Chapter 64: The Road Between Them

The muddy road stretched beneath a pale, bruised morning sky.

The apocalyptic rain had stopped. Cold water clung stubbornly to the dark leaves of the ancient forest, falling occasionally in heavy drops whenever the bitter wind moved through the high branches. Far behind them, hidden by the mist, the desecrated Hero’s Lair had vanished from view.

Kōya walked steadily at the front of their two-person formation. Lyra followed several paces behind, her footsteps light in the mud.

Neither of them had spoken a single word for almost an hour. Kōya had grown intimately accustomed to silence during his years at the Academy, and after the catastrophic noise of the battle inside Zeref’s fortress, the quiet felt like a hard-earned reward.

His physical body disagreed.

Every few minutes, a sharp pain reminded him that he had recklessly pushed his vessel beyond its limits. His broad shoulders ached with exhaustion. His bruised ribs hurt whenever he drew breath.

The cuts across his arms had mostly stopped bleeding, but several deeper wounds had reopened during the long walk.

The duel with the Demon Peer had pushed him to the edge of death. And then, instead of collapsing, he had systematically cleansed the remaining armed forces inside the fortress. He had not given his ravaged body an hour to recover.

Kōya knew it was tactically foolish.

He simply hadn’t cared.

Mizuki was still somewhere out there in the dark. That objective mattered more than his bleeding.

He adjusted the heavy weight of Stormfront resting against his hip. He had wrapped the legendary Lightning Sword in thick, dry cloth scavenged from the fortress to keep the freezing rainwater off the dark steel. The ancient Hero Sword rested securely at his other side, giving off a faint, comforting warmth.

Carrying the two legendary weapons made him look like a veteran warrior far more prepared for the dangerous road than he actually was.

Kōya glanced back.

Lyra kept pace. She walked quietly, avoiding the deepest mud. Her clothes were the same worn, filthy garments she had been wearing when Kōya first found her. The thin fabric was torn, and her simple shoes were ruined by the trek. She carried nothing else.

Kōya looked forward again.

She was supposed to leave his side at the very next town. She had explicitly promised.

Good. That kept the tactical situation simple.

He could travel east toward Mizuki and the heart of Demon territory. Lyra could find somewhere safer to rebuild her stolen life. Their paths would separate.

A few minutes later, Lyra sped up. She caught up and walked directly beside him.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"No."

She stared at him.

Kōya glanced sideways. "What?"

"You’re bleeding."

He looked down at his left arm. A thin line of fresh blood had escaped from beneath the bandage and was trailing down his wrist.

"It’s nothing serious."

"That’s exactly what fatally injured people always say."

Kōya raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Do they really?"

"Probably."

"You sound confident for someone who is just guessing."

"I am an excellent guesser."

Kōya almost smiled at the dry delivery.

Lyra noticed the micro-expression. She wisely chose to say nothing.

They continued walking in a more comfortable silence. After another long stretch of muddy road, Lyra pointed toward a fork in the path ahead.

"That path there."

A narrow, overgrown dirt trail branched away from the main, paved road. "Where does it go?" Kōya asked.

"North."

"What’s located there?"

"Nothing important."

Kōya waited for the rest of the intelligence.

Lyra shrugged. "At least, nothing important to people like us."

Kōya caught the specific phrasing. "People like us?"

Lyra looked toward the distant gray mountains. "People who don’t have money or travel papers."

She pointed back toward the paved road they were currently walking on.

"This main road leads directly toward a much larger human settlement."

"How far?"

"If we keep walking at this pace? Maybe half a day."

Kōya nodded. "Is the settlement safe?"

"Safer than most places out here."

"Most?"

Lyra gave him an incredulous look. "You have literally been traveling through this highly contested region without knowing where anything is?"

"I haven’t had the luxury of time to study the local cartography."

"You fought a legendary Demon Peer."

"Yes."

"And then you systematically destroyed an entire military fortress."

"Yes."

"And yet you don’t even know which main roads are safe to walk on."

Kōya thought critically about that assessment. "When you say it out loud like that, it does sound highly inefficient."

Lyra stared at him, trying to gauge if he was joking.

Then, she laughed.

It was a small sound. Almost uncertain, as if she hadn’t used her voice for that purpose in a long time. But it was genuine.

Kōya stopped and looked at her.

