The candle stood tall. Loop Five.
Kazuki dressed fast. No ceremony. No hesitation. Armor half-laced, fingers trembling as they locked into the straps. He hadn't slept. Not really. The reset had hit him like a falling stone. No resistance. No fight. Just fog—then floorboards. He stood by the door, watching the light crawl across the wood. It felt slower this time. Or maybe he was too far ahead.
He moved before the compound woke. Called for his lieutenants. Summoned Tadakatsu. Snapped orders over tea that hadn't cooled yet. "Pull Mayu's unit back. Rotate archers to the southern breach early. Stack reserves behind the armory, not the barracks."
Tadakatsu frowned, still half-saddling his armor. "We haven't had a breach in the south. Not in this configuration."
"We will."
"Based on?"
Kazuki looked up, jaw tight. "The wind."
That stopped the room for a beat. He didn't wait for them to catch up. He kept talking. Kept placing bodies. Shifting them around like carved stones he'd memorized over glass.
He passed a boy in the corridor—young, light-footed, short blade slung too loose. Riku, his name was. Kazuki had dragged him out from under a burning frame in Loop Three. One shoulder dislocated, leg crushed. He'd been grateful. Stammering.
"Sir," Riku said now, offering a brisk nod.
Kazuki paused for half a second. "Stick close to the mages today. Don't volunteer for anything."
Riku blinked. "I'm not on mage detail—"
"You are now."
He didn't wait for the reply. Just moved.
The horns came early. Midday—far ahead of the last pattern. That made him smile, bitter and hard. He wasn't crazy. The loop had rhythm. He just had to stay two steps ahead of the tempo.
The scouts returned with partial reports—fire on the outer ridges, but no casualties yet. Kazuki adjusted the perimeter, repositioned Mayu, held Tadakatsu on the wall this time. The wall held. The fire broke—off-center, a bad bluff. They were winning.
Then came the scream. Sharp. Too young. Too close. Kazuki turned just in time to see the east line rupture—not from the front, but from inside. A flash of movement. A collapsed post. A figure crushed beneath splintered wood and flame.
It wasn't Mayu. It wasn't Tadakatsu. But he knew the face. Riku.
The boy had moved—volunteered last second to cover a retreating formation. Kazuki watched the flames curl around the broken frame, heat blistering the air. Riku's eyes found him through the fire. Wide. Surprised. Not scared. Just… confused. Like he was still waiting for someone to pull him out again. Kazuki stood frozen. Sword undrawn.
He could still hear the boy's voice from Loop Three. "I thought you were some kind of hero." Then the roof beam fell. The scream cut off. Kazuki stood there longer than he should've. Mayu called for runners. Tadakatsu shouted shift orders. Kazuki didn't move.
Kazuki didn't remember walking back to the command post. One minute the fire was in his ears, Riku's scream scorched into the side of his skull like a blade that wouldn't cool. The next, he was at the northern corridor, surrounded by stone and dust and silence. A soldier handed him a flask. He didn't drink. He hadn't asked for it.
Someone asked if they should collect the dead. He didn't answer.
The fortress hadn't fallen. They'd repelled the breach. Technically, this was a win. But that word tasted like ash in his mouth.
He tried to reset the map—retrace steps, log casualties, calculate supply fallout. But the numbers didn't align. Patrol sectors were wrong. The names felt… off. He grabbed a ledger and flipped pages too fast. Lines blurred.
He turned to the sergeant nearby. "Tell Kenta to send the wall reports directly next time."
The sergeant blinked. "Kenta, sir?"
Kazuki didn't even pause. "He runs the second overlook."
The man's face didn't move. "There's no Kenta assigned here."
Kazuki's stomach turned. "The older one. Scar under the right ear. Narrow eyes."
"You mean Hideo?" The man frowned. "Hideo's been on leave two days. His father died. You approved it."
No, Kazuki thought. That was Loop Two. He hadn't this time. He'd told Hideo to stay. Hadn't he?
He walked fast after that. Down past the barracks. Into the corner chamber near the grain stores. Somewhere he could breathe. But the walls felt too tight. Too quiet.
Footsteps followed. Familiar ones. Tadakatsu leaned against the threshold, arms crossed. "Tell me something," he said. "Did you forget my name earlier today?"
Kazuki blinked. "No."
"You called me 'Daigo.' In the yard."
Kazuki looked away.
"Daigo was my brother," Tadakatsu said, gently. "He died at Honnōji."
Kazuki said nothing. He couldn't remember saying it. Couldn't remember the moment. But he believed him. Because he couldn't prove he hadn't.
Tadakatsu stepped forward. Not angry. Not even worried, really. Just… watching. "You're burning hard, Hideyoshi-sama. Faster than usual."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
Kazuki's jaw clenched. "I just need sleep."
Tadakatsu nodded like he wanted to believe it. "Then sleep. Before you start giving orders to ghosts."
Later, Kazuki sat in the dark of the strategy hall, fingers curled in the dirt near the fire pit. He dragged lines. Names. Dates. Faces. Trying to list who was alive in this loop. But the dirt blurred. The lines tangled.
He wrote one name twice. Then another. And another. He stopped counting after the fourth.
The loop reset in silence. No death. No wound. Just a room that wasn't his anymore. And a name he couldn't quite remember as his own.