Chapter Text
The auction floor reeked of rust, rot, and desperation.
Chains clinked with every step.
The shadows of buyers and bidders drifted through the makeshift tents, faces hidden beneath cloth hoods or enchanted veils. Laughter—cold, thin, inhuman—cut through the murmurs. Somewhere, a whip cracked. Somewhere else, a hybrid howled.
Sawamura Eijun sat shackled at the center of it all, sweat slicking his forehead, dried blood crusting along the tear in his wing.
He didn’t cry anymore.
He’d already learned crying didn’t help. It didn’t stop the handlers. It didn’t make the pain softer or the iron lighter. The only thing crying ever earned him was another lash or another round in the shock cage.
“Lot #34,” the auctioneer called out. “Avian hybrid, male, roughly seventeen. Still feral.”
A sneer. As if that word—feral—meant anything when you’d grown up in a cage.
“Wings are damaged,” the man added. “Unstable fletching. No confirmed flight capability.”
Sawamura hissed through his teeth.
“Why not just tell them I’m worthless while you’re at it,” he muttered, voice hoarse. His chains clinked as he tried to shift, only to wince when the movement tugged on the bent joint of his left wing. It had never healed properly after his last escape attempt.
The iron collar around his neck was new. So were the manacles on his ankles.
They weren’t taking chances with him anymore.
“Feisty,” the handler beside him said, giving him a quick jab in the ribs with the blunt end of a pole. “Maybe someone’ll want him as a pet.”
Sawamura bit down the scream that rose in his throat. He kept his gaze forward, on the crowd, refusing to flinch.
He wouldn’t beg.
Not again.
The crowd shifted. A new group entered—silent, armored, precise. Sawamura’s sharp eyes tracked them immediately, his instincts prickling. They didn’t move like traffickers or buyers.
They were too clean.
Too deliberate.
He narrowed his eyes.
Then—
BOOM.
The back wall exploded inwards in a flash of arcane light and smoke. Screams erupted. Magic crackled in the air, sending enchantments scattering. The illusionary veil over the tent peeled away like paper, revealing squads of armed figures storming in with glowing blue crests etched into their armor.
“DOWN ON THE GROUND!”
One voice, calm and sharp like a blade through ice. Commanding.
Sawamura’s heart skipped.
Guild members.
And not just any—Seidou.
He’d heard the name whispered in the cages. One of the few active guilds that worked against the trafficking networks. Their members were known for precision raids and for taking in rescues who had nowhere else to go. He hadn’t believed they were real.
Not until now.
“Cut the restraints,” a low voice said—closer this time, right in front of him.
Sawamura blinked against the smoke, vision swimming. A shadow knelt down beside him, blade already sliding through the chain at his wrist like it was paper.
The man had sharp, amber eyes behind rectangular glasses. Wolf ears twitched atop his head, and his tail lashed behind him, controlled but tense. The scent of ozone and steel clung to his clothes.
“You conscious?” the man asked.
Sawamura stared up at him, stunned.
He nodded, slowly.
The wolf hybrid sighed. “Good.”
Then everything went sideways.
The moment the last cuff fell, Sawamura slumped forward. His legs didn’t work. The strain of days without food, the collar’s suppression magic, the trauma—it all crashed down at once.
He braced for impact.
But arms caught him.
Steady. Warm.
“Hey,” the wolf hybrid said again, softer now. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
No one had said that to him before.
Not once.
Not since the day he was dragged from his family’s den, wings barely strong enough to glide.
Sawamura tried to push him away out of habit, but his body refused to cooperate. Instead, his trembling hand fisted into the front of the man’s jacket as the world tipped sideways.
“D-Don’t drop me,” he mumbled.
“Not planning on it.”
They took him out of the Iron Market before the flames touched the roof.
Seidou burned the whole thing to the ground.
Chapter Text
The first thing Sawamura noticed was the silence.
Not the kind that meant something terrible was about to happen—not the silence of breath held before a whip cracked or a cage door slammed shut. This was different.
It was still.
Soft.
Warm.
He shifted, blinking past the crust at the corners of his eyes. Light streamed in through a high window, painting the wooden ceiling in stripes. The air smelled faintly of herbs and something…clean. Not rust. Not fear.
His heart jumped. He sat up too fast.
Pain flared in his ribs. His wings throbbed, nerves firing like hot needles beneath the bandages. His breath hitched, and a hiss escaped him.
“Easy,” a voice said nearby.
Sawamura flinched. His feathers bristled along his spine.
A man sat at the foot of the room, half-slouched in a chair, dressed in a dark-blue uniform jacket with a strange crest on the shoulder. He had glasses and a lazy posture, but his eyes were sharp. Focused. Watching.
The wolf ears twitched slightly atop his head—hybrid.
Sawamura’s throat worked around a snarl. “Where am I?”
“Safe,” the man said. “For now. You’re at Seidou.”
The name meant nothing.
Sawamura's wings twitched involuntarily beneath the bindings, and his instincts screamed to bolt—even as every muscle throbbed with exhaustion. His throat burned, dry and raw from disuse.
“You’re lying.”
The man quirked an eyebrow. “You think I’d go to the trouble of faking sunlight and bandaging you up just to lie about that?”
Sawamura’s hand flew to his neck out of instinct—searching for the collar.
Gone.
Only raw, scabbed skin remained, stretched and burned where the magic suppression ring had clung to him for who knew how long.
His breath caught.
“I didn’t—” he swallowed. “I didn’t ask to be saved.”
“No,” the man said, “you didn’t. But you needed to be.”
Sawamura’s vision blurred for a second. Whether from exhaustion or humiliation, he couldn’t tell.
He turned his head away, ashamed of how his eyes stung. The silence that followed wasn’t cruel or impatient—it just was.
After a long moment, he asked, quieter this time, “Who are you?”
“Miyuki Kazuya,” came the reply. “Field leader. Seidou Guild.”
Miyuki stood up slowly, brushing off his coat. His eyes flicked over Sawamura with a calculating kind of concern—like he was already cataloging weaknesses, injuries, risks.
Sawamura bristled again.
“Don’t look at me like I’m broken.”
Miyuki’s lips twitched. "You’re not broken. Just bent in a few places. Happens to the best of us."
He held out a hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sawamura stared at it, unmoving.
“Don’t worry,” Miyuki added, grin sharpening. “I bite, but not unless you start it.”
Sawamura didn’t laugh.
He didn’t take the hand either.
But he didn’t snarl again. And something in his chest—tight and coiled since the day he was taken—shifted slightly off-center.
They tried to make him eat later.
The pink-haired one—small, polite, with a nervous voice—brought in a tray with broth and soft bread. He introduced himself as Haruichi, a support mage and resident cook. He talked gently, not looking directly at Sawamura unless necessary.
It wasn’t pity. More like careful respect. Like he understood what Sawamura had been through without needing to ask.
Sawamura hated how his hands trembled as he took the bowl.
He hated more that Haruichi pretended not to see it.
The food was warm. Real. Not gruel, not drugged. It settled in his stomach like an anchor.
He managed half of it before the pain won out.
Chris came that evening.
Older, composed, with the unmistakable aura of someone used to responsibility. His voice was deep and calm, and he never stepped closer than necessary. He did the exam with steady hands and barely any questions.
"The wings will need long-term healing," Chris said to Miyuki, not to Sawamura. "We can’t reverse the damage entirely without regenerative magic. And we’d need consent for that."
Sawamura clenched his jaw. He hated being talked around.
“I’m not some injured animal.”
Chris’s eyes met his, solemn. “You’re a person. That’s why we’re asking. When you're ready.”
Sawamura stared at him, heart pounding. It wasn’t a trick. He could feel it.
Real choice.
Real freedom.
And he had no idea what to do with it.
That night, sleep came fitfully. Memories coiled in the darkness—of cages, of handlers, of failed escape attempts. He heard screams echoing behind his eyelids. His own, sometimes.
He woke up gasping. Not screaming.
Progress, maybe.
The next morning, Miyuki returned.
He dropped a bundle of training clothes on the bed. “If you can walk, you’re coming with me.”
Sawamura squinted at him. “Why?”
“Because sulking in bed doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not sulking—”
“You’re brooding with aggressive posture.”
Sawamura scowled. “You’re annoying.”
“Yeah,” Miyuki said easily. “But I’m not wrong.”
Sawamura dressed—slowly, stiffly. The clothes were too big, but clean. The fabric didn’t itch. No brand stitched into the back to mark him as property.
Miyuki led him out through a side hall. The Seidou guild building was…lively. Wood-paneled and sunlit, with open windows and magic stones glowing faintly in sconces. People passed by with weapons slung over their shoulders, talking easily, laughing.
Not once did anyone look at him like a thing.
He didn’t trust it.
But he walked beside Miyuki anyway.
And—
for the first time in years—he wondered what it would be like to stay.
Chapter Text
The afternoon sun painted long shadows across the stone floors of Seidou Guild’s main hall. With most members out on assignments or tending to stables, the place had grown quiet—too quiet. Miyuki didn’t like it. Silence this deep had weight. He could feel it sink under the skin if left unattended.
He passed by the infirmary on his way to the armory, just in time to see that the door was cracked open.
He frowned.
Chris had told Sawamura to rest. He hadn’t expected him to actually listen, but he didn’t think the kid would just wander off, either.
Then—clack.
A latch clicked at the far end of the hall. Metal against wood.
The sound echoed, sharp and clean.
Miyuki barely had time to register it before something else came—thump. Soft. Then silence.
He followed instinct. Fast steps. Low noise. Eyes sharp.
He found him halfway down the hallway, slumped against the wall like something had knocked the wind out of him. Sawamura’s knees were tucked up tight, arms wrapped around them like a shield. His head was down, shaking—no, trembling. No sound. No breathing pattern. No fight left in his posture.
Miyuki didn’t move too close. He dropped to a crouch a few feet away, careful not to let his boots echo.
“Sawamura,” he said softly.
Nothing.
“Sawamura. You hear me?”
Still nothing. But now that Miyuki was watching closer, he could see it—panic. Not loud, flailing panic. No, this was worse. A frozen kind. One where the body curls in like it wants to disappear.
He remembered that look.
He’d seen it before. On himself, years ago.
So he didn’t touch him.
Instead, he sat.
The stone floor was cold, but not unbearable. He stretched his legs out, leaned back on one arm, and let the silence sit for a moment.
Then, slowly: “You’re at Seidou. That was Kuramochi’s door. Not a cell.”
A flicker. Barely visible. A muscle in Sawamura’s jaw jumped like he was trying to bite something down.
“I’m going to stay right here, okay?” Miyuki said. “No one’s going to drag you anywhere.”
It took almost a full minute before Sawamura moved. His shoulders jerked first, then his head lifted slowly. His eyes weren’t focused. His breath came out in short, shallow pants like he’d been underwater too long.
“I—I was there,” he whispered.
“I know,” Miyuki said.
“I know I’m not. But I was.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
Sawamura’s arms unwrapped just enough to press shaking fingers against his temples.
“It was just the lock,” he said. “That click. It’s stupid.”
Miyuki shrugged. “It’s not stupid. Noise memory’s a bitch.”
“I thought—” He choked. “I thought they were coming back. I felt it. Like I was already cuffed again.”
“That’s your body talking,” Miyuki said, keeping his voice low and even. “Not your fault.”
Sawamura looked down, ashamed. “I didn’t scream.”
Miyuki gave a soft snort. “I punched a mirror once. Thought my reflection was a handler. Broke two fingers. You’re ahead of me.”
Sawamura blinked, startled. “You?”
“Yeah. Years ago.” He glanced at his own gloved hands. “We all carry things.”
“Even you?”
Miyuki smiled faintly. “Especially me.”
Silence returned, but it wasn’t so sharp now.
After a moment, Sawamura scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed shirt. It was too big on him, nearly slipping off one shoulder.
“I’m trying,” he said. “I really am.”
“I know you are.”
“It’s just—sometimes I want to run. But I don’t even know where I’d go.”
“That’s the thing about healing,” Miyuki murmured. “It doesn’t care about time. It cares about safety. And you’re still trying to convince your brain you’re safe.”
Sawamura looked down again, teeth pressed into his bottom lip.
“I thought I was past this,” he whispered.
“No one’s ever past it,” Miyuki said. “You just learn how to breathe around it.”
Sawamura didn’t speak again for a long while.
Miyuki didn’t press.
Eventually, Sawamura uncurled his legs and stretched them out beside Miyuki’s. He didn’t say anything—just mimicked the way Miyuki sat, shoulders bumping loosely as they leaned against the wall.
“I used to dream about flying,” Sawamura said suddenly. “Before the cage. My wings—they weren’t good, but I thought I could fix them one day.”
Miyuki turned to look at him, careful. “You still can.”
“No,” Sawamura said. “Not for flying. But maybe… for something else.”
His voice trembled—but didn’t break.
Miyuki smiled. “You’re already
starting.”
“Starting what?”
“Whatever you want next.”
Chapter Text
The hallway stretched ahead like it might swallow him whole.
Sawamura stood awkwardly at the edge of the main hall, arms folded tight across his chest, shirt still rumpled from sleep. His wings twitched under their bindings, feathers rustling in protest. He hated how they dragged behind him—half-useless things stitched into his back like reminders.
He was supposed to stay in the infirmary. Rest. Heal. Be still.
But Chris had said it was okay to “try socializing.”
Try.
He was already regretting it.
The voices came first—low and sharp, rising from beyond the arched doorway. Someone was laughing. Another voice snapped in irritation. Then a crash. Sawamura flinched.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
Too late now. His foot had already stepped past the threshold.
He stepped into the guild’s main gathering room—and froze.
It looked nothing like he expected.
No military order. No rigid lines of bunks or cells. Just a huge open room, warmed by a fire pit, its stone walls carved with etchings of constellations. Long wooden tables were pushed into a wide U-shape, littered with maps, spellbooks, half-eaten fruit, and feathers—actual feathers, not his.
And around them, chaos.
A man with green hair and a fang-like grin was throwing a knife at a spinning target pinned to a barrel. A short, sharp-eyed male barked something at him and got ignored. Across the room, a girl with brown hair over one eye and dark robes was scribbling on parchment without looking up, a raven perched on her shoulder. Someone in the back muttered a chant, and one of the hanging lamps flared blue, then exploded in sparks.
Sawamura instinctively ducked.
The chaos stopped.
Every head turned.
Eyes landed on him like falling blades.
He wanted to run.
“Hey,” said the green-haired man, squinting. “You the bird kid?”
Sawamura blinked. “I—I’m—”
“Don’t grill him on the first sentence, Kuramochi,” said the woman at the table, flicking a stray spark off her sleeve. “He just got out of recovery.”