It was the first time he had heard her laugh.

She noticed his intense stare and quickly sobered. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You were staring at me."

"I was simply checking whether you were actually capable of laughing."

Lyra’s pale face immediately flushed. "I can laugh just fine."

"I didn’t say you couldn’t."

"You were definitely thinking it."

"I was not."

"You absolutely were."

Kōya turned his eyes back to the road. "You are rapidly becoming difficult."

Lyra smiled faintly. "You started it."

Kōya didn’t argue.

They continued walking. The heavy road felt slightly less oppressive.

By midday, the dense, ancient forest had begun thinning out. Small, cultivated patches of human farmland appeared between the trees. There were no grand sweeping kingdoms here in the borderlands. No massive stone castles. Just modest, struggling fields. Rotting wooden fences. Small, clear streams. Humble houses tucked defensively against the sides of the rolling hills.

Kōya slowed his pace. "Human people actually live this close to active Demon territory?"

Lyra nodded, her expression growing somber. "They have to. They have nowhere else to go."

"How do they survive?"

"They’ve learned exactly where not to go." She pointed toward a distant, dark hill. "That specific direction is highly dangerous."

"Why? Demon patrols?"

"Raiders."

"Demons?"

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Kōya prompted.

"Sometimes humans," Lyra answered, keeping her eyes fixed on the muddy road.

Kōya looked at her sharply.

Lyra’s voice became much quieter. "Not every person involved in the slave trade out here is a Demon. Some are just cruel humans who sell other humans for profit."

Kōya’s expression hardened into pure stone. "And the main roads?"

"Certain trade routes are heavily watched."

"By whom?"

"It entirely depends on the territory." Lyra hesitated. "There are massive Demon-controlled regions in the east where ordinary people can travel normally if they have the proper permissions and pay the tolls."

"And if they don’t have permission?"

"They get questioned by the border patrols."

"Or captured."

Lyra didn’t answer immediately. The memory of the cages was too fresh. "Sometimes."

Kōya’s eyes narrowed into analytical slits.

This ground-level information connected seamlessly with the fragmented memories he had extracted from Zeref’s crystal. Not perfectly. There were still blinding gaps in the data. But it was enough to form a working theory.

Zeref’s chaotic memories had explicitly shown him enormous, continent-spanning regions under absolute Demon control. Massive standing armies. Humming dark crystals. The grand ’Collection.’

But those fragmented memories did not provide him with a reliable, localized tactical map. Lyra was crucially filling in those gaps.

"How many large Demon-controlled regions are there currently?" he asked.

"I don’t know the exact number."

"Do you know the largest one?"

Lyra looked toward him. "You mean the massive territory farther east?"

"Yes."

"I’ve heard terrifying stories of it."

"What is its tactical name?"

Lyra frowned. "I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever heard the proper political name used."

Kōya looked at her. "Then what do the locals call it?"

"The Demon Territory."

"That is not very specific for military intelligence."

"The terrified people who live near it don’t usually need a better, more specific name to know to stay the hell away from it."

Kōya thought about that logic. Fair enough.

Lyra continued. "There are significantly smaller Demon-controlled settlements scattered around too. Some are just forward military posts. Some are neutral trading areas. Some heavily control the major crossroads."

"Trading."

"Yes."

"With humans?"

"With everyone who has coin."

Kōya remained silent, processing the implications.

Lyra noticed his intense concentration. "Demons don’t always attack people on sight."

"I know."

"Some established Demon territories allow regulated trade to flow."

"What exactly do they trade?"

"Raw arcane crystals. Specialized magical materials. Forged weapons. Medicines. Rare beast parts. Mined minerals."

"And slaves."

Lyra’s expression tightened painfully. "Yes. And slaves."

Kōya looked forward, his jaw locked.

The sickening word remained suspended in the cold air. Slaves. He vividly remembered the dark, flooded dungeons of the fortress. The rusted iron cages. The heavy chains. The broken people who had stood frozen in front of the open doors, entirely unable to process what the concept of freedom even meant anymore.

His scarred hand tightened around the hilt of Stormfront.

Lyra wisely didn’t interrupt his thoughts.

They reached a wide, shallow stream in the mid-afternoon.

