When people treat you like nothing, you start to feel like nothing.
That's why Setsura vowed to become strong, stronger than ever. So she doesn't cave into the emotions that she has been hiding ever since that day. That person ran away due to having a huge debt and left her and her mother all alone. He abandoned them both. That person will always be on the run and never live their life peacefully; they'll always be running away and never get a chance to stop and face the problem.
After he left, she and mother suffered so much. Peoples whispers, their voices. ' You couldn't do anything.' Although they were living, they were treated as an existence that was just there. She didn't want to live that sort of life. She wanted to find a place no matter where it was — a place where she could carry on looking forward.