“Fine, fine,” Kuramochi muttered. He flopped into a chair with a huff. “But he looks like he got hit by a cart.”
“I feel like I got hit by a cart,” Sawamura said before he could stop himself.
A pause.
Then—
Kuramochi cackled. Loud and wild.
Sawamura flinched again, but this time it wasn’t… mean. Just loud.
Another voice chimed in. “He’s got spirit, at least. Miyuki was right.”
Sawamura’s head whipped around. He hadn’t even seen Miyuki enter.
The bespectacled man was leaning in the corner, arms folded, wearing that unreadable smirk of his.
“Miyuki…” Sawamura started. “You didn’t say the guild was… like this.”
“Colorful?” Miyuki offered.
“Unhinged,” muttered the blond from earlier.
“That’s Haruichi,” Miyuki said, pointing lazily. “Don’t let the cute face fool you. He bakes excellent poison cookies.”
“They are not poison,” Haruichi snapped.
“And that’s Furuya.” Miyuki gestured toward the quiet figure by the window, polishing a longsword. “He doesn’t talk much, but if anyone touches your wings without permission, he’ll bury them.”
Sawamura’s wings twitched.
“Seriously?”
Furuya looked up. Nodded once. Said nothing.
Sawamura blinked.
“Why would anyone touch—?”
“Because some guilds are bastards,” Kuramochi said bluntly. “They think hybrids are cute trophies or living weapons. We don’t play that game here.”
Sawamura didn’t know what to say to that. His hands clenched against his sides.
“Relax,” said the woman, standing slowly. She moved like smoke—graceful, quiet, impossible to follow. “We don’t need you to fit in. Just breathe.”
“I’m trying,” he admitted.
“That’s all we ask.”
She offered her name—“Natsukawa, head enchanter”—and then passed him a plate of apple slices like that was the most normal thing in the world.
Sawamura took one. His hand barely trembled.
“So,” Kuramochi said, stretching out like a cat. “You’re staying?”
Sawamura looked at Miyuki.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I don’t even know what I am anymore.”
“Join the club,” Haruichi muttered.
“We’ve all got pieces missing,” Miyuki said, stepping closer now. “But we fight to earn new ones. Names. Belonging. Freedom. You’re welcome here if you want it.”
Sawamura stared at them all.
Not perfect. Not clean. Not easy.
But maybe real.
He sat.
No one clapped. No one cheered.
But someone passed him another apple slice.
Someone nudged a map his way.
And when the lamp sparked again, this time, he didn’t duck.
Chapter Text
The room was too clean. That was the first thing Sawamura noticed.
No cracked floor tiles. No chains bolted to the wall. No stale smell of fear clinging to old iron. Just freshly laundered blankets, a sturdy wardrobe, a desk near the window, and soft lighting that didn’t flicker like bad magic.
He didn’t know how to stand in a room like this.
“Make yourself at home,” Takashima Rei said gently behind him. She held a clipboard, though she hadn’t looked at it once since opening the door. “It’s yours now.”
Sawamura shifted his bag from one hand to the other. His wings—still stiff from disuse, still wrapped to reduce strain—twitched under his loose shirt.
“I—this is too much,” he blurted. “I don’t need this much space. Or the window. Or—anything, really. I can sleep in the hall. Or a corner. Or—”
“You’re not sleeping in a corner,” Rei interrupted calmly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “This room used to belong to the guild’s scribe. He moved out years ago. It’s been empty ever since.”
Sawamura blinked. “So I’m just… here now?”
She nodded. “Yes. Here. Safe.”
That word again.
Safe.
He didn’t know what that meant anymore. Not really.
Rei’s expression softened. “I thought you might feel more comfortable here. It’s quieter than the dorms. Less… chaotic. And you’ll be staying under my wing, so to speak.”
Sawamura didn’t laugh. He wasn’t sure he could, yet. But something in his chest loosened, just a little.
“You won’t be alone,” Rei added. “Kataoka lives just across the hall. He insisted, actually.”
That sent a jolt through him. “The Guildmaster?”
“He worries about you,” she said plainly. “So do I.”
Sawamura lowered his eyes.
Why?
He was just another rescue. Another bruised hybrid taken from a ring that broke people down to the bone. He didn’t fight. Didn’t fly. His magic was unstable, wings even more so.
“I’m not worth all this,” he said before he could stop himself.
Rei took one step forward. “You’re not a burden, Sawamura. You’re a survivor.”
His throat tightened.
She didn’t try to touch him. Just gave him space to feel the words, to decide whether or not to believe them.
“I’ll let you settle in,” she said finally. “Dinner’s at six in the west wing kitchen. Or I can bring something up if it’s too much.”
“…Okay,” he murmured.
She gave him a small smile. “We’re glad you’re here.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Sawamura stood frozen for a few seconds longer, then slowly stepped into the room. He didn’t unpack. Just sank onto the bed, wings hunching forward instinctively.
It was soft. Not straw-stuffed or crusted in dirt. Clean linens. A pillow that didn’t smell like sweat or rot.
He pressed his palm against the mattress.
Real.
This was real.
He didn’t cry. But his eyes stung anyway.
Later that evening, a knock sounded against the open door.
Sawamura jolted upright.
Kataoka Tesshin stood there, arms folded behind his back, stern as ever. But there was something less rigid in his stance tonight. Less command, more… presence.
“I trust the room is acceptable?” he asked.
Sawamura scrambled to stand. “Y-Yes, sir! I mean—it’s great. I mean—I—thank you—”
Kataoka raised one hand, and Sawamura shut up.
“There’s no need for formalities,” the Guildmaster said. “This is your home now. You don’t need to earn your keep with gratitude.”
Sawamura stared at the floor, wings twitching faintly.
“I… don’t know how to live like this,” he admitted.
“That’s understandable,” Kataoka said. “You were never taught.”
Sawamura nodded mutely.
The older man regarded him for a long moment, then added, “Seidou doesn’t expect you to become someone you’re not. We don’t rescue people because they’re useful. We do it because it’s right.”
He met Sawamura’s gaze.
“And because no one deserves to be broken for the shape of their wings.”
Sawamura’s throat closed around the lump in it. He gripped the blanket beneath his hands.
Kataoka stepped back, his voice quieting.
“You’ll eat with us tonight. You’ll meet the others on your own terms. If you’d rather listen than speak, that’s fine. If you’d rather leave early, that’s also fine. Just show up. That’s all I ask.”
Sawamura swallowed hard. “Okay.”
Kataoka gave a slight nod. “Good. You’re not alone anymore.”
And then he was gone.
Sawamura sat there in silence, heart pounding.
He didn’t know h
ow to feel safe. But maybe—just maybe—he could learn.
Chapter Text
The hallway was too quiet.
Sawamura hesitated outside the kitchen door, one wing twitching beneath his shirt. Laughter rumbled inside—low, constant, warm. Like a river he hadn’t figured out how to step into.
He shouldn’t be here.
He should turn around, eat alone upstairs like he’d done the past three nights, and spare everyone the awkwardness of his silence, his skittish glances, his very presence.
Before he could retreat, a head popped into the hallway.
“Yo,” Kuramochi called, flashing a grin. “You coming in or do I have to drag you by the feathers?”
Sawamura froze.
Kuramochi didn’t wait for an answer—he just held the door open wider. Behind him, voices lifted—Masuko’s booming laugh, Haruichi’s gentle chatter, Furuya’s flat monotone, and somewhere under it all, Miyuki’s amused drawl.
“I—I don’t want to get in the way,” Sawamura mumbled.
“You live here now,” Kuramochi said simply. “There’s no ‘getting in the way.’ You got a chair with your name on it.”
Sawamura’s stomach fluttered. His feet moved on their own.
The Seidou guild kitchen was wide and bright, strung with fairy lights and mismatched chairs. A long wooden table stretched across the middle, already piled with dishes—steamed rice, grilled fish, roasted root vegetables, and something bubbling with miso in a pot by the hearth.
Everyone was here.
Miyuki leaned back in his chair, glasses reflecting firelight. He noticed Sawamura first—his smirk softened by something gentler.
Rei offered a smile from the far end. “Just in time.”
Masuko waved a ladle from the stove. “You like stew, kid? Hope so, because I made enough to drown a wyvern.”
“Masuko’s cooking is legendary,” Haruichi added politely. “Don’t let the color scare you.”
“It’s brown,” Masuko protested.
“Exactly.”
Kuramochi snorted and shoved a bowl into Sawamura’s hands, then steered him toward the only empty seat—between Furuya and Miyuki.
Sawamura’s throat closed. He hadn’t sat beside people in months—years, really. Not without shackles or expectations.
He lowered himself into the seat slowly, every nerve tense.
The food smelled so good it made his stomach hurt.
No one stared. No one asked questions. Plates were passed. Voices rose. Forks clinked. It was noisy and full and everything he didn’t know how to be a part of.
He stayed quiet.
Mostly.
Furuya passed him a bowl of rice without a word, eyes distant as always.
“Th-Thanks,” Sawamura murmured.
Furuya nodded once. “You’re small. You should eat more.”
Miyuki snorted into his tea.
Sawamura blinked. “I—I’m not that small.”
“You are,” Furuya said flatly, then turned to his own plate.
Kuramochi leaned over with a grin. “Don’t worry, he thinks it’s a compliment. If he starts offering you protein bars, that means he likes you.”
Masuko clapped a hand on Sawamura’s back, nearly making him drop his chopsticks. “Eat like you mean it, rookie! Rei’ll let you skip training, but not meals.”
“I’m not training yet,” Sawamura said quickly. “My wings still—uh…”
Miyuki’s voice slid in, cool and teasing: “Still wrapped, huh? You know, some of us are curious about those wings.”
Sawamura stiffened.
Kuramochi threw a roll at Miyuki’s head. “Don’t be a jerk.”
“I’m being sincere,” Miyuki said, catching the roll easily. “I think they’re interesting.”
“They’re broken,” Sawamura muttered before he could stop himself.
The table fell quiet.
Miyuki tilted his head. “Then we’ll help you fix them.”
Sawamura stared.
Like it was that easy. Like “fixing” meant anything after what he’d been through.
He opened his mouth—but Rei’s voice cut in gently. “No pressure, Eijun. Not from anyone. You heal at your own pace.”
There it was again.
That softness.
He didn’t know what to do with it.
Kataoka spoke up then, calm and firm from the end of the table. “What matters is that you’re here. This guild exists to protect people like you. We don’t expect you to fly tomorrow. But you belong here regardless.”
The quiet lingered a moment longer—then Kuramochi broke it.
“You know, he screams in his sleep,” he said, pointing at Miyuki. “Don’t let the smugness fool you.”
Miyuki blinked. “I do not.”
Masuko raised a hand. “Can confirm. Especially after spicy curry.”
“I thought we weren’t telling stories tonight,” Miyuki said dryly.
Rei smiled into her wine.
Haruichi passed Sawamura a second helping of vegetables.
The warmth returned—laughter and teasing, gentle barbs traded across the table like spells cast in reverse: undoing silence, undoing shame.
Sawamura didn’t speak much more that night.
But he ate everything on his plate.
Later, after the dishes had been cleared and the fire burned low, Sawamura lingered in the hallway just outside the kitchen. He should’ve gone to bed. His wings ached from being out so long. But something rooted him in place.
Footsteps approached.
“I figured you might still be hovering,” Miyuki said from behind him.
Sawamura tensed. “I wasn’t—”
“You okay?”
He hesitated. “…I don’t know.”
Miyuki didn’t press. Just leaned against the wall, gaze on the dark sky outside.
“I remember my first guild dinner,” Miyuki said after a beat. “Didn’t talk. Didn’t eat. Thought I’d be gone in a week.”
Sawamura glanced at him. “What changed?”
Miyuki shrugged. “Kuramochi stole my bedroll and dared me to fight him for it. I kicked him in the shin. He laughed. And that was that.”
“That’s it?”
“Sometimes a fight’s enough. Sometimes a meal. Sometimes just having someone say your name without a collar on it.”
Sawamura looked away.
Miyuki’s voice dropped slightly. “I saw the scars, you know. When we carried you out.”
Sawamura flinched.
Miyuki didn’t sound pitying. Just… honest.
“You’re not broken. You’re healing. That’s different.”
Silence.
Sawamura finally said, “Why are you always hovering?”
Miyuki blinked. “Because I want to make sure you’re okay?”
“That’s not it.”
Miyuki sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe I see too much of myself in you.”
Sawamura frowned.
“You’re loud when you’re scared. Like you’re trying to drown yourself out.”
Sawamura opened his mouth to argue—and stopped.
He didn’t have a comeback. Not a real one.
Miyuki smiled faintly. “You don’t have to be quiet here. You don’t have to be anything except alive.”
Alive.
Sawamura wrapped his arms around himself.
“…I think I want to stay.”
Miyuki’s eyes softened. “Then we’ll make sure you can.”
Chapter Text
The wind smelled like rain and blood.
Sawamura stood just inside the front atrium of the Seidou guildhall, peering through the warped glass panes of the entry doors. His wings itched under his hoodie, still bound with cloth and leather braces, but the ache had dulled to a throb now—less pain, more ghost.
He heard the gates before he saw them. The iron creaked wide, followed by hooves clattering on wet stone, a shout of laughter, and someone swearing loudly in triumph.
Sawamura flinched, then craned his neck to see.
Three figures rode in through the fog—mud-splattered, armor dented, their cloaks ripped in places but their posture proud. Guild insignias glinted on their shoulders. They looked like they belonged on the cover of a storybook. Or maybe a battlefield.
“They’re back,” Rei murmured beside him.
Sawamura turned. Rei had her arms crossed loosely, eyes soft as she watched the trio dismount.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“The core team,” she said. “Seidou’s frontline.”
He had. Stern, solid, steady like mountain rock. The others, though—
“Yūki Tetsuya,” Rei said, nodding to the broad-shouldered man removing his gauntlets with slow precision. “Our strongest fighter. He trains most of the rookies.”
Sawamura’s eyes darted to the man beside him—smaller, scruffier, with a bandage across one cheek and laughter practically leaking out of him.
“Jun Isashiki,” Rei said, smiling. “Reckless, loud, annoyingly loyal.”
And the last—
The third man was sharp lines and slow grace, his pink hair wet from the rain and a thin rapier strapped along his back. He said nothing as he handed off the reins of his horse.
“Kominato Ryousuke. He’s tactical support”
That made Sawamura pause. “A hybrid?”
Rei nodded. “Him and his brother are fox hybrids”
Before Sawamura could ask more, the main doors swung open with a burst of laughter and damp boots.
Tetsuya stepped in first, removing his cloak and wringing it out. “Storm caught us half a day out,” he announced. “But the outpost is secure.”