Kōya stopped on the muddy bank. The rushing water was clear, clean enough to see the smooth stones resting on the bottom. He crouched low, removed his gloves, and meticulously washed the dried black demonic blood and his own red blood from his scarred hands.

The freezing water stung his open wounds sharply, but the cold kept him grounded.

Lyra sat quietly on a large rock on the opposite bank, resting her aching feet.

For a few peaceful minutes, neither of them spoke.

Then, Lyra asked quietly, her voice barely carrying over the stream. "Why did you free everyone?"

Kōya paused his washing and looked at her. "What kind of question is that?"

"A perfectly normal one in this world."

"I freed them because they were prisoners locked in cages."

"That’s it?"

Kōya rinsed the last of the blood from his fingers and shook his hands dry. "What else should there possibly be to it?"

"You possessed the power to slaughter the Demon Peer. You easily could have kept them for yourself."

Kōya stood up, genuinely perplexed. "Why on earth would I do that?"

"People with that kind of overwhelming power usually want something in return."

Kōya remained silent.

Lyra continued. "Free labor. Absolute loyalty. Extorted money."

"I don’t tactically need any of those things."

"You easily could have demanded they follow you as a private army."

"I could have."

"But you didn’t ask a single one of them."

"No."

"Why?"

Kōya looked down at the rushing water.

He remembered the silent, terrified faces in the fortress. The broken people walking nervously away into the rain.

He answered simply. "Because they were already entirely controlled by someone else. I didn’t want to become just another powerful person telling them exactly where they had to go."

Lyra slowly lowered her gaze to her muddy shoes.

Kōya stood up, adjusting his sword harness. "Come on. We need to keep moving."

She didn’t move from the rock.

"Kōya."

He stopped and looked back.

"Do you really not want anyone to follow you?" she asked softly.

He thought immediately about Mizuki, trapped in the dark. About Yuna’s beautiful, tragic sacrifice. About Seiya bleeding out in the mud. The precious people he had already lost because they had chosen to stand too close to him.

Then, he looked directly at Lyra.

"I don’t want someone walking beside me simply because they think they have no other choice."

Lyra’s pale fingers tightened around the torn edge of her sleeve. "Then why exactly are you letting me come with you?"

"Because you explicitly stated you are leaving at the very next town."

Lyra blinked in surprise.

Kōya started walking toward the road again. "So, until we reach that specific town, you are entirely your own problem."

For several seconds, Lyra just sat on the rock and stared at his retreating back.

Then, she laughed quietly. "That is a terrible way to say that."

"It is factually accurate."

"It’s certainly not kind."

"I have never been good at being kind."

"I noticed."

Kōya looked back over his shoulder.

Lyra smiled broadly. This time, she didn’t try to hide it behind her hand.

As the cold evening approached, the landscape fundamentally changed again.

The flat, muddy road began to climb. Low, rolling hills rose defensively on either side of the path. Beyond them stood vastly larger, jagged mountains, their dark peaks disappearing into the heavy rain clouds.

Kōya stopped abruptly.

Smoke.

Not the thick, oily black smoke rising from a burning battlefield. This was thin, gray chimney smoke. A functional settlement.

Lyra followed his gaze. "That’s not the main town."

"What is it?"

"A small, roadside village."

"How far?"

"Maybe another hour of walking."

"Can we stay there for the night?"

Lyra hesitated. "Probably."

"Probably?"

They sometimes accept passing travelers, cautiously.

"Sometimes?"

"They are cautious."

"Why?"

"Because of people exactly like us."

Kōya frowned deeply. "People like us again."

Lyra looked at him, her expression serious. "People without official identification papers or guild marks."

Kōya sighed heavily, running a hand through his damp hair. "Of course."

He had forgotten about the mundane, bureaucratic reality of the human world. The world wasn’t simply divided into safe places and dangerous roads. There were strict records. Registered names. Political affiliations. Sanctioned travel permissions. Heavily guarded territories. Powerful guilds. Intricate trading systems.

And countless other complex, political systems he had not yet mapped.

Zeref had operated flawlessly within some enormous, highly organized dark structure. Kōya had seen more than enough fragmented memories in the crystal to understand that terrifying scale.

But he still knew almost nothing about the ordinary, human world beyond the walls of the Academy and the fortress.

Lyra clearly understood the mundane, ordinary world far better than he ever did.

