京都市、6日目

Pai realized too late that she was more nervous than she ought to be, and not for the right reasons – by then, she was already standing in front of Shin's quarters, already here. She couldn't chicken out now.

And she was suddenly panicking over the stupidest thing.

She was not worried about Shin seeing the chaotic swirl of her confused emotions about anything regarding him. It wasn't that he had never done that thing with his Ability with a human before. No, her hands were clammy and her stomach clenched with nerves from only one thing; she was about to enter Shin's room – his room – for the first time.

Never mind that it wasn't his room at Ayashi House, which they all considered home. She'd never been in that room, either. But this was still his bedroom, the place he came back to at the end of the day to sleep, to relax, to be alone. She was about to enter this private space of his, under his own invitation...and she truly had no idea how to feel about it.

Logically, she understood that his room was the best place they could meet. It was private – as Daitengu, he enjoyed the privilege of having a lock on his bedroom where everyone else didn't, which was something Pai was highly uncomfortable with.

No one would disturb them. In her room, it was always possible that someone would disrupt whatever it Shin planned to do to help her remember. There was no such possibility if they did it in his room.

It was also quiet. His room was just on the other side of the bridge from Kouta's own bedroom. There weren't quite as many attendants rushing around in the private quarters of and near the Heir's rooms as there were in any other part of the Palace. What was more, Shin would most likely find it more comfortable to do his thing – however he did it – in the familiarity of his own room rather than elsewhere in the Palace, where anyone might see them.

The bruised thing beating in her chest didn't quite understand the mysterious language of Logic, and continued to thunder painfully away in her chest like it cared exactly nothing for her emotional well-being. What made it worse was that it was still edged in breaking glass from the memory – no, no, it was a dream, it was a dream until I know otherwise – of Midori in Agent's uniform, and from seeing her on the streets the other day, mere feet away, and still losing her again.

That was what bothered her the most about it, besides the fact that Midori was the one who ran off. It wasn't just that Pai had lost her, but that she'd lost her again, and hadn't been able to do anything about it. Just the same way she clearly hadn't been able to do anything about her entire family's disappearance, or how she couldn't find them now.

The misery and sorrow of seeing Midori and the flighty anticipation of entering Shin's room rumbled in her stomach uncomfortably.

She smacked her cheeks, hard enough to leave her head ringing. Blinking as she rubbed her stinging cheeks with a hand, she bent down with a heavy sigh, balancing carefully on the balls of her feet so that she didn't topple over. She looked straight into the green-yellow eyes outlined in black of Sato the cat.

He sat on his heels, regarding her with a look she could definitely say was human, though she still was unsure of whether or not he was Ayakashi. She didn't think so, but with so much heat from all the Hengen around her all the time, she couldn't trust her own innate ability to sense Ayakashi as well as she did on ordinary days.

Maybe if she knew how Aihara did it, she could too.

She hastily shook her thoughts from trampling down that road – she refused to think about Aihara, and what the nurse wanted to say to her, until the time came for it. Her brain was already so clogged up with too many worries. She didn't think she could take it if she added another to the growing pile.

"You either have to wait out here for me," she stated in a firm, no-nonsense tone. "Or go do your own thing while I am with Shin."

Sato mewled plaintively in protest of her inconsiderate command. He reached up, and because he had done this so many times already, she didn't flinch as he swiped at her eyelashes, claws retracted. She simply closed her eyes, and let him do as he liked. Playing with her eyelashes was a favourite pastime of his, whenever he was close enough to them. When he was done, she opened her eyes and shook her head.

"No buts. I don't know if you're actually a cat, or Bakeneko. Your tails," she added with emphasis, nodding at the two tails he had wrapped neatly around his legs as he sat and looked up at her with indignant feline affront. "Don't help. So wait here, or go explore the Palace."

She thought the cat almost huffed in disappointment as he mewed one more time – in what she liked to believe was a promise to return – turned tail(s), and strolled away from her. Sato walked down the corridor, looked left and right, then decided to go left and disappeared around the corner.

