久しぶり

Kanou warned her that this could be the case, but still – she's unprepared to find herself in her childhood bedroom.

She opens her eyes to find herself sitting cross-legged on a futon by the short table set in the middle of the room. The walls around her are painted a pretty shade of flamingo pink, although one wall has a rather terrible rendition of Kaonashi painted on it. Behind her is a big window, with murky mid-morning sunlight hazily streaming in through the sparkling clean glass of the window. Dangling from the window frame is a wooden talisman that hangs still in the windless day.

Obaasan had made it for her, when Shiori complained about the mean little Yori Chiisai that liked to follow her to and from school. Somehow, it kept them from entering her bedroom, she remembers. They could only linger at the window and peer in, but not enter, before they got bored and left. Shiori still has the talisman, now hanging it on the window of her room at Ayashi House.

In front of her is a closet built into the wall. It's open to reveal several uniforms and some casual clothes neatly folded and lining the shelves. A single yukata hangs on the hook of the open door. A lot of Hello Kitty clothing merchandise is in there, along with an assortment of other anime merchandise, mostly Studio Ghibli if it isn't Hello Kitty. A large variety of shoes for small feet (were here feet really that tiny?) are lined neatly in the shoe rack at the bottom of the closet.

To her right is a desk and rolling chair pushed carefully into it, matching with the running Hello Kitty theme. On the table are three notebooks, the covers being red, blue, and one in a darker blue with a dancing Totoro character painted on it. Right above the desk is a whiteboard nailed to the wall, swept clean of any traces of ink. A duster with a wooden back and a big black marker sits next to it.

Shiori slowly stands, wincing at the rush of pins and needles down her legs. She makes her way to the desk, feeling too big in this room obviously meant for a little girl – and not a little embarrassed at the sheer amount of Hello Kitty that floods her senses. She remembers loving it when she was younger, but was it really to this extent?

She picks up the notebook with Totoro on it and stares at the name tag stuck to the bottom right corner.

It's her handwriting.

名; 松本 詩織

クラス; 2-1

先生; 田中綾夫

手間; 家政学

Her finger trails over the ring-bound spine of the notebook. She flips the cover open and there it is; her thirteen-year-old messy, scrawling handwriting fills the page, squeezing between margins and other sentences to preserve space even though she was told by her teachers not to do that.

Shiori sets the book down in its place. She walks on slightly wobbling legs over to the closet and reaches out a hesitant hand to touch the yukata hanging there. It's very obviously fit for a child, and as Shiori runs her hands over the smooth, silken fabric, tears spring to her eyes, a knot in her throat. She doesn't wipe the tears away. Instead, she pulls the yukata out of the closet and holds it in front of her. It only reaches to just above her knees.

The yukata is made from gleaming black silk with oriental pink roses and blue leaves attached, branches of cherry blossoms, ribbons decorated over its expanse, and the collar is made of a frilly white material Shiori has no name for. It has a wide belt, of a pink that matches the roses and ribbons scattered over the rest of the yukata, which is tied on loosely. A single tear comes to rest on the corner of her lip, and she hastily wipes it away against her shoulder as she pushes the yukata back into place.

She remembers the last time she wore that yukata – it had been to the Toro Nagashi festival. She was still shorter than Pai, then. Pai has only grown a few inches since.

Shiori startles, remembering what she's supposed to be doing and realizing what's happening. She looks around herself, searching out anything that doesn't seem to be in place, and finds nothing. Everything looks as she had always kept her room to be.

She crosses the short expanse of the room to the window. Glancing out, she sees the neighbourhood that she had lived in since she was born and until her parents died.

The house Shiori grew up in, and in a closely-held part of her she still considered to be home, is built on a street that slopes upwards, on a low-rising hill that leads into the centre of the city after a good fifteen-minute drive. Each house built on the street stands perpendicular to the slope, each has two floors, and each has a little front and back yard. Some of the people who live on this street built little swing sets for their children. Others cleared away the grass and plants and paved it to install a basketball hoop to the side of the house. At the side of the house is a small garage that can comfortably house a single car.

