The forest accepted Hayate the way it always had—without question.
Branches blurred past as he ran, feet striking where snow had not yet settled, breath measured and silent. Behind him, Aiko struggled to match his pace, but she did not fall. Not once. That, more than anything, impressed him.
"Here," he murmured, slowing at last.
They slipped beneath a curtain of hanging cedar boughs into a shallow ravine where the earth dipped and the wind could not reach. Hayate crouched, listening. Far off, voices shouted. Orders were given. Rifles cracked against stone in frustration.
"They'll fan out," Aiko whispered. "They're trained for pursuit."
"Not like this," Hayate said. "Not for me."
He pressed two fingers into the ground, feeling vibration, weight, distance. After a moment, he relaxed—just a fraction.
"We have time," he said.
Aiko sank to her knees, breath finally breaking free in shaky gasps. Hayate watched her without comment, alert for movement, for betrayal, for weakness that might become fatal.
Instead, she laughed. Softly. In disbelief.
"That was real," she said. "You're real."
He looked away.
"I was," he corrected.
She studied him in the dim light, eyes catching the pale reflection of snow. "You still are."
Hayate did not respond. He began checking his blade, methodical, grounding himself in ritual. Violence was easier than conversation. It always had been.
After a moment, Aiko spoke again, quieter now. "You didn't have to save me."
"Yes," he said flatly. "I did."
She frowned. "Why?"
Because leaving would have been easier.
Because the scroll was not the only thing they wanted.
Because when he'd seen fear bloom in her eyes, something old and dangerous had woken in his chest.
"Because," he said, "they would have made you talk."
Her face paled.
"They would have used you to find others," he continued. "Scholars. Archivists. Anyone who remembers."
Aiko hugged her arms around herself. "Then I'm already a liability."
"Yes."
She waited for him to say more. He didn't.
Finally, she said, "Then why are you still here?"
Hayate met her gaze.
Because I am tired of running alone.
The truth hovered between them, unspoken.
Instead, he said, "Because I know where that map leads."
Her eyes widened. "You do?"
"Yes." He stood, rolling his shoulders, already preparing to move again. "And because if they reach it first, what remains of my clan will truly be gone."
Aiko rose as well. "Then we're going together."
"That's not—"
"You don't work for the Ministry," she said. "You don't answer to them. And you don't get to decide alone what survives."
The audacity of it almost made him smile.
Almost.
"You are stubborn," he said.
"My father said the same thing," she replied. "Right before he died."
The words landed harder than any blow.
Hayate inclined his head—a warrior's acknowledgment. "Then stay alive," he said. "That will honor him better than courage."
She nodded.
They moved deeper into the forest, the night folding around them. Somewhere between one step and the next, Hayate became aware of something unfamiliar: not danger, not grief—but awareness.
Of her presence. Of her trust. Of the quiet way she matched his pace now, learning.
The last ninja did not believe in fate.
But as the trees closed behind them, he began to wonder if the world had not finished testing him after all.