On the third day of the journey, I woke up to Kyoko casually sharpening her knife on a rock.

  Not a whetstone.

  A rock.

  She looked up at me and said, “You snore.”

  And just like that, my day was already ruined.

  Let me be clear: I didn’t volunteer for this.

  I didn’t lose a bet. I didn’t screw up a mission.

  I was assigned.

  “Escort Kyoko to the Academy,” they said.

  “It’ll be good training,” they said.

  “You two are peers,” they said.

  Right.

  She’s not a peer. She’s a storm with knives.

  And the Sword Saint isn’t here to make her act even halfway civilized.

  She refused to ride in the carriage. Something about “getting soft.”

  She walked ahead of the lead horse most of the time, cloak flapping in the wind like she thought she was in a painting. Sometimes she jogged. Once, she did cartwheels while waiting for the wagon to catch up.

  I asked her why.

  She said, “Because I’m bored.”

  That’s the real problem.

  Kyoko, when bored, is manageable.

  Kyoko, when excited, is terrifying.

  The bandits picked the wrong day.

  Four of them. Real amateurs. Shouting. Waving cheap steel. Looking for coin.

  They stepped into the road with all the confidence of men who had never met Kyoko.

  I saw the first guy step out from behind a tree and open his mouth to shout something stupid like, “Your money or your life!”

  They didn’t get far.

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  I didn’t even unsheathe my blade.

  She was already moving—grinning.

  I swear she smiled wider than I’d seen in months.

  She dismantled them like a butcher going after rotted meat. Precise, ugly, efficient.

  One tried to run. She broke his leg.

  One begged. She punched his throat.

  The third actually dropped his weapon and raised his hands—she still knocked him unconscious. Just because he was “sloppy.”

  I watched, stunned.

  It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t fear. It was something else.

  She wasn’t defending us.

  She was enjoying it.

  When it was done, she turned back to me, breathing hard, eyes sharp and bright like they’d just been lit from inside.

  She looked happy.

  And I felt sick.

  That night, we made camp in a quiet glade. The driver stayed wide-eyed and silent. Kyoko was humming while she cleaned her knife with a piece of cloth she probably shouldn’t have been using.

  I sat across the fire, watching her.

  She caught me looking. “What?”

  I hesitated. Then: “You broke that guy’s elbow.”

  “He swung first.”

  “I don’t think he even got his sword out.”

  She shrugged. “Not my fault.”

  She rolled her shoulders, the motion loose and fluid like a cat stretching after a nap.

  “They were better than most,” she said.

  Then, almost under her breath: “Still not enough.”

  I sighed and leaned back against a log.

  Traveling with the Sword Saint had been difficult. Intense. Gruelling.

  Traveling with Kyoko?

  That was exhausting.

  Because there was no one to tell her no. No one to rein her in. No cane-tap to signal that she’d gone too far.

  Just me.

  Lucky me.

  She insisted on nightly training.

  Full rules. No holding back.

  I lost three matches in a row before I even realized she’d stopped pulling punches.

  Literally.

  She caught me under the ribs with her elbow on the fourth night. I saw stars and tasted blood.

  She offered me water afterward like it was a favor.

  “Drink. You’re slow.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Then be less tired.”

  “Kyoko, that’s not how—”

  She was already walking away.

  She never says it out loud. Not directly.

  But I see it in her eyes every time we fight.

  She wants someone to hit her hard enough that she has to bleed for it. Wants to feel the edge. Wants to get scared. Wants to feel alive.

  And no one she’s met—not even me—is enough.

  She’s not trying to survive the Academy.

  She’s trying to finally be in a fight that matters.

  A few nights before we reached the city, I caught her standing alone in the woods, fists clenched, whispering something under her breath.

  I didn’t mean to listen. But I did.

  She said, “Please let someone be strong.”

  Then punched a tree so hard the bark cracked.

  She stood there a while, breathing slow, blood dripping from her knuckles.

  Then she walked back to camp and didn’t say a word.

  When we reached the city outskirts, I thought maybe she’d calm down.

  She didn’t.

  She walked through the gates like she owned them. Stared down the guards. Didn’t flinch when someone called her “boyish.” She just stared until he turned pale and vanished into a crowd.

  We found a cheap inn with thin walls and a sparring ring in the back.

  She signed us up before I could object.

  Tomorrow, we head to the Academy gates.

  Tonight?

  She wants to train.

  “Come on,” she says, tossing me a practice blade. “You’re stronger now.”

  “You say that every time.”

  “It’s almost true this time.”

  And she smiles.

  Gods help me, she smiles.