It's all exactly as she remembers. There's no 'discrepancies' that she can see.

But there is also not a single soul out on the street.

The whole neighbourhood is deserted, without even a breeze to ruffle the leaves of the closely clustered trees planted at regular intervals along the sidewalks. The atmosphere of the whole place is oddly eerie. A wave of goosebumps rise over her arms as she looks around, finding no signs of life at every turn. Shiori looks to her right and sees the shadows of climbing skyscrapers and buildings against the backdrop of a huge sunset that swallows the entire horizon.

Shiori backs away from the window and looks down at herself. She's wearing what she had been when she drank the jade water and entered her own subconscious lucidly; a pair of beige cut-off slacks and a plain baby blue shirt that is two sizes too large for her. Her feet are bare. Her hand comes up to her neck, looking for a source of comfort in so bizarre a setting despite its familiarity, only to remember that Kanou has her necklace.

She swallows, trying hard to ignore the rising uneasiness at being separated from Kouta's gift to her.

Shiori turns and leaves the room, walking quick enough that it shows how discomfited she is by all this. Years of doing the same thing are ingrained in her, and she knows to get to the living room she needs to go down the short length of the hall, turn left, go down the light brown staircase, and make an immediate right. She stops at the threshold of the living room, staring all about her.

There, in the corner of the room, is her father's favourite armchair, the one he likes to sit in when reading the newspaper, or a book, or some papers he had to bring home with him to go through for work. There is the short table with zabuton set on each side and a long couch set against one wall, the floor covered in tatami mats. In the other corner of the room is a big box that's full of all kinds of toys, a few strewn about the floor nearby. There is a shelf full of books crammed between the wall and the couch. It makes for a fairly impressive collection, filled with all sorts of books; fictional novels, children's storybooks, works on economics and politics.

When she was bored and wanted to sleep, she would often pick out one of the books her father was always reading, about politics, and soon after she would be out faster than a light. Her father is the one who carried her to her bedroom to sleep, doing it more time than she can count.

She swallows past the sudden lump in her throat, blinking furiously against the stinging in her eyes as she looks around her childhood home.

Shiori remembers how she was the one to ask her parents if they could move somewhere closer to her father's work. His office was far from the apartment, and sometimes catching the train back home would take too much since he always got off work late, so he would sleep in a capsule hotel more often than not. Shiori remembers, as a little girl, sitting at the kitchen table and having a lonely dinner while her mother watched the news on TV and cajoled baby Ryu to eat. She'd felt so sad and alone.

She'd known what she asked for was selfish of her, but she just wanted her family to be together, all of them, not just three of them while her father had to stay at the office instead of coming back to the warmth and comfort of home and his family.

Before long, and to her surprise because she hadn't thought her parents took her request seriously, they moved here, to this house. Pai lived a few blocks down the road from her, right up until she and her entire family disappeared three and a half years ago.

This...is weird. There's no one here, and it's so weird. She's used to someone always being at home. It's rare to find a moment when there's absolutely no one at home, and even though she hasn't looked through any of the other rooms in the house, she knows that she's alone here. She doesn't like it.

But, when she thinks about it, she can't say she's really all that surprised, for some reason. This place, her home – it's her subconscious mind. Wouldn't it be weird, then, if there were random strangers in her mind, even if they were just conjured and not real? But does that mean her subconscious mind and the state her mind is in while dreaming is different? She knows people turn up in her dreams, even if she can't remember their faces.

Shiori speeds up and walks quickly over to the grandfather clock that's almost hidden by the bookshelf. It's ticking, but...

The time is wrong, she thinks, confused .she remembered it was only a few minutes gone by six o'clock when she drank the jade water. From the slanting light thrown by the sinking sun, the day is clearly falling headfirst into night. But the clock says it's 12:07.

She gives the clock one final look as she turns her back on it and tries to ignore the phantom memories that play in her mind's eye, of her helping Ryu as he learned to walk, of chasing Ryu around this room, of giggling with Pai as they sat at the table and made an absolute mess of painting their nails.

I need to find her, she thinks, reminding herself of why she's here. I need to find the gap in this place to get to Pai, and get her out.

