Displacing the grief setting in, she hopes Sanemaru talks long enough for her to control herself.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "Pfft, they wish!"
Guiding her to face the abandoned graveyard, "Only powerful bloodlines and yokai sorcerers can make themselves appear human."
Leisurely approaching the ghost of a prosperous town, "Half-breeds can come out looking human, but they're super weak compared to a full-blood. And extremely rare. No self-respecting demon would ever mate with a human."
Casting a sideways glance and pursing his lips, "No offense."
Umeko shrugs and shakes her head while leaning into his friendly embrace; toffee fingers hold onto his clothes to aid in her balance on terrain she never knew to be so dangerously bumpy with heels.
"Since it's nearly impossible to completely hide our aura," glancing around suspiciously, "Parts of our true form bleed through the mask."
Bringing his face closer to her ear and speaking low, "When I was a kid, everyone told stories about the Dragon Emperor, Ryu. He was the only one of our kind able to hide among mortals by completely shielding his presence," Sanemaru's hot breath tickles her ear enough for her to shift away slightly.
"Even other yokai often mistook him for a human-- until they regretted it. No other spirit of any kind has come forth capable of masking their aura entirely," pulling her close to rub her lean bicep, "It takes an extreme amount of power to perfect that kind of concealment magic."
Chuckling uncomfortably, "It was thought to be impossible until him, so even in death his power's been immortalized. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about it now," he shrugs.
You're gonna poop matsu (pines) when you find out he's the one controlling Tsukiyomi. What're the odds. . .?
"Some humans, like a miko (priestess), houshi (monk), and mahoutsukai (witch), can see or feel differences in the energies around them." Ears twitching, "We (yokai) can too, obviously, and gods," he side-eyes Umeko to find her staring at the ground like her dog died.
Moseying through the field separating blood-stained, scorched earth from the forest, "The stronger someone is, the easier it is to sense them from far away," he outstretches his free hand while panning the horizon.
Muttering more to himself than to her, "Humans are fucking weird."
Carob eyes are ensnared by an inspecting, gray gaze, "Most of your kind only sees what they want, when they want it seems. Waaay too dangerous to live like that with so many predators out there."
Shrugging, jostling her tighter to his side, "Why would you want to be so blind to all the unseen," he questions skeptically as though he's already judged on her species' ridiculousness with the concealed roll of his eyes between a slow blink, "Things going on RIGHT in front of you?"
Sanemaru cocks his head away from hers with an inquisitive brow to get a better look at her face, "From what I've seen, the evil and holy people of your kind can see or sense it. The ones that can't-- that means they choose to be ignorant, right?"
Dragging her feet to a languid stop, they have finally reached the broken, burnt and scattered remnants of a large hut-- Umeko's former home.
Sighing from the depths of her soul as she faces the truth within herself, "I can't speak for everyone, but," she searches storm gray eyes. "After seeing everything I've seen since I met Lord Tsukiyomi," cinnamon eyes drift down pillowy lips and a chiseled jaw.
Working up the strength to look upon anything other than the alluringly flamboyant horse-man, "The scary moments messed me up bad. . ."
Swallowing hard enough with closed eyes to steady a shaky breath, her nostrils flare to accept the maximum amount of air her lungs can accommodate.
Exhaling with a controlled tremble, "Bad enough to make me want to run from all of this."
Hesitantly turning to face her abandoned birthplace, "Even though I know now more than ever that running and hiding are terrible options."
Shrugging weakly, "Doing those things don't make the evil in the world disappear," sniffling, "It just makes whatever time I have left here disappear."
Nodding with a forced, confident smile, "And I'd rather have the last of my time be something worth remembering."
Thudding the inside crook of his shoulder with the side of her head, "I don't want to be remembered as just some human girl that had a bunch of bad stuff happen to her so she didn't even try to do anything with her life."
Sighing disheartened, "I don't want you and Tsukiyomi-sama to think I'm just some sad and pitiful thing that didn't do anything worthwhile with the chance I've been given. . .since my life is a blink to people like you. . ."
Releasing Sanemaru to step away from his fortress-like embrace, "And while I'm being completely honest."
Stepping closer to charred wood within the stone border of her former home's foundation, struggling to digest the massive pill of life being forced down her throat, "I'm still not sure I'm not already dead and living out my own personal afterlife in the depths of Yomi no Kuni (World of Darkness)."
