No matter which path I took, where I tread alone, Mori had constricted my heart. I found her on my mind every waking moment, apart from her or even when my hands were upon her, like a true demon who had possessed me. The forest was so dark in the dead of night, and yet as I walked, dancing my way across three roots and thistles, alone as I was, it felt as though she could have been beside me. How heavy the thought of her was, weighing down my every move. There had been one other time that I felt so binding an emotion.
My attention was caught by a sound, faint, carried by the wind, of crackling beneath my feet. I looked down to see that the grass and plants where my footprints trailed had turned brown and shrivelled as if burnt by the strong sun. I stared, watching for signs that I had caused the anomaly with my presence alone or if I had stumbled into something unknown. I reached up, to take a low hanging leaf of a tree between my fingers, and I watched as death spread over it instantly. It had my attention, but my fear was kept by the other lover encircling my mind, treading on my heart as I did the tired forest floor. How I enjoyed toying with death. How I enjoyed that the power had been given to me to control, or so I had been made to believe. It wasn't fear at all, it was excitement. I had walked the forest trails outside the Okiya endless times, and I had never discovered that I possessed such an ability before. I couldn't recall if I had been alone any other time. The thorn is not me, she had told me. And there I was spreading death to everything I touched with my feet or hands. The thorn was indeed me.
"I told you once that such misfortune would follow anyone to love a Kitsune." I recognize the glint of eyes darting through the shadow around me. The night was deep, and though I couldn't see through it, I felt with certainty that Sugai was near. "Do you believe me now?"
I couldn't help smiling to myself under the cover of the darkness. "I believed every word you've ever said to me, Sugai. That is the only misfortune I can see." I stood still, allowing my trained rounin instincts to take over, mapping his movements through the shadows, between the trees. I could sense that he understood my instincts, he had trained me to use them, and I was the outcome of exactly what he wanted.
"I believe you as well when you speak that way. She is on your mind more than I am. Do you believe her as well?"
He had been tracing circles around me. He had waited for me to reach the spot I stood in, predicting my every move until I arrived. I did not sense a hunt from him. I could feel desperation. "Belief is not the same as not being deceived."
His movements were undetectable. He had stopped pacing. The desperation I felt in his atmosphere of energy turned slow, languid, into despair. I felt hope drain away. A long moment passed before his voice came through the darkness. "I won't stand in your way."
I realized his words formed a farewell, but for once, my heart didn't ache to hear it. "Shall I beg you not to go?"
He stepped into proximity with me, the shadows seeming to unfurl to reveal him. Just like the first time we met, an enigma to me, as I felt my mind sever the connection he had to me. I caught his eyes, held them desperately with mine, but I could see nothing in them. Nothing for me. I tried to look deeper still, as if my gaze could penetrate his soul, search into his veins, run the course of his body to find any emotion he felt. There was nothing. He reached one hand to curl his fingers into the front of my kimono, pulling me closely against his body, and I was once again powerless.
"Not now." His voice controlled, steady, as if he had surrendered. His other hand stroked my hair, running his fingers through the ends. "Such a shame. The beauty I have to let go of."
I had expected a great many things in that moment. A great many actions to follow. But he simply pushed me away, turned his back. "Thank you, Sugai." For the semblance of love. For the illusion of acceptance. For the pain, the sadness, the confusion, the fury. I didn't say any of that.
"Make sure she knows what she's been given." One last glint of the green in his eyes over his shoulder. "I'll see you again."