The rain hammered the asphalt with a dull violence, as if the sky itself wanted to suffocate the city. I was only a few meters from the gates of the elite high school. Rage carried me a rage I had never allowed myself to feel. A rage born of injustice, of a system that allowed a Hero's son to destroy a life without ever being questioned.

  Mila caught up to me, nearly slipping on the drenched ground. She gripped my jacket as if her life depended on it.

  "Tanashi, stop! If you go in there, you’re condemning yourself! They will crush you!"

  "They broke her, Mila!" I screamed, pointing at the school. "They trampled on her dignity!"

  She stepped in front of me, soaked to the bone, forcing me to meet her eyes. Her eyes were full of tears, and I no longer knew if it was the rain or fear.

  "And if you die? Or if you end up in prison? What becomes of Ariane? You are all she has. If you disappear, she’ll be left alone with that baby. Do you really want her to face that without you?"

  Her words pierced through me. My breath hitched. She was right. My anger was a luxury Ariane couldn't afford. I lowered my arms, drained.

  "She’s not going back there," I said hoarsely. "It’s over. School, exams... none of it matters if it destroys her."

  Mila nodded, relieved to see me back down.

  When we returned to the apartment, Ariane was sitting in the dark. She wasn't crying anymore. It was worse. She was staring at her stomach that fragile little dome with an expression of guilt that chilled me. I knelt before her, ignoring my soaked clothes.

  "Ariane... you aren't going back to school. We’re stopping everything. We stay here. We take care of you and the baby. That’s all that matters."

  She looked up at me. There was no spark left, no joke, no light. Her tears didn't fall yet; they just shimmered, ready to overflow. The silence between us grew heavy, burdened by the weight of everything we had fled.

  "It’s my fault, isn't it?" she whispered, her voice nothing more than a fragile thread. "If I weren't... like this... you could go on with your life. You wouldn't have to hide."

  She paused, her breathing becoming jagged, as if air were failing her. She locked her gaze onto mine, searching for a truth I didn't yet dare to formulate.

  "Then why do you take so many risks for me? You could have a normal life... why stay with me?! Tell me why you’re doing all this, Tanashi? Am I just a mistake in your files...?!"

  I didn't answer right away. The sound of the clock on the wall seemed to hammer every second of my own indecision. I stared at my hands doctor's hands made to heal, now trembling with rage and exhaustion. I took a step toward her, stopping just before breaking the distance, feeling the heat of her distress.

  "Never say that," I finally replied, my voice breaking as I fought the knot in my throat. I took a deep breath, the air burning my lungs like a prediction. "You are not a burden. You have never been a problem."

  I raised my head, my gaze anchored in hers with an intensity that no file, no Hero, and no law could ever erase.

  "Because you deserve to be protected."

  The silence that followed was more violent than a scream. Ariane didn't smile. She wasn't reassured. On the contrary, her shoulders slumped, broken by the weight of my kindness. She buried her face against my coat, her hands clutching the fabric with the strength of a drowning person.

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  "I’m sorry..." she murmured between muffled sobs. "Tanashi, you don't understand... I’m so sorry..."

  I didn't know what to say. I thought my words would be a rampart, but they were only a mirror showing her everything I was going to lose because of her. I gently placed my hand on her head, stroking her hair with a tired smile, my eyes fixed on the empty room.

  I thought these walls would protect her. I thought the silence would soothe her. I was wrong. Beneath my fingers, I didn't feel a young girl being saved, but a soul that had already made its decision. My protection wasn't her refuge; it was her glass prison. And by wanting to keep her safe from the world, I had locked her away alone with her own demons.

  The weeks passed like a countdown. The apartment, once filled with laughter and silly nicknames, had become a silent sanctuary. Ariane no longer went out. Her stomach grew rounder, but her face grew thinner. Her eyes were losing their color. Every evening, I found her sitting by the window, motionless. She no longer read her notebook of names. She simply stroked her stomach with an absent gesture, as if she were apologizing to the child.

  "Ariane, have you eaten?" I asked one evening.

  "I’m not hungry," she whispered. "The baby takes everything, anyway."

  Her voice had no depth left. I wanted to tell her that it would be okay. But I couldn't anymore.

  The following evening, I went back to the apartment. Mila had told me she had hardly moved all day. I found her by the window. Sitting on an old chair, knees pulled up against her, she was watching the street. Her reflection in the glass was pale, almost transparent. It looked as though she wasn't quite there anymore.

  I approached silently. I sat on the floor, back against the wall, beside her. For a long time, we stayed like that. Not speaking. Just the sound of traffic in the distance and her slow breathing.

  "I didn't answer you yesterday," I finally said.

  She didn't move.

  "When you asked me why I stay. Why I take all these risks."

  "You answered."

  "I said you deserved to be protected. But that’s not really the answer."

  She turned her head slightly. Not enough to see me, but enough to show she was listening.

  "The truth, Ariane, is that I don't know why. I don't know why you and not someone else. I don't know why I’m ready to lose everything for a girl I’ve only known for a few months."

  I paused.

  "But I know that when I see you smile even a fake one, even a forced one I want that smile to become real. When I hear you singing in the evening, I want the whole world to stop and listen. When I see your hand on your stomach, I tell myself that this baby is lucky to have you. Even if you don't believe it."

  She remained motionless.

  "You aren't a mistake, Ariane. You’ve never been a mistake. Your parents are wrong. Your classmates are wrong. The world is wrong. You... you just have the misfortune of running into people who don't know how to see."

  Her hand moved. Slowly, it came to rest on her stomach.

  "Hina... she will see. She’ll know. Because you’ll teach her."

  A long silence. Then her voice, so low I could barely hear it:

  "I’m sorry."

  "For what?"

  "For everything. For what I’m going to do to you. To Mila. To Hina."

  I frowned.

  "What do you mean?"

  She shook her head.

  "Nothing. I’m talking nonsense. It’s the exhaustion."

  But in her reflection in the glass, I saw her eyes. And they were saying something else. They said she had already made a decision. That everything I had just said, she had heard, but she couldn't believe it. Not really. I didn't know then what was going to happen. But something deep inside me began to feel afraid.

  The next day, the hospital tilted into chaos.

  "Red Alert. Code Black. Attack in the city center."

  The ground shook. An explosion rattled the windows. The ER became a living hell. Bodies lined up. Screams. Families clutching at me. Every "I'm sorry" tore me apart. Then my pager screamed. Another code. Maternity.

  Mila called me within the second.

  "Tanashi! It’s Ariane! She’s in labor, but it’s going wrong! She... she’s not fighting! She’s apologizing to the baby, Tanashi! She says she has no right to be its mother!"

  I ran. I ran as if my life depended on it. But the hospital was a battlefield. Hands held me back. Voices begged me. I screamed to get through. When I reached the maternity ward, the silence was worse than the chaos. Mila was waiting for me, livid.

  "She’s slipping away, Tanashi. She’s fading out. She’s asking Hina for forgiveness. She says she should never have existed in a world like this."

  I pushed the door open. Ariane was there, pale, motionless, her eyes lost in a ceiling she could no longer see. And in that moment, I understood. I had just spent ten hours fighting death. And now... the person who mattered most to me in the world had asked me to see her one last time.

  In the hallway, the sobs of families pierced the walls, as if the world refused to give us even a second of peace to welcome Hina.