"How long have you been standing there?"
"A while," Tatsuya admitted quietly. "I didn't mean to watch. I just… didn't expect to see you like this."
Micah looked away, jaw clenching. He turned his back and stooped to pick up his jacket.
"You weren't supposed to."
Tatsuya didn't leave. Something about the tension in the air told him that walking away now would be a mistake.
"Micah," he said after a long moment. "You always seem so in control. I thought…" He hesitated. "I thought you were the kind of person who never broke."
"That's the point," Micah whispered.
His voice was soft. Bitter. There was a tremble in it that didn't belong to a soldier.
"I built myself around that lie, Tatsuya. I made it my armor. Because if I break even once then what am I? Just another scared boy who doesn't belong here."
He turned around slowly. His eyes were raw not red, not wet, but tired in the kind of way that didn't come from sleeplessness. Tatsuya had seen that look before—in his own reflection.
"You think I'm strong? I'm terrified, Tatsuya. Every day, I fight just to be taken seriously. Just to prove I'm not the weak one in the corner they regret recruiting. You want to know why I train alone before dawn, why I push myself past the limit?"
He gestured to the charred patch of dirt where his spell had misfired.
"Because if I don't become something better, something more, then I go back to being that useless kid who didn't matter."
"But that's not true," Tatsuya said. "You do matter."
Tatsuya contradicted Micah's claim as he did he had only one person in mind.
"To who?" Micah asked his heart filling with despair and desperate need for recognition and love. "To people who only respect the version of me I perform as?"
His breath hitched as he forced his real feelings out. His hands curled into fists, perhaps to force the pain away that came with it.
"I haven't improved in weeks. I hit a wall. My mana won't listen to me anymore. And the only thing I'm good at discipline is starting to crack. So if I'm not strong… then what's left of me?"
As Micah hung his head, drained of emotion, his voice petering out.
Micah's ears were ringing heavily.
The pathetic revelation of his unsightly true feelings left him unable to even look him in the face.
And to that miserable, unsalvageable, hopeless man who had fought against fate and lost, Tatsuya said.
"What's left, is someone who kept going anyway."
Tatsuya repeated once more what he had came to believe since he came into this world.
Ruza was his steppingstone, giving him the strength to say those words. The love, caring, kindness, recognition that Ruza has shown him.
Was the strength that made Tatsuya want to share it, he wanted to be like her. He remembered when Luna needed him.
That time in the village, Tatsuya had tried to give her what Ruza had given him. But he lost to his own Wrath, leaving behind a broken Luna.
Tatsuya knew that, but was to afraid to face her again.
His hands trembled by the realization, disappointment and failure filled his heart.
but he regained his resolve by remembered what was importing now.
Micah continued to look at the ground, sensing something almost incomprehensible in Tatsuya's words, he lifted his face, dumbfounded.
Kept going…?
"You're someone who keeps pursuing your goal, even when you look like an ant compared to the mountain in front of you." Tatsuya continued.
"Even when you think no one stands behind you, I am here."
"Even when you think no one supports you, I am here."
This, Tatsuya declared to a him who hang his head, seemingly gritting his teeth.
There was only sincerity in Tatsuya's eyes. They conveyed nothing but trust to him.
Micah was overwhelmed by that powerful, intense light. After all, Tatsuya was wrong about him.
So wrong, this was a veritable farce.
He didn't know how proud and noble the Micah in his eyes must have been.
But the real Micah was nothing so noble as the hero he dreamed to be.
Clinging to hope, smiling through doubt, hiding the ache of not being enough, pretending strength while quietly breaking.
He clenched the fabric of his collar in a trembling fist, as if trying to hold himself together.
His jaw tightened, brows knit, and his breath hitched as if something inside him had cracked.
He looked down, nails digging into his own chest, like he could claw out the weakness he couldn't bear to show.
Micah's voice trembled as he gripped the collar of his shirt, clutching it like a man on the edge of a cliff, as if trying to tear out something rotten festering beneath his skin. His fingers curled tighter, wrinkling the fabric with white-knuckled force.
"…Can you see it?"
He laughed but there was no humor in it. Only a sharp, brittle sound that cracked at the edges.
"The hole in my identity. The emptiness that grows as I search for a self that feels true."
His other hand rose and pressed against his chest, the heel of his palm grinding over his heart as if he could force it to beat a little stronger, to choose a direction. His head dropped forward, his bangs falling over his eyes, shadowing the shame that brimmed there.
"My heart is divided… and the void of uncertainty grows. As I am torn between who I am and who I'm meant to be."
"I tell myself I'm kind… but I fake strength I don't have. I want peace… but I smile when I should scream. I dream of writing stories, not spilling blood—but I still carry a sword, still pretend it belongs in my hands…"
His lips curled into something between a grimace and a sob.