Raking teeth over her painted pink, bottom lip, "Or that I'm stuck dying in a nightmare out in the woods bleeding to death."
Sighing heavily, "Which would be a fitting end to my , so far, pointless life."
Glancing back at Sanemaru to capture his speechless shock, she looks ahead to her old home and takes a deep breath.
Umeko's trembling right hand raises to clutch the layered fabric covering her chest with half the flowers in hand, "All I really. . .know. . .is," she trails off into a mumble.
Lifting the aromatic bouquets of sunshine into the air as she finds the words and they come out in a scream, "I can't feel anything anymore!"
Catching herself off guard from the rebounding, echoing frustration riding waves of wind around them, throwing the shrilling shriek of her sadness back into her face, Sanemaru's tail jumps and his ears lay down.
The girl's sudden burst of physical melancholy splatters worry across his face; with hands hovering above her shoulders, he second guesses touching the rigid, young maiden.
Stumbling away from him, shrinking the distance between her and the hut's rubble with her family's only cauldron, "Anything other than anger, p-pain, and s-s-sadness."
Looking across the landscape to focus on distant hills untouched by carnage before her legs have a chance to give out from under her, she nods, "So."
The scent of smoke and rotten blood hits her nose before her hands fall to her sides, "To answer you."
Umeko's entire body tenses as the damaged stems she crushes within her grasp leaks to dampen her palms, "If I had to guess," wet eyes face Sanemaru until their sights lock in on each other, "I would say fear."
Raising the flowers to her nose to awkwardly inhale, she loudly sucks up snot, "It's easier to pretend something doesn't exist or can't touch you than it is to face the fact it's real."
Shaking her head 'no' in exasperation, "Because if it's real, and you have proof," her voice goes hoarse while fighting with the tightness in her throat the longer she speaks through a flurry of turbulent, human feelings.
"You KNOW," she clears her throat before normalizing her tone.
". . .In an instant," she snaps, "That you've been so blind and stupid!"
Sanemaru raises an index finger matter-of-factly only to remain silent when he catches the sound of her defeated spirit, "And weak. . ."
Burying her forehead in flower-filled fists, "A-a-and wrong."
Tear-filled eyes witness loose petals raining down around her feet from innocent blooms, "Your entire life until that point."
Wiping tears from under her eyelids using her knuckles, she quickly points at the mountain with a full hand. Looking past his head at the erect earth sheltering the most diabolical creature on the face of the earth, "I mean, C'mon!"
Chuckling, unamused, by her unfathomable yet current reality, "I live with a possessed, banished moon god in a mountain of demons-- and one's a prince!"
Confused by recent events, "I spent the last few years of my life convinced that my grandma was bat-crap crazy. Like--do you have any idea how deeply I believed she lost her mind and was just confusing legends with her own life?"
Scanning the surrounding area with each new inch stabbing a fresh wound into her bandaged heart, "Now. . . I'm standing here. . .with touchable proof that the gods and monsters of this land, my father's land, are real."
Searching the sky, "Which means that ignoring the trinity that watches over my mother's homeland to support Tsukiyomi-sama means I'm turning my back on gods I've believed in since I was little."
Blinking slowly as her gaze turns to Sanemaru with a daunting realization, "Even though they've never talked to me." Umeko's eyes sting as her gaze lowers to the ground at her feet, "I still feel guilty about the idea of never talking to them again."
Flashes of happier times with her family and friends talking about life and culture and spirituality come to mind, making the surreal destruction ahead of her seem like a tortuous illusion.
Sanemaru witnesses a tear roll down her cheek and instinctively wraps an arm around her back. Tenderly stroking her arm down to her wrist, he carefully gathers the flowers from both her hands.
In a kind and soothing voice, "You can cry all you want, y'know?"
Rocking her soothingly with an encouraging smile, "You don't have'ta be strong on my account."
Rubbing circles over her back as she wipes away her visible grief, he nudges her cheek with his nose, "This would be hard for even the strongest of yokai warriors."
Sniffling through a dry snicker, "Thanks," she points weakly to the rubble, "'Cause this one was home."
Grumbling to clear the mucus trying to pool in her throat, "I lived here. . .with my parents. . .my little brothers. . .a-and grandma," she swallows a deep breath to steady her shaky voice.
