Renji was waiting.
He had to wait.
He waited, because the silence on the top floor was too heavy to ignore.
He had turned his back to the fallen soldiers.
He didn't know who would come from the floor below—
but he waited for their footsteps.
Patiently.
Within the silence.
Then he heard the outer door open.
An unexpected sound.
Lord Minato.
A lord coming to this place was unusual.
"Why did you come?"
It wasn't a question asked out of true curiosity.
He simply wanted to hear what Minato would say.
The battle had already been lost.
Minato had been bleeding out for a long time.
Uzumi was the final blow.
Minato knelt.
He sent off his fallen soldiers in solemn silence.
His hands were stained with blood—
but his face remained calm.
He didn't tremble.
As if he had accepted everything long before.
Their cooling hands, aligned with a precision only the dead could hold.
Swords placed across their bodies…
Spears lined with precision…
Symbols always come late.
Rituals only hold meaning once death arrives.
When he rose, he bowed his head slightly.
Not mourning a crime—
but a decision.
"The outcome of every battle is not determined by strength alone," he said.
"They followed their orders.
Orders I gave.
And I should be the first to bear the consequences."
To bear it.
Such an easy thing to say.
But some burdens are too heavy for words.
Some commands etch themselves into memory.
Even years later, they don't fade.
Some of them scream—without making a sound.
"You could have prevented their deaths. You knew it.
Without Uzumi, you would've lost a Fifth Flame. Let alone mighty me."
Renji's voice held not judgment,
but a little sorrow.
A line that seemed to be aimed outward—
yet struck inward too.
Minato slowly shook his head.
"Surrendering land without a fight…
would have been a betrayal of the past."
The past.
A sheath for memories we never confront.
People still try to breathe within its ruins.
But some memories…
are nothing more than a knot in the throat.
"To protect the past…
must we sacrifice the present?"
His words carried curiosity.
Because some questions wound deeper than any answer.
Minato looked at him directly now.
"The same applies to you, doesn't it?
You took part in a failed rebellion.
And now you've started your own.
I bear responsibility to my ancestors.
Do you also carry the weight of your own past?"
Silence fell.
But within that silence…
many voices echoed.
None had names.
Only faces.
Hands slipping from his own.
The edge of a cliff.
And with every moment he stayed quiet,
his regrets grew louder.
"Unlike you, I don't have just one motivation.
Maybe… I would've made a better lord."
He didn't drop the smile.
Because he couldn't remember how not to smile.
Smiling wasn't comfort anymore.
It was armor.
Thin, sharp armor he forgot how to take off.
Minato's voice was calm and solid.
"Is sarcasm your way of protecting yourself?
Or are you truly that arrogant?"
It didn't matter.
What mattered was outcome.
At the end of every defeat—
you either kneel…
or you end up alone.
"This rebellion will be different.
This time…
I won't fail."