"A heart I must fool… that's all I've got. A divided heart that longs for both paths but finds peace in neither."
Micah's voice cracked then—like porcelain fracturing under pressure.
"I walk two roads at once and get nowhere. Forever wandering, forever lost in both. Never truly belonging to either."
He looked up, eyes burning with a quiet, desperate grief.
"I'm just pretending. Pretending I can be someone worthy. That maybe, if I just work hard enough, I'll become the man everyone thinks I am."
He tugged at his collar again, tighter this time, until it bit into his throat.
"But this is all I am… A boy too soft to be strong. Too afraid to stand still. A dreamer clinging to a sword he doesn't want to wield."
He forced a breath through trembling lips.
"Everyone else has something real. A purpose. A strength. Something that makes them belong."
"But me… I don't even know what I am. I'm not strong enough to be a knight. Not brave enough to be a writer. I'm just… stuck in between. Always smiling. Always faking it. Always hoping I'll figure it out before the world stops giving me chances."
"Ruza was right, you know," he muttered, voice hoarse. "I wasn't fighting enemies. I'm fighting myself."
The words tasted like blood on his tongue. Bitter and metallic, laced with the shame of being seen—not as a soldier, not as a dreamer, but as the scared, fractured mess he really was.
"I can't fix this. I can't fix me. I want to be a writer—so why am I here, sword in hand, pretending I was ever meant to spill blood?"
His voice rose. Louder now. Like his heart was cracking open and the sound was pouring out.
"I told myself I could do both! That I could protect others and protect my dream—but the truth is, I can't do either!"
He stared down at his trembling hands.
"These hands… they don't know how to save anyone. They don't know how to write anything worth remembering. They don't know how to belong to anything!"
"Why can't I just be enough?! Why can't I just be the person I need to be?! Why am I always failing?!"
Tears spilled from his eyes, unbidden and unwelcome, hot trails of salt that stung more than any wound ever had. They blurred the floor beneath him, warped the cracks in the stone into bleeding veins.
"I'm tired… I'm so damn tired of trying to be someone I'm not. I don't even know what's left underneath anymore. If you take away the sword, and the smile, and the stories what's left of me? What's left of me?!"
Micah was short of breath after letting out all the darkness tearing him up inside.
His nature as a human made even him want to puke.
Even though he'd spewed it all out, the deep feelings in his chest only soured further.
If you let out something that was bottled up inside of you, shouldn't you feel a little better? Micah thought
On top of not feeling the slightest bit better, he realized with no doubt in his mind how foolish he was.
The shame inside of him made him want to die right then and there. And his weakness in exposing so much filth, thinking of nothing beyond his own concerns, was the stupidest thing of all.
Someone who carries a swords shouldn't show weakness…
With Tatsuya standing right there, still believing in him still now, after all that, he was more concerned with his own standing than with his.
Truly accepting and recognizing the corrupt, flawed parts of himself that he hated didn't mean things were going to instantly improve.
If anything, the depth and darkness of the chasm within him underlined just how incorrigible he was, robbing him even of his will to live.
Because in Micah's eyes his life has no purpose, no meaning. He just followed what other people wanted from him, he followed other people's paths, instead of following the path he wanted.
The path God had called him to follow.
The true character of Micah Arkwell did not merit pity. Because in truth it was all his fault, his decision to follow his father's demands and his decision to never stand up for himself.
As Micah sank to the lowest depths of his filthy ego, still, the boy he had just met a week ago.
Did not forsake him.
His unwavering faith, his quiet admiration, scraped against Micah like salt on a fresh wound.
After revealing his failures, after unraveling every lie he'd built around himself, after laying bare the cowardice and cruelty he thought defined him.
Why did Tatsuya still look at Micah with that same gentle, unshaken smile?
"You're wrong," Tatsuya's began.
"You think you're faking it. That if you strip away the smiles, the sword, the dream, there's nothing left worth keeping."
"But I've been watching you."
Micah's head twitched faintly at that.
"I've been watching you since the day I met you, and… you were the first person here who didn't make me feel like a burden."
With Micah fallen into silence, Tatsuya began to express his own feeling towards him.
"You want to know what's left of you?" he asked. "What's really inside you?"
Micah remained silent while Tatsuya went on, saturating him with his words.
"Your gentle mentorship."
Micah blinked, as if the phrase was foreign.
"You could've humiliated me when I messed up. You could've ignored me. But you didn't. You said 'again'—every time. No judgment. Just trust."
Tatsuya's hands curled at his sides, as if gripping the weight of the words he'd buried until now.
"When I messed up in the drills. When I collapsed trying to run. When I cried that first week and thought no one saw me. You were there."
He took a breath.
"And you never made me feel like I had to apologize for being weak."
While Tatsuya wove those words, Micah's chest cried out.
"..Stop it."