Kataoka appeared from deeper inside, his arms crossed. “Good. Debrief in twenty.”
“Food first,” Jun Isashiki groaned, dropping his bag by the wall. He paused when he spotted Sawamura. “Hey. New blood?”
Sawamura froze.
Miyuki wasn’t nearby. Neither was Furuya or Haruichi. He’d come down on his own today—Rei’s suggestion, something about fresh air and adjusting slowly.
The attention of a battle-hardened team was not part of that plan.
Jun crossed the distance in three long strides. “You’re the hybrid kid, right? The avian one?”
“Uh…” Sawamura said eloquently.
Jun grinned. “Relax, we don’t bite. Tetsu does when he’s hungry, but only if provoked.”
“I heard that,” Tetsuya said without looking up from drying his boots.
Ryousuke hung back, gaze calmly appraising.
Sawamura’s feathers bristled under his shirt. “I’m not a kid.”
“Right,” Jun said, utterly unfazed. “Sorry—what do we call you then?”
“…Sawamura,” he muttered.
“Well, Sawamura, welcome to Seidou. You settle in with the old timers upstairs?”
“Rei and Kataoka-san,” he nodded. “I’m not cleared for field training.”
“Yet,” Jun said, winking. “Give it time.”
Tetsuya approached then, slower, but not unkind. “You recovered enough to eat with us tonight?”
Sawamura blinked. “You…want me there?”
“Everyone eats after a mission. It’s how we stay grounded.”
Sawamura swallowed. “I—I guess I can.”
Ryousuke finally spoke, voice quiet but not cold. “You’re the one Miyuki carried in.”
Sawamura flinched.
Ryousuke’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’re standing now. That’s enough.”
Then he walked past without waiting for a response.
Sawamura wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a challenge.
Jun clapped a hand on his shoulder—startling a tiny squawk out of him. “You’ll get used to him. Ryousuke’s all blades on the outside, but he’s soft around the edges.”
“You call me soft again,” came Ryousuke’s voice from the hall, “and I’ll gut your next report with a spoon.”
Sawamura choked on a laugh.
Jun beamed. “See? Total marshmallow.”
They gathered in the common hall that night—a feast of victory and reunion.
Sawamura sat near the edge of the group, a full plate on his lap and one ear tuned to the stories being traded like war medals.
Jun had the loudest voice, describing a wyvern ambush with sound effects and wild gestures.
“—and I swear, the damn thing was this close to taking off with our wagon before Tetsu punched it in the nose!”
“You used it as a stepstool,” Tetsuya muttered.
“Strategic elevation,” Jun corrected. “Pure genius.”
“Idiotic,” Ryousuke added, sipping tea.
“Same thing.”
Sawamura watched it all quietly, expression unreadable. His fork paused mid-air.
Rei slid into the seat beside him, setting down a cup of barley tea. “You okay?”
“I didn’t think they’d be like this,” he admitted.
“Like what?”
“Normal. Funny. Like a family.”
Rei looked toward the table. “That’s what guilds are. Or the good ones, at least.”
Sawamura hesitated. “…What do they do, exactly?”
“The guild?” Rei asked. “We take missions—rescue, patrol, defense, diplomacy. Mostly protection work. Some bounty retrievals, some supply escorts.”
“No,” Sawamura said, shaking his head. “Them. What do they do?”
Rei smiled faintly. “You want to know their roles?”
He nodded.
“Well, Tetsuya’s the vanguard—frontline defense. He holds the line when things go bad. He’s unshakable.”
“Jun’s flanker. Agile, unpredictable, a chaos element. Keeps enemies off balance.”
Jun was currently balancing a spoon on his nose while Furuya watched, utterly fascinated.
“And Ryousuke?”
“Tactician. Maps, terrain shifts, supply chains. He sees patterns others miss. And he’s lethal with that blade.”
She paused, eyes flicking to the far end of the table.
“And he’s Haruichi’s older brother.”
Sawamura’s head snapped up. “Seriously?”
“You didn’t notice?”
He glanced from Ryousuke—cool and composed in his sharp coat—to Haruichi, who was now quietly correcting Jun’s spoon-balance technique with a flushed, embarrassed smile.
“…No. Haruichi’s too nice.”
Rei chuckled. “That’s how it works sometimes. They’re different, but close. Haruichi’s the only one Ryousuke doesn’t cut off mid-sentence.”
Sawamura looked again. This time, he caught it: the way Ryousuke subtly leaned toward Haruichi when he spoke, how Haruichi instinctively translated his brother’s bluntness for the others. A rhythm—unspoken, but clearly lived in.
It made something in Sawamura’s chest ache, and he didn’t know why.
Rei tilted her head. “Why the sudden interest?”
He looked down. “…I want to understand. How you all move together. How you protect people. Why you keep coming back.”
“You’re thinking of joining a team?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “But when I watched them walk in, all bruised and loud and... together, I—I felt something.”
Rei didn’t press.
She just nodded. “That’s how it starts.”
Chapter Text
The infirmary was quiet except for the soft rustle of feathers.
Sawamura sat on the edge of the padded bench, shoulders tense but obedient, shirt hanging off one side as Chris gently shifted the outer layer of bandages on his back. A few tufts of dull brown-gold plumage stuck out, matted where the wing joint met scar tissue.
“You’re healing well,” Chris said, voice low and calm. “No signs of infection. The muscle's knitting back together.”
“Still hurts when I stretch,” Sawamura muttered.
“Of course it does.” Chris’s hands paused. “You’ve never flown. That strain has nowhere to go. The wing membrane isn’t used to oxygen.”
Sawamura clenched his fists. “I thought wings were supposed to be… freedom.”
Chris gently brushed a knuckle along the edge of a still-growing feather. “They can be. But that depends on the sky you’re allowed to fly in.”
Sawamura didn’t answer. He just tilted his head forward, letting the long strands of hair fall over his eyes. Chris didn’t push. He simply continued, applying a thin salve and rewrapping the gauze in practiced, reverent motions—never hurried, never rough.
After a long pause, Chris spoke again. “You’ve been eating better.”
“…Miyuki makes me.” A huff. “Says I look like a wet bird.”
Chris chuckled. “He worries. That’s his way.”
Sawamura’s mouth twitched, but didn’t smile.
Chris finished the bandages, then handed him the shirt. “One day, they’ll stop hurting. It won’t be all at once. Just—one morning, you’ll wake up and realize you moved without thinking about it.”
Sawamura didn’t believe him yet. But he nodded anyway.
Down the hall, Miyuki leaned against the stairwell railing outside the common room. Below, the sounds of guild life continued—someone sharpening blades, someone else laughing over a shared dessert.
He barely noticed any of it.
Tetsuya Yuuki approached quietly, two cups in hand. “Tea?”
Miyuki took one without looking up. “Thanks.”
Yuuki studied him for a moment. “You’re thinking about the warehouse again.”
“…Yeah.” Miyuki’s jaw clenched. “The other hybrids.”
Yuuki didn’t press, just waited.
Miyuki took a slow breath. “We got five out. Five out of twenty-three.”
“Four are still with the medics,” Yuuki said, voice soft. “The youngest—the rabbit hybrid—might pull through. She recognized her name yesterday.”
“And the rest?” Miyuki asked, though he already knew.
Yuuki’s silence was enough.
Miyuki looked down into his tea. “I keep going over it. The route. The guards. I should’ve known they had that second corridor rigged. If we’d gone in from the roof instead of the freight entrance—”
“You would’ve been flanked,” Yuuki interrupted, not unkindly. “We all might’ve died. We got out with who we could.”
“I hate that,” Miyuki said. “That it feels like a win.”
“You hate that you didn’t get to all of them,” Yuuki corrected. “That’s different.”
Miyuki didn’t answer. His fingers tightened around the cup.
“They kept Sawamura in the lower levels,” Yuuki said after a pause. “No light. No open air. Just metal and pain and silence. The fact he’s sitting at dinner? That he’s asking Rei questions? That’s a miracle.”
“I know,” Miyuki muttered. “It just doesn’t feel like enough.”
Yuuki reached out and clasped Miyuki’s shoulder. “That’s the curse of people like us. We save lives and carry the ones we couldn’t.”
The silence between them lingered, heavy but not hostile. Below, a pot clattered in the kitchen, followed by laughter.
Miyuki stared ahead, expression unreadable behind his glasses.
“Does Sawamura know?”
Miyuki blinked. “About the others?”
Yuuki nodded.
“No,” Miyuki said. “I didn’t want him thinking he was a replacement for all the ones we couldn’t save.”
Yuuki took a sip of his tea. “You don’t have to tell him all of it. But don’t pretend this place doesn’t need him as much as he needs us.”
Miyuki didn’t respond—but his gaze drifted toward the infirmary hallway.
Back in the infirmary, Sawamura slowly rolled his shoulders, testing the tightness of the bandages. They still itched. But he wasn’t sure if it was the medicine or the memory.
Chris packed up his supplies and gave him a nod. “You can go.”
Sawamura stood, wincing slightly, and reached for his coat. “Thanks.”
Chris didn’t stop him—but as Sawamura reached the door, he said, “You’ve been writing in that notebook, haven’t you?”
Sawamura froze. “How do you know?”
“You’ve started asking better questions.” Chris’s voice was warm. “That’s always the first sign someone’s starting to wonder about the world again.”
Sawamura didn’t say anything. He just opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
A shadow moved near the stairs.
Miyuki straightened from where he was leaning, catching the slight surprise in Sawamura’s eyes.
“You were listening?” Sawamura asked.
“No,” Miyuki lied smoothly. “Just passing by.”
He eyed Sawamura’s posture, the faint crease of strain near his shoulders. “You okay?”
“Chris says I’m healing.” He looked away. “Still feels like crap.”
“That’s normal,” Miyuki said. “You’ve been through worse.”
Sawamura stared at him. “Why do you know that?”
Miyuki didn’t answer. He just adjusted his glasses and said, “Come on. Dinner’s still going. Haruichi made sweet rice cakes again.”
“…Fine.”
As they walked side by side toward the dining hall, Sawamura glanced up, voice soft. “Hey… the others from the warehouse. What happened to them?”
Miyuki’s step slowed—but he didn’t stop.
“Some are still recovering,” he said quietly. “Some didn’t make it.”
“Oh.”
There was a pause.
“Why me?” Sawamura asked. “Why am I the one here?”
Miyuki looked over, eyes unreadable.
“Because someone had to be. And you were strong enough to still be reaching when we grabbed your hand.”
Sawamura didn’t speak again.
But he walked a little straighter the rest of the way.
Chapter Text
They called it a "test flight."
A gentle slope carved into the forest behind the guild hall, where the cliffs rolled out into warm updrafts and soft moss. A team of air-mages from the allied guild had enchanted nets and barriers along the lower ledges — just in case.
It was safe.
Chris had triple-checked every variable. Kuramochi gave Sawamura a thumbs-up. Even Rei stood at the base of the slope, arms folded, eyes watchful but kind.
And Miyuki, of course, hovered nearby, arms crossed, unreadable behind his glasses.
Sawamura stood at the edge of the makeshift platform, feathers ruffling in the breeze.
His legs trembled.
"I don't have to do this," he said, voice low, nearly swallowed by the wind.
“You don’t,” Miyuki said, tone deliberately casual. “But you said you wanted to try.”
And he had. Two weeks ago, he’d asked. He’d whispered it into the quiet of the infirmary, just after Chris had bandaged a particularly sore joint. I want to try flying someday.
Now “someday” had arrived, and Sawamura wasn’t sure if he wanted to curl up or scream.
He looked down the slope again. It wasn’t high. Just a short glide to the flat, where the nets and spellwork shimmered faintly in the light.
It’s not the fall, he told himself. It’s the memory of falling.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Okay, okay—” and then he ran.
Not a full sprint, but the desperate kind of momentum someone gathers before jumping into cold water. His wings stretched wide—wider than they ever had before, even if the left still trembled at the base. He pushed off.
And for one, brief second—
He felt the wind.
The updraft caught under his wings, and he soared. His eyes widened. A sound escaped his throat—a startled, childlike gasp, somewhere between laughter and disbelief.
Then the wind shifted.
A rogue current hit his unstable left wing, hard.
It twisted him midair, and his body jerked sideways. The glide became a spiral. Sawamura panicked, instinct flaring, muscles locking. His wing flapped once—wrongly—and he tumbled.
The safety net caught him.
But he still hit it with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. He crumpled, feathers scattered around him, one leg twisted awkwardly. The net bounced once, twice.
Silence.
Then—
"He's fine!" Chris called immediately, voice measured. “Just winded.”
But Sawamura didn’t move.
He lay there, staring up at the sky.
Feathers floated around him like falling snow.
And something cracked.
He sat up sharply, tearing at the netting with shaking hands. “Don’t look at me!” he barked.
Everyone froze.
Kuramochi took a step forward. “Sawamura—”
“Don’t call me that! I don’t— I’m not—” His voice broke. His wings flared unevenly, then slumped. He collapsed forward, face buried in his hands.
“I’m not a person,” he whispered. “I’m just... some thing. A failure with broken wings.”
Miyuki jumped into the net then, not waiting for Chris’s signal. He crouched beside him, hands out but not touching. “That’s not true.”
“You don’t know anything,” Sawamura spat. “You don’t know what it’s like to hope for something and then have it ripped away. I thought— I thought I could fly.” His shoulders shook. “They always told me I couldn’t. They laughed while they clipped my feathers and said, ‘Try again, bird boy, try flapping harder.’ And I believed you when you said it was different.”
“It is different,” Miyuki said quietly.
“Then why does it still hurt the same?”
Silence stretched between them.
From the edge of the slope, Rei moved like she wanted to intervene, but Kataoka held her back. Chris watched, pained, but didn’t speak.
“I didn’t want to be a symbol,” Sawamura said. “I didn’t want to be the guild’s success story. You all keep smiling at me like I’m healing, but I’m not—I’m not!”
His voice echoed off the trees.
“I’m scared all the time. I can’t sleep without hearing chains. I can’t stand the silence. And now I know I’ll never fly, not really.”
His voice cracked again. “So what’s left?”
And finally, Miyuki answered.
“Everything.”
Sawamura blinked.
“Everything’s left,” Miyuki said again, voice trembling slightly. “Your jokes. Your temper. The way you fight tooth and nail to protect people even when you’re afraid. The way you make Masuko laugh and get Kuramochi to eat vegetables. The way you ask annoying questions about how the guild works because you want to belong here.”
He exhaled slowly. “Flying’s not the only way to be free, Eijun.”
Sawamura’s eyes widened at the use of his name.
“I didn’t save you because I thought you’d be perfect,” Miyuki said. “I saved you because you’re you.”