Holding back sobs, her disoriented, distracted sight manages to reach the rows of distant graves; knowing from deep in the pit of her stomach that no matter how much she hopes and prays, everyone that mattered to her was taken from this world by indiscriminate villains because that's the kind of luck she has.
Sanemaru follows her eye's path. Pointing beyond her home to the mounds of dirt spaced evenly apart, "We laid everyone to rest towards the front of the village."
Treading carefully beside her lead as she begins to aimlessly cut through the remnant of her home's foundation, "By the road."
On high alert, Sanemaru's senses focus on everything in the area during their trek through the ghostly town.
The damaged particles at every glance leave her with a gaping hole in her chest; nothing is as she remembers it just days ago. Finding herself under pressure, Umeko's only option is to accept that everything she once knew as boring and mundane is gone forever.
Wishing now more than ever to get her simple, boring problems of the past back, every opening of her eyes from a languid, teary blink drives into her brain that each memory behind her is precious as she stares upon the present's tragedy.
Blood stains paint the trodden paths where countless feet once ran, traded, and played between hand-built homes.
Overwhelmed with a volley of everyone's smiling faces, her breath holds up in her throat at the sight of dry, splattered pools of sanguine that once belonged to her family, friends, and neighbors.
Keeping a hand close to her mouth, the sleeve of her glittering gown hides her expression from the world.
Staring upon devastation as far as the eye can see, there's no sign of the happy lives that once thrived here; all that remains of their legacy in the once prosperous mountain village are broken logs, disturbed ash piles, and shattered belongings.
"That hut wasn't there before."
Hearing an echo, they glance at each other then back at the hut.
Scanning the freshly erected, wood and straw structure further down the road and across from the graves, excitement rings in her outward thought, "Survivors?!"
Umeko's heart swells with joy at the dangerously hopeful thought of being reunited.
I'd even be happy to see that old grouch that tried to relive his youth through dad and uncle Eito.
Her legs stiffen the closer they come to the hut and she battles her body with an anxious motivation to investigate. Feeling the weight increase behind her strides as he tries to usher her forward, "It's okay, Ume," Sanemaru squeezes her arm.
Offering reassurance, "I'm right here no matter what."
When the pair are a few steps past the gravesite, a half-naked man storms from the hut in a knee-length loin cloth.
Running straight towards them, he stops a safe distance away.
Toting a long, wooden spear in his hand, he glares intensely at Sanemaru, "Why're you back here, akuma (devil)?"
Almond eyes narrow as he hones in his hunter's stance with pointed metal aimed at the unarmed pair.
Sanemaru blocks Umeko's path with his body, displaying his determination to protect her as his eyes spark with neon blue lightning bolts piercing gray sky eyes. As the wind around him picks up speed, jostling the steed's clothes and the hem of Umeko's dress, she places her fingertips on Sanemaru's bicep.
Stepping from behind his boulderous frame, she gets a better look at the poorly armed, yet bold, young man. "N-nobuo?"
Squinting, "Is that," in sheer disbelief, "You?"
Without needing to complete another step, she is sure this is her lifelong friend and former lover.
It is! He's alive!
Umeko's stomach holds a den of stirring butterflies when she learns that more than just an ordinary neighbor is standing in front of her.
Tilting his head suspiciously, the village boy hesitantly approaches them; beads of sweat form across his forehead and fuzzy, upper lip.
He wouldn't really attack with that thing, right? Nobu was the second best hunter under his dad, and even he doesn't stand a chance against Sane.
Frowning at the foreign way Nobuo looks at her, she's unsure of what to do.
As though all of his logic and memories forged together at once, the boy's dark eyebrows press together.
Hopeful, nearly frightful, his voice trembles, "Umeko. . .?"
Eyeing her up and down as the trio stand in silence, he suddenly throws the spear to the ground, "I thought you were--!"
Sanemaru steps aside, giving them space as the two run into each other's' arms.
Nobuo encircles his love before lifting her from the ground into a spin; locking her arms around the back of his neck as the chatter of the world falls away, her feet soon touch the ground again.
Pressing her cheek to his as mournfully joyous tears join, he pulls back.
Cradling both her cheeks in scarred, calloused hands, he wipes away her tears with his thumbs.
Muttering in sync with all the hope and fear they can muster teetering their logic on the brink of insanity: "You're alive!?"