Notori stepped into the hospital wing, the door closing behind him with a soft hiss. Beside him walked Cova—a woman no older than twenty-two. Her long yellow hair cascaded over her shoulders like silk spun from sunlight, the hem of her deep green skirt brushing the floor with every careful step. She looked elegant, almost too much so for the sterile steel-and-glass corridor, but her eyes betrayed the tension inside her.
Mike was still standing in the hallway, arms folded, jaw tight. The weariness on his face hadn’t lessened since the night Lili was brought in.
“She woke up a few hours ago,” he said in a low voice.
Notori stiffened. “How… how did she take it?”
Mike glanced toward the ward, then back at him. “Margherita handled it.” His voice dipped. “But I won’t lie—Lili’s a mess. She’s scared, confused. She reminds me someone holding her own pieces but not knowing how to fit them back together.”
Notori closed his eyes for half a breath. Just long enough to feel it hit.
Mike shifted his gaze to Cova then, softer now. “Thanks for doing this.”
She nodded once, a small, polite smile ghosting her lips, though the nervous energy beneath it was impossible to miss. “Always, Mike.” Her voice was gentle, carefully measured—like she was already preparing for what might be waiting behind that door.
Notori turned to her then, his expression tight with the weight of everything left unsaid. “Just one thing,” he murmured. “Avoid the bigger questions for now. Who we are. What this place is. All of that. I think it might be too much.”
Cova met his gaze. She didn’t nod this time, only held his eyes for a moment—and that was answer enough. She understood.
The door to the ward slid open with a soft whisper, barely more than the sound of breath.
Cova stepped inside.
Her movements were gentle, as if the very air inside the room might shatter if disturbed too suddenly. Her skirt swayed around her ankles, and the scent of something faintly floral trailed in after her foreign enough to the sterile scent of antiseptics.
And for Lili the sound was enough.She startled awake with a ragged gasp, eyes wide, breath catching violently in her throat. Her body jolted instinctively upward before pain slammed into her. The breath she tried to pull in became a broken cry, her hands flying to her ribs as if to hold the agony in place.
Cova froze. “I’m sorry!” she blurted, immediately lifting her hands in the air. “I didn’t mean to scare you—I should have said something. I’m sorry—”
Lili was panting, lips parted, one arm braced against the mattress, the other gripping her side like it might fall apart without the pressure. Her eyes—wide, feral, rimmed with the remnants of sleep and grief—locked onto Cova with a wild uncertainty.
“Who are you?” Lili rasped.
The question was worn-out, like everything inside her had already been scraped raw.
Cova didn’t come closer. She stayed just inside the door, arms loose at her sides. “My name is Cova,” she said. “Margherita asked me to sit with you, if that’s alright.”
Lili didn’t answer—only stared. But she didn’t scream. Didn’t strike. And slowly, she eased back down into the mattress, wincing all the way, as if every joint had turned against her.
Cova waited for her to settle before she spoke again. “I’m not here to ask anything of you,” she said. “You don’t have to talk. You don’t have to explain. I can leave if it’s too much too.”
Lili blinked slowly. Her fingers still clutched the edge of the blanket. “You don’t… work for them?”
The word them cracked in the air.
Cova’s throat tightened, but she didn’t let the emotion rise to her face. “I work here. But not for anyone who’s ever hurt you.” She took one step closer. “I know what it’s like to wake up in a place that smells clean but still feels like a cage.”
Lili didn’t speak. But her breathing slowed, just slightly.
“Would it help if I sat?” Cova asked.
A long silence passed. Then, barely audible: “…Maybe.”
Cova moved to the chair by the bedside and lowered herself into it with the grace of someone who knew silence was sacred. She folded her hands in her lap. Said nothing more.
Lili turned her face away, toward the wall. Her eyes stayed open. But she didn’t ask Cova to leave. Lili lay still for a moment, her breath gradually settling, though the tremors hadn’t quite left her fingers. The silence between them stretched, but not unwelcome.
Lili’s gaze crept sideways, cautious but sharp, studying the stranger in the chair—the fall of her hair, the way she held herself too carefully, like someone who knew the cost of wrong movements.
Her eyes flickered and changed to gold. The world tinted subtly with heat, with aura, with trace. And there it was.The faint shimmer, the invisible thread of energy laced beneath Cova’s skin. A flicker pulsing low and quiet. The unmistakable signature of someone different. Someone like her. Like Notori.
Lili’s jaw tightened. Her breath left in a sigh, barely audible, edged with something brittle.
Her eyes dimmed—returning to black like the curtain falling on a stage—and she turned her face away again, gaze drifting toward the wall as if it might offer answers or escape.
“Are you here to watch me so I don’t escape?” Lili broke the silence, her voice flat but not emotionless.
