Rangers Endgame

Eventide sapped the playful glint from the snow, leaving a muted powder wisping at their feet. Their boots crunched softly, each step feeling borrowed, but they kept walking because stopping meant freezing.

There was no real path, just a downward drift along the mountain’s spine. Shadows pooled in the hollows of the range, turning stone into suggestion, distance into uncertainty. The winds already worked to wipe away the traces they’d left behind.

Blood—theirs or the hounds’, it was hard to tell—froze to their skin and stuck to torn attire.

The artifact squeezed between them hummed with warmth, keeping the thinning cold at bay. Its fifth light extinguished about an hour ago, leaving one more, now shrinking with silent warning. They slid down another slope and scaled boulders, Yakeru’s legs pleading the whole way, no moment of rest since the fall. By the time the world’s shadow began to settle, their only source of warmth faded, the artifact now nothing but dead weight.

“Perfect timing,” Yakeru muttered, rubbing it to try to coax it back to life.

Fuyumi didn’t answer. She hadn’t said much the whole trek, her silence stretching out behind them like another shadow. Not the quiet rage simmering behind a cool front. But rather something more contemplative. She kept her gaze down, picking careful paths between loose stones.

The wind picked up again. It didn’t need to find the gaps in their clothing, as the yawning tatters invited the cutting air.

They stopped at a perch, scanning the darkening snowscape. By some miracle, they spotted a cave, a sanctuary nestled at the base of a rock face. They slid down towards it, hurrying as fast as exhaustion would allow.

Fuyumi stopped.

Tracks. Paw tracks rivering in and out of the mouth.

Her lips tightened, and the two of them cautiously ducked inside, hands on the hilts of their weapons. The smell hit him immediately. Old, metallic. Fur. Dampness.

“Seems we’re not the first,” Yakeru said under his breath.

They inspected the ground. Scuffed patches of red and old bones picked clean.

She lifted her gaze towards the end of the cave, watching. Careful. When nothing came out at them, they moved deeper, where the remnants of the day’s warmth lay. Just to be safe, they searched the perimeter, but didn’t find any lingering bloodhounds.

Which meant they were still on the move.

“I don’t think they’ll be back tonight,” Yakeru said, not from reassurance so much as stating the odds.

Fuyumi sank against the cream stone with a soft exhale. Yakeru fished for their last heating artifact from his pocket, then tossed it to her.

It landed in her hands. She looked up at him. “What about you?”

“I’ll be okay.” He moved to put a respectful distance between them.

He didn’t get far before something tugged on the back of his coat. When he turned, her hand was there.

“It’s fine.” She glanced at the spot next to her. “And we should save our last artifact.”

For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, he slowly lowered himself beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. “Just don’t make it weird.”

“Wasn’t going to,” she replied, though she made no effort to move away.

The artifact trembled in her shivering hand. He shifted his coat to cover them both, not looking at her when he did. She did the same.

“And don’t mention this arrangement to Mr. Yours truly either.” He leaned his head back on the cream stone. “He might have my head for encroaching on his woman.”

She shot him a lazy glare. “I hate you.”

“I’d be more surprised if there were someone you didn’t,” Yakeru dismissed.

Her shoulder shuddered against his. Not quite a laugh, but close enough to count.

The quiet that followed wasn’t heavy this time. Just tired.

They remained there, listening to the howling winds falling into the cave mouth, but not quite reaching them. The last light faded with a departing breath, the mountain settling into velvet.

“I’m sorry,” Fuyumi said at last, quietly, almost swallowed by the dark.

Yakeru didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed forward, but he lent an attentive ear.

“I saw them and I just… lost it. Just like the first time,” she went on, voice rough, like she hadn’t used it in hours. “Didn’t think. Didn’t care what the cost was.”

The wind filled the pause.

“It’s my fault we’re here,” she continued. “You tried to warn me to keep a cool head, but I didn’t listen. If I had just—”

“Stayed with the group,” Yakeru cut in, not sharply, but firm enough to stop the spiral, “we still would’ve been overwhelmed.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, it is.” His mind turned back to the white bloodhound and the calm strength it emanated, a stark contrast to the feral hunger of its brethren. He turned his head slightly toward her. “There was no version of this where everything turns out clean and easy.”

A humorless breath from her. “There should’ve been.”

“I can’t remember a single time when that was true.”

That almost earned him an actual laugh. Almost.

She leaned her head against the stone, too, gaze distant. “It’s not just that. You came along to look after me, but for this entire mission, I had only been a pain to you. You didn’t deserve that.” She gestured to the cold cave. “You don’t deserve this.”

“Compared to all that we’ve been through together, this is luxury,” he said, not quite disagreeing. “But I get it. Those things took your mother. I'd have strong feelings about that too.”

He somehow felt her brows wrinkle, and she turned her face toward him, puzzled. “I never told you it was my mother.”

“Just an educated guess,” he assumed. “You mentioned that bloodhounds took someone important to you. And on the rare occasion that you talk about her, you refer to her in the past tense.”

She looked down at the cold stone, fabric crinkling in her fist.

“I suppose you pick up on what’s unspoken the more time you spend with the person,” she confirmed, looking at her scarred hand and sighing. “I’m a mess.”

He didn’t deny it.

“And you had to bail me out.”

He adjusted the coats again, making sure they stayed snug around them both. “That’s why I’m here,” he answered, voice quieter than before. “To catch you when you fall.”

For a second, all that existed was the sound of breathing, the cold pressing in around them. The wind outside hummed again, but the cold inside the sanctuary felt a little less absolute.

Fuyumi pressed closer, and this time neither of them pretended it was just for warmth.

“Sleep,” he told her, settling when their coats trapped just enough body heat. “We’ll worry about how to get back in the morning.”

The mountain outside carried on as it always did—indifferent. But inside, the cold held a little less sway. Their breathing evened. At some point, she’d allowed herself to drift. He stayed awake longer, watching the mouth of the cave expectantly. But when no blue eyes stared back at him, he let himself float into the comfortable embrace of unconsciousness.