As the crackling of the cinders grows silent, the group of three decides to head back home. There, they sit down at the kitchen table, and Elaine, who has been looking after Lark eversince he passed out, joins them. It’s the middle of the night, but none of them can be bothered to put on any more lights than the one candle that has already been lit since before they arrived. None of them look anywhere particularly, their gazes are unfocused, the silence is only broken by the occasional attempt to say something that ends before even a single word is spoken. Unable to break this rigid state from the inside, they remain this way until hours later, the creaking of the stairs shakes them up. Elaine immediately gets up from her chair and catches Lark in her arms the moment he places his foot on their floor.

“I won’t ever allow you to get yourself into a situation like that again!”

He hugs her tightly, but his body doesn’t allow him to put any strength into the embrace. “I won’t allow myself to do that either.”

Lark sits down at the table with the others, receiving pained smiles, while Elaine plates him up some bread and soup, and pours him water. Silence fills the room once again, and everyone just listens to the sounds of Lark eating. After finishing his first plate of soup, he gets up to get himself another one.

“So, what’s happend while I’ve been sleeping? The last thing I saw was the chosen one dissapearing behind the walls.”

“We’ve finished sending off the bodily remains this evening”, Marc tells him. “432 died, 127 of those were children. The Proxia bastards’ corpses numbered 162. There are still a lot more injured, but only three of them seem to be in real danger, the rest has either passed on or recovered to a more stable state by now.”

“Your uncle?”

“He was severly injured, but he is recovering right now.”

“That’s… good.” Lark sits down again. “And the fires?”

“Heavy rain came pouring down a few hours later, so the largest part of the village is still fine.”

“We were really luck with that, the fire seemed like it could have grown out of control any moment”, Elaine adds.

“Yeah, real lucky.” Kaze slaps on the table, and silence returns once more. Just like before, the only remaining sounds come from Lark’s eating, but those, too, stop soon after.

He gets up, and plans to wash his dishes, but Elaine takes that tasks and makes him sit down at the table. “The guy was right, you know.”

Everyone seems to have been woken up by that sentence, staring at Lark.

“We are disgusting. We have always been weak, and chose to do nothing about it.”

Elaine stops washing the dishes, and turns around. “You’re not weak. You have saved so many lives, and almost ended up dead because of it! How is that weak?!”

“That’s the damn problem!” He slams his fist into the table while getting up, and tears start flowing from his eyes. “That was the only moment I’ve shown any strength whatsover! The only damn one! But even though I’ve known we were in trouble all this time, I have never done anything about it during the times it was peaceful!”

“It’s not like we could have known we would be attacked by an actual army!”. Tears start streaming down her cheeks now as well.

“It doesn’t matter! We knew we had enemies, even if they weren’t that terrifying! If anything, this is even worse! Because against those tax collectors the odds aren’t even that overwhelming! And we still did nothing! We still just waited around! And so did every-fucking-body-else in that useless damned village!”

“Enough!”. Kaze slamms his fists into the table and gets out of his chair. He, too, has tears pouring out of his eyes. “That’s enough…”

“No, it’s not! It will never be enough, because we can’t ever take back this stupidity! Always blaming the chosen one and king for not doing their jobs, and never doing something about it ourselves! If we don’t want to stay like this in the future, we better start switching up our attitudes right about now!”

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” Everyone is caught off guard by Lex, who has remained silent the entire time. “What it did to him. I know you’re angry, we all are. At the world, at him, at the fucking Proxia Kingdom - but most of all, at ourselves. But thinking like everything is your fault - like it’s our fault - won’t turn us into less disgusting humans. We’ve all considered that he’s actually not human, and if he actually would have been one, we’ve all thought that he’s the most disgusting one we’ve ever met. But I realized it when I got him to help us, and I saw it when we were at the plaza. This blank expression of his as he ended one life after the other. His hands, his face, his body, all of him was covered in blood, warm and cold.” Everyone is repeating the images of what they witnessed inside their heads. “And yet, nothing about his face changed excpet the color. If he were human trash like those bandits, he would have enjoyed this. If he were like us, he would have felt hatred. Even if he were some kind of superhuman, he probably would have pitied them at least. He didn’t roar at them, didn’t laugh at them. It was like he was just used to it. That’s what putting all the blame on your shoulders does to you. Imagine it - this feeling of despair and guilt that makes all our hearts ache right now - but over and over again, eversince we were teenagers. Is it really a surprise he grew numb to our requests, to killing, to anything, really, when he has been doing this over and over most of his life? Unable to save everyone, but expected to anyway? And worst of all, he never had anyone precious to prioritize - every loss was equally painful. The same thing is going to happen to you if you think that way. We should be glad that the five of us are alright at least.”

Her friends struggle taking in what she just said, despite all of them knowing this deep down already.

“What are we supposed to do then? Do you think we should just stay weak, and act like none of this is our fault?”, Lark asks her.

“It isn’t our fault - it’s just not, okay? But it is our responsibility. I agree we should do something about it, and grow stronger ourselves, so that we don’t have to feel as powerless as we do now. We shouldn’t rely on anyone to come save us when we’re in struggle. But what I think is important for you - for us - to realize, is that we aren’t to blame for this. We’ve never experienced anything like this, and hopefully we never have to again, but now we know what it’s like. Now it’s up to us to be ready for what’s to come, and we can wait with blaming ourselves for when we aren’t capable of doing anything the next time we need to. Especially you, Lark. Just like Elaine said, you save many people and did everything you could. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

After a few seconds of quiet, the two sit down again, and Elaine continues washing the dishes

“What now?”, Kaze asks them.

“Isn’t it obvious?”, Marc answers him. “We’ve got to become more capable at fighting. After all, it looks like a war might be upon us. And who would be a better teacher than one of, if not the single strongest warrior out there, who just so happens to live in the hut we built barely a walk away from this house?”