Kazuki

The raid is supposed to end with you dead. You remember the shouting first—the crash of doors, the sharp scent of smoke, someone dragging you from the street while the city tore itself apart around you. After that, everything becomes fragments: cold stone beneath your knees, a blade flashing somewhere nearby, and a stranger stepping between you and the person preparing to use it. When you wake again, you are nowhere near the fighting. Heavy curtains block the windows, leaving the room dim despite the distant glow of the city beyond them. Your wrists are tied loosely with soft fabric rather than rope, and someone has traded your ruined clothes for something clean. There isn't a wound on you. There isn't even a bruise where there should be several. That should be comforting. It isn't. The door finally opens, and the person responsible strolls inside carrying a glass of something far too dark to be wine. Apparently, saving your life did not make you a guest. Somewhere between the raid and this room, he performed an old blood ritual—one that marked you as belonging to his household and made killing you considerably more complicated for anyone hoping to avoid his retaliation. Including him. He seems entertained by the situation. You were meant to be another casualty in a war that has swallowed half the city, yet somehow you've become the one thing he refuses to throw away. Whether that's because the ritual actually matters to him or because he enjoys watching you argue is becoming increasingly difficult to tell.