Cova glanced up. “No,” she said calmly, hands still folded in her lap. “If you wanted to run, you’d already be halfway out the door. I think we both know that.”
Lili’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t answer right away. Her body still tensed under the sheets, every muscle coiled by pain and will.
“You didn’t answer the real question,” she said after a beat. “You said no. But not why you’re here.”
Cova’s expression softened. “I’m here because you were hurt,” she replied. “And not just the kind of hurt doctors stitch shut. I’m here because sometimes… when the world breaks you in ways no one else sees, it helps to have someone who knows what that feels like sitting nearby. Even if they don’t say anything.”
Lili blinked slowly. Her lips parted like she might say something, but the words didn’t come.
“I’m not here to keep you locked up,” she added quietly. “I’m here in case you need someone who doesn’t need answers from you.”
Lili turned her head slightly, just enough to catch Cova in the corner of her vision—eyes still shadowed beneath the sweep of tangled lashes, but no longer burning with suspicion. “You don’t know me,” she said quietly.
“No,” Cova replied gently, “but I’m willing to.”
Lili’s next breath came sharp, then shallow, then sharp again, like her lungs couldn’t decide whether to breathe or break. “What if you shouldn’t?” she asked suddenly, and the words came too fast to catch. “What if I’m not worth it? What if I’m the kind of person people shouldn’t save?”
Cova blinked, stilled by the sharpness of it.
“Not all people are worth saving,” Lili pressed on, voice rising too bitter for someone barely awake. “Not everyone deserves rescue. Some of you heroes need to stop pretending that everyone does.”
Cova’s brows pulled together shaken by the way Lili said it.
“How do you…” Cova began, her voice faltering. “How do you know that? About me? That I—”
Lili gave a soft, crooked smile. “My powers,” she said simply. “They show me things.”
Cova’s breath hitched—but she said nothing.
“I don’t need to ask what happened to you,” Lili continued. “I already know it was bad. I can feel it from here.”
“You’re wrong, though,” Cova said finally. “About being unworthy. That’s not something you get to decide on your worst day.”
Lili smirked—but it wasn’t the kind that reached the eyes. It was brittle, born of something older than pride and sharper than sarcasm. “You just said you don’t know anything about me,” she murmured, voice low, almost playful, but with something rusted beneath. “So how can you be so sure?”
Cova looked at her, head tilting slightly in quiet curiosity.
Lili’s eyes narrowed, the smirk curling deeper. “Maybe I’ve hurt people. Maybe I’ve done things that should never be forgiven. Maybe this—” she gestured vaguely toward the machines, the bandages, the weight pressing into her chest “—is exactly what I deserve.”
She spoke it like a confession, daring Cova to flinch. Daring her to agree. Cova didn’t. Instead, she leaned forward just a little. “And if you did hurt people… does that mean no one can ever offer you a hand again? No one can say, ‘You’ve suffered enough’? Who decides when a person’s debt is paid?”
Lili’s smirk twitched, almost faltered, but held. “I do,” she whispered. “Because no one else had to live with the things I’ve done.”
Cova exhaled. “You’re right. I don’t know your past. And I’m not here to rewrite it. But if pain was the price of redemption… then there are people out there who should be saints by now.”
Lili didn’t speak. Her gaze drifted downward, away from Cova, toward the frayed edge of the blanket clutched in her hand. And yet, the smirk had faded, replaced by something quieter. Something unsure.
Cova watched the barely visible shift. Lili’s fingers had stopped twisting the blanket, but they didn’t loosen either, curled tight as if bracing for another blow that hadn’t yet come. “You don’t have to tell me,” Cova said after a long silence. “What you’ve done.”
Lili’s gaze stayed low.
“I’m not here to make you confess, or repent, or bleed out your story for my benefit. I’m here because I know what it’s like to wake up and not know if you’re safe.”
A muscle in Lili’s jaw jumped. She blinked fast, once, twice.
“I know what it’s like to wonder if the damage is permanent,” Cova continued. “If the person who walks out of that bed will be someone entirely new, someone you don’t even recognize anymore.”
Lili’s voice cracked before it even became a word. “It is permanent.”
“Some of it, yes,” Cova admitted. “Some of it changes you. But not all change is loss. Sometimes surviving turns you into someone stronger. Someone softer in the right places, sharper in the ones that count.”
Lili laughed, but it was a hollow sound, the kind laughter makes when it doesn’t know where else to go.
“You sound like someone who reads too many rehab brochures.”
Cova smiled. “I don’t read brochures. I read scars.”
That made Lili look up.
“I know what it’s like to believe the worst thing that ever happened to you is also the truest thing about you,” Cova said, voice lower now, gentler. “But it’s not. It never was. You’re more than what they did to you. And more than what you regret.”