Sawamura let out a choked, broken sound. His body sagged, curling inward.
Miyuki reached out then, slow, and wrapped his arms around him.
Sawamura didn’t fight it.
He just shook. Silently. Wings limp at his back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, again and again, like it was the only thing holding him together.
Miyuki held him through every repeat.
Chapter Text
It was always cold.
Not freezing, just... damp. A constant chill that crept beneath skin and fur and feathers. It made his muscles ache and his feathers brittle, but no one cared. No one ever cared.
The cell had once been a transport cage. Steel wiring on three sides, one solid wall behind him, and a floor of old wood stained from years of use. It creaked every time he shifted, but the noise was better than silence. Silence meant they were listening.
He huddled into himself, wings curled awkwardly around his frame, too big for the small space, too unstable to fold properly. Every movement sent a jolt of pain through his spine. His left wing had been dislocated three weeks ago — maybe longer. He’d lost track of time.
“Birdie still breathing?” a voice crooned from beyond the bars.
Sawamura flinched but didn’t respond.
Heavy footsteps. A cane tapping.
Then a face appeared — one of the handlers. The one with gold teeth and always-smiling eyes.
“Still sulking, huh?” The man squatted in front of the cage and tapped the bars. “You know, I could’ve sold you already if you weren’t defective.”
Sawamura stayed still. Silent.
He’d learned.
The man’s grin stretched wider. “Did you know your kind used to be prized? Avian hybrids—rare, elegant, strong. Good messengers. Good display pets.”
He tapped his cane against the cage again. “But you? You’re just broken feathers and bad attitude.”
A pause.
“I could fix that, though. Wouldn’t take much.”
Sawamura swallowed hard. His fingers clenched in the fabric of the too-thin shirt they’d given him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Any reaction only made things worse.
The handler chuckled and stood. “Your loss.”
Footsteps receded.
Only then did Sawamura allow himself to breathe.
The cage next to him shuffled.
“You okay?” a whisper. Hoarse. A boy’s voice.
Sawamura tilted his head against the bars. “Yeah.”
The lie came easily now.
“Your wing still bad?” the boy asked.
Sawamura nodded. “They won’t fix it.”
“They never do.”
He didn’t know the boy’s name. No one did. They weren’t allowed to talk. But sometimes at night, they whispered through the cracks in the wall.
“I think they're planning another sale soon,” the boy whispered. “They cleaned the holding cells. That only happens before auctions.”
Sawamura’s stomach twisted. “How many this time?”
“Six. I heard them say it. Highest bids only.”
He closed his eyes.
That meant another goodbye.
Another name he'd never learn, another face he’d forget out of survival.
He didn’t want to forget this one.
“Hey,” he whispered. “If you get picked... run.”
The boy laughed bitterly. “Run? To where?”
“Anywhere.”
“You’ll get yourself killed thinking like that.”
“Maybe.” Sawamura exhaled. “But at least I’d die flying.”
A silence.
Then, softly: “You can’t fly.”
Sawamura flinched.
The boy realized too late. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
And he did. But it still hurt.
Even when said gently, the truth felt like a blade to the ribs.
“I used to dream about it,” Sawamura whispered. “Flying. Before I ended up here.”
Another pause. “What was it like? In the dream.”
He smiled faintly. “Warm wind. Big skies. My wings worked. I wasn’t scared.”
The boy sighed. “Sounds nice.”
“It was.”
They didn’t speak for a while after that. The chill crept back in. Someone screamed from farther down the corridor, and Sawamura curled tighter into himself.
He told himself not to cry.
Because tears drew attention. Attention brought pain.
Three nights later, the boy was gone.
The cages were cleaned. New chains replaced the old ones. No one spoke about it.
No one ever did.
Sawamura just sat in his cage, staring at the empty space beside him, throat tight.
His left wing still didn’t work.
And his dream that night wasn’t of skies or freedom—it was of feathers falling like snow.
He woke up crying.
And this time, he didn’t stop.
The afternoon sun filtered in through the high windows of the training hall, casting long slats of light over the polished floor. The guild had been quiet that day — most of the members were out on assignments. Even the dining hall felt emptier, subdued.
Which made it the perfect time to sneak into the gym.
Sawamura Eijun winced as he rolled his shoulder back, wings twitching uneasily at the motion. The larger of the two had been half-stabilized by Chris-senpai’s careful therapy and some enchanted bandages, but the other still faltered under weight, trembling whenever he tried to lift it.
Still, he had to try.
If he wanted to be more than a burden.
He took a deep breath and jumped.
The first flap lifted him about half a foot off the ground. The second faltered — one wing snapped out, the other crumpled in on itself — and he dropped like a stone.
“Damn it!” Eijun hissed, hitting the mat hard. His knees stung. His elbows burned. But worse than any scrape was the ache that radiated up from his wing joints, dull and familiar and insidious.
Still broken. Still not enough.
He shoved himself to his feet, breathing heavy. He didn’t look at the bandages unravelling from his right side. Didn’t think about the pulsing soreness crawling down his spine. All he could think about was the way Miyuki sometimes watched him when he didn’t think Eijun noticed — with that tense, unreadable stare.
As if he was trying to figure out what Eijun was.
A patient? A mission? A mistake?
“No more being weak,” he muttered, setting his feet and leaping again.
It wasn’t clear how long he kept going — until his shirt was drenched in sweat and his arms shook with the effort of pushing himself up again. The pain had become white noise. He didn’t care anymore. He had to fly. He had to try.
He had to prove he belonged here.
Or else they’d realize he didn’t and send him back.
“You’re going to tear the ligaments in your back if you keep doing that.”
Eijun froze.
Miyuki Kazuya stood in the doorway, arms crossed, brow furrowed — not with annoyance, but concern. His glasses had fogged slightly in the humidity, and his tone was low, tight.
Eijun turned away. “I’m just training.”
“No,” Miyuki said, walking in slowly, “you’re self-harming.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re pushing through injury. Ignoring pain. Practicing unsupervised when Chris told you to rest. What else would you call it?”
Eijun grit his teeth. “I’m trying to get better. That’s what training is. That’s what all of you do.”
Miyuki’s steps stopped just a foot away from him. “You're not a trained guild soldier, Sawamura. You're still healing. No one's asking you to—”
“Well maybe they should!” he snapped, whirling around. “Because if I can’t fly, if I can’t fight, if I can’t help — what the hell am I even doing here?!”
Silence.
Eijun’s breath hitched.
“I just…” he looked down, voice cracking, “I don’t want to be the useless one they regret saving.”
Miyuki’s eyes widened — only for a second — before his expression fell into something sharper. Raw. Like someone had cut him open without warning.
“You think that’s what we’re doing? Regretting you?”
Eijun swallowed, the words pouring out like floodwater now. “You wouldn’t say it. But I see how you’re always watching me. Like I’m going to break something. Or run. Or get someone hurt.”
“I’m watching you,” Miyuki said quietly, “because you scare the hell out of me.”
That brought Eijun up short.
“What?”
“I watched them pull you out of that ring. Wings mangled, arms bruised, and still trying to shield the others. You couldn’t even stand on your own, and you still tried to walk.” Miyuki’s voice trembled now, just slightly. “And when we brought you here, you never once asked why. Never demanded food, shelter, or safety. You acted like it was temporary. Like kindness was just a pause before pain.”
Eijun opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“You’re not a burden, Sawamura. But every time you do this—” Miyuki gestured to the scabbed wings, the torn bandages, “—you make me feel like I failed to make you believe that.”
Eijun’s throat clenched.
“I’m not trying to earn your pity.”
“I don’t pity you.” Miyuki stepped forward, lowering his voice. “I care about you.”
The word hung between them like a lightning strike.
“You don’t have to earn your place here. You don’t have to bleed for it. You don’t have to fly or fight or be ‘useful.’ You already are.”
Sawamura’s knees buckled, and Miyuki caught him.
“I don’t know how to be anything but scared,” Eijun whispered. “Scared of being sold. Of being seen. Of getting used up and thrown away.”
“I know.” Miyuki held him tighter. “But you’re not there anymore. You’re here. With us.”
Silence stretched.
Then, softly: “With me.”
And for the first time since arriving at Seidou Guild, Sawamura allowed himself to cry — not from pain, or fear, or grief, but from the quiet, unfamiliar feeling of being safe.
Chapter Text
Miyuki’s ears twitched before he heard the sound — soft feathers shifting, a blanket rustling, the faintest creak of floorboards from the east wing. Sawamura was up again.
Not that it surprised him.
For the past three nights, the kid had jolted awake before midnight, always silent, always quick to pretend he hadn’t been crying. Miyuki had been posted nearby each time — under the pretense of “late patrol” or “finishing reports.” But really, it was instinct.
Wolf hybrids didn’t ignore their gut.
And everything about Eijun tugged at his.
He’d tried to keep his distance after the rescue. Seidou had protocols for integrating survivors — especially fragile ones. Takashima handled the paperwork. Kataoka did the interviews. Chris monitored health. Miyuki usually kept to the field.
But something about that dusty holding cell weeks ago…
Sawamura had been crouched in the far corner, Like a feral creature who knew how easily hope could be ripped away.
Even now, Miyuki could remember the exact look in his eyes: not fear.
Defiance.
The same look he used to give the humans who tossed rocks at him when he was a cub wandering alone.
Chris had warned him to back off. “Don’t crowd him. He’s already watching everyone’s movements. He won’t rest if he thinks he’s being tracked.”
Miyuki nodded.
Then ignored it.
It wasn’t like he hovered for no reason. Sawamura was unstable — his wings still healing, his instincts scrambled, posture too defensive for someone safe indoors. And fine, maybe Miyuki was a little over-involved. Maybe he kept noticing when Eijun skipped meals or flinched at raised voices.
But it wasn’t out of pity.
It was... recognition.
He’d been raised by packs that called him useful, not worthy. Picked up by Seidou after outliving his second “home.” Told to act civil, act tamed, act like he didn’t hear every whispered insult about his teeth or eyes.
And yet Sawamura…
Sawamura apologized for being loud, then shouted anyway.
He tripped and fell and got up grinning. He clung to the people he wanted to protect even when it hurt him. He looked Miyuki in the eyes when most others looked away — even if only to snap, “Stop stalking me, you damn wolf!”
Miyuki grinned at the memory.
He wasn’t offended.
Truth be told, he liked the growl in Eijun’s voice.
Tonight, though, there was no shouting. No confrontation. Just that same fragile shuffle from the hallway.
Miyuki stepped out of the shadows.
“You shouldn’t be up,” he said, voice low and calm.
Sawamura froze at the edge of the stairwell, shoulders tense. “Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbled, not turning around.
“Nightmares again?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Sawamura hesitated. Then shrugged. “I hate the quiet.”
Miyuki padded closer, bare feet silent on the wooden floor. His tail flicked once, settling behind him.
“You know,” he said, leaning against the bannister beside Eijun, “when I first got here, I couldn’t sleep in a bed either.”
That got him a glance. Just a small one.
“Too soft,” Miyuki went on. “Felt fake. Like I’d wake up and be back in the cages.”
Sawamura swallowed, looking away.
“I’m not trying to spy on you, you know,” Miyuki said, his voice softening. “I just... notice things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you flinch when people talk too loud. How you only eat if someone else is already eating. How you’re always scanning exits.” He paused. “That’s not your fault. It’s what they trained into you.”
Sawamura’s shoulders rose and fell. “Why do you care?”
Miyuki turned toward him fully now, voice quiet but firm. “Because I know what it’s like to be pulled out of hell and still not feel safe.”
For a long time, they said nothing. The silence wasn’t as sharp as before. Just full of things unspoken.
“I thought you were annoying at first,” Sawamura admitted suddenly. “Like a tail that wouldn’t go away.”
Miyuki huffed a laugh. “Wolf, remember?”
“I know.” A pause. “I still think you’re annoying.”
“Yeah?” Miyuki grinned. “Well, you snore when you’re anxious, so we’re even.”
That earned a quiet snort — not a laugh, not really. But something close.
Miyuki didn’t press. He didn’t need to.
This wasn’t about earning trust in one night. This was about presence. About proving that, no matter how broken Sawamura felt, someone would keep showing up.
Just like Kataoka had done for him.
Just like Seidou had taught him to do in turn.
So when Sawamura finally stepped back from the stairwell and muttered, “I guess I can try to sleep again,” Miyuki didn’t follow.
He just said, “Goodnight, Sawamura,” and waited until he was out of sight to relax his stance.
He didn’t need to be a full wolf to recognize pack behavior.
And Sawamura?
He might not know it yet.
But he’d already been claimed.
Chapter Text
The medical wing of Seidou was unusually quiet that morning.
Sawamura Eijun sat on the edge of the padded exam table, swinging his legs as he waited for Chris-senpai to return. His wings were stiff again, muscles cramping with each slight movement. The feathers were duller than they should be, some molting despite the healing ointments and restorative magic Chris and Rei used.
Chris stepped in moments later, holding a small wooden box. His expression was carefully neutral, but Eijun had learned by now that Chris only looked like that when something wasn’t right.
"Morning, Sawamura. Ready for today’s scan?"
Eijun nodded. He hated this part. Laying face-down, wings stretched and prodded, the faint hum of diagnostic magic making his skin crawl. But he didn’t complain. Not anymore.
As Chris gently unwrapped the latest layer of bandages, his brows furrowed.
"Sawamura... did they do anything to your wings before you got here?"
Eijun tensed. "I... I don’t remember everything. Just... they hurt. They used to inject something. Once they said it would keep me from flying."
Chris looked up, worry flickering in his eyes. He pressed the back of his hand to Eijun’s forehead briefly. "That might explain the resistance. Stay still, I need to run a deeper scan."
Rei had entered by then, standing quietly by the wall, arms folded. When Chris activated the scanner, the glow turned faintly red around Eijun’s wings. It traced the lines of his bone structure, but instead of smooth curves, it revealed foreign anchors fused into the joints. Jagged edges. Metal.
"No..."
Chris sat back, expression grim.
"They tampered with your wings. Surgically, I think. Implanted anchors to prevent full extension. It was meant to keep you from flying at all. Whoever did this... they did permanent damage."
The words didn’t quite register.
Sawamura stared at the floor.
"So... I’m broken. They made sure of it."
Rei stepped closer, her voice firm but calm. "You’re not broken. You were hurt, Eijun. There's a difference."
Chris hesitated before speaking again. "We have two options. We can leave them as they are. You'll never fly, maybe not even glide, but it’ll stop the pain. Or... we can try to reset them. Surgery. Remove the anchors. It will hurt. A lot. And there's no guarantee you’ll fly after. But it gives you a chance."
Silence.
Eijun didn’t respond.
