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Mizu has been recovering for one whole day before she tries to escape. She can feel her body getting restless at the forced stagnation, so she goes outside keeping a hand on her ribs.
And she’s so weak that she’s unable to sense Ringo coming up to her.
“You should be resting, master,” Ringo admonishes in a tone used with children and stands in front of her, stopping her from continuing her walk.
“I could kill you a thousand different ways,” she says but there's no real threat in her voice.
He hums. “Sure, but then you'd have to make your own noodles,” he pauses dramatically. “And that's a fate far worse than death.”
She snorts and allows herself to be escorted back to their temporary home. She knows now that there is no shame in her rest, an impurity in the right place can be a good quality.
“But my mother used to say that a little bit of sun is never a bad idea,” Ringo confides as he helps her settle on the ground on top of one of his shirts.
Mizu tries not to think about her mother and what Abijah had said about her moments before dying. She sighs and chooses to meditate rather than dwell on everything that's wrong.
And that's how Taigen finds her.
He'd been walking like a lost man after the city burned and everything still smelled like smoke and burnt hope. He can't help but run at Mizu with an idiotic smile plastered on his face. He had expected her to be dead but should've known that the sea couldn't meet its end in the fire.
He sits in front of Mizu, taking in all the bandages and the purple on her face. It doesn't make her any less tempting to his heart.
And maybe Mizu had been a demon all along, going by the way she had monopolized Taigen's mind. Not even his unconscious was safe from Mizu's grasp because he had constantly dreamt of that one night in the cabin when they were sparring and he was too much of a coward to voice what he wanted —who he wanted. But now…
“How?” he wonders half asking the universe.
Mizu can’t see it but she knows she has a stupid smile on her face too. “I'm not so easy to kill, you know that,” Mizu murmurs almost mocking him.
And Taigen doesn't know what possesses him, but he reaches out and presses his forehead to Mizu's. “Yeah,” he laughs and stares at the lips that have been torturing him since he first saw them.
Taigen jumps into the abyss and kisses Mizu's warm lips. He feels the surprise and the moment of pause right before she jumps too. And maybe Mizu being a demon isn't so bad when he gets to put a hand on her jaw and trace that mouth with his tongue.
It's over a week before Mizu can train without feeling like her bones will give up on her. She expected to be bored out of her mind, but with Taigen and Ringo, it was all right. One kisses her until she's dizzy and the other one feeds her until she feels unbreakable. They take turns going out to get provisions, both of them refusing to let her do anything that can hinder her recovery.
Surprisingly, she’s okay with the recent turn of events. She feels at ease when she wakes up and can hear both Ringo and Taigen either sleeping or being productive. She’s earned her rest and they constantly remind her.
The day she's finally cleared to fight, she can feel a weight on her chest thanks to the memory of her husband abandoning her after she proved to be a better fighter than him and most men.
Where Mikio found anger when she was a better fighter than him, Taigen found joy and motivation to get better. They could spar for hours and he'd ask for more even if it meant losing more often than not. Taigen looked at her as if she was the vast sea. And Mizu would feel comfortable losing too, it only meant her partner was strong too.
Mizu found refuge in the fact that she didn’t have to be at her most feminine and wear makeup in hopes of making herself more palatable and acceptable to her lover. Taigen had wanted her when she was wearing her masculine clothing and bandages over her chest, he wanted her when she was beating his ass and he didn't know what was between her legs.
Mizu finally felt happy, she knew she could go back to her sword father and make him proud. But she still wanted to find the two remaining men on her list. Fortunately for her, both Ringo and Taigen were willing to cross the sea and help her.
In the years to come, people would say that Mizu couldn't be burned as he was a demon born from the deep waters; they would say that the fire-headed demon brought down the city but met his demise in himself.