The night, at least, had the decency to be quiet.
After the audience with the Regent, I had heard Himitsu retreat with the others. No raised voices followed, no hurried footsteps, no sign of further summons. Knowing they were unharmed—unchastised, even—settled something in my chest, though only just. Relief came thin these days, like weak tea stretched too far.
Questions pressed at me nonetheless. Dozens of them. Yet the moment felt brittle, as though any careless word might shatter what little calm had been allowed to settle.
I turned away from the window.
Heiwa lay on the futon beside mine, her form half-buried beneath the covers, dark and pale blue hair fanned loosely against the pillow. The lamplight caught the edge of her face, softening it, making her appear younger than the battlefield ever allowed.
"Why do you think," I asked quietly, "the Regent refused my participation in the final battle that is yet to come?"
For a moment, only the night answered me. Crickets sang somewhere beyond the walls, stubbornly alive despite the cold, and the winter wind pressed low against the shutters like a patient intruder.
Heiwa turned to face me.
"I don't know," she said after a pause. "But she told me the same thing. Only… differently."
I studied her expression, searching for some hidden meaning, some reassurance she might not yet have found words for. My thoughts wandered back to Miss Li Hua's measured voice, her calm certainty. She had said Heiwa did not need to prove herself—that strength was not always demonstrated in blood, but sharpened in restraint, in preparation.
When I had spoken—when I had insisted that I wished to help too, that I had practised with a firearm, that I no longer wished to remain a bystander—she had ended the discussion without explanation.
No rebuke. No argument.
Just refusal.
The memory stung more than it should have. It left me feeling absurdly small, like a child eager to show her skill with scissors, only to be told—firmly, dismissively—that sharp things were not for playing.
We lay there in my room, while Miss Lakshmi and Miss Halle shared another. The walls felt thinner for it, as though the house itself were listening.
"You can't really use qi, or mana, or any of the others," Heiwa said gently, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. "And you only just started practising with the gun."
Her words were sensible. Reasonable. Annoyingly so.
"I think she means well," she added. "There are other things you can do."
I slid my hands beneath the covers, fingers curling into the fabric, unsure how to respond to logic that made perfect sense and still felt unbearable. Meaning well did not change the weight of standing aside while others bled. It did not quiet the shame of survival without contribution.
"But," Heiwa continued, her voice softening as a yawn caught her mid-sentence, "it was good that you told the Regent what the professor said. That mattered."
She turned onto her side then, back facing me, already halfway claimed by sleep.
"I'm going to bed," she murmured. "You should sleep too. Good night."
"Good night," I replied.
Sleep did not come.
I lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the rhythm of Heiwa's breathing even out, listening to the house settle around us. Outside, winter lingered—one of its final nights, if the calendar was to be believed. Soon, the cherry trees would wake. Soon, petals would fall where blood had soaked into frozen earth.
"I don't like this feeling," I thought, the words forming without sound. "This helplessness."
If only I could—
I cut the thought short and turned back toward the window. Moonlight slipped through the glass, pale and distant, illuminating the bare branches outside. They stood waiting, patient and unbroken, ready to bloom when the time was right.
I wondered if that was what the Regent had seen.
Not weakness.
But something unfinished.