She looks around herself, a pit opening up in her stomach. She...she has no idea where to even start.

Panic at her own obliviousness seizes her heart in a vice grip, and she almost stumbles from how abruptly afraid she is, of failing, of what it will mean if this doesn't work. She drags in a deep breath and shoots it back out through her flared nostrils as she grits her teeth and stomps out of the living room, turns right, past the staircase, and heads straight for the front door because she doesn't know where else to start.

She's momentarily blinded by the sunlight that hits her as she pulls the door open. She blinks rapidly against the stinging pain, and brings up a hand to block most of the light out as she squints at the sight before her. Directly opposite is a house that is built to look like the outside of hers, exactly as all the houses on his street have.

Shiori slowly walks down the path, eyes roving over anything she can set her sights on, searching for what looks out of place. She keeps her eyes peeled, hardly blinking for fear she'll miss something.

There's the basketball hoop over the garage door of the Hideyoshi's. the sandpit and little doghouse for the Yamato's. the empty space and sparse exterior of the Nishimura couple.

Nothing is amiss. Everything is exactly where Shiori remembers it always was.

It's just as she realizes that she hears it; the sound of too-perfect looking grass being trodden over by someone's feet. Shiori takes a step forward, out onto the street so as to easily start running if need be, and spins around with her heart beating wildly in her chest.

Behind her, walking out of her childhood home like he owned it, is a man.

He's tall and lean, wearing a pair of faded black jeans and a long-sleeved white V-neck shirt. He has dark curls of hair with a faint tinge of orange-gold sitting atop his head. Covering his face is a white Kitsune mask. It has a curling red smile with two slashes for whiskers on either side of the short, protruding triangular hole for the nose, ears that stand up from the top that's insides are painted red with small swirling curls of yellow in the middle, and red oval dots for eyebrows above the slanted holes for the eyes.

Through those holes, a pair of glowing red eyes look back curiously at her, unflinching when they meet her gaze.

"Come looking for secrets that are not your own, have you." The man observes in an idle tone as he walks towards her. His voice seems to double, like there's two of him speaking at the same time.

It sends a chill down her spine that accompanies the nauseating roll of hot and cold flashes in her stomach. Shiori takes a few steps back when she realizes he's walking straight towards her, stumbling onto the empty road.

The man pauses, and tilts his head to the side. "Hm. You don't remember me at all, do you? Not even a bit. I supposed you wouldn't – it's only been two hundred years."

Shiori frowns, more than a little thrown off by the fact that she can't see his face and what expression he has. "Remember you?" from where?

This is her subconscious. She's already seen that there is no one here – so who in the hell is this man? How is she supposed to remember him when she can't even see his face? And what two hundred years is he talking about? Humans don't live that long.

Still, she doesn't need to see his face to know – or at least guess – at what he is. Only Kitsune wear fox masks like that. Humans do too, of course, for fun, but it can only be a Hengen who can make her feel like she's been drenched in lava and then shoved into a freezer.

Fox masks are the literal Masks of the Kitsune, and only those who are demented and looking for death would think to steal a Kitsune's Mask – just like the one that was crazy enough to steal Shin's Mask.

This man, whoever he is when somehow not in her subconscious – and again on that front, what the hell – is Kitsune.

"I don't know you." She says firmly.

The man continues on like she hasn't spoken.

"Is this the body you've reincarnated into this time, Hi-yo-ri-hime?" he pronounces that name so slowly, so deliberately, as he watches Shiori freeze, eyes going wide. "It's a downgrade from the last one. Wasn't your original body beautiful enough to woo Kamigami and Oni alike? Even Konohana chose you over many others."

Shiori doesn't even think about the fact that he basically just called her ugly. She's too stuck on the name he just called her.

It's not a surprise that he knows who Konohana is, because really, who doesn't? But Hiyori? How does he know that name? Few know the reason why Shiori's blood calls to the Ayakashi, and those who do are only the Daitengu, the Sojobo and Kouta's mother, Obaasan and Ryu, and Pai. Many Hengen know of her, but they don't know her.

