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“Kinuha took a team to check up on the Tokyo shrines today. She hasn’t finished her report yet, but she told me a few things when they returned…”
Bishamon let Kazuma’s words blend together. She knew she would hear everything later from Kinuha herself, so she allowed her mind to wander, Kazuma’s voice falling into a background murmur as she gazed across the meadow they were in. The hills rolled like waves in a vast sea, and the pale green of the grass was speckled with flowers of nearly every hue, like a rainbow’s reflection over water. Closest to her was an abundance of bishop’s lace, sprouting up in pale-white clusters, along with the bunched-up petals of pink carnations.
It was all so beautiful in a way Bishamon hadn’t ever seen before—no place in the Far Shore that she could remember even compared to it.
She and Kazuma seemed to be the only souls in the entire meadow. They were sitting in the shade of the one tree in sight—an old, weathered oak, its bark twisted into spiralling patterns, with branches higher than either of them could reach. Kazuma was braiding her hair, twisting and weaving it with a precision and delicacy that only came from years—decades, really—of practice.
It had been a while since Kazuma had done her hair (or gotten this close to her at all, but she dismissed the hushed thought as soon as it manifested), but it hadn’t taken long for him to slip back into their old routine. His touch was comfortingly familiar as he brushed through her hair, carefully working through knots so as not to hurt her, before he split her hair into three sections and began to wind them together.
She had missed this, she realized, even more than she initially thought. There was something about Kazuma braiding her hair that ran through her mind, dissolving all the worries that clung like cobwebs until there was nothing left except warmth.
Maybe it was the simplicity of the moment, a reprieve from their packed and unpredictable everyday. Maybe it was the soothing nature of the repetitive motions, lulling her into daydreams and wonderings. Maybe it was the feeling of being cared for by someone she trusted; by someone who knew her heart from the inside out.
Or maybe it was just… Kazuma. His presence alone always soothed her—calming her in a state of worry, keeping her steady whenever she wavered. He brought her peace of mind; he was her sanctuary, and only with him could she truly relax.
She missed Kazuma, she realized, more than she missed him fixing her hair.
(why did she miss him? where had he gone? why couldn’t she…)
Bishamon felt a tug at the end of her hair, dragging her from her thoughts, and Kazuma told her that he was finished. She hadn’t known she had drifted long enough for him to finish the entire braid. With gentle hands, Bishamon carefully brought the braid over her shoulder to study it.
It looked near flawless, with not a gap or loose hair to be seen, but she hadn’t expected anything less from the work of a perfectionist. There was something else that caught her attention; tucked sporadically into the weave were small, vibrant flowers—violets, she realized, one of her favorites. Bishamon wondered if she had ever mentioned that to Kazuma, or if it was a lucky guess—or, maybe, he just knew. He had a way of doing that when it came to her, to the point that she wondered if he knew her better than he knew himself.
“It’s beautiful, as always,” Bishamon said quietly, a soft smile coming to her face. She shifted in place, turning her body towards Kazuma to catch a glimpse of a flustered smile of his own.
So many decades, and he still can’t accept compliments, Bishamon thought fondly, but held her tongue. She didn’t want to embarrass him too much.
The warmth in the air and in her chest was akin to sitting next to a hearth; combined with the ripple of wind through the meadow grass, it was all starting to make Bishamon drowsy. She shuffled closer to Kazuma, then leaned into his side, letting her head dip to rest against his shoulder.
She felt Kazuma stiffen, and there was a flash in the space at the back of her mind where emotions that weren’t her own pooled together. The ones she was feeling then belonged to Kazuma, and felt like nervousness, or even stress. For a moment, Bishamon wondered if she had gone too far, stumbling over some unseen line in the sand, and had ruined this rare moment of closeness.
Thankfully, it was only a few seconds before Kazuma relaxed, the tension slowly fading from his muscles. He didn’t wrap an arm around her waist, or lean his head against hers—she didn’t quite know why that disappointed her so—but he did brace his hand against the ground, allowing her to let most of her weight fall against him.
“Thank you,” Bishamon murmured, her words softened at the edges. She didn’t know if it was for doing her hair, or letting her lean on him, or something else entirely. Maybe it was for all of it, and everything else he had ever done for her.
