water.

“Tha… tha—”

“Mm?”

“Thank you…”

The words were small, a sparrow on a sill, but Mizuki heard them, and Yun Shi ducked her head like a shy sprout.

Mizuki’s smile deepened, a flower opening to dawn, and she said only, “It’s okay.”

Her own cheeks pinked like fresh apple skin, and heat pooled in her chest like summer in a cup.

She stared at the girl in her arms, wide-eyed as if at a miracle, and a strange thought budded like a secret bloom.

Could it be that I…

The silent night was yielding to day, a dark curtain lifting to the pale of milk, and people began to gather like birds on wires.

From the rooftop’s bare concrete, you could see sunrise brushing the horizon like a gold brush over ink.

A young man sighed, a leaf falling in still air, and walked to the edge where strangers might think he’d jump.

He only watched the view, still as an old pine, while the world brightened like a slow breath.

“Zou lost this one utterly,” Shitou Yuya said, the words heavy as wet rope.

The woman behind him said nothing, her gaze nailed to the far sunrise like a prayer pinned to a door.

“So, what do you think?” Yuya asked, looking at the older woman, his tone a pebble skipping on a pond.

“You think asking me births answers, Yuuya?” she sighed, a hand to her brow like shade under noon.

“No, I just think you might find a path, like a fox in thicket,” he said, hope thin as smoke.

“Yuuya-kun, behave,” she said, voice cool as shade. “I’m not that grand, not a mountain to move rivers.”

“At least, I can’t manage Zou,” she added, a clean cut like a blade. “That one’s on you.”

“Hey, I mean, it’s not like I can—”

“It’s settled,” she said, closing the book like a clap. “And keep an eye on the Church first, got it?”

“…I know,” he answered, the word falling like a small stone into a deep well.

Resignation sank in, and Shitou Yuya scratched his head, the motion slow as reeds at dusk.

Seeing that, her mood blossomed; a smile curved on her face like a newborn moon.

"By the way, could I ask you a favor?" He spoke carefully, the words dropping like pebbles on still water.

Shitou Yuya turned solemn all at once, his tone firm as a temple bell.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice crisp as struck flint.

"Thing is, I'd like you to look into someone..." The hesitation in his voice drifted like fog over water.

"For that, go to the Asakura Family," she said, brushing the matter aside like dust on a sleeve.

"Hey, hear me out..." His protest reached like a hand catching a slipping sleeve.

The Underworld stays slippery as mist; factions wrestle, spears in the open and arrows in the dark.

Wonders and oddities bloom like night flowers, and no one knows what the next breath will bring.