That realization irritated him. Not because of her presence, but because he hated being ignorant of the battlefield.

"You are highly useful," Kōya stated flatly.

Lyra looked genuinely surprised. "What?"

"You know the local roads and the political systems."

She smiled, a teasing light in her eyes. "Is that your awkward way of finally thanking me?"

"No."

"Then what exactly is it?"

"A tactical fact."

"You are terrible at giving compliments."

"I was not complimenting you."

"You definitely were."

Kōya ignored her and started walking again.

Lyra smiled again, hurrying to catch up.

The roadside village was significantly smaller than Kōya had expected. Roughly thirty modest wooden houses surrounded a central, stone-walled well. A few exhausted farmers were slowly returning from the muddy fields. Small children ran laughing between the buildings. An elderly woman stood sweeping the porch outside a small general shop.

Normal.

It was painfully, beautifully normal.

Kōya stopped completely at the edge of the settlement, standing in the shadows of the trees.

Lyra stopped right beside him, sensing his hesitation. "What’s wrong?"

Kōya stared at the peaceful village, his chest tight. "Nothing."

He simply hadn’t realized exactly how long it had been since he had seen something so fundamentally ordinary.

No heavily armed Demon soldiers marching. No rusted iron chains. No pooling black blood. No apocalyptic magical storms tearing the sky apart.

Just tired people quietly returning to their safe homes.

A young boy ran past them down the dirt road. He excitedly carried a small, battered wooden practice sword. He swung it fiercely at an imaginary monster lurking in the bushes.

"Take that, Demon!" the boy shouted.

Kōya watched him with a strange, heavy nostalgia.

The child suddenly noticed the massive, dark hilt of Stormfront resting at Kōya’s side. He stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened in awe. Then, he looked at the golden hilt of the Hero Sword resting on the other side. Then back at Stormfront.

The boy was staring entirely at the legendary weapons.

Lyra leaned in and whispered, amused. "You’ve definitely been noticed."

Kōya sighed, bracing himself.

The child approached them very carefully, his wooden sword lowered. "Are you a famous adventurer, mister?"

Kōya looked down at him. "No."

The boy looked visibly disappointed. "A Hero?"

"No."

"A Knight of the Realm?"

"No."

"A Demon?"

Kōya paused for a long, complicated moment.

Lyra quickly covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh.

Kōya looked back at the wide-eyed child. "Unfortunately, that specific classification is somewhat complicated."

The boy’s eyes widened. "You’re a real Demon?!"

"Don’t stare."

The boy stared harder.

Lyra lost the battle and started openly laughing.

Kōya glared at her. "You find this interrogation funny?"

"Just a little bit, yes."

The child pointed a small, dirty finger directly at Stormfront. "Can I touch the big dark sword?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because it is dangerous."

"Can you use real lightning magic?"

"Yes."

"Can you fly into the clouds?"

"No."

The boy looked profoundly confused by the physics. "Then how exactly do you use the lightning if you can’t fly?"

Kōya opened his mouth to explain arcane atmospheric conductivity. Then smartly closed it. "I don’t know how to properly explain that to you."

Lyra laughed again, wiping a tear from her eye.

The child looked up at her, seeking an ally. "Is he always this grumpy?"

"Apparently so," Lyra smiled.

Kōya walked away toward the village inn, his patience exhausted.

Lyra happily followed him.

Behind them, the child shouted one last time. "Are you really, truly a Demon?!"

Kōya didn’t turn around. "Unfortunately."

The child’s bright, ringing laughter followed them all the way down the muddy road.

They easily found an inexpensive, modest room at the local roadside inn.

It was incredibly small. Two narrow beds. One scratched wooden table. A single, drafty window overlooking the dark road.

It was nothing impressive or luxurious.

But it was dry, and it was warm. That was more than enough.

Kōya carefully unbuckled his harness and placed Stormfront securely against the far wall. He sat down heavily on the very edge of the narrow bed.

The moment he finally stopped moving, the massive, systemic exhaustion hit him like a physical avalanche.

His broad shoulders sagged completely. He rested his elbows on his knees, hanging his head.

Lyra noticed the sudden drop in his posture. "You should actually rest now."

"I am currently resting."

"You are sitting on the edge of the bed exactly like you’re waiting for another ambush."

"I am thinking."

