He walked back through the quiet camp. Fog and firelight. The guards on watch nodded as he passed.
His tent was warm. Inside, the scene had rearranged itself while he was gone.
Lira lay in the centre, asleep, her dark hair fanned across the blanket. Kana was curled against her left side, silver tail draped across Lira's stomach. Hana was on the right, face pressed into Lira's shoulder, black ears twitching in a dream.
They'd migrated to Lira in his absence. Both fox children gravitating to the nearest source of warmth and safety.
Lira's face wore a goofy, unconscious smile. The kind of smile you couldn't fake — soft and unguarded, the expression of someone being buried in small, warm, fuzzy things and loving every second of it even while asleep.
Yuki stood in the tent flap and felt his chest go tight.
My girls.
He stepped outside. Cast a barrier — a large one this time, encompassing the entire camp. A dome of repulsive force, keyed to hostile intent, strong enough to bounce anything short of a dragon. No more shapeshifters. No more surprises.
Then he went back inside, found the remaining corner of blanket space, and slept.
The Darkwoods lasted three more days.
Each day brought encounters. A swarm of oversized insects on the second morning — dealt with by Yuki's pressure wave and the guards' crossbows. A pair of territorial forest cats the size of horses on the afternoon of the second day — Lira put an arrow through one and Yuki's daggers handled the other. A night ambush on the third day by a pack of something with scales and too many teeth — the barrier caught them, the guards rallied, and Yuki's daggers cleaned up the rest.
Nobody died. A few injuries — all healed by Yuki before the bleeding stopped. The caravan pushed through battered but intact.
Yuki understood now, viscerally, why caravans needed guards. Why merchants paid for armed escorts. Why the roads between cities were measured not in distance but in danger. A normal human — even a trained one — could die on any given day in these woods. The forest didn't care about your cargo or your schedule. It cared about eating.
I've been flying over this stuff. Walking through it with my power, barely noticing the danger. These people live in it. Every day. Without magic, without mana reinforcement, without any of it.
Respect. He felt it settling in — quiet, heavy, permanent.
Kana and Hana, meanwhile, were thriving.
The road was hard, but the girls had beastkin resilience and a rapidly expanding support network. The guards took a liking to them — hard men softened by silver ears and puppy eyes. The merchants slipped them snacks when Yuki wasn't looking. Lira braided their hair in the mornings and told them stories while driving.
And they were fast. Faster than kids their age had any right to be. Kana could outrun most of the guards in a sprint, and Hana — quiet, reserved Hana — moved through undergrowth like smoke. Fox-kin blood. Built for speed and agility.
They practiced with their throwing daggers whenever the caravan stopped. Kana was improving rapidly — her accuracy was still rough but her form was clean and her arm was quick. Hana threw less often but when she did, her aim was better than her sister's. She just didn't like the attention that came with hitting the target.
Then, on the third day, Kana came to him during lunch.
She shuffled up to where he was sitting, wooden bowl in one hand, silver tail swishing nervously behind her. She looked at the ground. Then at him. Then at the ground again.
"Yuki."
"Yeah?"
"Can I... learn how to use a sword?"
He looked at her. Six years old. Barely taller than his thigh. Ears flattened in nervous anticipation.
"That's a great idea."
Her ears shot up. "Really?"
"Really. Every fighter should know at least one weapon well. Let me find something your size."
He reached into dimensional storage and rummaged. Most of his weapons were full-sized — too heavy, too long. But he'd forged a variety at the homestead, and somewhere in there —
He pulled out a short sword. About sixty centimetres long, single-edged, forged from refined iron with a blue-metal edge. Light, balanced, perfectly sized for a small fighter. He'd made it as an experiment months ago and forgotten about it.
He set it on the ground. Looked at it. Decided to go one step further.
He placed his hand on the blade and pushed mana in — a small enchantment, nothing crazy. A subtle speed-boosting spell woven into the metal, designed to enhance the wielder's reaction time when gripping the handle. Nothing that would overpower a child's body. Just a nudge.
"Yuki."
Lira's voice. From behind him. He could hear the eye-roll.
"For her first sword, you're giving her an enchanted magic blade."
