On the edge of the battlefield, the girl finally allowed herself to sit.
The ground beneath her was still warm, heat seeping through cracked earth like a fading pulse. Smoke drifted low and slow, carrying the metallic scent of blood and burned powder. The fighting had moved on. Violence always did. What remained was the aftermath.
In front of her lay four survivors.
Three men. One woman.
They were alive because she decided they would be.
The first man lay flat on his back, chest bound tight beneath layers of stained gauze. Multiple stab wounds riddled his torso and arms—methodical cuts meant to weaken, not finish. She had closed what she could, stitched muscle to muscle, skin to skin, cauterized what refused to obey. His breathing was shallow but regular. Fever would come later. Infection would decide the rest.
The second man sat slumped against a fractured slab of concrete, staring at the empty space where his left arm should have been. The stump was wrapped in compression layers, sutures reinforced with stabilizers from her kit. The bleeding had stopped seconds before it would have killed him. Shock dulled his expression, but his pulse was strong.
He had not screamed when she took his arm.
The third man was worse than he appeared. Long slicing wounds crossed his back and legs, muscle exposed in ragged lines. One lung had nearly collapsed. She had driven a needle between his ribs without asking, released trapped air, sealed the wound with shaking precision. Every breath rattled, wet and painful—but it came.
Then there was the woman.
The girl's gaze rested on her longest.
Her tongue had been removed cleanly. Deliberately. A message carved into flesh. One eye was gone, the socket packed and bandaged to prevent further trauma. Both legs were shattered—multiple fractures, bone splintered beyond natural alignment. She could not scream. Could not beg. Could barely move.
But she was alive.
The woman's remaining eye was wide, fixed on the girl with something raw and burning—fear, gratitude, hatred, hope. It didn't matter. The girl did not look away.
She waited.
Minutes passed. Smoke thinned. The distant thunder of artillery faded into memory.
One by one, the survivors began to stir.
The first man coughed and tried to push himself up, only to gasp and fall back. The second man finally looked down at the wrapped stump, his jaw tightening as reality caught up. The third man groaned softly, breath hitching but steady.
The woman moved last.
She shifted weakly, fingers clawing at the dirt, dragging herself an inch closer before her strength failed. Her remaining eye never left the girl.
The girl stood.
She said nothing. There was nothing to say.
She checked bandages. Adjusted pressure. Re-secured splints. Ensured no bleeding had returned. Her movements were efficient, distant, stripped of ceremony. To her, they were not victims or miracles.
They were patients.
When she was finished, she stepped back and looked at them again.
They were breathing.
That was enough.
The first man stirred.
It was subtle at first—a twitch of the fingers, a sharp intake of breath that turned into a ragged gasp. His eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused, scanning the ruins in panic.
Pain followed awareness, and with it instinct. His hand moved. Too fast, Fingers clawed toward the broken knife lying half-buried in ash beside him.
She reacted immediately, not with panic, not with anger. She stepped forward and placed her boot firmly on the weapon, grinding it into the dirt before his hand could close around it. At the same time, her other hand pressed against his chest—two fingers finding his sternum, steady, unyielding.
[???]: Don't, move.
Her voice was calm. Flat. Devoid of threat or comfort.
The man froze.
His breathing hitched as his eyes finally focused—not on the battlefield, not on the corpses scattered beyond—but on her. On the horns silhouetted against the red sky. On the faint ember-glow beneath her skin. On the fact that she stood between him and both the knife and death with absolute certainty.
He swallowed.
His hand fell back into the ash.
Good.
She lifted her foot from the knife but did not step away. Trust was not a given. It was something assessed, moment by moment.
[???]: You have eight sutures in your abdomen.
She said, already turning slightly to check his bandages.
[???]: Three more on your shoulder. If you move too quickly, they will tear. If they tear, you will bleed out. And I'm not a kind saint that will waste supplies on a dead man. Do you understand?
He nodded weakly, fear overriding pain.
She shifted her attention to the others.
The armless man's jaw clenched as he watched her, sweat beading on his brow despite the cooling air. His good hand trembled, fingers digging into the ground as if grounding himself in reality. His eyes flicked to where his arm should have been, then back to her—searching for accusation, blame, anything.
She gave him none.
[???]: You are in shock. It will pass. Or it won't. Either way, you are alive.
That seemed to anchor him more than reassurance ever could.
The third man coughed again, wet and painful. She crossed to him at once, kneeling and adjusting the tight bindings around his chest. Two fingers pressed lightly against his neck. Pulse steady. Breathing labored, but improving.
[???]: Slow. If you panic, your lung collapses again.
He nodded, eyes squeezed shut as he focused on breathing instead of pain.
Finally, she turned to the woman.
She knelt beside her with deliberate care, lowering herself to eye level so she would not loom. The woman's remaining eye was wide, shining with terror, pain, and something sharper—hatred, perhaps. Or desperation.
The girl met her gaze without flinching.
She gently checked the splints along the woman's legs, testing stability, adjusting padding where bone threatened to break skin. Then she inspected the bandages over the ruined eye and the wound at her mouth, hands precise, respectful.
When she finished, she paused.
The woman's breath hitched, a sharp tremor passing through her chest. One remaining eye widened—not in fear, but in something closer to disbelief.
The girl knelt and removed a thin slate and a stick of chalk from her kit, placing them carefully within the woman's reach. She adjusted the angle so it wouldn't strain her broken legs or neck. Only then did she rise again.
She looked at all four of them.
Alive. Injured. Watching her like she was something unreal.
[???]: Introductions are necessary for continued treatment.
Pause.
[???]: So is honesty.
Silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. Ash drifted between them.
[???]: I am a doctor. New to this land.
She considered the word, then nodded once.
[Sacrifice]: You may call me Sacrifice.