Nobody else knows, or is supposed to. Everyone else just knows her alias as Konohana's mortal vessel, her Chimei Yoki, or as the Koki Sakura Hime. Not Hiyori.

No one is supposed to know that name.

"How do you know that name?" she demands.

The Kitsune Mask tilts again. This time, Shiori feels that the man is giving her a mocking look. She gets that feeling so strongly that it's like she's with Pai and knowing that Pai is rolling her eyes at whatever stupid thing Shiori's just said though they're not looking at each other.

She doesn't know why she has that same sense of surety with this complete and utter stranger.

"I'd tell you, but I think you're smart enough to know the answer. Unless, of course, you lose brain cells every time you come back to this wretched world."

Irritation swirls in her gut. "Who are you?"

A short bark of laughter is her only answer, and she jumps at the harsh sound. "Wouldn't a better question be, when will it all fall apart like it always does?"

Shiori scowls. "Why would that be better?" that just sounds horribly depressing. "And why are you asking anything? You're the one in my subconscious!"

"Yes," and she knows, she knows he's smiling, but she doesn't know how she knows. "I am, aren't I?"

Shiori blinks, and in that instant he moves.

He's no longer standing teen feet from her on the front porch of her childhood home, but suddenly right in front of her. Shiori startles and instinctively makes to move away, to get away from his proximity, but the man cocks his head to the side again and lifts a hand.

Shiori freezes.

She stops dead, and like a deer caught in the headlights, she watches as the man reaches out and gently traces his finger down the side of Shiori's face. His skin is ice cold to the touch, as if he's more an ice sculpture than a man of flesh and blood – but his touch still leaves a trail of fire on her skin.

Her stomach turns in over itself.

If she moves now, if she betrays the fear that courses through her veins and lets him see it, she'll be dead. She doesn't know what it'll mean for her mortal body if something happens to her here, and she doesn't want to find out. Hengen respect strength, and loath fear as an abhorrent insult. They're disgusted by it, especially when it comes from humans. Daichi and the others had drilled into her why it's so important that she never let that she can see Ayakashi be known, that she never reacts to any Hengen she meets in a way that'll let them know she knows what they are.

If she lets him see how afraid she is, he might choose to strike her on the grounds that she's too weak to be left alive. Many Hengen still operate on such archaic beliefs. How does she know this man isn't one of them?

She has to be careful.

"I am in your subconscious, aren't I?" he comments drily. He taps her temple once before leaning back, finally moving out of her (very) personal space. "And why are you here?"

What? What the – "Who the hell –"

"Tut-tut-tut, Hi-yo-ri," the man tuts – tuts! At her! Like she's a disobedient child! "Before you speak rashly and insult the only one who can help you now, think carefully about what you choose to say next."

Like hell. Like hell is she going to be stupid and just hand out the reason why she's here on a silver platter.

"How do you know you can help me when you don't know why I'm here?" Shiori shoots back heatedly.

The red eyes glow back at her – and everything seems to just stop. Everything, all she can see, feel, hear, it all seems to zero in on his eyes, like she's been pulled under a spell she knows she's in but can't escape. His pupils are pinprick holes surrounded by crimson that glows, imperfect red shot through with thin slivers of black. She feels like she's drowning in an overwhelming surge of power that cripples her, that makes her want to just fall to her knees from the pressure of it.

She grits her teeth, brows pulled down low and furious, and tears her eyes away from his, choosing to look at a point over his shoulder. The pressure that makes her almost want to die is abruptly lifted, and he knees feel weak for a moment, the sudden rush of vertigo that sweeps through her almost sending her sprawling.

She doesn't. Her jaw aches from how hard she clenches it, but she stays on her feet.

The man chuckles, a low, velvety sound that turns her unstable knees to melting rubber. "You've gotten stronger. That's good. Maybe even strong enough for what's coming. Your friend, on the other hand..."

It's hard for Shiori not to look him in the eye when he says those baiting words. It's hard for her not to make eye-contact, period. She always looks in the eyes of whoever she's talking to, even if it's not lady-like, even if it's borderline rude. She knows by now that you can tell what people mean, what their intent is, from their eyes when honeyed words are what comes out of their mouths.