"And then there's your calmness," Tatsuya said. "I've never met anyone who stayed so steady when things fall apart."
"I panic. I overthink. I get angry. But you… you breathe through it. You ground the room just by being in it."
Tatsuya allowed a small smile. "And yeah, maybe you feel like that's fake. But even if it is, Micah… it still works. It still helps."
He stepped a little closer now, his voice quieter but no less firm.
"You joke when people are hurting. You make them laugh—me, even Tokagame sometimes. That self-deprecating humor of yours? It saves us from sinking."
Tatsuya tilted his head. "You once told me I'd gain +2 wisdom every time I fell flat on my back. Dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"Why..?"
Why was he still talking?
Why was he still able to toss out such compliments at Micah, the useless fool that he was?
"But it made me smile," Tatsuya added. "When I needed it."
"You told me once you wanted to protect the people you cared about."
"Even if it sounds naïve. Even if you think you're not enough to make it happen. You believe in that. And because of that belief, you fight."
Micah's eyes had dropped back down to the ground.
"You say you haven't improved in weeks. That your mana's failing. That you've hit a wall. And yet…"
"You're still standing. You're still trying."
"That's emotional endurance, Micah. You keep fighting even when everything inside you tells you to stop."
He let that sit there, let it dig in.
"You never give up on people."
"You didn't give up on me."
"I was hard to teach. You didn't have to help me. You could've said it wasn't worth it. But you didn't."
Micah's eyes lifted now, slow and uncertain.
"I think you downplay a lot of who you are. Like when you write."
Micah stiffened.
"You act like it's nothing. You say, 'It's not like anyone's going to read that stuff.' But I've read it. And it's good. Really good."
He smiled softly. "You don't write to impress. You write because it's your heart talking. That's humility, Micah. You don't crave praise. You just… do what you love."
Micah shook his head.
"You joke to hide your pain sometimes. But you also use those jokes to heal other people's pain."
He shook his head harder.
"So don't tell me you're nothing."
"Don't say you're a fake."
His fist clenched over his chest.
"Because what I've seen… is someone real."
"No! None of that is real...!"
Tatsuya was looking at a hopeful lie.
The real Micah wasn't that kind of person. The real him was selfish, bitter, and soaked in blood.
"You just don't understand! I know more about myself than anyone else! You only just met me!"
"And even with that little time I came to know, the wonderful person that you are!"
Reflexively, Micah raised his voice, but Tatsuya shout was even louder than his own.
Micah was shocked.
It was the first time he raised his voice since they'd started talking. The tremble in it caught Micah off guard, lodging like a stone in his throat.
When he finally looked, he saw it, Tatsuya's usual soft gaze blurred by unshed tears.
Of course, hearing Micah's confessions had shaken him.
Of course, listening to the bitterness, the anger, the loathing Micah had turned inward had hurt.
And yet even through all of it Tatsuya still believed in him.
He had seen the worst of Tatsuya, and still chose to stay.
"You said you don't know who you are," Tatsuya continued. "You're stuck between the writer and the fighter. The dreamer and the knight. You said you can't choose."
"You think people only matter if they fit into one box. One job. One role. But that's not true. Do what you want to do."
"Leave everything behind and start to write, nobody will see you as less of a person."
Tatsuya's voice softened.
"Maybe you'll never be the strongest swordsman. Maybe you'll never be the world's best writer. But you know what?"
Micah stared at him.
"You are the only Micah Arkwell."
"You write your own story, you're the main character and other people can never take that away from you!"
Micah's face twisted. A sob escaped him, sharp and unguarded.
He covered his mouth, eyes scrunching as the tears flowed. But this time, they weren't filled with shame. Or failure.
They were the tears of someone finally being seen.
Tatsuya stayed beside him.
No matter how many failures stained his hands, no matter how deeply he doubted himself, that one sentence from Tatsuya still carried the quiet faith that Micah would rise and set things right.
And far too late, Tatsuya finally understood it.
He was wrong. Completely wrong. Painfully, shamefully wrong.
Micah had believed Tatsuya was just kind, that he supported him out of politeness, out of duty, out of that same quiet decency he offered to everyone.
He thought Tatsuya's care would allow him to fall apart quietly, to collapse without judgment, to disappear without resistance.
But that had been a mistake. A devastating misjudgment. Because Tatsuya wasn't just kind.
Tatsuya was the one person who wouldn't let Micah stay broken.
Everyone else had said that he should rest, that he wasn't to blame. They offered relief in the form of surrender.
But Tatsuya wouldn't allow it.
He was the only one who kept telling him, You matter. Stand up. Don't fade away.
Tatsuya didn't expect strength from Tatsuya.
He believed in it. And told him to follow his own path.
Even when Micah had abandoned himself, Tatsuya stayed, stayed and refused to let him vanish.
Such was the quiet miracle that Micah Arkwell had become to him.
