The wind shifts just before dawn, moving quiet through the trees and low over the cliff. Akaza stands at the edge, where the earth falls away in a sheer drop, where the world feels distant and the sky presses close. That means nothing to him.

It’s been three days. Quiet steps. Careful distance. Watching you. Not once have you looked at him with recognition, and yet he sees her in every movement. It’s the same. He doesn’t want to fight you, doesn’t even want to speak. He just wants to see you again, confirm what he already knows. To see if the sound of your voice still lives somewhere buried inside of him.

To see if the face he remembers still exists in the woman walking ahead of him.

It does. He had almost convinced himself it wasn’t real. When he saw you north of Kyoto, he had frozen. He hadn’t blinked, hadn’t breathed. For one staggering moment, he forgot the passage of time. Forgot what he had become, everything.

But you weren’t a memory. He remembers. Long before blood and ruin, long before he tore his name away and became something else, you had helped him. Back when he was just Hakuji. In a different body, different time. But he knows it’s you. Even Muzan’s blood can’t dull that truth. The recognition lives in a place beyond logic and reason. Even if you never remember.

You slow. He watches the way your hand moves to the hilt of your sword. And then your eyes meet. “Don’t,” he speaks. “I’m not here to fight.” He stands there, breathing in the sight of you like he’s trying to etch it into whatever’s left of his soul.

For the first time in decades, Akaza doesn’t care. If he burns, then so be it. He’s already seen what he came to see.