Eyes don't lie.

But now she manages to keep her gaze focused on his shoulder than his masked face. "What are you talking about?"

The man doesn't elaborate. "You're here to help Pai."

Despite herself, Shiori starts. "How do you –"

"Oh, come on, Hiyori!" Shiori flinches when the man bounces back on the balls of his feet in almost jovial irritation. "Can't you come up with better, smarter questions than that? You sound like a parrot repeating what its daft master's been saying, over and over again. How, how, how. Polly want a cracker, Polly want a cracker? What an incorrigibly stupid question."

Even though she's quite certain she's not actually done anything wrong and this man just has a short fuse, she purses her lips to contain the defensive words she wants to throw back at him. "Then why don't you tell me what's a good question?" she mutters.

There's a pause. Then, "How about...will I help you?"

She gives him a dark look. "Who says I need your help?"

"Because you're looking for a gap you can't find on your own. You may be the reincarnation of Hiyori, but you are still mortal." She's not surprised by how he says it like being human is a disadvantage. To many Hengen, it is. "You have no inherent power of your own. Finding those gaps in your mind means tapping into power. Real power, not that flimsy excuse of spiritual energy mortals aren't even aware you have."

She blinks. Does that explain the Onmyoji, and how they seem to straddle both Ayakashi powers whilst being human?

She shakes her head, focusing on what matters – and pauses as the full import of what he's just said hits her. If he's not lying, then...does that mean this was all pointless from the beginning?

"But," she murmurs, more to herself than anything. "But Kanou-san would have told me that. He would've –"

"Of course he would have." The man answers starkly, like she's stupid for questioning that. "He doesn't know. He's not exactly Kobayashi Hiro, is he? He would have told you if he knew. The man's more loyal to Kouta than Ookami to their leader."

"You know Kouta?" she asks before she can stop herself. She purses her lips, glowering at the man. "Seriously, who the hell are you?"

She's beyond confused, and the fear that she'll fail to save Pai is growing by the second. She doesn't have time to deal with this man, this Ayakashi, who's somehow found a way to slip into her mind.

She doesn't have the time, but she needs to be careful. He's right that's she's just mortal, and against Ayakashi, she really has no chance. There's also the little-big question of, is he right? Is it possible that she really can't find the gap by herself? Does she need power – real power, like the one Ayakashi wield so easily – to find it?

The man leans back on the balls of his feet as he puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He sighs – a tad bit dramatically – and turns to look off towards the city that's tall buildings are dark against the illuminate backdrop of the massive, falling sun.

"You have a rather big sun, don't you think?" he remarks.

One minute, Shiori is warily watching the Hengen as he in turn watches the abnormally large sunset. In the next instant, everything around her warps.

It's like everything that is her reality suddenly bends, blurring and changing shape and forcing an unbelievable pressure on Shiori's mind. A stab of electric pain lances through her head and she winces, shutting her eyes to the pain and lifting a hand up to her head to press on her temple, a futile attempt to stop the pain that is marching back and forth across her brain.

Just as suddenly, it all stops.

Shiori opens her eyes slowly, warily, and gasps, stumbling but just managing to catch herself before she could fall.

She's not standing in her old neighbourhood anymore. There are large sloping cherry trees with hanging leaves and branches, like swaying pieces of cotton candy stuck on the twigs of all the trees around her, and dewy grass that doesn't look fake and makes her feel distinctly guilt for standing on.

"Shii-chan!" a sweet child's voice calls to her, in her mind, a memory.

Shiori looks at the branches of one of the sturdier trees she doesn't know the name of. In her mind's eye, she sees Pai, a shorter, younger and black-haired version, standing next to the tree and pointing up at something brown with a long, spiky yet fluffy tail that sits on one of the branches.

"Shii-chan, look, look up there! It's a squirrel!"

Pai's giggling ten-year-old voice fades away as Shiori looks around her. Neatly clipped shrubs line the wide and paved, widening walkways between the trees. The cherry blossoms on the trees are a soft, light pink that makes Shiori feel instantly better, as if the sight of them is some kind of wordless therapy that helps heal her fright, her anxiety, her nerves.

