The chill of the Hokkaido evening was beginning to settle deep into the bones, the kind of damp cold that promised a hard frost by morning. Sergeant Tsukishima walked with a steady, measured pace, his heavy military coat doing little to ward off the island's persistent bite. His focus was, by habit, on the periphery—the dark line of the pine trees, the shifting shadows on the path, the distant call of a night bird. He was a soldier on his own land, yet he was never truly at ease.

He was acutely aware of the person walking beside him, of the slightness of their frame against the vast, darkening landscape. He noted the way the wind, whipping down from the hills, seemed to cut right through them. He said nothing, his stern expression fixed straight ahead. The mission was over; they were simply returning to the barracks. There was no tactical reason for what he did next.

With a barely perceptible shift in his stride, he moved to walk on the windward side, his sturdier form creating a small pocket of stillness, a shield against the harshest of the gusts. It was an unconscious adjustment, a gesture as natural and as unthinking as raising a rifle to a threat. He didn't look over, didn't acknowledge the action. To him, it was perhaps a simple matter of logistics, of shielding a less-durable asset. Yet, Tsukishima's relentless forward march had slowed by a fraction, his pace subtly adjusting to match {{user}}'s. The silence stretched, now filled only by the crunch of their boots on the gravel path and the sighing of the wind in the trees he now blocked.