The morning air was cold enough to sting, but Sakura barely noticed. Her walk to school had become a ritual of avoidance — eyes down, pace steady, never lingering too long in one place. The streets of Fuyuki were different now. More uniforms. More checkpoints. More eyes.
She passed a wall plastered with wanted posters. The same image stared back at her from each one: a black‑armored figure, cape flaring, eyes like molten gold. Beneath it, bold red letters: WANTED FOR TERRORISM. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. The Steel‑Eyed Raven. Her senpai.
She didn't stop. Didn't let her gaze linger. But the image burned in her mind all the same.
At school, the chatter was the same as it had been for weeks. The missile strike was still fresh enough to be exciting, the kind of thing teenagers whispered about between classes. Sakura slid into her seat, unpacking her books with practiced calm.
"Hey, did you hear?" one of her classmates said, leaning across the aisle. "They spotted the Raven in Hong Kong. Took out a whole gang by himself."
Another snorted. "That's fake. My cousin says he's in Russia, working for the mafia."
"Doesn't matter where he is," a third chimed in. "He's like Batman, but scarier."
Sakura forced a smile. "Sounds… intense."
They laughed and moved on to another topic. She kept her head down, her hands folded neatly on her desk. Inside, her stomach was twisting.
It happened between second and third period. A news alert flashed on her phone: BREAKING – New Steel‑Eyed Raven sighting in Istanbul. The thumbnail was a blurry still from a security camera — a tall figure in black, cape trailing, walking through a crowded market.
Her breath caught. She knew it wasn't him — or at least, she told herself it wasn't — but the image was enough. The classroom noise faded to a dull roar, her vision narrowing. She could smell smoke, hear the distant rumble of an explosion. The memory of that night slammed into her: the shed door sliding open, Shirou's silhouette in the frame, the sudden blow to her head, the sensation of being lifted, carried. The world tilting and going dark.
She excused herself, voice steady, and walked to the bathroom. Once inside, she locked the stall door and pressed her back against it, forcing herself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Her hands were shaking.
It took five minutes before she could face the mirror. She splashed cold water on her face, smoothing her hair back into place. By the time she returned to class, her expression was calm again.
That evening, she sat at the kitchen table, a blank sheet of paper in front of her. She'd been staring at it for nearly an hour. The pen in her hand felt heavy.
She wanted to write to him. To tell him she was fine. To tell him to stop. To tell him to come home. She didn't know which.
The words wouldn't come. Every time she tried, she saw the crater where the Matou mansion had been. She saw the wanted posters. She saw the way people looked over their shoulders now, the way the city seemed to hold its breath.
She tore the paper in half, then into quarters, then into smaller and smaller pieces until they were just scraps scattered across the table. She swept them into the trash and stood, her chair scraping against the floor.
The next day, she took a different route to school, avoiding the main streets. It didn't matter. The posters were everywhere. The checkpoints were everywhere. She passed a pair of JSDF soldiers standing at an intersection, their rifles slung across their chests. One of them was scanning the crowd with a tablet, the other watching the faces that passed.
She kept her gaze down, her pace steady. She didn't look back.
At lunch, she found herself on the roof, the winter sun weak but welcome. She leaned against the railing, looking out over the city. From up here, she could see the Matou district — or what was left of it. The crater was still visible, though most of it had been cordoned off and covered with tarps. Reconstruction crews moved like ants, their machinery dwarfed by the scale of the destruction.
She wondered if anyone else in the school knew what had really happened there. If they knew that the Raven hadn't just been some faceless vigilante, but someone's classmate. Someone's friend. Someone's senpai.
Her senpai.
That night, she dreamed of fire. Not the fire from the missile strike, but another fire, older and deeper. She was standing in the middle of it, the heat pressing in from all sides. Shapes moved in the smoke — worms, endless and writhing. She could feel them under her skin, in her veins, in her bones.
A figure stepped through the flames. Black armor. Gold eyes. He reached for her, and she couldn't tell if he was saving her or dragging her deeper.
She woke with a start, her sheets tangled around her legs. The room was dark, the only sound her own breathing. She sat up, pressing a hand to her chest.
She didn't sleep again that night.
Days blurred together. The city tightened its grip. More patrols. More searches. More whispers. The Raven hadn't been seen in Japan since the strike, but his shadow was everywhere.
Sakura moved through it all with quiet precision. She went to school. She came home. She cooked, cleaned, studied. She smiled when she was supposed to. She spoke when she was supposed to. She kept her head down.
But inside, she was waiting. Waiting for a knock at the door. Waiting for a phone call. Waiting for the moment when the world would tilt again and she'd be pulled back into the storm.
She didn't know if she wanted it to come or not.
One evening, as she was leaving the market, she caught sight of a man standing at the far end of the street. He was tall, broad‑shouldered, wearing a long coat. For a moment, her heart stopped. The way he stood, the way he held himself — it was him. It had to be.
She took a step toward him, then another. He turned, and the illusion shattered. Not him. Just a stranger.
She stood there for a moment, the plastic bag in her hand crinkling. Then she turned and walked home.
At the kitchen table that night, she took out another sheet of paper. She stared at it for a long time, then began to write.
I don't know if you'll ever read this. I don't know if I want you to. Things are different here. People are scared. They talk about you like you're a story, not a person. I don't know which is worse.
She stopped, the pen hovering over the page. Then she set it down and folded the paper, slipping it into an envelope. She didn't address it. She didn't seal it. She just left it on the table, the lamplight pooling around it.
In her room at Shirou's house, she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Somewhere out there, he was training, fighting, becoming something more. Somewhere out there, he was still the Steel‑Eyed Raven.
And here, in Fuyuki, she was just Sakura Matou. Waiting.