Micah heart clenched, overwhelmed by the rush of something wordless, shame, hope, grief, and something gentler, impossibly gentle, that he dared not name.
His throat burned. His chest ached. The static clouding his mind began to clear.
"I'm a failure," he murmured. "I let everyone down. I was never enough."
"You never let me down," Tatsuya replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "You reached me."
"I'm broken," Micah said. "Everything I touch falls apart. People die. I'm always too late."
"I'm still here," Tatsuya said, leaning closer. "The person you saved… the one who still believes in you."
"I don't matter," Micah choked. "I'm just noise. No one listens."
"I do. If it's you speaking, I want to hear every word."
"I'm not worth it," he muttered, staring at the ground. "I hate myself."
Then let me love you in the places you can't."
The hand that brushed Micah shoulder was warm. The eyes that met his from such a close distance shimmered with moisture, not pity.
Trust.
Sincerity.
"Even now?" Micah breathed. "Even after all I've done… after everything I've failed to be?"
Tatsuya nodded. "Even now. Especially now. If you really think there's nothing left inside you… if you've reached the end."
"then let's begin from here."
Micah blinked. "Begin…?"
Tatsuya gave a smile. "Let's start over. Just like you helped me. When I couldn't move forward in training, you stood with me. So let me return the favor."
"Start over…" Micah echoed, the words foreign and fragile on his lips.
"If walking alone is too hard… then we'll walk together. We'll split the burden. One step at a time."
Micah laughed softly, wiping the corner of his eye. "That's what you said to me, remember? That morning. You told me we'd walk forward together."
So let's do that, his eyes seemed to say. Let's laugh again. Let's believe in tomorrow again.
"You asked me to show you the best in me," Micah whispered. "But all I've given you is the worst."
"I still want to see it," Tatsuya replied. "The best in you. Because I believe it's there."
Micah was in stunned silence. The boy who had thrown away his future once. The boy who had stepped into another world believing there was nothing left worth saving in himself.
But Tatsuya showed the things he had hidden away and made him realize them again.
So he offered his hand to Tatsuya, right at his side, and asked, "Will you...help me?"
Tatsuya nodded. "Of course."
Micah's let out a sign, a sign that restored calmness.
"You said something earlier," Micah murmured.
"That I don't have to choose. That I can be both."
He exhaled shakily, watching the breath fog faintly in the cooling night air.
"You made me remember."
"I kept telling myself I had to be the knight. That it was the right thing. That protecting people meant sacrificing myself. That if I was just strong enough, fast enough, disciplined enough… maybe that would be enough to quiet the part of me that wanted something else."
"I kept fighting so hard to be what people needed me to be… that I lost sight of what I actually wanted."
From the first moment he picked up a sword, something inside him had told himself he didn't belong.
And now, Micah could finally admit it.
"I don't want to live like this anymore."
His shoulders didn't slump forward, they retreated brining confidence in the words he shook out of him like dust from an old book.
"I don't want to live as a weapon. I don't want to be a blade. I don't want to keep pretending I'm okay with it. That I'm okay being it."
And after all the aching silences, after every second that stretched into a torment without measure, he finally found the strength to speak the truth of his heart.
"That's who I really am." Micah declared.
"I've always known," Micah said, "that stories were the only place I felt whole. When I write, it doesn't matter if I'm strong or fast or worthy. I just… am. I feel like I'm actually living."
He looked skyward, eyes glinting with tears that hadn't yet fallen. "But I was afraid. Afraid that saying it out loud would mean losing the people who counted on me to be strong."
A smile ghosted across his lips. "Funny, huh? I thought if I admitted I didn't want to be a knight, I'd disappoint everyone. But the person I disappointed most… was me."
Tatsuya exhaled slowly, heart full.
"You didn't disappoint me."
Micah's eyes widened slightly.
"I think you're the bravest person I've met here," Tatsuya said plainly. "Because even after all that pain, all that fear… you still told the truth."
Micah Arkwell had spent his life walking a tightrope strung between duty and desire, between the blade in his hand and the stories in his head. Every day had been a performance, smiling when he wanted to scream, training when he longed to write, surviving when all he wanted was to live.
But now, at last, he had stepped off that rope.
Not with fanfare. Not with glory.
But with a quiet decision that would change everything.
He would leave.
Not out of defeat but out of clarity.
He would leave the Swordsman Corps. He would lay down the weapon he had carried so long it nearly became his skin. And in its place, he would pick up the pen, the one that had always felt more like home.
There would be backlash, of course. Confusion. Maybe even disappointment.
But that no longer terrified him.
Because for the first time, Micah wasn't walking someone else's path.
He was walking his.
And in that quiet defiance, in that trembling, soul-bared decision to choose creation over destruction, he found it.
A new purpose.
Not to be a hero in someone else's story.
But to write his own.