Years ago at Tokyo Jujutsu High, what began as rivalry and shared combat hardened into something deeper—an unspoken trust that surviving events that would've killed most. Through distance, duty, and the long strain of separate missions, that bond bent but never broke. And when standing together in the ruins of her past, Maki confronted not just who she had been, but who she wanted to be. The year that followed was quieter, but not idle—building something that no battlefield could define.