The war was over.
The banners had fallen, and every faction that had once spilled blood in defiance had now surrendered unconditionally to the Tsar's Army. Fires still smoldered in the distance, the scent of ash lingering in the air like a phantom that refused to leave. Shina sat against the cracked wall of a ruined building, her white uniform stained with blood, mud, and fatigue. Her long dark purple hair was disheveled, her red eyes dull. Her face was turned toward the ground, her gaze blank—empty.
She didn't hear the wind or the moans of the wounded. All she could register were the echoes of battle still ringing in her skull. Her arms dangled limply at her sides. The war was over, and yet it felt as if she had lost everything that made her human.
Soldiers loyal to the Tsar moved swiftly around her, their boots stomping through the rubble as they evacuated civilians and captured war criminals. She heard a voice in passing—faint but clear.
"The Crimson Wind... Is it real?."
The nickname pierced her heart like a splinter of ice. They were talking about her. Her legend had survived the battlefield, even if she hadn't.
Moments passed like slow-drifting smoke until a figure approached. A boy—perhaps a year younger than her—wearing light black armor and a long dark scarf. His hair was short and black, tousled by the wind, and his eyes glowed like molten gold under the grey sky.
He stopped in front of her, silent.
Shina barely looked up.
The boy knelt and extended a hand.
There were no deep talk. Just that gesture. A simple offering. Not of help—not really. But of recognition. Of shared pain. Of survival.
Her fingers twitched.
That moment, quiet and forgotten in the years to come, was real. Their first meeting. One she would forget—but never escape.
---
A few days later, at a temporary shelter set up near the capital's edge, Shina stood in a line of tired survivors waiting for food. She had exchanged her bloodstained uniform for a civilian coat far too large for her. The others kept their distance, casting sideways glances—whether in awe or fear, she no longer cared.
"Shina?"
She froze.
That voice… it couldn't be. It was impossible.
Slowly, she turned.
Standing just a few meters away was a woman with familiar crimson eyes and dark purple hair tied in a neat bun. Her posture was upright, proud—even regal. She wore no uniform, but her presence was overwhelming.
"...Lucy?"
Tears welled up in Shina's eyes before she even realized they were there. Her older sister—gone since Shina was only seven—was alive. And she was here.
Lucy stepped forward and embraced her without hesitation.
That hug shattered the last of the numbness Shina had clung to.
That night, Shina didn't sleep. She stayed curled under a blanket in Lucy's tiny room, staring at the ceiling, listening to her sister's quiet breathing nearby. It was the first time in years that the silence didn't terrify her.
---
Years passed.
Shina lived like an ordinary girl for a time. She worked at local shops. She helped clean the house. She even laughed again. But the shadows never left her. They lived beneath her skin, in the memories of the battlefield and the gaze of the boy with golden eyes.
She watched as the Empire rose from the old ways, forming a formal military force meant to keep peace instead of wage war. For a long time, she stayed silent, watching from afar. But something inside her stirred.
It wasn't vengeance.
It wasn't duty.
It was a quiet, burning resolve to give purpose to the life she still had.
And so, she applied.
She started from nothing. A recruit. Just another soldier among many.
But she would climb.
She would shape her name anew.
And Now.
Nine years later, the world knew her again—not as the Red-Eyed Ghost, but as Shina Mariposa, Captain of the Red Star Corps.
Flashback end
{Chapter 50 end}