>Maybe we really were better off with the pirates. At least Ren seemed to have something approaching a sense of decency.
>All right, fine. If we must, then we must.
>Stand, if we aren't already.
>With a heavy heart and a sense of weary resignation, you pull yourself back to your feet. Your legs tremble precipitously beneath you when you bear weight on them; it takes a moment just to be confident of your balance. This wasn't what you'd hoped for. At all. Could you really have come all this way, found the unfindable, and then be forced to turn away without it? You could scream, if it would do you any good. Still, you can do this. You'll
make yourself do this. You know where you're going, you know where to come back to, and all it's going to take is not keeling over in the meantime. Simple, right?
>And dammit, would your legs stop stinging already?
>"Well. I guess I'd best be on my way. You'll see me again. I haven't let down a client yet."
>Let's start making our way back to town.
>If we can.
>?I look forward to it," she says with a smile.
>Remembering your way back out of the garden is a little tricky, but doable. At least there's no longer any menace it holds worse than what you've already experienced. The flowers don't even bother watching you as walk away; somehow, you almost feel insulted.
>"Try not to die, now!" Yuuka calls out as you round the corner of the trail and pass out of view. "It would be quite a shame!"
>Yeah, really.
>The next few days pass in a blur of weary exertion, trees and hills and tiny brooks all blending into an endless tableau of lonely wilderness. The most contact you have is with a single chatty mouse who takes up residence near the hollow where you try to sleep on the second night; he wasn't very bright, and mostly just there for your biscuits, but it was a voice, anyway.
>The physical aftereffects of your encounter with Yuuka are mostly gone by the first night, but each day still feels harder than the last, each step paid for with just a little bit more spirit. It won't stop you from walking. Complete and total exhaustion wouldn't stop you from walking. The only thing that could stop you now is literally dying on your feet ? if you have to bankrupt your psyche to keep yourself alive, you'll do it. There'll be time enough to collapse in a heap afterward.
>The blight continues its inexorable spread across your body. The first mark stretches all the way down to your ankle as you wend across the wilderness and the back of your right hand is now nearly covered by a web of blackened tendrils. The last time you refilled your canteens, you could even see one that had snaked up past your neck to bloom darkly upon your cheek. There is no way that won't be immediately obvious to anyone who interacts with you unless you take special care to cover up.
>Your vision is also starting to blur slightly. You barely noticed it at first, or chalked it up to dry eyes, but no; the edges of objects are less distinct and colors muted, like there is a dark haze across the world. Are you going to end up blind before the end, too?
>At least the weather holds.
>It is late afternoon on the third day after leaving the garden when you reach the Grau again. That was barely quicker than the trip in, despite the route being much abbreviated by your knowledge of where to go; this does not bode well for the return journey. You are... not in great shape, to be frank ? exhausted, dull, unsteady, and short of breath. Maybe some of it's just the result of a week's constant hiking and not your organs failing. Some of it.
>At least you don't have too much further to walk before the boat ride and a chance to stay off your feet for an entire day. Maybe it'll even do you some good.
>Kagerou's house isn't far away from here, if you wanted to stop in for a moment and rest, though you're not sure how much it would accomplish beyond worrying her. With a wan smile, you wonder how her friend's birthday went. Hopefully someone found a happy moment in this wearying week.
