[Were there other things that mattered? To be used and useful, to protect and be protected, to shed blood and someday corrode and turn to dust... that was all a Touken Danshi needed to be.]

Ah.

It's... not quite the way of things. Not all of it. [The line between wanting to grow, wanting to be something better... and wanting to be something different? It was horribly frail. A Touken who couldn't accept their place in history was on a shaky, sliding slope to change it entirely.

He knows. There's plenty he just has to accept... and one of those things is that he never truly was useful for long. Maybe it's wrong of him to seek it now, when he won't get another chance.

...

His smile is thin, but still genuine toward her.]

But... I think I get what you mean. It's nice of you to say it.

Thank you.