She really didn't know if Sato was an ordinary cat or not. Even Shiori hadn't been able to tell, and he was strategically never there when she bumped into the Daitengu in the Palace, so she couldn't ask them. Either way, Sato was cute, and she didn't mind him tagging along.

She figured it would be all right so long as nothing bad happened. If he was Hengen and trying to get close to her to get to Shiori, he wouldn't have so clearly displayed his utter disdain for the Koki Sakura Hime, would he? He didn't even let Shiori pet him, pointing his nose to the air contemptuously when she tried. It was a little funny, to be honest.

She paused before knocking on the door as she dragged her mind away from her new feline companion.

Will you do something?

Like what?

Stop him from helping me remember.

Kuniumi laughed sharply. Why would we ever stop him from doing that?

You don't let me remember.

No, she corrected sternly. We do not force you to remember, as you want us to. If we do, your mind will break.

She lifted her eyebrow. So what Shin is going to do won't?

It will not. This twist to his Ability is tame compared to what will happen if we use our power to break the walls around your memories.

But you're the one who is blocking my memories of what happened in the Torimaku. I can't remember what happened because of you. If what happened was enough to make you stop me from remembering, how do I know you won't stop Shin now?

Because maybe, it's time for you to remember. She replied cryptically.

And you would know? She asked sceptically. You would know when it's time for me to remember?

Maybe we're tired of you trying so hard. It's pitiful. Like watching a four-limbed creature try to walk on one. Maybe you deserve to know what is coming so that you can enjoy what time you have with the family you have now. She laughed emptily. It is tiring, to see this black hole in your mind, where your memories should be. Maybe we are just as tired of forgetting as you are, don't you think?

Kuniumi slid away on the heels of her words, leaving an aching heaviness in her wake.

Pai wondered if it was because she had decided to give her and Shin privacy for what he was going to do. She couldn't know if Kuniumi was gone far enough away for that. She still had no idea where it was Kuniumi left to in the first place. The only thing she could do was trust that Kuniumi wouldn't eavesdrop, or interfere in any way.

She was only mildly disturbed by how easy she found it to trust Kuniumi when she knew next to nothing about the strange woman who inhabited the space in her mind and refused to leave because she didn't want to be alone again. She thought that anyone saner would be more worried by that, but...

Who says I'm sane, she thought glumly.

Steeling her nerves, she lifted her hand and knocked twice before holding her breath. There was a muffled, Come in. The deep voice was definitely Shin's, so she couldn't delay for much longer under the excuse that she'd gotten lost looking for his room. She had already circled this floor three times while trying to find some dregs of courage to knock on his door. Sato had watched on with something that looked very much like amusement as she had.

She held her breath caught in her lungs for five seconds, waiting until it became a sharp pain in the centre of her chest before she released it in a slow exhale. She glanced furtively around, noted that no one was around, and finally slid open his door. She stepped in quickly and turned to make sure the door closed behind her firmly. She turned back.

Shin was only half dressed.

She didn't even think twice as a jolt of shock rocked through her. She shut her eyes tight before she could take anything in and whirled around. She swayed, thrown out of balance, as she threw out a hand to catch herself on the closed door. She yelped out a startled, "I'm sorry! I didn't know you were – "

A taunting chuckle that teased her in ways she would never admit out loud. "It's fine." Amusement laced his words, the sound of his voice tickling her ears. "You can turn around. I'm still relatively decent."

She didn't want to turn around. But then, she did. She wanted to, so much so that she could almost feel the beehive in her stomach buzzing, building up with an almost irresistible anticipation. Licking her dry lips and wishing she'd drank water, her body rigid in tension and hands clenched in tight fists at her sides, she slowly turned around on the heel of her foot.

It was only through sheer strength of will that she just managed to keep her jaw from flopping down to the ground as she marvelled at the sight of a shirtless Shin before her.