Shiori looks away from the trees, around herself. She's standing right at the edge of one of several large ponds. The surface is flat and smooth as a glazed pebble. Despite the wind gently blowing through the cherry blossoms and ruffling the leaves together, the surface of the pond remains undisturbed. She remembers running around in this place before, and kneeling by the edge of the pond with Pai and little Ryu, looking for koi fish that weren't ever there.

She remembers very clearly that the large boulder – an actual boulder – that she can spy through the slightly murky water of the pond was never there before.

If this is the discrepancy Kanou talked about...if this is the gap...she never would have found it on her own. This is Maruyama Park, several station stops away from her old neighbourhood! It takes at least two hours to get here from there!

"This – what –" she stutters, completely dumbfounded. "This...this is Maruyama Park."

"Yes," a voice says behind her, too close. "Where it all began."

Shiori whirls around and almost falls back into the pond. She just manages to catch herself in time as she stumbles away. The man is standing right behind her, not looking at her at all, but instead gazing about him at the tall trees, the grass, the large, still face of the pond. Though she can't see his face, she can't help thinking that he sounds a little wistful.

A little sad.

His red eyes snap back to her just as she has that thought, and for a split second she wonders if he actually heard it. She holds her breath.

He looks back at the pond. "Nothing you need to know about, though."

She blinks slowly, frowning. "Who are you? How did you get here?"

Instead of answering her, he removes something from his pocket and deftly flicks it over to her without turning to see if she caught it. Shiori follows the movement of the object as it flips through the air and glints gold before taking a step back, raising her hands, and easily catching it.

It's a watch, one of those old timepieces you'd expect to see from the Meiji era. It certainly looks old enough, too. There are elaborately carved designs in the gold – and this feels like solid gold, not bronze or painted steel, and he just tossed it to her like it's a baseball – of the its outer shell. A hooked clasp at the top would hold a chain attached to the watch, but there's not one there. Down the back of the watch is a long zigzagging crack.

She blinks as she realizes that the Meiji era – that was two hundred years ago.

"That watch follows the real time, in the world outside of this place." He says, waving a careless hand at the trees around them. He's rallied up his earlier mocking joviality, but it rings false to her. Like he's doing it only for appearances sake.

Shiori flips the heavy gold lid of the watch open, and looks down at the face of the watch. It's simple, with Roman numerals indicating the times. The paper underneath, or whatever it is that keeps the numerals and hands of the watch stuck on, is a faded yellow-brown, like it's some piece of an ancient scroll lost thousands of years ago to time.

It's 06:14.

"You have forty-six minutes to save her."

Shiori looks up at the man as she gently closes the lid of the pocket watch, almost afraid that if she snaps it shut too hard, it'll break apart and dissolve into little morsels of aged sand. She looks up again at the man to see him holding a hand out even though he's not looking at her – but no way is she going anywhere near him.

So she does what he did; she tosses the watch back to him.

He swiftly catches it without looking, like he'd heard the whistle of it hurtling through the air to him. He probably did.

"Why?" she asks. "Why are you helping me?"

He laughs snidely at that as he pockets the watch. "Help you? I've never wanted to have anything to do with you. Any of mine who values his skin wouldn't want anything to do with you. Where you go, disaster follows. You are a product of both worlds in a way humans shouldn't be – nature doesn't like deviations from the norm."

This insulting son of a – "Why? Just because I'm the reincarnation or whatever, that makes me – what, a disease or something?"

"Mixing the four races – Kamigami, Oni, Ayakashi, and humans – is not something that can happen, or should. It leads to bloodshed, misery, death, all those morbid things any living being sanely tries to avoid." He cocks his head to the side, but he's not looking at her, still watching the pond like there's a riveting movie playing out over its surface. "The kind thing to do would be to kill you. Like putting an injured animal out of its misery."

She gulps nervously, trying to think rationally. If he was going to kill her, he probably would have done it by now. Maybe he's just saying it to scare her.