"It's a very small enchantment—"
"She needs a wooden practice sword. Not a magic weapon."
"I—" He looked at the short sword. Then at Kana, who was staring at it with the reverence of someone beholding a holy relic. "You're right. She should practice with wood first."
He reached for the short sword.
Kana's eyes welled up. Her amber irises went glassy. Her silver ears drooped — slowly, dramatically, one centimetre at a time — until they were flat against her head. Her lower lip trembled.
Critical hit. Direct to the heart. No save.
"You can have the blade in addition to a practice sword," he said immediately. "For later. When you're ready."
Ears up. Tears gone. Tail wagging. The emotional whiplash was physically painful.
He grabbed a piece of ironwood from the supply he'd collected at his homestead. Dense yet light, nearly indestructible — perfect training material. He shaped it with mana in minutes — a practice sword matching the short sword's dimensions, smooth-handled, balanced for small hands.
Kana took the practice sword in one hand and the magic short sword in the other. She looked at them both. Then at Yuki. Her tail was wagging so hard her entire lower body swayed.
She launched herself at him. Arms around his neck, practice sword poking him in the back, a hug so fierce it would have staggered someone without mana reinforcement.
"Thank you thank you thank you—"
Yuki hugged her back. He was wearing a goofy smile and he knew it and he didn't care.
Lira watched the whole thing from the wagon bench.
"You're hopeless," she said. "Absolutely hopeless. You cannot give a child everything she asks for just because she makes sad eyes."
"I know."
"You're going to do it again."
"Probably."
She rolled her eyes so hard it was audible.
After lunch, Rafael took over.
The veteran guard had been watching Kana practice her dagger throws for days. When Yuki approached and asked if he'd be willing to teach her basic swordwork, Rafael looked at the silver-eared girl with her ironwood blade and her oversized determination, and nodded.
"Not a bother at all. In fact—" He crouched to Kana's level. "This little pup's got potential. I can see it in how she moves. Quick feet. Good instincts. With proper training, she'll be something."
Kana puffed out her chest. Her ears stood tall.
Yuki's lip twitched. Smug already.
Rafael started with fundamentals. Stance — feet shoulder-width, weight balanced, blade up. Kana mimicked him with intense concentration, adjusting and readjusting until he nodded.
Then swings. Overhead. Diagonal. Horizontal. The same three cuts, repeated. Over and over.
"Again."
Swing.
"Again."
Swing.
"A hundred times. Then we talk about something else."
Kana set her jaw and swung. And swung. And swung. Her arms burned — Yuki could see it, the slight tremor in her small shoulders. But she didn't stop. Didn't complain. Eighty. Ninety. A hundred.
"Good," Rafael said. "Now, let's spar."
Kana's eyes lit up. She dropped into the stance he'd taught her and raised her practice blade.
Rafael drew a wooden training sword from his belt. He stood loose, relaxed, one hand behind his back.
"You win if you can land a hit on me."
Kana charged. Fast — beastkin fast, a silver blur across the packed dirt. She swung at his midsection.
Rafael parried. Casual. One-handed. The wooden blades clacked.
Kana circled. Came in from the left. Parried. Tried an overhead. Parried. A thrust. Deflected. She was quick, darting in and out, using her speed to create angles — but Rafael read every attack before it landed. Decades of combat experience against five years of enthusiasm.
She couldn't touch him. Every strike was turned aside. Every angle covered. She was getting frustrated — Yuki could see it in her ears, flattening incrementally with each failed attempt.
But she didn't stop. She kept moving, kept attacking, kept trying different approaches. And occasionally — very occasionally — Rafael had to actually move his feet to catch something.
"Good instincts," Rafael called to Yuki, parrying a surprisingly quick combination. "She's reading my guards and adjusting. Most beginners just swing harder."
Yuki sat on a crate with Lira beside him and Hana on his lap. They watched Kana dart and slash and get parried, over and over, the silver-eared girl refusing to give up against an opponent forty years her senior.
"She's going to be terrifying when she grows up," Lira said.
Hana watched her sister with dark, unblinking eyes. Her small hand rested on the dagger at her own belt.
Yuki scratched behind her ears absently. She leaned into his hand.
"Yeah," he said. "She is."