A few weeks later, Tamura found Nekeya near the outer cliffs of Xathia's western coast where the storm winds howled and mana currents rippled across the stone like living veins. She stood barefoot, unbothered by the cold. Her flames curled around her ankles like a second skin.
He stepped beside her.
"You always walk like you're being followed," she said, eyes never leaving the horizon.
"Even when you're alone."
"I don't trust peace. In my time here, I've found that peace is always followed by conflict."
"Well I do trust it." She lifted her hand, and a column of fire shimmered beside them; silent, warm, nurturing.
"Because I learned how to make it when I need it."
Tamura stared into the flame. It didn't bite. It didn't consume.
It invited.
His fingers reached out, and it accepted him.
Not as prey.
As a part.
---
She trained him that night beneath the cliff's overhang, glyphs whispering along stone, fire shaping language only demons used to share.
"Infernal fire has rhythm," she said, tracing symbols in the air.
"It listens before it speaks."
Tamura watched, hands trembling slightly.
"Mine doesn't listen."
"Then you've never asked it the right way. You've always demanded or tried to hold it back."
She stepped behind him, guiding his hands in slow patterns her body close, her aura humming.
Tamura's flames stuttered, lashed, then curved, adjusting.
"See?" she whispered.
"You speak with fear. It answers with pain. Speak with trust, and it remembers warmth."
---
Later, they sat by the riverbed where stars reflected like scattered embers.
Nekeya lay back, hair fanned against the grass. Tamura sat beside her, gaze split between moonlight and the insignia glowing softly on her shoulder.
"The phoenix isn't just rebirth," she said.
"It's memory. A flame that chooses to survive."
Tamura touched his own mark.
"Do you think mine chooses me?"
She rolled toward him, her face close.
"No."
"I think yours needs you. And it's furious you keep doubting it and trying to contain it."
He didn't respond.
Instead, he looked at her. This time, he really looked.
"Your eyes," He stared into Nekeya's gaze for a moment. "For someone who claims to have no soul, your eyes are full of wonder. Almost like a kid."
Nekeya blushed, beginning to get flustered.
"Shut the hell up! You're not being cute or funny. Trying to call me a child?"
Tamura simply stared longer before they both began to laugh.
---
Their next training session felt different.
Tamura didn't resist.
His aura reached for hers, not wildly, but slowly, hungrily. She met it mid-air, fingers grazing his wrist, sparks dancing between their skin.
Their flames curled together, merging into a shared current.
Tamura's eyes locked onto hers.
No smirks now. No teasing. Just recognition.
Nekeya stepped closer, letting her forehead brush his—flame wrapping around them like silk, their infernal legacies echoing.
"Do you feel it?" she whispered.
"I don't know where I stop," Tamura breathed,
"And you begin."
They stayed like that, breathing in sync, fire stitched between them—not burning, not breaking, just becoming.
---
Guild rooftop, just past midnight.
Tamura sits at the ledge, flame flickering faint violet from the mark on his chest. He's not brooding. Just listening to the way heat hums against the wind.
Nekeya finds him there. No teasing this time. She sits beside him without words.
After a long pause:
"Do you ever wonder if you were built to break first, so others don't have to?"
Tamura replies without looking at her.
"Sometimes it feels like that's all I'm good for. I've only ever lost people."
She exhales, brushing her hand just barely against his.
"Then let's make sure to get strong enough to rebuild each other then."
---
Training. Late day sun. Nekeya creates a ring of healing fire, inviting Tamura to step in bare-chested. His skin is marked, scorched in places from earlier sparring.
"Let it touch you. Let it flow within you."
He hesitates. Then steps in.
The flames wrapped around them slowly like silk soaked in memory. His breath catches. She watches closely.
"You flinch every time someone tries to care. Why is that?"
"I've been taught flinching is safer. In my time raised in this kingdom you tend to get used to your instincts always proving to be right for better or worse."
Her fingers press lightly against his ribs, tracing the mark.
"Then you'll just have to learn that my flame doesn't ask permission to protect."
Tamura's aura hums. Nothing explodes. Nothing burns.
Just healing.
And closeness.
---
They sit in the guild's lower shrine room unused by most, echoing with warmth that leaks through the stone. Tamura holds a mana thread. Nekeya teaches him to infuse fire into smaller things like thread. Teaching him to be more precise. She also began teaching him how to decipher infernal language.
He stumbles.
She guides his hand from behind, voice low against his ear.
"Don't force it. Just let it go. Feel its patterns."
He tries again. The thread glows crimson.
The message lingers in his chest.
"What did I say?"
"You said you missed me when I was gone yesterday."
Tamura blinks.
"I didn't mean it like tha-"
"Yeah, you did. It's okay. I liked it."
"I missed you as well."
---
They stand in the guild garden, fireflies drifting like spirits between flora. Nekeya pulls Tamura's hand to her chest, guiding it over her insignia.
"No matter what happens next… you have to remember I chose this flame. I chose you."
Tamura meets her gaze.
"Even if I burn you?"
"Especially then."
He leans in, but not for a kiss. Not yet.
Just to rest his forehead against hers.
Their breath mingles. Their aura dances. The flame between them bgean to mix. An amazing display Tamura's primal violet hellfire and Nekeya's disciplined deep crimson phoenix flames, spinning quietly in a wonderful dance.
---
Tamura's flame curled upward, jagged and raw. Nekeya's danced around him—smoother, warmer, like silk spun from embers.
Then her flame touched his.
Not just around him, but into him.
It sank beneath his skin, not burning, but soothing. Like heat that remembered what pain felt like and chose to be gentle.
Tamura staggered.
His mark flared.
And suddenly...
He remembered.
Levi's laughter echoing through the dustwrought canyon trails.
Freya's voice, soft and firm, calling him back from the edge.
The faces of those he couldn't save.
The weight of every name he never got to bury.
His knees buckled.
He dropped to the ground, hands shaking, breath ragged.
"I couldn't protect them," he whispered.
"I wasn't enough."
Nekeya knelt beside him, her flame wrapping around his shoulders like a blanket.
"You're not meant to carry every grave. You deserve to be given grace."
Tamura looked at her with teary eyes, voice cracked.
"If I'm not strong enough… this thing we're building… it'll fall."
She smiled softly.
"Then let's build it stronger together so that nothing may tear us down."
She kissed him.
Not to silence him.
To anchor him.
Tamura's arms wrapped around her, pulling her close, his flame began surging. It was primal, desperate, alive. It overpowered hers, not violently, but with need. Their bodies pressed together, heat rising, clothes singeing at the edges.
They didn't speak.
They just held each other.
Tears fell freely, his first in years, hers without shame.
They collapsed together, breath tangled, and their hearts exposed.
Tamura's mark pulsed once. First deep red, then violet, then still.
And he knew.
"This is love," he whispered.
Nekeya didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
But her actions from then on showed all there was to say.
They both thought to themselves.
"I love you."
---