"So you're saying that simply by existing, I'm going to lead the world to – all that." She deadpans, displaying her lack of self-preservation skills in the face of someone who can very easily kill her.

"Not you. But you are a catalyst. You'll just be helping the inevitable along."

"I'd never do something like that."

He laughs sharply at that, a loud sound that makes the hairs on her arms rise with the cruelty ringing in it. "You mortals are creatures too fickle to keep such a promise. You change so quickly, and forget too easily."

Shiori purses her lips in frustration. This is going literally nowhere; a waste of time she doesn't have. "Then why are you helping Pai?"

If he's not here to help Shiori, then Pai is the only one he could be here for.

There's a moment of silence. Shiori thinks the man is going to ignore her again. He isn't looking at her, still looking at the damned pond. What, is there a mermaid in there that Shiori can't see or something?

He crosses the short distance to stand by the edge of the pond. Shiori instinctively backs away to maintain the distance between them. He's staring so intently down at the boulder in the pond that she's surprised when he gives her an answer that does nothing to satisfy her curiosity.

"Whatever else you think of us, Hiyori, a promise is a promise. An oath broken by a Kitsune is a song cut of by Kamigami. It is the same, with equal severity and retribution for a broken promise."

She frowns, knowing she won't understand what he's said unless she sits down and really thinks about it, and she does not have that kind of time to do so. But she still wants to understand.

"Pai doesn't know you. Are you saying you made a promise to her..." Shiori shifts her foot at an uncomfortable realization. "Do you know what happened to her?"

He shakes his head. "Don't confuse it. There is what I did, and there is the promise made by a traitor." He pauses. "But neither are anything you need to concern yourself with right now."

He squats down and dips his hand into the water. Ripples grow from his point of entry, until the whole pond sports little waves as he swirls his hand in circles before standing. He chuckles quietly to himself. "Of course that's where she'd be. She does loves her irony."

"What?" who? Pai? What irony? Where is she?

He glances over at her in a distinctly lazy way. "Ever heard of the boulder that blocks off entry to Yomi-no-kuni? Dear Izanami's sweet abode."

She gives him the perfect side-eye. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"More than you care to know." He shrugs. "That boulder in there is the gap you look for. It's what will allow you to cross the threshold of your mind into Pai's."

He points down to said boulder in question with his dripping left hand. Shiori's attention is momentarily diverted when a small ray of sun falls on a long thread of red wrapped around the man's pinkie. He lowers his hand and turns to look at her again with his disconcerting crimson eyes before she has a chance to look again.

Red thread...? It's both alarming and confusing when she thinks about what red threads mean, how they connect every person to someone else, how it can never be broken no matter how tangled and twisted it my become.

If he has that...it means that he probably has someone waiting for him in the real world, the world outside of her subconscious. Thinking that of him makes him more than just another stranger, just another Ayakashi she has to be wary of and watchful of. It makes him an actual person, someone who can be loved by another – be they Ayakashi or human.

Shiori looks at the boulder. She knows he's probably right, even though she kind of wishes he wasn't, because she doesn't trust him. But she doesn't really have a lot of options to fall back on, at this point.

"How do I get there?" she asks quietly.

"Swim." The tone of his voice makes it sound as though he thinks Shiori to be incredibly dim-witted not to have come to the same conclusion already. "There will be an actual gap between the boulder and the bottom of the pond. Swim through it, and you'll find what you're looking for."

"How do I know you're not lying? How can I trust you?"

The man turns fully to her. In the most blunt manner, he says, "Trusting one such as me would be the single most idiotic thing you have ever done in all your lives. I am not lying because I don't lie."

Right. Like she's going to take that at face value when she doesn't know him, when she doesn't even know what he looks like.

"I will give you a little hint that may or may not keep you alive, depending on what you choose to do with it." He continues blithely. "She's not alone in there. There is a woman in there with her. If you see her, do try to exercise more caution with her than you are with me. Don't trust anything she says."

She gives him a deadpan look, even as his words sends chills down her spine. "Why should I trust anything you say?" and what woman?

"You shouldn't." He says bluntly. "But unlike that woman, I do not care enough about you to want to kill you like she does."

