They ate in shifts—quiet bowls of instant rice and canned fish that tasted like metal and relief. Riku said little. He kept moving, checking wraps that had puckered, swapping out dented pans for straighter ones, re-taping a dozen forearms where sweat had chewed the glue loose. When he finally dropped to the floor near the office and leaned his back against a shelf, the ache in his shoulders found him all at once. Miko lowered herself beside him, close enough that their elbows brushed.
"You didn't fire a single round after we went in," she murmured.
"Didn't need to." Riku tipped his head against the steel, eyes tracing the hairline crack in the ceiling tiles. "And I don't want to teach them the wrong way. They need to trust their hands, not my gun."
