CHAPTER 127: WHY WE FIGHT

Ichiro built the fire the way he does everything – messy but efficient, and a little too big.

The flames threw a circle of orange onto the snow. Sparks went up and hesitated in the wind like they were deciding whether to become stars. Boots and mugs and knees made a rough ring around the heat. Someone - probably Esen - had written TURN BACK in the snow with a heel and then, because it was funny, added a smiley face.

Hikari sat with her blanket like a hooded comet, notebook half-tucked away. Lynea had her fragments out, not sharp, just idly floating small and harmless. Obi sat cross-legged and tried to look wise. The effect was ruined by his hair, which looked like a very, very wild bush.

Keahi sharpened her sword with a patience that made the sound almost comforting. Arashi sprawled with an arm across his bandage and a grin across the rest of him.

Raizen picked a crate and it accepted him like they were on good terms. The fire painted everyone younger. Or just more themselves.

For a while they talked about the day. About skiing-that-was-not-called-skiing. About broom handles that were definitely high-performance, regulation race poles. About how Esen had detonated a snowball overhead like a firecracker. About the part where Feris claimed the mountain owed her damages and three apologies...

Then the laughter slid into the kind of quiet where something new can happen. Obi leaned forward, elbows on knees, mug forgotten in his hands.

"Okay" he announced. "We always sprint. Tonight we sit. Why do you do it? Why do you go out there and punch nightmares in the teeth?"

"The teeth part is optional" Lynea said dryly.

"Why do you do it?" Obi repeated, undeterred, eyes going around the circle.

They looked at each other like a group of people who had never been asked that question when there wasn’t a blade in their hand.

Ichiro broke the surface first. He was still as a stacked log for a breath. Then he set his mug aside and pushed up his sleeve. The glow at the seam of his shoulder was faint. Old lightning sleeping under skin.

"Because I have to" he said.

Obi made a face. "Too vague. Boo."

Ichiro tilted his head and tried again. "Because if I stop, I break."

They went quiet the way wind dies when a door closes. Ichiro tapped two fingers on his shoulder - habit, ritual, a map.

"This generates Eon faster than it should. If I don’t use it, if I don’t let it move, it grows." He glanced at Hikari’s notebook, like he was apologizing for the medical tone. "And then it hurts. And then it hurts other things."

A spark popped in the fire like it was agreeing rudely. He smiled without showing teeth.

"So I fight. It’s... maintenance."

A beat. Then Obi, bless him, held up his mug in salute. "So you fight Nyxes for medical reasons."

"Sort of..." Ichiro said, perfectly straight.

Laughter washed around the ring and put color back in the night.

Arashi swung a stick like a sword too lazy to get up. "My turn? Easy. Kori raised me. Next question."

Hikari peered over the top of her cup. "That’s your whole answer?"

Arashi looked into the fire like there might be a better one in there. "I mean... yeah. She taught me not to flinch. She taught me not to miss. She taught me the part where you show up even when your ribs disagree."

Feris sank a measurable millimeter, which counted as a nod. "Kori does build people like chairs. Sturdy."

"And" Arashi’s mouth twitched, and the arrogance slid aside. "If I’m going to be good at something, I want it to be something that helps."

"Aw" Obi said immediately, ruining the delicate moment. "He has a heart."

"I do" Arashi said. "It’s gorgeous. Stop flirting."

"Never" Obi vowed.

Lynea was drawing a circle in the snow with a fingertip, not for a blade, just for the feeling of making a shape. She watched the small groove fill itself in with glitter.

"Someone told me I didn’t have to make up for my parents’ mistakes. That I could just... live." She shrugged a shoulder, small and sharp. "I tried. Didn’t fit. Not in a world with holes in it."

She looked up. Her eyes when they caught firelight were not gentler. Just clearer.

"I want this to be safer" she said. "Not quiet. Not dead. Just... safer. So people like us can choose small lives without feeling like cowards. So people unlike us don’t have to choose at all."

Esen wound a ring on his finger like he was winding a watch. "That’s the most responsible answer we’re going to hear all night."

"It won’t last" Lynea said. "You’re next."

Esen had been waiting for his cue the way a dog waits for the door. He put his hands behind his head and grinned.

"Glory" he said, delighted.

Groans. Snow scooped up and flung with no force, a snowfall of mockery.

"No tragic backstory?" Keahi asked, amused. "No oath over a grave?"

"I love the idea that you think I’d wait for tragedy to make an entrance" Esen said. "Look, I want people to remember me. I want a statue. A ridiculous one. Hair perfect, rings glowing, pigeons respectful."

"Shockwaves first" Obi said solemnly. "Then hair."

"Thank you. At last: vision." Esen said, and bowed from his seated sprawl.

Feris watched him with the fond suspicion of a cat observing a fancy toaster. "You realize glory is a terrible reason, right? It makes you do showy things. You’ll end up dead and beautiful."

"That’s the point" Esen said.

"Please don’t" Hikari murmured.

Esen caught that and pretended he hadn’t, in the way of a man who was learning new reasons by accident.

Obi rubbed his hands together, greedy. "Okay, Feris. Your turn. We’ve come up with eight versions. A family eaten by Nyxes. Raised by monks. Raised by wolves. Raised by monks and then attacked by wolves -"

"My family is alive" Feris said.

They stopped like someone had slapped them with a wet towel.

"They’re fine" she added, cheerful. "Nosy. Loud. I send letters, they send longer letters back with advice I don’t really take."

Obi blinked like he’d been robbed. "Then why are you -"

"I like punching Nyxes" she said. "They’re ugly, loud, and die in a satisfying way."

"That’s it?" Arashi demanded, aghast.

"What else do you need? Therapy is expensive."

Lynea snorted. Hikari hid a smile in her mug. Obi sighed like a playwright whose lead had refused the tragic arc.

"Fine. Joker answers are closed. Hikari?"

The firelight turned Hikari’s earrings into two tiny comets. She watched the steam lift off her cup and try to leave and then change its mind. She always found the smallest truth first.

"I didn’t plan to do any of this" she said. "I went where Raizen went."

A chorus of "Oooohs" went around like school shrinking down for recess.

"It’s not like that" she objected, coloring, then winced because objecting made it sound like that. She tried on defiance and found it a little too big. "I just... trust him. He runs toward the worst thing and somehow makes it make sense."

Raizen’s ears burned like he’d leaned too close to the kettle. He stared at the fire in case it had an answer he could steal.