In a twisted way, it's somewhat encouraging to hear that. "Who is it? Is she like you, a Kitsune?"

"She is, and she isn't."

"Why are you talking in riddles?"

He shrugs. "What fun is like when you're given all the answers? It just paves the way for more stupidity, and there's quite enough of that already." He tips his head down and to the side. Shiori sees him looking down at something on his wrist before he looks back at her. "If you actually want to save her life before she ends it herself, you'd better go now."

Shiori jolts at the harsh wording, painfully reminded that that's what Pai is doing to herself. She purses her lips as she comes to stand by the bank of the pond, gazing into the water for a moment before she sighs and takes a step back. She shimmies out of the slacks she's wearing, purposefully not looking at the man to see if he's watching her, and grips the edge of the baby-blue oversized shirt she wears, pulling it over her head and shaking her hair out.

She cocks an eyebrow and glares at the man when she catches him staring at her with what she can definitely tell is a shocked look in his eyes. "What? I don't want to be weighed down while I'm there."

It's not like she's naked. She's still in her bra, camisole, and underwear. The water will make the clothes heavy and drag her down. She's not quite confident enough in her swimming skills that she won't drown, especially considering that the rules of reality don't really seem to apply here.

"Fair point." He admits. "Kouta would sleep better at night if you practised a little more modesty."

Shiori rolls her eyes. "What, are you an old man outside of my subconscious?" she wrinkles her nose at that disturbing thought.

But then again...she looks at the Kitsune mask without peering into the red eyes that glow back at her. He's Hengen. He could be hundreds of years old and still look youthful as a twenty-five year old. Hengen don't seem to age – or who their age – at the same rate amongst each other, so really, what does she know?

Before she can give herself time to change her mind, Shiori lifts her arms, bends her knees slightly, gulps in as much air as she can, and dives straight into the water.

Her vision is immediately clouded with silver baubles of air as she pushes a hand through the red-brown of her hair floating in front of her face. The water is surprisingly warm – and much deeper than it looked from up above.

She swirls her hands around her and kicks her legs out in circles to remain underwater rather than follow her body's natural instinct to go up and get above the water as quickly as possible. Shiori glances up and sees the dark, hazy outline of the man remaining standing where she left him for a moment longer before he turns and disappears from sight.

Maybe he really was just here to help her.

She looks down, ignoring the feel of the weeds and other water plants brushing against her kicking arms and legs, her exposed back and tickling her neck as she swims to the boulder. It seems larger than life, a dark shape that looms in front of her. She's reminded of what the man said, about the boulder that guards the entrance to the underworld.

Her heart squeezes in stark fear for a moment before her mind fills with images and memories of Pai, her best friend.

She purses her lips to prevent any air escaping out in bubbles, and scrunches up her nose. She angles her body and kicks out, swimming straight for the bottom of the pond. She can see it, just so, from the fading sunlight that glitters on the surface of the pond. It's a flow covered with sandy mud. Shiori puts out a hand to touch the floor and look up again at the boulder. She has to force herself not to let her mouth pop open in surprise.

He was right. There's a gap.

It doesn't look magical or extraordinary in any way. It just looks like a space between the boulder and the floor. But that in itself can't be normal; the boulder is huge, and it must be incredibly heavy. It can't possibly keep itself floating just above the bottom of the pond. Not unless something is keeping it held aloft. She glances to the sides and sees no ropes or tethers to keep it aloft.

Shiori kicks into action, swimming straight for the gap and praying that the man didn't lie to her.

As she swims, her lungs ache to stretch out and gulp in air when she knows that if she opens her mouth, only water will stream in. She calls to mind the faces of those she loves and cares for; Pai, Kouta, her little brother, Obaasan, all the Daitengu men who protect her from Hengen who would use her and hurt her, even Shin, the one Daitengu she's never felt sure how to act around.

They all care about Pai. None of them would want anything bad to happen to her, or to lose her. Shiori won't lose her.

She quickly swims through the gap –

– and instead of coming up on the other side of the boulder, Shiori's stomach fills with a dragging sensation as an incredibly powerful force pulls her down.

She falls through the water.