“Of course,” Kazuma answered quietly. His voice, despite the nervous waver, had a certain heaviness to it, as if he knew exactly what her gratitude meant. She wouldn’t be surprised if he did—he was not privy to her heart and soul as she was to his, but he could still read her just as well, if not more so.
Bishamon sighed contentedly, letting her eyelids drift closed. There was a stretch of silence after that, and it wasn’t uncomfortable in any way—they more often shared each other’s quiet than simple conversation.
Then Kazuma began to hum. It caught Bishamon a bit off guard—she had heard him hum before, but only when the sound was nearly drowned out by singing or music from other shinki. She had no idea what caused him to do it now, aside from perhaps the anxiety that still buzzed low in his mind.
He started with a low, soft note, then climbed halfway through a scale before dipping back into a second pattern. It only took her until the second to realize what song he was humming—it was an old, centuries-dead lullaby that she had known since the beginning of this incarnation. Bishamon knew every single word, even now. She could still remember the Ma clan guidepost teaching it to her when she was young, and singing it to the younger shinki whenever they had nightmares.
Mostly, she remembered Kazuma singing it to her, just a few days after the massacre. He had stumbled over the words in a halting and choked-up voice, but it had been the first thing that was able to break her from the vise grip of her grief and allow her to sleep, even if that sleep was restless.
Hearing it now, bittersweet memories were brought forth, filled with equal parts comfort and tragedy. Despite the melancholy that inevitably gathered in a knot at the back of her throat, Bishamon smiled.
Kazuma’s voice was soft and surprisingly smooth, and it started lulling her further and further to sleep. She felt more comfortable here—in an unfamiliar flower-covered meadow, with only Kazuma by her side—than she ever had before. The notes of the song started to blend together, and she settled in closer, surrounded by flowers and song, her most treasured shinki by her side.
Just as she was about to fall asleep completely, Bishamon felt a sudden need to say something. It was an urge that pulled at her heart and plucked along her vocal cords, and while she didn’t know where it had come from, she listened to it, shaking off most of her drowsiness like water.
“Kazuma,” she started, then fell silent. She didn’t know what came next. Kazuma’s humming stopped abruptly, sounding a bit like he was startled.
“Yes, Viina?” His voice was quiet and lower than usual, more similar to the way he hummed than the way he spoke.
As she tried to gather her words together, Bishamon pressed closer to Kazuma, feeling a sudden wave of gratitude. Kazuma had been at her side for so long, now—ever since the massacre, he had been a rock for her to lean on, a light in the darkness to guide her forward. She would be completely lost without him.
She thought about being left alone in that darkness, and almost grabbed Kazuma’s hand—resting an inch away from hers on the grass—to reassure herself that she really wasn’t alone. She dismissed the urge quickly, feeling childish. Of course she wasn’t alone. Kazuma was right here beside her, just as he always had been.
(so why did it feel like she knew that loneliness?)
A few moments had passed, and Kazuma prompted again, gently, “Is something wrong?”
Bishamon shook her head, a slight movement, and Kazuma probably felt it against his shoulder more than he saw it. The anxiety that had suddenly manifested jolted loose, and it dispelled completely as she sighed. “No, nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything is… perfect.”
Her own words took her by surprise, mainly because they were true. She wasn’t used to things being perfect—they hadn’t been since the death of the Ma clan, and she had figured they never would be again. But here, in this quiet and mundane moment, everything really was perfect. She couldn’t remember the last time she was this content, or peaceful, or… happy. Sitting in this wide, flowered expanse, she had Kazuma, and so she had all that she needed.
“I wish that this time could last forever,” Bishamon said, in the softest voice she had ever spoken in, and she meant every word, with all of her heart and soul.
There were a scant few seconds of silence after her voice faded, in which the wind picked up slightly; it filled the air with the rustling of leaves and grass, and then—
“It can’t.”
There was a sudden shift to his tone—it was flat now, deadened and exhausted. In the same instant, the air stilled, the wind cutting so abruptly it might as well have never been there.
Then a sharp, acrid tang hit her nose, a scent she knew all too well—the scent of blood. Copper coated the roof of her mouth as fear bloomed deep in her chest. She felt adrenaline rush through her veins, dissolving every last feeling of sanctuary that she had dared to allow herself to indulge in.
