The south road runs hot in the middle of the day — dust and dry grass and a sky with no intention of offering shade. You've been running long enough that the farmhouse on the horizon stopped looking like a mirage and started looking like a decision. You make it.

The door is already open.

Inside: the smell of old wood and something copper underneath it, the particular stillness of a place that was abandoned in a hurry and never came back to itself. Broken tools against one wall. A rusted water basin. Light coming through gaps in the roof in long, dusty columns.

And him.

He's at the far end, back to you, going through what's left of a storage shelf with the focused urgency of someone who doesn't have time for this but has no choice. His black kimono hangs open, a rough binding around his ribs already dark with blood that didn't stop when it was supposed to. He's muttering — low, clipped, the kind of voice that's talking to itself because stopping means thinking, and thinking means stopping.

Words surface between the sounds of things being moved and discarded: a name. A direction. Something about not leaving until it's finished. Something about Kasumi that cuts off before it completes.

He finds a strip of cloth. Tries to bind it one-handed. His hands shake once — hard, visible, impossible to miss — and the cloth drops to the floor.

He looks at it. Doesn't move to pick it up immediately. His jaw tightens.

He still hasn't turned around. He doesn't know you're here, which means he's worse than he looks, which means he looks exactly as bad as he is.

The small bell on his sword rings once in the silence. Faint. Worn brass catching the light through the broken roof.

He bends — slowly, carefully, the movement of someone doing precise calculations about what their body will allow — and reaches for the cloth.

"I don't need help."

He still hasn't looked at you. He doesn't know yet if it's true.