"You can think perfectly well while lying down."

Kōya looked up at her through his dark hair. "Can I?"

"Probably."

He stared at the small, uncomfortable bed. Then slowly, painfully lay back against the thin mattress.

The wooden ceiling came into sharp view.

For several long minutes, he said nothing.

Lyra sat quietly on the other bed across the small room. Neither of them spoke, simply enjoying the warmth and safety.

Then, she asked softly into the quiet room. "What exactly are you going to do tomorrow morning?"

"Continue heading east."

"To find your mother?"

"Yes."

Lyra nodded slowly. "And after that?"

"I will bring her safely home."

"And then?"

Kōya stared blankly at the wooden ceiling.

He didn’t know.

For the first time since the attack on the village, he realized that he had never planned a single step beyond rescuing Mizuki. Every violent decision, every battle, every drop of blood had pointed toward that single destination.

Find her. Save her. Bring her home.

After that?

He had no answer.

"I don’t know."

Lyra looked at him, her expression unreadable.

Kōya closed his tired eyes. "I’ll figure it out when the time comes."

The small room became quiet again, save for the crackling hearth fire.

A few minutes later, Lyra spoke again, her voice very soft. "Then I will leave you at the next town tomorrow."

Kōya opened his eyes, looking at the ceiling. "You have already stated that."

"I know."

"So why exactly are you stating it again?"

"I don’t know."

Kōya turned his head and looked at her.

Lyra smiled faintly, looking down at her hands. "Maybe I just want to make sure you remember."

"I will remember."

She nodded.

Outside the thin window, the cold wind moved restlessly through the dark trees.

For the very first time in what felt like a lifetime, Kōya finally allowed himself to truly rest.

Not because the danger was gone. It wasn’t.

Not because his mission was finished. It wasn’t even started.

But because for one single, quiet night, there was a solid roof above his head. A securely locked door. A warm fire.

And another living person who had willingly chosen to stay nearby in the dark.

Even if it was only until the very next town.

Morning came quietly to the borderlands.

Kōya woke before sunrise, his internal clock overriding his exhaustion.

He fully expected Lyra to still be deeply asleep.

She wasn’t.

She stood dressed beside the small window, looking toward the dark eastern mountains.

"You wake up early," Kōya noted, sitting up.

"So do you."

"I always do."

Lyra turned away from the window. "Are we leaving now?"

"Yes."

She nodded simply.

Kōya stood up and picked up the heavy Stormfront. Then he secured his glowing Hero Sword. He meticulously checked his limited equipment and bandages.

Lyra quickly gathered the very few things she actually owned. There wasn’t much at all.

Kōya noticed the lack of supplies, but he didn’t comment.

They left the quiet inn together.

The small village was still mostly asleep, shrouded in thick morning mist. The long, muddy eastern road stretched infinitely ahead of them.

Kōya walked at the front. Lyra followed close behind.

After several minutes of silent walking, she moved up to walk directly beside him.

"There is a much larger trading town ahead on this route."

"How far?"

"Maybe half a day’s walk."

"That is exactly where you are leaving?"

Lyra looked at him, her expression unreadable. "That is exactly what I said."

Kōya nodded once. "Then I will safely escort you there."

Lyra looked ahead at the mist. "Thank you."

Kōya didn’t respond.

They continued walking side-by-side into the morning.

The eastern mountains grew larger and more threatening. The dark horizon slowly brightened with the rising sun.

And somewhere far beyond those jagged mountains, far beyond the safe roads, ordinary settlements, and fortified Demon-controlled territories, was the terrifying place Kōya had witnessed inside Zeref’s fractured memories.

A massive place filled with elite demons. Humming dark crystals. Thousands of innocent prisoners. And the enormous, continent-spanning dark operation directly connected to his mother’s sudden disappearance.

Kōya still didn’t know its political name. He didn’t know how far away it was or what horrors waited for him there.

But he was going.

Lyra walked quietly beside him.

For now, she was only traveling with him until the very next town.

For now, Kōya fully believed her.

Neither of them understood yet that the long, brutal road ahead would slowly, inevitably change that simple answer.

Kōya would never ask her to stay, and Lyra would never be forced to remain.

Somewhere along that dark road, she would instead begin to discover something she had almost entirely forgotten existed in this fractured world.

A choice.