That evening, dinner came and went. Sawamura didn’t show up.
Kuramochi noticed first. Haruichi knocked on his door, then again, then looked worried when no answer came.
Chris informed Miyuki.
By the time Miyuki reached the room Eijun shared with Rei and Kataoka, the sun had long dipped below the horizon. He opened the door without knocking.
Eijun was curled up against the far wall. Feathers littered the floor around him like fallen ash. His wings were half-unfurled, trembling, marred by broken quills.
Miyuki didn’t speak at first. He just sat down slowly, knees creaking, tail flicking low behind him.
After a moment, Eijun whispered, "They ruined them. They knew I wanted to fly. That was the point."
Miyuki inhaled quietly. Then:
"Yeah. They took your wings. But they didn’t take you."
No response.
"You’re not just feathers, Sawamura. You’re stubborn. Loud. You get up when you shouldn’t. And you care too much even when it hurts. That’s why you're here now. That’s why you survived."
A tremble.
"You’re still you. Still Eijun. And if you want to fly, then fly. But don’t let what they did decide who you are."
The next morning, Chris looked up from his notes to see Eijun in the doorway.
Barefoot. Pale. Red-eyed. But standing.
"Do it," Eijun said. "Reset them. I want to try. Even if I never fly. I want to try."
Chris nodded solemnly.
Rei stepped up behind him with the surgical tools already in hand. Kataoka stood by silently, the firm presence that never wavered. Miyuki, arms folded, leaned against the doorframe. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t leave either.
As the anesthetic took hold, Eijun looked at them through half-lidded eyes.
"Don’t... let me quit," he mumbled. "Even if it hurts. Even if I cry. I still want to try."
And they didn’t.
Because Seidou wasn’t just a guild. It was the first place he’d ever been allowed to try at all.
The workshop was quiet except for the faint hum of enchanted circuitry and the steady scratch of Ryousuke’s pen. The smell of solder, dust, and old parchment lingered, mingling with the faint oil on his gloves. Most of the guild avoided this room — it was cluttered, cramped, and half of the things in it sparked if you touched them wrong. But to Kominato Ryousuke, it was home.
He leaned over the metal fragment Chris had handed him earlier that day — a sliver retrieved during Sawamura’s surgery. It looked unassuming at first glance, dulled and twisted from heat and time. But something about the alloy had made Chris hesitate.
It wasn’t just about stabilizing broken bone or holding ruined feathers in place.
It was made to reshape.
Ryousuke slid a magnifying lens into place over his goggles and angled the shard under the lamplight. Faint engravings traced along the inner curve — jagged, interrupted by what looked like claw marks or deliberate scraping.
They didn’t want it traced.
But they weren’t careful enough.
He ran a brush dipped in a mild reagent over the surface. Letters bloomed like ink rising in water — not words, but symbols. The faint outline of a serpent devouring something winged. Half-erased, but unmistakable once seen.
Ryousuke’s fingers tightened on the tweezers.
He’d seen that mark before. Once. A long time ago, on a corpse they’d recovered from a smuggler’s den.
A hybrid who hadn’t survived.
Later, in the common hall, Rei was reviewing mission reports while Kataoka drank tea in silence. Ryousuke set the small case down on the table between them.
“Is this about the surgery?” Rei asked without looking up.
Ryousuke nodded. “The alloy’s synthetic. Mixed with iron dust and voidstone — the kind used in suppression cuffs. It wasn’t meant to help him heal. It was meant to interfere.”
Kataoka frowned. “Like an inhibitor?”
“Worse,” Ryousuke said quietly. “It’s something I've only seen in experimental designs… military-grade. Most guilds abandoned it after the treaty. But there was a weapons guild up north—Wyrmforge. Shut down a few years ago. Their seal was… this.”
He pulled out a scrap of parchment and sketched the half-devoured wing.
Rei’s hand froze mid-turn of a page.
“I’ve seen that,” she whispered. “Three years ago, we took in a chimera hybrid — cat-avian. Her wings were too damaged to repair, but there were similar markings on her back. She died within the week.”
Ryousuke closed the case.
“This isn’t some black-market patchwork. It’s organized. Trained. And they’re targeting avians who can’t fight back.”
Kataoka’s jaw tightened. “Testing something, maybe. Or selling failure as data.”
“They picked Sawamura because he was unstable,” Ryousuke added. “But he survived. And now they’ll want to know why.”
That night, Ryousuke found Miyuki in the corridor just outside the medical wing. He looked exhausted — dressed down for once, his usually sharp eyes dulled with worry.
“Hey,” Ryousuke said.
Miyuki didn’t respond immediately. His eyes were fixed on the door behind him — the one that led to Sawamura’s room.
“You should rest,” Ryousuke said gently. “He’s asleep.”
Miyuki leaned his head back against the wall. “He whimpers when he dreams. I don’t know if it’s pain or memory.”
“Probably both,” Ryousuke said. “Listen. I found something in the implants.”
That made Miyuki look at him.
“We need to talk. You, me, and Chris. This wasn’t just trafficking. Whoever had him — they were doing more than selling hybrids. They were experimenting. And I think we’ve only seen the beginning.”
In Chris’s private office, Ryousuke laid out the evidence again, more formally this time. The shard, the reagent sketch, the symbol. Chris’s expression didn’t shift much — but his hands were tight on the back of the chair.
“They chose him for a reason,” Ryousuke said. “A winged hybrid who couldn’t fly? Perfect test subject. No legal ties. No family. No history.”
“He was disposable,” Miyuki said hoarsely.
“But he wasn’t,” Ryousuke said, looking him dead in the eye. “Because you got to him. And now they’re going to realize their experiment didn’t go as planned.”
Chris folded his arms. “Are you suggesting they’ll come looking?”
“I think they already are,” Ryousuke replied. “We’ve seen watchers near the south ridge. One of them had a sigil sewn into their coat. Not quite Wyrmforge — but the same craft. They’re watching to see if he flies.”
Silence settled in the room like snow.
Miyuki finally spoke. “Then we make sure he never leaves the guild unguarded.”
Down the hall, oblivious to the fire he’d unwittingly survived, Sawamura Eijun slept. His wings were bundled in protective gauze, his breath soft against the pillow. For the first time in weeks, he didn’t dream of cages or steel.
He dreamed of wind.
Of soaring, just a little.
And somewhere outside that door, his family — his guild — was already preparing for the storm to come.
Chapter Text
The early morning sunlight painted golden streaks across the courtyard as the guild slowly came alive. Somewhere near the stables, Jun was loudly complaining about mucking duties. Tetsuya and Ryousuke had left just before sunrise, heading out on a scouting mission with a promise to return by dusk. And inside the quiet stone-walled training grounds, three figures moved beneath the open sky.
Sawamura adjusted the wraps around his arms for the third time, his brow furrowed in concentration. His wings trembled slightly against his back—not in pain this time, but from a kind of quiet restlessness.
It was his first official training session. Not strength-based, not flight-related—just movement. Balance. Trusting his limbs again.
Trusting that he still had a body to use.
Kuramochi leaned against a training dummy with his arms crossed, watching him with sharp eyes and an unreadable smile. Haruichi stood nearby, softer in demeanor, arms full of folded mats and padding, which he began arranging on the ground with practiced precision.
Sawamura tried not to fidget.
“Relax,” Kuramochi said with a smirk. “We’re not here to toss you off a cliff.”
“Not unless you want that kind of training,” Haruichi added, calm and lighthearted.
Sawamura let out a breath. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re nervous,” Kuramochi said bluntly. “Which is fine, but lying about it just makes it worse.”
Sawamura’s wings twitched in embarrassment. “I’ve moved around before.”
“Not like this,” Haruichi said kindly. “Chris-senpai said your bone regrowth is stable enough now to handle controlled drills. That means weight shifts, turns, grounding work. It’s… different.”
Different. Right.
Sawamura swallowed and nodded.
Kuramochi stepped closer, crouching to place his hands on Sawamura’s bare feet.
“Feel that?” he said. “Stone. Solid. Cold. Real. When you’re out there, your balance has to start from the ground. Your wings may be unstable, but you’ve got legs. Strong ones. Use them.”
Sawamura nodded again, more focused now. His breathing steadied.
“Alright,” Haruichi said. “Let’s start with slow turns. I’ll count your steps, and Kuramochi’ll correct your stance if needed. Try to keep your wings relaxed.”
Sawamura began to move, carefully.
Step, shift, turn. The movements were slow but deliberate. His center of gravity wasn’t where he remembered it being—scar tissue and surgical shifts had subtly changed the way his back aligned. Every movement reminded him of what had been taken, then painfully rebuilt.
But the pain wasn’t sharp anymore.
It was just… there. A quiet presence. A ghost of what had been.
After a few rounds, he stopped, slightly winded. Not from exertion—but from feeling.
Kuramochi tossed him a water skin and gestured toward a sun-warmed bench.
“You’re improving faster than I expected,” he said, not sounding surprised.
Sawamura blinked. “Really?”
Kuramochi shrugged. “Figured we’d have to drag your ass back to the medbay at least once.”
Haruichi elbowed him lightly. “Don’t scare him.”
“I’m not scared,” Sawamura mumbled.
“Good,” Kuramochi said. “Then we can move to core work.”
Haruichi added, “Only if you’re up for it.”
Sawamura hesitated. Then he nodded. “I want to keep going.”
Something about this — the routine, the way the ground felt solid under him — made him feel real.
It was strange how something as simple as moving with intention could restore a part of him that had been missing.
Kuramochi stepped into his space again and placed a hand near his lower back, not touching, just hovering. “Okay. Now we try a lean-pivot. I’ll catch if your balance gives out. Don’t panic.”
Sawamura rolled his eyes, but a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I won’t.”
As he shifted his weight again, his wings flared slightly for balance—uncontrolled, yes, but no longer wild. Just… uncertain.
He landed the move. Not perfectly. But he didn’t fall.
Kuramochi gave a low whistle. “Not bad, rookie.”
Sawamura flushed at the praise but didn’t reply. His chest ached, but not with pain—with something gentler.
By the end of the session, he was sweating and sore but grounded in a way he hadn’t been for months.
As Haruichi passed him a towel, Sawamura finally asked, “Why’re you guys doing this? Helping me?”
Kuramochi quirked a brow. “What kind of question is that?”
“I mean… you don’t owe me anything,” Sawamura said. “I’m not part of the main team. I can’t even fly.”
Haruichi gave him a look so sincere it made his chest tighten.
“You’re part of Seidou now,” Haruichi said. “That’s all that matters.”
Kuramochi added, voice firm but not unkind, “You’re not broken, Sawamura. You’re recovering. That’s different.”
The words landed deep.
Sawamura gripped the towel tighter.
The sun was already low when the gates creaked open and the returning mission team stepped into the courtyard. Dust clung to their boots, their cloaks stained by travel and the burn of skirmishes fought somewhere near the eastern cliffs.
Sawamura had been sitting on the edge of the stone fountain, sipping tea that had long gone cold. His posture stiffened as he saw them—Yuuki with his sword sheathed and eyes sharp, Jun Isashiki grinning with another bandage on his temple, and walking beside them…
Others. Outsiders.
Their clothing marked them as guild-affiliated, but not Seidou. Their insignias bore the sleek silver falcon of Inashiro. And at the center of them, laughing with too much ease, was a figure that glowed in the dying sunlight.
Wings stretched confidently behind him—sleek, iridescent, whole—each feather immaculate and precise.
Sawamura couldn’t look away.
“Oi,” Kuramochi muttered, nudging him from the other side of the fountain. “Don’t stare unless you want to get picked apart.”
“Who is that?” Sawamura asked, his throat suddenly dry.
“Mmm… Narumiya Mei,” Haruichi answered, appearing beside them with two bottles of water. “Inashiro’s second-in-command. Also an avian. He's... kind of a big deal.”
“A very flashy big deal,” Kuramochi added with a hint of disdain.
Before Sawamura could react, the trio from Inashiro crossed the courtyard toward them, accompanied by Rei and Kataoka, who had come out to greet the returning squad.
Yuuki offered a casual wave. “Sawamura. These are our allies from Inashiro. They came to help reinforce the boundary spells during our last encounter.”
The first of the strangers—a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick arms and a stern expression—gave a polite nod. “Masatoshi,” he said. “Battle specialist.”
The next, slighter and more reserved, had kind eyes that scanned Sawamura without judgment. “Itsuki. Support mage.”
And then Narumiya stepped forward, wings fluttering once behind him like a banner, and fixed Sawamura with a smile that could cut glass.
“And I’m Narumiya Mei,” he purred. “And you, little bird, must be the famous rescued avian I’ve heard so much about.”
Sawamura’s stomach clenched. “I—uh—”
Narumiya circled him once, inspecting openly. “Unstable wings, slow muscle tone recovery… but the structure’s interesting. You’re not bred for flight, though, are you?”
Sawamura flinched. “I—no.”
Narumiya tilted his head, wings folding neatly behind him. “Mm. Doesn’t matter. You’re with Seidou now. They’re protective enough to keep you alive. Probably.”
Haruichi shot him a disapproving look, but Narumiya only chuckled.
Masatoshi cleared his throat. “Don’t mind him. Mei doesn’t know how to filter anything that comes out of his mouth.”
“I speak the truth,” Narumiya said lightly, but his eyes remained locked on Sawamura.
Sawamura found his voice. “How did you—how did you get wings like that?”
Narumiya blinked. Then he laughed. “Born like this, obviously. Pureblooded avian. Top of my class. They used to call me ‘the sky’s echo.’ You think this came from training?”
“I don’t know,” Sawamura said, stung.
Narumiya’s smirk softened—just barely. “Look, kid. I’m not trying to drag you. You survived something worse than death. Most wouldn’t have made it this far. But don’t go dreaming about flying like this unless you’re ready to bleed for it.”
Silence fell over the group.
Then Itsuki stepped forward, gently redirecting the conversation. “We heard Seidou’s been working on hybrid rehabilitation protocols. Our guild’s considering something similar. Would you be willing to share how you’ve structured his care?”
Rei nodded, leading them toward the records wing. “Of course. I can walk you through the treatments and accommodations.”
They disappeared into the hall, leaving the other members hovering.
Kuramochi nudged Sawamura again. “Hey. You okay?”
Sawamura didn’t answer immediately. He was still watching Narumiya’s retreating form, the way his wings shimmered like liquid metal under the torchlight.
“How did he do that?” Sawamura whispered. “How did he get better?”
“He didn’t need to be rescued,” Jun said softly behind him. “Not like you. Mei’s never been touched by chains. It makes a difference.”
Sawamura stared down at his hands. He could still feel the phantom weight of restraints sometimes, even in sleep. How could someone like Narumiya ever understand what that felt like?