Bishamon opened her eyes; the first thing she saw was the flowers surrounding her in the grass, but they had changed completely. While she wasn’t looking, the pink carnations and white bishop’s lace had become scarlet spider lilies, reaching up from the ground like clawed, bloody hands. She felt her stomach drop.
Her hands moved to clutch at her hair, but something was wrong about the way it felt against her palms, and she looked down. The once-perfect braid was now hardly anything more than a mess of tangled knots, matted with dirt and dried blood. The small violet blossoms had shrivelled up and withered—but could they even be called violets when they had become such a dull and lifeless brown?
Bishamon felt the color drain from her face, dread becoming a heavy weight in the back of her skull. She looked around at the meadow, and each difference she saw added to that weight; the grass was brown and dry, the old oak tree had lost all of its leaves, and the sky had become a pale, empty gray.
She turned towards Kazuma, hundreds of questions on the tip of her tongue. “Kazuma, what is—?”
Bishamon cut herself off with a strangled gasp, pulling back involuntarily.
Kazuma’s glasses were crooked on his nose, and the left lens was cracked down the middle. His hair was ragged and unkempt, his suit caked with dirt, and a patch of blood rested over his sternum. But worst of all was his face, a watercolor blend of dirt and blood and bruises, painted onto a hollow expression that even she, after years upon decades by his side, couldn’t place. She could tell he was in pain from the way he looked at her, though, his eyes darker and duller; she could also tell from the way pain lanced through her own chest like a greatsword, as if it belonged to her instead.
She reached out on an instinct, although she didn’t know which instinct it was, exactly—to fix his glasses, to run her hand through his hair, to wipe the blood and grime from his face—but she froze when she saw her hand. It was wrapped in blood-crusted bandages, fraying at the edges and starting to unravel. Her nails were uneven lengths, chipped and cracked with dirt wedged under them, as if she had been digging in the ground.
Her hand was trembling — trembling with a physical, bone-deep weakness that hadn’t taken a hold of her since the massacre, and that was the most frightening thing of all.
Bishamon tried to speak again, but she was interrupted by the wind’s return, this time in a strong, unbuffered gale that was so cold that ice seemed to crystalize across her skin. The wind was too loud in her ears, and she couldn’t even hear her thoughts.
Kazuma was saying something. She tried so desperately to hear it, but the roar in her ears was too strong; all she could do was watch as his mouth formed the syllables—
“I’m sorry.”
Bishamon awoke with something between a gasp and a scream.
It took her a few minutes and several heaving breaths to slow her racing heart. Once she had, and the panic was beginning to fade, she recognized the crude stonework of the walls around her—she was in one of Kazuma’s safehouses, scattered throughout the Near and Far Shores. It was then that she felt the bandages wrapped around most of her body, and remembered the battle they came from—the uprising against heaven.
Slowly, as to not aggravate the headache she could feel building behind her eyes, Bishamon sat up. Her head spun for a moment, but after it cleared she was able to look around the building. There were books piled in high stacks, anatomy charts on all of the walls, and an abundance of herbs and medicines filling old wooden shelves.
Before Bishamon could ponder anything else, she felt a sudden, searing pain in her chest, and she reached up to clutch at her chest with a gasp. It felt like there was a fire that sparked in the cavity between her lungs, blooming out to lick against the underside of her skin. It burned the hottest at her sternum, the heat seeming to blister up through to sit on top of her skin and linger, leaving a pattern of burn scars.
It took her a long moment to realize that it was more than a pattern; that the lines of burning pain formed a name, one of the many that filled her soul to the point of overflow. It took her another second to recognize the name as the one constantly at her side, the ancient seal script character painted in crimson on the back of a hand.
Kazu.
There was no mistaking it. Bishamon had each stroke so perfectly memorized that she thought it must be etched into the muscle of her heart.
She saw the name, now, in her mind’s eye, and felt all of the agony and pain that rolled off it in waves. Then, just barely, she saw the faint outline of another name behind it, translucent, hazy, and wavering. Bishamon, her head spinning with confusion and a slowly-growing fear, called for Choki in a rasping voice that echoed against the cracked stone walls.
The room remained empty. Her voice was the only sound.