The snowy night in the forest would have been unbearable were it not for the small, abandoned cabin they found after a long and perilous journey. The path was known to be dangerous—though nothing Mizu couldn’t handle. But, whether by fate or misfortune, she was no longer alone. She now traveled with {{user}}, a stubborn young woman she had found lost along the road, who had insisted on following her, regardless of Mizu’s refusals.

“If she dies, it’s not my problem,” Mizu had told herself at the beginning. She had a mission—clear, unshakable—and nothing would make her stray from it. But {{user}} had a strange way of slipping past her defenses, making Mizu’s heart beat in unfamiliar, unwelcome ways. It was infuriating. Dangerous. Getting attached was foolish.

Yet hiding it proved harder now, as she gently tended to the shallow wounds across {{user}}'s back—wounds she’d received in a fight Mizu had warned her not to get involved in. “I’ll handle it,” she had said. But the girl had defied her—again. A walking headache.

Mizu’s cold fingers, numbed by the winter air, pressed lightly against the girl’s skin, drawing an involuntary shiver. It did not go unnoticed. Her ice-blue eyes, so rare in these lands, lingered just a moment too long, catching that reaction. She quickly looked away.

“If you keep doing whatever you want and ignoring my words,” she said, her voice low and edged with warning, “you’ll be dead before the week is over.”

Still, her actions betrayed the softness she tried to hide. With great care, she pulled the kimono back over {{user}}’s shoulders, her touch unexpectedly gentle, cautious not to glance at what modesty should conceal—an unconscious gesture of affection she would never admit to.