Chapter 21: The Final Stroke
The ink on my application glistens wet under the flickering candlelight as I hesitate—signing this means choosing Ren's squad over Tsubaki's future with the Military Police. My fingers tremble when I recall Borros' warning: 'Pick a side, Kashikoi, or the war will pick it for you.'
I don’t sign it. I slide the form into a textbook, a secret held between the pages, and try to forget the weight of it.
The end of fourth year is approaching, a finish line made of smoke. I can’t see beyond it. My focus, already cracked, shatters completely.
We’re in one of the smaller training yards, just me and Ren. He’s been different since that day in his room—not softer, no, but more present. His critiques are sharper, his expectations higher, but the arbitrary cruelty is gone. It’s like he’s decided I’m worth the actual effort. Today, we’re working on disarming techniques against a longer blade. He’s using a practice katana; I have my twin scythes, their wooden training counterparts feeling clumsy in my hands.
I miss a simple pivot. His wooden blade cracks against my ribs, a punctuation mark to my failure.
“You’re off today,” he states, lowering his weapon. He doesn’t sound angry, just observant. The bruise on my neck has faded to a sickly yellow, a constant, quiet reminder of his broken state and my forced comfort. “Your head’s somewhere else. Is it the breach?”
“No.” I lower my own scythes, the wood suddenly heavy. “It’s Tsubaki.”
He rolls his shoulders, a gesture of impatience. “What about her? She’s applying to the Military Police. You’re applying here. Paths diverge. It happens.”
The simplicity of it, the cold military logic, is like a slap. He doesn’t get it. He can’t. “It’s not that simple, Ren.”
“Why not?”
“Because it just isn’t.” My voice cracks. “She’s my… it’s a long story.”
He studies me for a long moment, his dark eyes missing nothing—the tension in my jaw, the way my knuckles are white around the scythe handles. He nods, once, a decision made. “Fine. Pack up.”
“We’re done?”
“For this,” he says, walking to the edge of the yard where his gear is stacked. He picks up a worn, silver canteen, unscrews the cap, and takes a long pull. He doesn’t wince. He then holds it out to me. “Come on.”
I stow my practice weapons, confused, but follow him as he leads the way out of the training grounds, past the barracks, toward the western edge of the Academy plateau. The path narrows, becoming a thin goat trail that winds up behind a jagged outcrop of black rock. The air grows thinner, colder. The ever-present hum of the Academy fades, replaced by the sigh of a high-altitude wind.
Then, we crest the ridge.
The overlook is a raw, natural shelf of stone, jutting out over a breathtaking, terrifying drop. Below, the Shadow Domain unfolds like a wrinkled, dark tapestry. We’re above the cloud layer. Tendrils of mist coil around the distant spires of the nearby town, glowing with sinister, artificial light. To the east, the twisted, violet-tinged forests of the Wastes are just visible. The sky here isn’t the bruised purple of lower altitudes, but a deep, velvety black scattered with alien, cold-burning stars.
It’s beautiful in a way that hurts. It’s vast, and it makes my problems feel both insignificant and monumentally heavy.
Ren sits on the edge, his legs dangling over the abyss, and takes another swig from the canteen. He holds it out to me again. “Tell me about it.”
I sit beside him, not nearly as close to the edge. The drop yaws beneath my feet, a physical pull. I take the canteen. The metal is warm from his hand. I bring it to my lips, trying not to think about the indirect kiss, the intimacy of shared spit and shared secrets. The whiskey is cheap and brutal, a fire that scrapes all the way down and blooms heat in my stomach. I cough, my eyes watering.
He almost smiles. Almost.
With each sip, my tongue loosens. The whiskey, the vertigo, the sheer, stark loneliness of the view—it strips my defenses bare.
“For as long as I can remember,” I say, my voice quiet against the wind, “I’ve been alone.”
He takes the canteen back, his fingers brushing mine. “What about your parents?”
I grab the flask from him, a sudden, desperate need for the burn. I take a swig, gulping it down fast, letting it fuel the confession. “I never knew them.” The words come out flat, practiced. This is the story I’ve told a hundred times to social workers, to foster parents, to teachers. “I was abandoned in a trash can outside of a night club when I was a baby. Picked up by the government, thrown into the system.”
I pass the canteen back. He doesn’t speak, just listens, his gaze fixed on the distant city lights.
“Foster care was all I’ve ever known. I moved from place to place. Never staying in one for too long.” The memories are a blur of half-packed suitcases, strange ceilings, the smell of different cooking. Then, the sharper ones. “Poor families. Abusive families.” My hand rises without my command, fingers touching my cheekbone, tracing the ghost of an old, remembered pain. A hard punch on my jaw, a man’s shouting voice, the metallic taste of blood. I drop my hand. “It wasn’t until I met Tsubaki. We were in the same foster home together when we were older. We’ve been best friends ever since. Sisters, even. We’ve never been apart since.” I look at him, needing him to understand. “Even the fact we ended up both having angelic blood… it feels like a miracle.”
Ren takes a swig of whiskey, his expression unchanging. The personal tragedy seems to roll off him. “Given you both lived in the mortal realm, you were likely pulled to each other. Your blood heritage calls to its own kind. It’s not a miracle. It’s biology with a dash of fate.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like it explains everything.
I shake my head, a sharp, frustrated motion. “More than that.” The words are too small for the feeling. It was more than fate. It was her sharing her candy bar under the covers after a beating. It was her holding my hair back when I was sick with a flu in a house that felt like a prison. It was her promising, with the fierce, stupid certainty of a twelve-year-old, that we’d always stick together. She was the first person who chose me.
I don’t say any of that. He wouldn’t get it.