Yet… something in the way Narumiya had looked at him wasn’t cruelty. It was recognition.
“I want to talk to him again,” Sawamura said suddenly.
Kuramochi looked surprised. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Sawamura stood slowly, wings twitching. “He’s everything I’m not. But maybe… maybe I can learn something.”
Haruichi smiled faintly. “Just don’t let him get in your head.”
“He’s already in my head,” Sawamura muttered.
Chapter Text
The moon hung high above Seidou Guild Hall, casting long silver shadows over the training yard. Most of the guild was asleep or tucked in with books and warm drinks, but two figures remained by the far end of the courtyard.
Narumiya Mei leaned lazily against the fencing, wings outstretched to absorb the moonlight. His feathers shimmered with that same infuriating confidence Miyuki had come to know too well. The wind tousled his white-blonde hair, and he looked, for all the world, like a fallen star just waiting to rise again.
“You’re still here,” Miyuki said as he approached.
Narumiya didn’t turn. “Seidou’s hospitality is almost suspicious. What, no poisoned tea? No half-hearted threats from Kuramochi?”
Miyuki smirked. “Tempting. But we’ve matured. Slightly.”
“Mm. Shame.” Narumiya tilted his head. “You still walk like a fox with a spine full of knives.”
“And you still talk like someone who swallowed a mirror.”
Finally, Narumiya turned to face him. “You missed me.”
Miyuki rolled his eyes. “I tolerated you. There’s a difference.”
But the edges of his words held something more than sarcasm. Beneath the barbs, there was a familiarity—one that came from years spent circling each other in competitive academies and hybrid social programs. Narumiya, the golden boy born with perfect wings and a perfect pedigree. Miyuki, the wolf hybrid prodigy with a sharp tongue and sharper instincts.
They had clashed in training, in exams, in recruitment rankings. They’d shared too many near-fights, late-night strategy arguments, and mission debriefs with blood still drying on their collars.
Frenemies didn’t quite cover it.
“You’re still watching him,” Narumiya said, gaze drifting toward the dorm windows above. “Your little fledgling.”
“Sawamura isn’t mine.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
Miyuki let out a quiet breath, the amusement fading. “He’s different.”
“All avians are,” Narumiya replied. “But you don’t hover over any of us.”
“You didn’t come out of a trafficking ring with broken wings, barely able to eat solid food.”
“No,” Narumiya admitted. “But I’ve seen the reports.”
Miyuki’s jaw tensed. “We found files during our last raid. Blueprints. Diagrams. Medical experiments tailored specifically for avians. Not just captivity—modifications.”
Narumiya’s expression lost its arrogance.
“They were trying to redesign our physiology,” Miyuki continued, voice low. “Artificial bone implants to force wing development. Growth acceleration, even when it caused nerve damage. Sawamura was one of several. Most of the others didn’t survive.”
“…Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretched between them.
“I thought—” Narumiya began, voice softer than usual. “I thought I was the only one who had to carry expectations. Turns out others were carrying torture.”
Miyuki glanced at him, surprised by the honesty. “You always carried it well.”
Narumiya gave a bitter laugh. “Of course I did. Pretty feathers, dazzling flight speed, endless praise. No one looks under the surface when you shine hard enough.”
They stood there for a moment, two predators born into vastly different versions of the same cage. One gilded. One rusted.
“You like him,” Narumiya said eventually. “Not just out of guilt or duty. It’s personal.”
Miyuki didn’t answer.
“I’m not judging,” Narumiya added. “Hell, I’d probably be obsessed too if someone looked at me like I wasn’t a monster after what he’s been through.”
“He looks at everyone like that,” Miyuki murmured. “Like he still believes the world can be better. It’s reckless.”
“It’s hope.”
“I’m not sure he knows the difference.”
“You want him to hate them,” Narumiya said, and there was no accusation in it. Just observation. “The ones who hurt him. The system. Even himself.”
Miyuki folded his arms, staring out into the darkened yard. “I want him to survive it.”
Narumiya nodded, then added, “He asked about my wings.”
Miyuki’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
“And I told him the truth. But I didn’t lie. I could see it in his face—he thinks flight will save him.”
“Maybe it will,” Miyuki said quietly. “Or maybe it’ll just give him a better view before the fall.”
There was a long pause.
Then Narumiya chuckled. “You’ve gotten gloomier.”
“You’ve gotten nicer.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Miyuki’s smirk returned briefly, before fading again. “Thanks for coming, by the way. Helping with the mission.”
“You think I did it for you?” Narumiya snorted. “Please. I came for the intel. And I wanted to see the boy.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know if I should envy him… or pity him.”
“And?”
“…I haven’t decided.”
Miyuki turned to leave, but paused. “Don’t mess with him, Narumiya. He’s not built for your kind of cruelty.”
“I’m not here to break him,” Narumiya replied. “I’m here to see if he can fly.”
“You know,” Narumiya drawled, arms crossed, leaning against the railing, “I never expected you of all people to end up here.”
Miyuki didn’t stop walking, but his shoulders tensed.
Narumiya continued. “Playing caretaker in a halfway house for broken hybrids. It’s noble—almost unrecognizable.”
“I’m not playing anything,” Miyuki muttered, finally turning halfway. His voice was level, but there was a strange flicker in his eyes. “This isn’t a phase. It’s real.”
“Real?” Narumiya echoed, raising an eyebrow. “The great Miyuki Kazuya trading quips and empathy with traumatized kids. What happened to the guy who always had an angle?”
Miyuki looked away briefly, his jaw tightening. “He met someone.”
Narumiya blinked, genuinely surprised. “That... was fast.”
“It’s not like that,” Miyuki said quickly, then hesitated. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
Narumiya tilted his head. “Who is it?”
“You already met him,” Miyuki said quietly. “The avian. Sawamura.”
A silence hung between them.
“The one who stared you down even with a busted wing?” Narumiya said finally. “He’s got guts.”
“Yeah,” Miyuki muttered, almost to himself. “He does.”
He leaned against the wall beside Narumiya, rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought I understood what this job was about. Rescue. Recovery. Keep things clinical so they don’t get too close. But Eijun... he’s different. He’s messy and loud and stubborn, and somehow, he’s still bright.”
Narumiya gave him a sidelong glance, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You’re talking about him like he’s the sunrise.”
Miyuki exhaled, almost laughing. “Maybe he is.”
That silence returned—but now it pulsed with understanding.
“I watch him,” Miyuki admitted, quieter now. “Struggling to carry trays, trying to fold laundry with bandaged fingers, apologizing for things he doesn’t need to. And he still finds time to smile at the kitchen staff like they saved his life.”
“Maybe they did.”
“Maybe,” Miyuki said. “But he’s saving mine in ways he doesn’t even realize.”
Narumiya looked at him seriously. “You’re getting attached.”
“I know.”
“That scares you.”
“I know,” Miyuki repeated, voice sharper now.
Narumiya didn’t push further. After a pause, he asked, “Do you think he feels it too?”
Miyuki looked down at his hands, then toward the hall where he’d left Sawamura earlier that day, chattering with Rei and Haruichi over leftover stew. “I think... maybe one day.”
Narumiya gave a soft hum, something between approval and warning. “Just make sure you don’t drown chasing the sun.”
Miyuki met his gaze then, clear and steady. “I’m not chasing it. I just want to be near it.”
“Gross”
Chapter Text
Kataoka’s voice was sharper than usual, and that alone was enough to make the room fall still.
“—no survivors were found. The guild hall was burned to the ground.”
The table surrounding him was crowded. Miyuki leaned forward, arms folded as he absorbed the news, while Rei stood near the wall, eyes narrowed, lips tight.
Chris, Takashima Rei, and Kominato Ryousuke had just returned from scouting the edge of the western border, but this... this had taken priority.
“Aroha Guild was mostly a rescue and recovery base,” Chris said grimly. “Similar structure to ours. They focused on marine and feline hybrids, but a few avians passed through. From the looks of it, the attackers knew exactly what they were looking for.”
Sawamura, seated near the back of the room beside Kuramochi and Haruichi, couldn’t stop the chill crawling down his spine. He didn’t know the guild personally, but he recognized that word: “rescue.”
“What do you mean they knew?” Ryousuke asked, expression unreadable.
Chris hesitated. “No supplies were taken. No valuables. Only the central medical archive was breached.”
“Experimentation files?” Rei asked.
Miyuki’s jaw clenched. “More than that. If it’s anything like what we kept after the last mission, those files would contain the personal recovery logs of every rescued hybrid they took in.”
The moonlight spilled across the empty training field as Miyuki sat on the bleachers, half-watching the stars, half-listening for approaching footsteps.
Sawamura didn’t disappoint.
“You’re not gonna tell me to go back to bed?”
Miyuki smirked without turning. “You’d just come out here again. I figured I’d save us both the energy.”
Sawamura climbed the steps and dropped beside him, wings shifting slightly under his hoodie. They still ached sometimes, even after the latest check-up, but he could move better now. Breathe easier.
“What happened to Aroha…” Sawamura trailed off. “That wasn’t normal, was it?”
“No.” Miyuki finally glanced at him. “They were sending a message. Not just to the hybrids… but to guilds like ours.”
“I don’t get it,” Sawamura muttered, hugging his knees. “If the ring was destroyed, why are people still doing this?”
“Because power doesn’t die. It adapts.” Miyuki’s voice was bitter. “What we destroyed was a branch. Maybe a front. But the people running it… they’re deeper. Hidden. And now they’re cleaning up loose ends.”
Sawamura turned to him, golden eyes searching. “So what does that make me?”
Miyuki blinked.
Sawamura’s voice wavered, but he didn’t stop. “A loose end?”
“No,” Miyuki said immediately. “No, Eijun. You’re a survivor. That’s different.”
The silence between them stretched.
“You knew something was wrong before, didn’t you?” Sawamura asked. “Before you found me?”
Miyuki hesitated, then nodded. “We started getting reports—anomalies in the black market, survivors going missing again. We thought maybe it was just rogue dealers... but now…”
“Now it’s worse.”
“Yeah.”
Sawamura exhaled, slow and uneven. “Then I want to help.”
Miyuki turned to him, startled. “You’re still recovering. You don’t need to rush—”
“I’m not rushing.” Sawamura’s voice was steady now. “But I’m not helpless either. You guys saved me. Let me stand beside you when the next one falls.”
Miyuki stared at him.
And for a moment, he didn’t see the trembling, flightless boy he’d carried out of a cage months ago.
He saw someone fierce. Someone growing.
He saw hope.
“…Alright,” Miyuki murmured. “But we’re doing it our way. Step by step.”
Sawamura grinned, even as his eyes burned with something more determined. “Deal.”
The town smelled like cinnamon and dust.
Sawamura nearly tripped on the cobblestones as they stepped into the main square — not because it was crowded, but because everything felt too colorful. Banners waved lazily from balconies, open windows spilled music and laughter onto the streets, and merchants sang out prices with rhythmic, almost magical cadence.
His eyes darted everywhere — pastries piled high with sugar crystals, shiny glass beads in street stalls, a hybrid child laughing as their wings caught a gust of wind and fluttered them briefly into the air.
Miyuki walked just a step ahead, tail flicking lazily. “You’re gawking.”
“I’m not—!” Sawamura started, then cut himself off with a sheepish grin. “Okay, maybe a little. But this is my first time seeing all this up close. No bars. No chains.”
Miyuki didn’t tease him further. He just handed him a folded parchment. “Alright, partner. We’ve got errands. Delivery scroll from the library to the guild archive, pick up a potion order from Nori’s apothecary, and grab Rei’s over-tailored coat from the seamstress.”
Sawamura stared at the list. “This is what you call a ‘mission’?”
“I call it babysitting,” Miyuki said with a smirk. “But call it whatever keeps your feathers calm.”
Sawamura rolled his eyes but jogged ahead, a laugh escaping his throat — raw, surprised, and honest.
Sawamura nearly knocked over a stack of books trying to carry three armfuls at once.
Miyuki leaned against the counter, watching the hybrid boy struggle with a half-smile. “You don’t have to carry the whole top shelf, you know. One box would’ve been enough.”
“But there’s so many! Look at this one!” Sawamura’s eyes gleamed as he held up an old bestiary, its pages gold-trimmed and humming with faint enchantments. “Did you know phoenix feathers glow before they burn? Not after!”
He was practically vibrating with joy.
“Great,” Miyuki said dryly. “We’ll light you on fire next week, see what happens.”
Sawamura grinned. “You’d miss me.”
Miyuki paused, caught off guard by how easily the words came — not bitter, not distant. Just... real.
But the moment didn’t last.
Out of the corner of his eye, Miyuki spotted a figure reflected in the window glass. A man in a dark coat — nondescript, face down, posture patient. He wasn’t browsing the stalls or talking to anyone.
Just watching.
Miyuki’s smile didn’t falter, but his fingers twitched toward his coat. Not normal. Not a local.
Inside the cluttered shop, fragrant with crushed herbs and sharp oils, Sawamura leaned over the counter, nose wrinkling.
“What’s that one?” he asked, pointing to a murky vial.
“Dragonflower extract,” Nori answered. “Good for suppressing night tremors in hybrids with sensory overload.”
Sawamura’s expression faltered for just a heartbeat. “I used to get those.”
“You probably still do,” Miyuki said casually, sorting through the satchel of supplies. “You just pretend to sleep like a rock.”
Sawamura stuck his tongue out at him — but this time, it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Outside, the same figure passed by the shop window. Slowly. Almost deliberately.
Miyuki didn’t react. But his ears twitched. He leaned subtly toward the entrance, sniffed.
Same scent. Still close. Still watching
Sawamura skipped ahead, arms full of packages, cloak tossed back to let his wings stretch slightly. “This town’s amazing. Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
Miyuki didn’t answer immediately.
His eyes scanned the crowd — blending faces, moving shapes. Nothing overt. But the feeling was stronger now. Not just watching—hunting, maybe. Waiting.
His hand brushed the protective charm in his pocket. The one he hadn’t given Sawamura yet.
“You okay?” Sawamura asked, slowing down.
Miyuki looked up, forcing a grin. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He hesitated. “Where the hell you’re putting all this energy. We’ve walked five districts and you’re still bouncing.”
Sawamura laughed again. “Told you — I’m built different.”
But Miyuki’s mind was no longer on the laughter.
Because just past Sawamura’s shoulder, under the slanted shadows of the city gate, the figure stood again. Unmoving.
No weapons. No guild crest. No reason to be here.
And this time, Miyuki caught the glint of obsidian-threaded fabric at their sleeve.
Black market stitching.
He stepped closer to Sawamura, subtly placing himself between the hybrid and the gate.
