[ It isn't everything. Even back home, it wasn't always everything, but his relationships, his time had been sacrificed to his jujutsu, to his missions, his students. He has Nanami, he has Shoko, yet even the time he can spend with them is always about sorcery, too. About work, about their livelihoods, about the sacrifices they have to make, the pieces of themselves they carve away in the process.

...So much of his time here has been so different. It's challenged his self-perception in quiet ways, many of which he's only just realizing, many others he hasn't realized yet. Acknowledging this might seem like a small thing, but for someone like him, it's monumental.

His smile slants. ]

You already know the answer to that, don't you?

[ His reason to live...oh. Oh, that's...soul-searing, a hand gripping his heart, both straining and warm at once. ]

I guess the rest of you guys are alright, too. Wouldn't want to make your handsome face all puffy and splotchy if I died on you.