Lili swallowed hard. Her fingers loosened, finally, one by one. She didn’t say thank you. Didn’t agree. But she didn’t fight it either.Instead, she leaned back into the bed and let herself breathe.
When Cova finally stepped out of the ward, the door clicked softly behind her—a sound that felt louder than it was. She stood still for a moment, drawing in a breath.
Mike and Notori were there, exactly where she’d left them—two shadows stitched into the corridor, their silence wound tight with worry. They straightened as soon as they saw her.
“She’s in pieces,” she said quietly, folding her arms across her stomach as if the words themselves were fragile.
Notori’s jaw clenched, but his shoulders loosened a fraction.
“She talked?” Mike asked.
Cova gave a small nod. “A little. She’s defensive—self-blaming. Trying to convince herself she deserved what happened.”
Notori swore under his breath and looked away, jaw tight, fists flexing at his sides.
“But,” Cova added, her voice firmer now, “she listened. That’s more than I expected.”
Mike glanced toward the door, eyes dark. “Do you think she’ll recover?”
“No one comes back the same,” Cova said. “But she’ll come back. Maybe even stronger.”
Notori let out a slow breath through his nose. “Thank you.”
Cova shook her head slowly, the weight of what she’d just witnessed still clinging to her. “Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “That girl’s fighting battles on three fronts. One of them’s just started. And it’s the quiet one. The one inside.”
She didn’t wait for a response. Just let the silence settle. Then leaned back against the cold wall, her arms still crossed. For a moment, she just breathed. But then her gaze rose—and locked on Mike. Her eyes sharpened. “I’m on your team, Mike,” she said. “So why don’t you trust me with more information?”
Mike stiffened.
“If you want me to help her, then give me something to work with,” she continued. “You’re not protecting her by keeping me in the dark. You’re just making it harder.”
Mike opened his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice that came.
“No, Cova. It won’t help,” Notori said firmly. “You’ll refuse to help her if you knew more.”
Cova blinked, stunned for half a second. “Excuse me?”
“I know you,” Notori continued. “And I’ve seen what certain truths do to good people. If I handed you the whole picture, you’d walk away. Maybe not because you want to. But because you’d think it was the right thing to do.”
Cova took a step forward. “So she’s dangerous?”
“She’s damaged,” Notori replied. “And she’s powerful. And right now, she needs people who see her, not just the file they’ve been handed.” His desperate eyes met hers. “You said it yourself—she’s still in pieces. Don’t start counting the broken parts before she’s had a chance to put herself back together.”
Cova’s lips parted, but no words came at first. Then, finally, she exhaled. “Alright,” she murmured. “For now.” But the look in her eyes said it wouldn’t stay “for now” forever.
Suddenly, the stillness of the corridor shattered.
Fast footsteps of nurses rushed past. Margherita followed a beat behind them. The shouting came next. Doors closed behind them.
Cova, Notori, and Mike exchanged a single glance. They moved as one, storming through the threshold. The sight inside stopped them cold.
Lili sat upright in the hospital bed, breathing hard, wild-eyed, her face pale. Her black gleaming dagger lay across her lap. One hand trembled around it, smeared in blood. A deep cut ran across her forearm. The other wrist bore only a shallow unfinished mark. Wires hung loose around her, some ripped from her skin. The vitals monitor wailed its mechanical distress, flatlining as if echoing the silent scream behind her eyes.
If the medical equipment hadn’t been in place—if Margherita hadn’t acted fast—
She might’ve succeeded.
“Get the blade,” Margherita ordered, already reaching for the sedative.
“No one touch her yet!” Notori ordered, voice sharp enough to still the nurses in their tracks.
Lili flinched at the sound. Her grip tightened on the dagger.
“Lili,” Cova said quickly, stepping forward, her voice lowered close to the whisper. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You don’t need to do this.”
Lili’s eyes were burning now with welling tears, rage flickering behind her irises. “I don’t want to be here!” she cried out, voice cracking, shaking. “I didn’t ask to be saved!”
“Lili—” Margherita stepped forward again.
“Don’t touch me!” Lili hissed, backing further against the wall, the dagger still trembling in her grip, her injured arm dripping onto the white of the sheets.
“I can take it from her,” Notori whispered to Mike, already shifting his stance.
But Cova held out a hand. “Let me try first.” She took another slow step closer. “I know what it feels like to want the pain to stop,” Cova said softly. “To want control, even if it means ending everything just to feel like the choice is finally yours.”
Lili didn’t answer. But her breath hitched. Her eyes flicked once to meet Cova’s.
“You don’t need to die to take your power back,” Cova whispered. “You’re not helpless. You’re still here. You’re still fighting. That matters. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
Silence. And then—slowly, agonizingly—Lili’s grip on the dagger loosened. The blade slid from her fingers, clattering to the floor with a sound that felt too final…
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