The smoke choked the sky. The earth beneath Mai's feet scorched her skin. Bodies were scattered across the burnt huts, and not a single living voice remained to tell her if she was dreaming-or if reality itself had shattered. She didn't cry. The tears had already burned away the night before.
Her legs carried her, almost of their own accord, far from the village's center. She couldn't remember when she had started running. She only remembered the look in her mother's eyes when the red rose left her hand and melted into Mai's flesh.
The blood still pulsed within her. It didn't hurt. It weighed. The power tested her, touching every thought, whispering: "What will you do now?"
She ran with no direction. Only legs, only wind. The forest swallowed her — twisted trees, thick roots, shadows that seemed alive.
At some point, Mai collapsed. She leaned against a gnarled tree trunk, allowing herself, for the first time since that night, to breathe. Her legs trembled. Her hands dug into the earth as if searching for an anchor. She looked up — a hole in the branches revealed the sky. The stars still hung there. Indifferent. Whole.
"Why... me?" she whispered."I'm no warrior. I'm not strong. I'm just a girl who watched everything she loved burn."
The red rose within her fingers flickered. A pulse shot through her nerves, stabbing at her mind."If you're not a fighter, you'll die. And if you die, none of this will have meant anything."The voice wasn't truly hers. But it didn't lie.
By dawn, Mai rose again. The pain in her body became familiar. Her muscles screamed, but her heart began to harden. She pulled out the last scraps of a map she had hidden at home. There, marked crudely, was a single point: Mount Sinora. Far in the forgotten ranges of Japan, it was a place ancient and unmarked where a man who never asked for anything—only silence—lived. There, her mother once said, lived those who understood the flowers of emotion.
And Mai had nothing left but questions.
She tightened the strap on her shoulder. She tied her red hair back under a ragged hood.
She would not return to the village. She would not pray for mercy. She would not beg.
She would walk until she knew. Until she avenged. Or until she broke.