“Change of plan,” Miyuki said quietly. “We’re heading back.”
“What? But we still have—”
“Now,” Miyuki repeated, sharper. His hand grazed the dagger at his hip. “We’re being followed.”
Sawamura’s expression shifted—confused, but not panicked. He didn’t see the figure. Didn’t feel the weight of it yet.
But Miyuki did.
And it was getting closer.
Chapter Text
The streets of Seidou bustled with the lazy rhythm of a warm afternoon — clinking glasses from café windows, the rustle of vendor carts, the chatter of gossiping locals. Sawamura looked like he belonged in all of it.
He balanced a box of neatly wrapped herbs under one arm and held a meat bun in the other, scarfing it with almost comical enthusiasm.
“This is so good,” he said through a mouthful, crumbs scattering. “Why does food taste better outside the guild hall?”
“Because you’re not stealing it from the infirmary stash,” Miyuki replied dryly.
Sawamura shot him a glare that lacked real heat. “You know that was one time.”
“More like five.”
They turned the corner past the town fountain, Sawamura still grinning, oblivious. But Miyuki’s senses were on fire.
The stalker had reappeared again — just long enough to be seen. At first, Miyuki thought it might’ve been coincidence. But this wasn’t some street rat or petty thief. Whoever it was, they were practiced. Smart. Just visible enough to let him know they were still there.
Still watching Sawamura.
The scent had gotten clearer too. Metal. Charred magic. Not Guild regulation gear — this was off-market. Illicit. And threaded through it was something familiar, something that made Miyuki’s fur prickle at the base of his neck.
He scanned the crowd again, carefully.
Then he saw him.
Kuramochi, standing casually across the plaza, chatting up a merchant, a lazy smirk on his face as he leaned against a stall.
Miyuki’s breath released — not relief, exactly, but the cold edge of opportunity.
“Oi,” he said to Sawamura, who had just finished his bun and was licking the crumbs off his fingers. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
“Huh? Why—?”
But Miyuki was already striding across the plaza. Kuramochi spotted him and straightened, the casual act dropping as soon as he caught the tension in Miyuki’s face.
“What’s going on?” Kuramochi asked immediately.
“We’re being followed,” Miyuki said in a low voice. “Has been for the past few stops. Humanoid male, dark coat, black-market gear, obsidian-threaded cuffs. He’s circling. Sawamura hasn’t noticed.”
Kuramochi’s gaze sharpened. “You want me to tail him?”
“No.” Miyuki’s voice hardened. “I’m going to handle it.”
Kuramochi raised a brow. “Alone?”
“I need you to get Sawamura back to the guild hall,” Miyuki said. “Quietly. Tell Rei and Kataoka everything. Don’t let him leave your side.”
Kuramochi hesitated, then nodded. “Understood.”
Miyuki’s hand moved into his coat and retrieved the charm he’d meant to give Sawamura earlier — a small silver crest etched with a layered rune. “Put this on him when he’s distracted. It’s warded. Might throw off tracking.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll catch up.” Miyuki’s eyes flicked to the alley across the plaza. “I’ve got a shadow to pin.”
Kuramochi gave a sharp nod and turned, his movements easy, smooth — like he hadn’t just been briefed on a potential tail. That was why Miyuki trusted him. There were very few people in the guild who could switch to field-mode without blinking. Kuramochi was one.
“Hey, Sawamura,” Kuramochi said brightly as he approached, one hand raised in greeting. “Didn’t expect to see you out here.”
Sawamura lit up. “Kuramochi-senpai! We’re doing missions today — kind of — errand missions. Still counts!”
Kuramochi chuckled. “Sounds productive.”
“Right?” Sawamura nodded enthusiastically, unaware of Miyuki slipping into the background.
“Actually,” Kuramochi added, “Rei was just asking if we’d seen you. She wants you back at the hall — something about your next assessment. I said I’d walk you back.”
Sawamura blinked. “Wait, now? But I thought we were gonna—”
“Miyuki said to go ahead,” Kuramochi added smoothly. “He’s handling something.”
That did it. Sawamura hesitated, but ultimately shrugged, trusting them both. “Okay. But I still owe you half a meat bun.”
Kuramochi laughed, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “I’ll hold you to it.”
As they walked off, Miyuki exhaled — just once — and slipped into the alley, boots silent over stone.
The alley was narrow, flanked by tall buildings whose windows had long since been shuttered. It smelled of damp brick and old coal, the perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be seen.
He didn’t have to wait long.
A shape emerged at the far end — slow, deliberate. Just enough height to stand out. The coat brushed the cobblestones.
“I was wondering when you’d stop hiding,” Miyuki said calmly, stepping into view.
The figure paused, then tilted their head. “You noticed.”
Miyuki’s tail flicked once. “Noticed you’ve been trailing my partner for the past five stops. Noticed the smell of iron and old magic on your clothes. Noticed you haven’t made a move yet — which means you’re waiting for something. Or someone.”
The man didn’t respond.
Miyuki’s hand drifted toward his dagger. “Who sent you?”
“You care a lot about that hybrid,” the man said finally, voice low and slightly amused. “Is he yours?”
Miyuki’s eyes narrowed. “He’s under my guild’s protection. That makes him off-limits.”
“Not to the people who made him,” the man replied. “He belongs to them.”
The words sent ice down Miyuki’s spine.
“You’re with them,” he said flatly. “The ones who experimented on him.”
“I’m just the retrieval,” the man said. “You were never supposed to see me.”
Miyuki smiled coldly. “Yeah, well. I’m not great with rules.”
In one motion, he drew his dagger — and the shadows thickened.
The alley held its breath.
Miyuki stood perfectly still, dagger lowered just enough to seem non-threatening — but his stance was coiled tight. Waiting. Measuring. He didn’t blink.
The stalker didn’t move either.
The man’s face was half-shadowed by his hood, but his voice was too calm, too practiced.
“You’re quick,” the stalker said, one hand resting near his belt. “You must be their handler.”
Miyuki’s jaw tensed. “I’m his partner. Try that term next time — if you want to leave with your legs unbroken.”
The man didn’t laugh. “Interesting. I wasn’t told he had a personal guard.”
“No one gets sent alone to retrieve a hybrid unless they think they’ll come quietly,” Miyuki said. “You made a mistake.”
The stalker finally shifted — not forward, not backward, but sideways. Testing the escape routes. There were two behind him, Miyuki knew. One toward the old canal, one back into the market.
He didn’t try to stop him. Not yet.
“What do they want with him?” Miyuki asked coldly.
The man paused. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether he still functions.”
Something in Miyuki snapped. He lunged forward, blade flashing.
But the man was ready. Smoke erupted from his belt pouch — blinding, stinging — and Miyuki staggered, coughing. His dagger sliced empty air, and by the time the smoke cleared, the alley was silent again.
Gone.
Miyuki stood there, throat raw, vision stinging, as the scent of iron and magic faded into nothing.
But he had caught the crest on the inside of the man’s coat — just for a second.
A sigil inlaid with black wire and surgical thread. A hidden mark of the Cartel of Rook — one of the most notorious black-market hybrid rings operating in the western continent. One of the last still active after the Guild Purge.
And if they were still trying to retrieve Sawamura…
He wasn’t free yet.
The room was dim, shuttered, and soundproofed with layered runes.
Kataoka stood at the head of the table, arms folded, listening intently as Miyuki relayed the encounter — every word, every movement, the smoke bomb, the insignia.
Kuramochi leaned against the far wall, unusually silent.
Rei tapped a pen against her ledger, brows furrowed. “The Cartel of Rook hasn’t moved in months. We assumed the Purge wiped out most of their operations.”
“They’re active again,” Miyuki said. “And they were watching him. They weren’t looking to engage today — it was reconnaissance.”
“They wanted to see how close you were,” Rei murmured.
Miyuki nodded once. “And whether he’d run.”
Silence settled like dust.
Then Kataoka spoke, voice low. “Do you think they’ll try again?”
“Yes,” Miyuki said. “They don’t make moves like this unless they’re confident in retrieval protocols. If they’ve marked him as viable, they’ll come back.”
Rei shut the ledger with a quiet snap. “We’ll put a twenty-four-hour rotation on him. Reinforce the outer wards. But we cannot let him find out.”
“He’ll blame himself,” Kuramochi said grimly.
“He already blames himself,” Miyuki muttered. “This’ll only make it worse.”
From the hallway outside, someone exhaled — sharp, trembling.
Miyuki turned first, ears twitching. He was halfway to the door before Rei called softly, “Miyuki—”
But he was already pulling it open.
There, standing in the hallway, his wings half-flared and his expression twisted with something between shame and heartbreak—
Was Sawamura.
“I wasn’t—” His voice cracked. “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, I was just—”
He stumbled back a step, eyes wide and glassy. “So they’re still coming for me.”
Miyuki reached out. “Sawamura—”
“Of course they are,” Sawamura said, voice breaking. “Why wouldn’t they? I’m—I'm the reason they’re back, right?”
“No, that’s not what we—”
“They’re here because of me,” Sawamura whispered. “They’ll hurt people again. Like before. Because I didn’t die in that cage like the others.”
The silence in the room collapsed inward.
Kuramochi stood frozen. Rei took a step forward, but stopped, watching Miyuki.
Miyuki approached carefully, like trying not to spook a wounded bird. “Sawamura, listen to me.”
“I shouldn’t have gone out,” Sawamura said, folding in on himself. “I was stupid. I thought—I thought I was okay. That I could be normal again. I’m not. I’m not anything.”
His wings trembled behind him — jerky, uncoordinated. One of the malformed joints spasmed slightly, like it remembered pain too well.
“You are something,” Miyuki said, voice steady. “You’re not theirs. Not anymore.”
“But they still think I am.”
“And that’s on them,” Miyuki said sharply. “Not you.”
Sawamura flinched.
“You survived,” Miyuki continued, stepping closer. “You got out. You’re healing. That pisses them off, but it doesn’t make it your fault. It makes you dangerous to them.”
Sawamura’s eyes flickered upward. “Then why do I feel like a curse?”
Miyuki didn’t hesitate.
“Because they broke your instincts so badly, you can’t tell the difference between being loved and being hunted anymore.”
That finally made Sawamura look at him — really look.
And something in his chest cracked under the weight of it.
He stumbled forward, and Miyuki caught him without flinching, arms steady, the hybrid’s face buried in his coat. The feathers were sharp in some places and soft in others, but none of that mattered.
“I’m sorry,” Sawamura whispered. “I didn’t mean to make it harder.”
“You didn’t,” Miyuki murmured. “But you’ve got to stop hiding every time you think you’re a burden.”
Sawamura didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either.
Kuramochi finally moved, stepping into the hall and gently closing the door behind them, sealing the rest of the world out.
Inside the war room, Rei’s voice was quiet. “They’ll come again. We need to be ready.”
Kataoka nodded once. “Then we watch. And we protect our own.”
Chapter Text
The training field was empty.
The sky was still dark — the kind of navy-blue that only existed just before dawn. The guild hall still slept, but Sawamura was already out there, sweat-drenched and out of breath.
He shouldn’t have been.
His wings trembled with each breath he took. The surgery had healed most of the internal damage — the broken muscle strands and the torn ligaments — but the scars still pulsed. There were limitations. Warnings. Orders not to strain.
But none of that mattered right now.
He was terrified.
Ever since the note, the shadows seemed to follow him again. Not literally. Not yet. But in his mind, in the way every echo in the hallway set him on edge. In the way he flinched at creaking doors and startled at footsteps that didn’t belong.
And now… the note was gone.
Whoever left it had come back. Close enough to take it. Close enough to remind him that no matter how warm the guild was, no matter how kind Miyuki’s voice had become, he was still prey pretending to be free.
He had to get stronger.
So he pushed himself.
Wing drills, again and again — rapid bursts of gliding attempts down the slope, short lifts off the ground, then back down, panting, staggering, again. He nearly made it three meters off the ground once. Just a moment. A rush of wind beneath feathers, a flicker of flight — and then pain.
A sharp, tearing pain that buckled him to his knees.
Sawamura hit the ground with a hoarse cry, face scraping dirt and gravel as his wings spasmed uncontrollably behind him.
“Damn it,” he gasped, clutching his ribs. “No—no, not again—”
He tried to push himself up.
He couldn’t.
Miyuki had been on his way to check the southern perimeter when he caught the faint echo of something falling.
He didn’t think much of it — until the second thud hit, heavy and uneven.
He ran.
The sight that greeted him at the slope made his heart stutter.
Sawamura was curled on the ground, wings contorted at a sick angle, face twisted in pain.
Miyuki didn’t shout. He didn’t scold. He just sprinted the last stretch and dropped to his knees beside him, hands immediately going to brace his shoulders.
“Hey—hey, breathe. I’ve got you.” His voice shook despite himself. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I—I had to—” Sawamura’s eyes were glazed, frantic. “If I can fly—if I can fly, they can’t take me again—”
“Goddammit,” Miyuki muttered. He pulled the boy into a crouched position and unstrapped his cloak to cradle Sawamura’s frame against him.
“I can’t—” Sawamura’s voice cracked. “I felt it tear—my wing—I felt it—”
“I know. I know, Love. Stop talking. Just stay still.”
That name.
Sawamura blinked, dazed. “…You never call me that.”
Miyuki didn’t answer.
His hands were shaking.
It took three healers and Rei herself to get the spasming under control. The wing had overstretched the newly grown connective tissue, reopening a thin tear and bruising the bone beneath it. Not permanent damage — but serious enough that he’d be grounded again for at least a month.
Sawamura refused to speak the rest of the day.
He stayed curled on the cot in the infirmary, unmoving, even when the sun filtered into his eyes.
Miyuki stood outside his door for a long time before he finally entered.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Miyuki began, keeping his voice even.
Sawamura didn’t look at him. His expression was carved from stone.
“I just want you to know,” Miyuki continued, “that you don’t have to prove anything. Not to us. Not to me.”
The silence stretched.
Miyuki sat at the edge of the cot and hesitated. Then: “I was the same, you know. After my mom died. I thought if I got strong enough, no one would ever leave me again.”
That made Sawamura stir. “But they do,” he whispered.
Miyuki looked at him. “Yeah. They do.”
“Then what’s the point?”
Miyuki didn’t answer right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The point is finding the ones who stay anyway.”
“…You stayed,” Sawamura said, voice nearly inaudible.
Miyuki’s gaze softened. “Yeah. I’m still here.”
They didn’t say the rest out loud — the admission coiled quietly between them, warm and aching and not ready to be spoken yet.
But it was there.
Sawamura closed his eyes, and for the first time since the warning, he slept.
Not peacefully — not yet.
But he slept.
The infirmary was quiet.