Instead, I take the canteen from his loosened grip and look out over the landscape—the impossible, frightening, beautiful world that is now my home. A world that is about to tear the only home I’ve ever truly known away from me. The whiskey warmth is a small, false comfort against the vast, cold dark stretching out before us, and the even colder decision waiting for me back in my room.
The whiskey warmth is a small, false comfort against the vast, cold dark stretching out before us, and the even colder decision waiting for me back in my room. I took another long pull from the canteen, the liquid scraping a path of defiant heat down my throat. The world began to soften at its hard, sharp edges, the starlight bleeding into faint, pretty halos.
A strange, prickling heat bloomed across my skin, starting at my core and spreading outward like a second, faster heartbeat. It was a deep, uncomfortable warmth, completely at odds with the First Winter chill biting at my exposed cheeks and hands.
I shrugged out of my sweater dress without thinking, the thick fabric catching on my elbows before I pulled it free and tossed it aside. The cold air hit my bare arms, shoulders, and back, but it felt good, a relief against the fire in my blood. I fell back onto the smooth stone, looking up at the swirling stars, my face flushed.
“Woah there, kiddo,” Ren’s voice came from beside me, a low rumble of pure amusement. “Why are you stripping?”
I turned my head toward him, the movement making the stars slide sideways. “It’s just… so hot,” I replied sluggishly, my tongue feeling thick. I looked up at his shadowed profile against the sky and giggled. “Hehehe. Just like you.”
Ren looked down at me, and I could see the white flash of his teeth in the dark. “Okay,” he said, taking the canteen from my loose fingers. “So whiskey is the weapon of choice to get you drunk, then.”
I giggled again, a silly, unbidden sound, and rolled onto my side to be closer to him. The stone was cool against my cheek. He just looked at me, his head tilted, like he was observing a strange, unpredictable animal and didn’t know how to react.
I pushed myself up, leaning my arms back behind me to prop myself up. The landscape below swam, a beautiful, terrifying painting. A sudden, profound loneliness hollowed me out, sharper than the alcohol. Some tears started forming in my eyes, hot and insistent.
Then, I hugged my knees to myself, the chill finally seeping past the alcohol to my bones. “Maybe I’m just meant to always be alone,” I mumbled into my leggings.
“Hey, hey, Kashikoi.” Ren’s tone was lightly chastising, slightly amused. “I’m the one who should be broody and crying about being alone, ‘cause I’m the one who just went through a break-up. Not you.”
His mock-indignant correction made a wet laugh burst out of me. I looked up at him then, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, my voice sobering into something serious and small. “You won’t leave me, right, Ren? Will we be friends forever?”
I suddenly felt very young in that moment, despite being a twenty-one-year-old woman. For some reason, I desperately needed to hear it from him.
Ren picked up my discarded sweater dress and threw it at my face. “You’re an idiot,” he said, standing up and brushing the dust from his pants.
I protested, pulling the fabric from my head as I sat up fully. The world tilted. “You didn’t answer me!” I complained, struggling to get my arms back into the sleeves.
With his back to me, he said, “That’s a dumb question to ask.”
Indignation flared, cutting through the haze. I snatched up a small pebble from the ground and tossed it at his back. It bounced off his leather jacket with a soft thwap.
He whirled around, his eyes wide with playful outrage. “Did you just—”
I was already scrambling to my feet, unsteady. He bent down, picked up a pebble of his own, and made a show of weighing it in his hand.
I took off, my boots slipping on the smooth stone, laughter and terror mixing in my throat. “Say it!” I yelled over my shoulder, my voice carried away by the wind.
“Say what?” he called back, his footsteps a calm, deliberate crunch behind me. He wasn’t even running fast.
“That we’ll be friends!” I tripped on an uneven patch, my arms wheeling. His hand shot out and caught my elbow, steadying me before I could fall.
“You’re a menace,” he chuckled, his grip firm.
I turned within his hold, breathless, the starlight catching in his dark eyes. “Just say it.”
He looked down at me, the amusement fading into something quieter, more real. He pulled me into a big hug, his arms wrapping around me, strong and solid and shockingly warm. My face pressed against his chest, the smell of leather and cold air and him filling my senses.
“You don’t even have to ask,” he said, his voice a low vibration against my ear. “Of course we will always be friends.”
He let go, holding me at arm’s length, his hands on my shoulders. His gaze was steady, final. “Friends. Always friends.”
It echoes in my mind.
The walk back to the barracks was a silent, weaving journey. The whiskey’s warmth had retreated, leaving a dull throb behind my eyes and the cold truth of his words nestled in my chest. Friends. Only friends. He had said it to comfort me, to anchor me. It felt like a door gently clicking shut.
We stopped outside the barracks building. Light glowed from the common room windows, but it was quiet.
“Get some water,” Ren said, his commander’s voice returning. “And for God’s sake, don’t let Borros see you like this tomorrow.”
I nodded, unable to form words. He gave me a last, searching look, then turned and walked toward the officers’ quarters, his figure melting into the shadows.
Inside, the common room was empty. A single lamp was on. On the low table sat my textbook, and beside it, the unsigned externship form. The sight of it was a physical punch. I picked up the pen.
My hand didn’t shake this time. The scratch of the nib was the only sound in the room. I signed my name: Arisa Kashikoi.
I had chosen. The choice felt less like a step forward and more like stepping off the cliff we’d just left behind, trusting an invisible ledge to appear beneath my feet. I left the form on the table, a silent declaration.
In the bunkroom, Tsubaki was already asleep, her breathing deep and even. I changed quietly in the dark, the events of the night—the confession, the whiskey, the hug, the finality—swirling in a confused torrent. As I slid into my cot, the last thing I saw before closing my eyes was the faint outline of my best friend’s face, peaceful in sleep, unaware that I had just chosen a path that led away from her.