"W — Wait, Ryo-sama!"
Nathan was already through the domain's outer gate when her voice reached him. He kept walking. The road opened ahead of him — the south road, packed dirt and old stone, the forge district's smoke still hanging in the air at his back, the treeline ahead carrying the cleaner smell of the territory beyond.
"Ryo-sama!"
Louder this time. He heard her sandals on the road behind him — the quick, irregular rhythm of someone breaking into a run — and he stopped.
He turned.
Sakura arrived breathing hard, her chest rising and falling from the effort, her pink hair slightly disordered from the run, her composure in the early stages of reassembly. A few steps behind her Akiko appeared around the gate's edge equally out of breath, one hand pressed to her side.
Takefusa came last.