Sawamura had been sedated after another bout of wing spasms. He hadn’t said much since the breakdown. Just murmured apologies between half-sobs, then nothing at all.
Chris remained behind to monitor him, carefully adjusting the brace that supported the weakened wing joints. The rest of the guild had been gently ushered away, but Miyuki lingered just outside the partition curtain — shoulders hunched, lips tight, arms crossed.
Chris finally looked up. “You should get some rest.”
“I’m fine,” Miyuki said, even though the dark circles under his eyes said otherwise.
Chris didn’t argue. He stepped out from behind the curtain and stood beside Miyuki, both of them staring at the floor for a long time.
Then Miyuki spoke.
Low. Quiet. Bitter.
“He tore the ligaments again. Trying to train when the wound was barely closed. What the hell was he thinking?”
Chris glanced toward the cot. “He’s scared. I don’t think he knows how else to protect himself yet.”
Miyuki’s voice cracked faintly. “I should’ve stopped him.”
“You’re not his keeper.”
“I should be,” Miyuki snapped. “I’m the one who found him. I’m the one who swore I’d keep him safe. But what does that even mean if I can’t stop him from breaking himself apart?”
Chris studied him.
This wasn’t anger.
It was grief.
Miyuki had always been sharp — always calm, composed, and two steps ahead. But right now, he looked like someone whose world was slipping through his fingers.
“You’ve done more for him than you realize,” Chris said gently.
Miyuki let out a bitter laugh and slumped onto the nearby bench. “I’m not doing enough.”
Chris didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he walked over, sat beside him, and let the silence speak for a while.
Then: “He trusts you. That’s more than most hybrids like him ever get to do. You gave him that.”
Miyuki rubbed at his eyes, voice hoarse. “He looked at me today like he was about to shatter. Like I was the only thing holding him together. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Chris. I keep thinking—what more can I do? What if he spirals again and I miss it?”
“Then we catch him together.”
Miyuki looked at him.
Chris’ expression was steady — calm and firm the way only someone like him could be. “You’re not alone in this. You don’t have to carry it by yourself.”
“But I do.” Miyuki’s voice rose sharply. “He’s different, Chris. He’s not like the others. The way he pushes forward, the way he talks like the world hasn’t killed the hope in him yet—if we lose that, if I mess this up—”
“You won’t.”
Miyuki stared down at his hands. “You don’t know that.”
Chris exhaled and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You care about him more than you’re ready to admit.”
Miyuki froze.
Then laughed again — bitter, tired, broken. “Yeah. I do.”
He didn’t say it outright, but Chris heard everything anyway. The weight. The guilt. The truth.
Miyuki wasn’t just protecting Sawamura.
He was falling.
Chapter Text
It was supposed to be a quiet morning.
But when the summoning bell echoed through the Seidou guild hall, even the most relaxed members paused mid-bite. The low chime was rarely used, reserved only for high-priority briefings.
Miyuki’s hand froze over his tea. Across from him, Rei straightened, already slipping into a professional posture. Sawamura glanced between them, sensing the shift even if he didn’t understand it yet.
Kataoka’s voice rang through the hall: “All senior field operatives. Strategy room. Now.”
Miyuki was on his feet before the last word faded.
Sawamura watched him go, wings twitching under the linen shirt he wore loosely. “Is something wrong?”
Rei gave him a tight smile. “We’ll find out soon. For now, stay with Chris. He’ll walk you through more recovery stretches.”
Sawamura frowned but nodded slowly, eyes trailing after Miyuki as he vanished down the corridor with Kuramochi, Ryousuke, and the rest of the frontline team.
The atmosphere in the strategy room was grim.
Kataoka stood at the head of the table, arms folded. His eyes swept the room — calculating, silent. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and clipped.
“We’ve received word from Fushimi Guild. Their southern outpost was raided last night.”
A murmur went up. Miyuki’s stomach clenched.
“They were coordinating a transfer of ten rescued hybrids, mostly minors. All are missing. Survivors report black-market operatives armed with suppression technology. This was not a random attack.”
Kuramochi swore under his breath.
Ryousuke’s eyes sharpened. “You think it’s connected to the synthetic experiments we found traces of?”
“We don’t know yet,” Kataoka said. “But there are... similarities. More importantly, one of the rescued avians was reportedly stabilized using the same spinal brace system we developed here.”
Miyuki’s breath caught. “You mean our brace?”
“They stole our schematics,” Rei said from the corner, arms crossed. “We shared them with only two other guilds under strict protocols. Fushimi was one of them.”
Silence.
Then Kuramochi leaned forward. “What’s the plan?”
“We’re sending two squads,” Kataoka said. “One to investigate the wreckage. Another to track the hybrid traffickers. They’ve grown more coordinated. This wasn’t a hit-and-run.”
“And the rescued kids?”
“We don’t know if they’re still alive.”
Miyuki felt the knot forming in his chest tighten.
Another raid. Another group lost. Another nightmare waiting to unfold.
And Sawamura was barely standing upright.
Kataoka’s gaze moved to him. “Miyuki. I need you on the trail squad. Your eyes are sharp. We’ll need someone to read the terrain and anticipate movement.”
Miyuki hesitated.
The room waited.
“I…” He glanced toward the hallway behind them, like he could still feel the pulse of Sawamura’s presence down the corridor. “Can I... delay? I just need a day or two. To make sure Sawamura—”
“He’ll be watched,” Rei said gently. “Chris, Masuko, Haruichi. He’ll be safe.”
But safe wasn’t the point.
Sawamura had spiraled less than 48 hours ago.
What if this time Miyuki wasn’t there to pull him back?
He forced himself to speak. “If I go and something happens—”
“You’re not the only one who can protect him,” Kataoka said. His tone wasn’t unkind — just firm. “You gave him stability. That won’t disappear overnight.”
“I’ve seen how fast it can unravel,” Miyuki muttered.
Kataoka stepped closer. “Miyuki. You care about him. We all know that. But we’re facing something bigger now. If this trafficking ring has turned experimental, we can’t afford to fall behind.”
Miyuki didn’t answer.
But he didn’t say no either.
Later that evening, he found Sawamura in the garden outside the hall — perched on one of the stone benches, wings folded tightly behind him. He was sketching something on a worn notepad, tongue poking out in focus.
Miyuki almost turned back.
Almost.
Instead, he walked over and said, “What’re you drawing?”
Sawamura jumped a little but smiled faintly. “The guild hall. Trying to remember where everyone sleeps so I stop getting lost.”
“That’s smart.”
Miyuki sat down beside him, unsure how to start.
Then Sawamura beat him to it.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Miyuki blinked. “How—?”
“You carry tension in your shoulders before every mission,” Sawamura said softly. “And you didn’t eat breakfast.”
Miyuki stared at him for a moment, caught off-guard.
Sawamura kept doodling, not looking up. “You don’t have to explain. I know the work’s important.”
“It is,” Miyuki said. “But so are you.”
Sawamura’s hand stilled.
Miyuki took a breath. “Listen, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Might just be a few days. But I need you to promise me something.”
Sawamura nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Stay close to Chris. Follow the routine. No skipping meals. And if you start feeling like it’s too much—tell someone. Don’t hide it. Not from them. Not from me.”
Sawamura’s fingers curled slightly around the pencil.
Then he looked up, eyes shining faintly under the moonlight. “You’ll come back, right?”
Miyuki reached out, brushed a stray feather from his cheek. “Yeah. I always do.”
Chapter Text
The air was thick with dust and silence — the kind that spoke of things abandoned but not forgotten.
Miyuki adjusted the strap of his crossbow and gave a hand signal for the others to fan out. The narrow hallway stank of chemicals and burned-out wiring. This outpost was hidden well — a makeshift facility built into a collapsed subway tunnel just outside the borderlands. It had taken weeks of piecing together rumors and coded trade records to locate it.
Ryousuke kicked down the door to the next room while Jun swept behind him. Kuramochi moved like a shadow, silent and sharp. Tetsu remained just behind Miyuki, eyes scanning the walls for signs of traps or recent movement.
The whole place felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Too… hollow.
“Here!” Kuramochi’s voice rang out from the far end of the corridor. The others rushed toward him.
The heavy steel door he stood in front of had been rigged with two different locks. Ryousuke crouched and pried open the panel to disable the security chip. With a click, the door hissed open.
Inside was a cell.
No — a cage.
Two figures were huddled on the ground, chained at the ankles, each wrapped in soiled blankets. One of them — a boy with sharp blue eyes and matted blonde hair — immediately bristled when the light hit him, fangs bared and ears pressed flat against his head. A wolf hybrid.
The other didn’t flinch. A falcon hybrid, pale with tangled dark hair and sharp facial features that spoke of pride — or perhaps what was left of it.
Kuramochi stepped forward carefully. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
“Then why are you armed?” growled the wolf hybrid.
Miyuki moved past Kuramochi and crouched. “Because the last place like this had people waiting to kill us before we ever saw the front door. We’re with the Seidou Guild. You’re safe now.”
The falcon hybrid studied him for a long moment before he whispered, “My name is Takuma Seto. He’s Okumura Koushu. We were transferred here two months ago.”
Ryousuke's jaw tightened. "Transferred like cargo, huh?"
Miyuki didn’t answer. He was already unlocking the shackles.
As they led the two boys out, Jun stumbled across a cabinet pushed halfway beneath a rusted examination table. Inside: files, charred at the edges, marked with codes and dates.
Tetsu opened one and his face went pale.
“Guys,” he called. “We found something.”
They gathered around as he spread the documents across the table. Some were faded schematics. Others had annotated x-rays. Miyuki scanned one — a cross-section of avian wings, highlighting key nerve clusters.
Inhibition of Flight Response – Avian Subjects
Purpose: Suppress migratory and aerial escape instinct via neural interference. Subjects displaying high resilience to trauma require direct modification at spinal joint junctures. Secondary aim: eliminate flight-induced territorial defense reflex.
Ryousuke read aloud, voice flat: “They wanted to keep the birds grounded.”
Kuramochi spat. “So they can’t run. So they’re easier to control.”
“They called it ‘Project Anchor’,” Tetsu murmured, pointing to the cover of one file. “Like they're proud of it.”
Okumura stood behind them, teeth bared.
“They injected him,” he said quietly, nodding to Seto. “Told him it was medicine to ‘fix’ his wings. All it did was paralyze them. And when he didn’t cooperate, they used electric currents.”
Miyuki stared at the sheet of paper in his hand, blood roaring in his ears.
This wasn’t just experimentation. It was eradication — an attempt to strip hybrids of their most basic instinct. For avians, flight was freedom. Autonomy. Dignity.
And someone wanted to bury that in wires and surgical steel.
“Let’s get out of here,” Miyuki said, voice shaking with restraint. “We’ll burn the place down on our way out.”
Tetsu nodded grimly.
No one disagreed.
The sun had barely begun to crest the horizon by the time the team left the burned-out facility behind. Smoke curled from the tunnels as fire devoured what little remained of the nightmare inside. Okumura and Seto were quiet, walking in the center of the formation, too exhausted to speak. Miyuki kept glancing back at them, jaw tight.
“They okay?” Kuramochi asked under his breath.
“They’re holding it together,” Miyuki murmured. “For now.”
The forest around them was still, and for a brief moment, Miyuki allowed himself to think they’d actually managed something good. Two lives saved. Files retrieved. Evidence burned. A rare win.
Then his comm crackled to life.
“–Emergency. Seidou Guild Hall under attack. All units return immediately. Repeat: Seidou Guild is under–”
The message cut out with static.
Everyone froze.
Jun was the first to react. “What the hell?!”
Tetsu slammed a fist into his open palm. “We’re too far out. It’ll take hours to get back on foot.”
“We’re not waiting hours,” Ryousuke growled. “Not if they’re in danger.”
Miyuki’s mind was already moving. “Kuramochi, any teleport anchors still active around the perimeter?”
Kuramochi pulled out a battered map from his coat. “There’s one hidden glade anchor about a mile west. We’d have to move fast — and it can only take four people.”
“Me and Kuramochi will stay with these two, we'll go to the next anchor” Ryousuke said “The three of you go ahead”
The sprint to the glade was silent but desperate. As they reached the overgrown circle marked with ancient stones, Kuramochi activated the runes with a crystal shard drawn from his jacket. It pulsed once, then thrummed to life.
“Hold on to something,” he warned.
The world twisted. Light flared.
And then—
They landed hard in the clearing just outside the guild’s western courtyard.
The sight stole the breath from Miyuki’s lungs.
Smoke. The scent of scorched wood. Ash drifting like snow. The left wing of the guild hall — the training barracks — had collapsed. Craters marred the stone courtyard. He could see sparks from shattered lightning crystals embedded in the stone. Someone had used enchanted explosives.
“Get the injured inside!” Rei’s voice rang out over the chaos.
Kataoka was organizing squads. Masuko and Haruichi were helping brace a crumbling wall. Eijun was near the fountain, his wings partially spread in agitation as he helped support an unconscious guild member.
“Eijun—!” Miyuki shouted.
The boy turned. His eyes widened, relief and fear mingling in his expression. “Miyuki!”
Miyuki was already moving toward him when a second blast rocked the sky. Something streaked overhead — a fireball aimed for the central tower.
“Barrier’s still holding!” someone shouted.
“What the hell happened?!” Jun barked.
Rei turned, eyes sharp despite the soot on her face. “They hit us just after sunrise. A squad in black armor. Didn’t speak, didn’t leave survivors. We held them off — but they left a message.”
She held up a shard of glass — a burned sigil.
Miyuki recognized it instantly.
A broken feather, bound in chains.
The same one they found in the files.
“They’re after the avians,” Tetsu said darkly.
“They want the hybrids back,” Kataoka added.
“And they knew exactly where to hit,” Jun muttered. “They’re watching us.”
“Why now?” Eijun asked, voice shaking. “Why attack us?”
Miyuki crouched in front of him, steadying his shoulders. “Because we’re in their way.”
Eijun’s wings trembled. “I—I tried to fight but—my wings—”
“You did good,” Miyuki said firmly. “You kept people safe. That’s more than enough.”
Tetsu glanced toward the darkening sky. “This was just the beginning, wasn’t it?”
Miyuki didn’t answer.
Because he already knew.
Yes.
This was only the beginning.
Einhorngirl4123 on Chapter 12 Mon 09 Jun 2025 06:58PM UTC
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Ren (Guest) on Chapter 12 Mon 09 Jun 2025 07:33PM UTC
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amaryllis1010 on Chapter 14 Tue 10 Jun 2025 08:01AM UTC
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Eijunmochiteam18 on Chapter 19 Sun 13 Jul 2025 06:59PM UTC
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Mykey on Chapter 19 Tue 15 Jul 2025 04:49PM UTC
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