The name seemed to unsettle them more than her horns.
The first man—the one who had reached for the knife—swallowed hard. His chest rose shallowly beneath the bandages. After a moment, he spoke, voice rough from dust and blood.
[Mercenary #1]: …You're Sarkaz.
It wasn't an accusation. Just a statement.
[Mercenary #1]: not from anywhere I know. And you helped us?
She tilted her head slightly.
[Sacrifice]: You were injured.
The man let out a dry, humorless breath that turned into a laugh before he steadied himself.
[Mercenary #1]: Figures, only someone named that would pull us back from Hell, and does something stupid.
His broken laugh turned into a cough. She waited until it passed.
He exhaled slowly.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: …Name's Reth. Mercenary. Sarkaz—same as the rest of them. Freelance. No banner worth dying for.
He glanced at his teammates—at the armless man staring into nothing, at the one struggling to breathe, at the woman clutching the slate with shaking fingers.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: This is Kazdel's borderland. Always fighting here. Sarkaz against Sarkaz. Old grudges. New contracts. Same graves.
[Sacrifice]: What happened?
Reth's eyes darkened.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: We were heading back toward Kazdel, escorting supplies south. Thought it'd be light —scouts said the road was clear. Or what passes for a road to it these days. They lied. Or they were dead already.
His gaze flicked to the woman with the slate.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: We were ambushed—other mercs. Sarkaz hit us from both sides—different banner. Better intel. They hit us fast. Cut our snipers down first. Broke our formation. Took their time. Torture. Mutilation. Messages carved into flesh, dame sacopaths liked it…They liked to make examples.
His voice shook now, anger bleeding through the exhaustion.
[Sacrifice]: Kazdel, tell me about it.
Reth laughed weakly.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: Tell you about Kazdel? It's a wound that never closes. A land built on graves, soaked in Sarkaz blood long before any of us were born.
He took a slow breath.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: Wars don't start there, they… continue. Always have. Always will. If it's quiet, it's because someone's reloading.
The armless mercenary clenched his jaw.
Reth's voice dropped.
His eyes flicked to the woman with the slate again. She had managed to hook the chalk between two fingers. Her hand trembled as she wrote slowly, painfully.
WE RAN TOO SLOW.
Reth swallowed.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: She was our scout. Best eyes we had. They took her tongue so she couldn't warn anyone else. Took her eye so she wouldn't see them coming again.
The girl—Sacrifice—did not react. No tightening of her jaw. No flicker of rage. She simply absorbed the information, filed it away like a diagnosis.
[Sacrifice]: And the ambushers?
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: Gone. Took what they wanted. Left us to bleed out so the land could finish the job.
He looked up at her then, really looked.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: You shouldn't be here. Kazdel eats people like you alive. Doctors don't last. Healers get used… or buried.
She met his gaze steadily.
[Sacrifice]: I have already died once.
That silenced him.
She turned her attention briefly to the armless man, adjusting his compression wrap as his breathing hitched.
[Sacrifice]: You will feel phantom pain. It is normal. If you lose consciousness, do not fight it.
To the third man:
[Sacrifice]: If your chest tightens again, signal me immediately.
Then back to Reth.
[Sacrifice]: Where were you going after this?
Reth hesitated.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: South. Anywhere that wasn't here. Maybe Babel territory. Maybe Rhodes Island, if the rumors are true.
That name hung in the air.
Sacrifice paused—not visibly, but something inside her aligned.
[Sacrifice]: Then you will live long enough to reach it.
Reth gave a humorless smile.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: You talk like that's a choice.
She stood, the faint ember-glow beneath her skin steady, controlled.
[Sacrifice]: It is. Mine.
The woman finished writing another line and pushed the slate toward her with effort.
WHY HELP SARKAZ
Sacrifice read it once.
Then she answered aloud, for all of them.
[Sacrifice]: Because you were injured.
Pause.
[Sacrifice]: Because this land takes enough without permission.
For the first time since waking, the battlefield felt… different. Not quieter. Not safer.
But held—if only temporarily—by someone who refused to let it claim what remained.
Reth exhaled slowly.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: …Then I guess we'll follow you, Doctor Sacrifice.
A beat.
[Mercenary #1 / Reth]: Until Kazdel or death takes us.
She turned toward the ruined horizon, already planning routes, supplies, and contingencies.
[Sacrifice]: Then we move before either arrives.
The war did not end.
But for four Sarkaz who should have died there—
It paused.
[Somewhere in the Yan Mountains]
High above the valleys, where mist clung to jagged stone like old memories, a man stood alone before a canvas.
A halo hovered faintly above his head, casting a soft, indifferent glow. He held a paintbrush loosely between his fingers, unmoving, as if the world itself had stopped to let him finish his work.
The mountains were silent.
He tilted his head, eyes drifting from the canvas to the distant land beyond the peaks—toward Kazdel, toward war, toward a fate still unfolding. A small smile touched his lips. Not kind. Not cruel. Simply knowing.
He set the brush down.
The painting was complete.
On the canvas stood a girl in a doctor's coat, untouched by blood yet surrounded by its memory. Two horns curved from her head, glowing faintly. Her skin shimmered with ember-light, hair burning like banked fire in the dark. She smiled—not brightly, but warmly, as if life itself had chosen to linger a moment longer.
A healer.
A sacrifice.
The man reached for his firearm, slinging it across his back with practiced ease. He packed his belongings without haste, every motion deliberate, unhurried by urgency or doubt.
Before leaving, he glanced once more at the painting.
[???]: Ah.
He murmured softly, his voice carried away by the mountain wind.
[???]: So you've arrived.
Then he turned his back on the canvas and walked away, boots echoing against stone, disappearing into the mist.
[Chapter end]