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It starts slow, a cough here and there that Miko blames on tiredness, on the harsh winds of winter, or on any excuse she can muster up at the moment.
In the meantime, she keeps up her work at the shrine and at the publishing house. There are new shrine maidens to train, new authors to hire and so many requests for audiences that it's easy to forget about it.
Kitsunes are strong, Saiguu used to tell her when Miko whined about getting sick after working in winter, human sickness does not affect us.
But the sickness persists, and that's how Miko understands that this time something different is happening.
The coughing is more frequent and painful and breathing becomes difficult.
She lies awake at night, holding a bloodied handkerchief and hoping that the feeling of suffocation would go away.
Tears burn on her cheeks as she curses Ei for leaving her behind, the emptiness and loneliness she feels when thinking about her old lover are almost enough to make her forget about the persistent pain in her chest.
Close to her futon, there's always a pile of bloodied petals, Miko can't help but notice how every morning the pile is bigger than the previous.
Winter gives in to spring and the shrine maidens around her start to notice the changes, she keeps them at distance. The only one who discovers her condition is quickly hushed. Miko makes sure to have her swear secrecy under the sacred Sakura. A shrine maiden would never betray the Shogun after all, the Gujii knows this better than everyone.
She fights against the sickness as much as she can and refuses to stop working and performing her duties even as it becomes impossible for her to finish a sentence without coughing.
As the sakura trees bloom and the air becomes warmer Miko's mind starts to deteriorate, together with her health.
She becomes snappier and although she can't yell, or talk for the matter, people know to steer clear of her. The fox becomes louder and she loses herself in her animal form more often.
She tries to turn her sadness and longing into anger, tries to blame Ei for her situation but, in her heart, she doesn't believe the anger is genuine for one second.
Yae Miko, Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine, has been a lovestruck fool since the moment she met Raiden Ei and not even the excruciating pain caused by that love can change that.
Letters that bear the sigil of the Kujou clan and formal requests of audiences pile up on the small table in her room. Miko doesn't even have the strength to look at them.
The day Sara shows up at the shrine to demand an audience with the Gujii on behalf of the shogun (not Ei no, it's always the damn puppet) is the day Yae Miko is seen for the last time.
Chinju forest is a more fitting place for a Kitsune to die, the fox thinks as she slips into the shadows and borrows her way under a tree.
She knows the pain is stripping her humanity away from her, she wonders if this is what happened to Saiguu too.
She hopes she'll be able to walk with the spirits of the other youkai and that she will see Saiguu again.
In the end, she hopes to see Ei again, but not soon, for that would mean her life was cut short.
Days later Inazuma sees its real Archon again, but only for the short time it takes her to find the Guuj and give her a proper farewell. Raiden Ei, or what is left of her, goes back to hiding in the plane of Euthymia after that, conscious of the fact that she has no one to go back to, not anymore.