Chapter Text
For as cold as the night had grown around him, the blood trickling down Saizo's leg remained oddly warm. So when he finally relinquished his struggle through the forest to slump against a knotted tree, he found that the leaves above shivered more than he did. He watched the dark cloth of his uniform grow darker still, feeling the warmth as it spread up his body. Like a blanket, it received him. Or an embrace.
Small fingers, tugging insistently at his sleeve.
His eyelids flickered, and he tried to remember when the moonlight had started to fail him. Perhaps clouds had gathered across the sky while he fled. Perhaps even clouds heavy with rainwater. Perhaps, in the end, fate would grant him one act of mercy, sending droplets to chip away at his trail until his existence had been all but washed from the forest.
He could not have fashioned a better end. A successful mission followed by no fanfare but the dirt at his back and the wind on his face. And yet his chest continued to flutter. The tiny fingers of warmth continued to grope. And on the wind, a voice. One he could almost understand...