"I heard someone new moved into the annex lately?"

It's just a kid staying there.

"Isn't it uncomfortable living together? You used to have that annex all to yourself."

"No wonder you've been walking toward the market every morning lately. Was it to take care of mealtime?"

If I leave her alone, she just rolls around without eating breakfast. Get back to your swords.

The guys chuckled. He didn't want annoying rumors spreading, but the matter had already been reported to his superior. There was no need to make up some grand excuse. It was fine if others saw her as just someone he'd ended up saddled with to look after.

On the way back to the annex after training, his mother pushed a small lunch box toward him.

"Did she stay in her room again today? I packed mostly greens so they're easy to eat, so please take this to her."

It used to be a bleak room with nothing but a straw mat, a few teacups, and a discarded sword belt. Now, a few small pieces of clothing, a hair comb she used, and a small wooden ring sat in the corner.

The fact that traces of another person were increasing without him realizing it certainly twisted his daily routine bit by bit. Checking her meals every morning, learning how to comb hair anew, and such things. If he said it wasn't uncomfortable, or that those tasks were perfectly easy, he would be lying.

She was sitting near the veranda, struggling to gather her disheveled hair with only her left hand. Strands that slipped through her fingers kept falling below her shoulders.

He set the lunch box down and approached her from behind. With his rough hands, he gathered the falling tresses into one bunch, took the ribbon from her, and tied it firmly.

The smell of that night, the night she finally rolled into his life, drifted back to him.

The inside of the manor was foul with the smell of burning pillars. The spaces between broken doors and scattered debris were drenched in blood.

There, she had been. Having lost her right arm to the sword he swung while she was struggling to resist, she was facedown, clawing at the floor.

"......Take me with you..."

She was as tenacious as a crushed bug. Amidst the flames consuming the manor, she begged the man who had cut her down to take her away.

The family was already destroyed, and a single young lady losing her right arm wasn't going to change the domain's politics. If left like this, she would surely bleed out or burn to death, but turning his back and abandoning her after cutting off her arm felt somehow... unclean.

He shook off the hand clutching his hem and scooped up her staggering body.

That night was shoved into the annex just like that.