Again, Logic coldly informed her that obviously Shin would be physically fit, maintained from all the training he did. She knew that he trained for two to four hours, every morning and evening. But again, her heart didn't understand that cold, detached language. And she had never seen a man shirtless before like this (her father in the middle of the suffocating summer heat didn't count). She simply wasn't prepared, even though a part of her suspected that even if she had seen another man shirtless , her reaction wouldn't be what it was now.

Shin's back was turned to her as he continued to rifle through his dressing table. She thought it was because he was looking for a shirt to put on. Even then, just the sight of his back was enough to leave her gaping, at a complete loss for words.

Broad shoulders tapered down to a lean waist, skin a cool golden from all the time he spent training under the sun. The muscles in his back rolled lithely as he lifted shirt after shirt from the top drawer, inspected them, then carefully folded and put them back. But it wasn't just the sheer masculine beauty of his half-naked form that had her staring – it was the tattoos.

She knew that all Daitengu had tattoos on their chests as testament to their status of the most powerful Tengu. Elite warriors in any Clan had tattoos somewhere on their person to denote their status. Sometimes she would even catch glimpses of the Daitengu's tattoos, coloured in on their skin in the same spectacular shades of their eyes. The night she attacked him in the forest back home, she'd seen a hint of Shin's tattoo, the very tip of deep blue inked on his skin.

But now was different.

His back was covered in tattoos, all smoothly merging into one another to create a single breath-taking masterpiece that looked alive. There weren't so many that it looked distasteful or tacky. Oddly enough, despite it being the first time she was seeing them, she thought they suited him perfectly.

Four-petalled red flowers were tattooed round his upper arms, above his elbows. They were bordered by beautiful designs that curled up his arms until they touched his shoulders before fading out, leaving space around the middle of his back. It was for a black-and-red dragon with a white face, the lower half of its body oil black that slowly melded up into crimson scales as the dragon coiled sensuously from the hems of his jeans upwards to end in an open-mouthed roar at his left shoulder. One curving clawed hand (paw?) of the dragon was inked right under his left shoulder, the other wrapped around a bamboo branch that rose up from the waist of his jeans.

Just barely visible under the long strands of Shin's hair brushing over his shoulders, was a single kanji, inked in black to the nape of his neck.

力

That's what he is, she thought dazedly. He's strong, in so many ways.

"Tattoos..." she finally managed stupidly, struggling to wrap her head around her awestruck wonder at how she had never even had a clue to their existence – and how much she wanted him to turn around, to see what other tattoos were there. "They're...they're..."

Shin glanced over his shoulder at her, wondering at her tone. His eyes flicked down at his tattoos. "Oh. These."

It was clear he had lived with them so long that he didn't even notice them the way she did.

"When...where..." she didn't even know where to start with what she wanted to ask.

She walked forward on hesitant feet, eyes stuck fast to the colours blending in together, the skin that lay under, the power and tightly coiled strength she could almost feel as a tangible thing between them. Her fingers twitched at her sides, a want to touch his bare skin overcoming her enough that she almost reached forward to do it. She stopped in time, mentally scolding herself to behave.

"Would you believe me if I told you?" he asked, smirking at her stunned expression before he turned back to find what he was looking for.

"Of course," she said automatically, not even needing to think about it. "You never lie to me."

Shin's hands paused for an infinitesimal moment before they continued on in their search. She gulped nervously as she watched him, wondering why he didn't turn around to look at her. She stopped just a foot from him, the heat radiating from his body in waves that she so longed for. She had to dig her nails into the palms of her hands as she clenched them tighter to keep from reaching out like she was mere seconds away from doing.

"After Seiran died, I went off the rails. I was angry at everything, everyone. All I wanted to do was hate – it was all I could be for a very long time after he died. I left this place and wandered around Japan for a while on my own," he waved his hand in a circle to indicate what 'this place' was.

She wondered if he meant the Palace from which the man who hadn't done anything about his nephew's death ruled the Tengu, or if he meant the main village itself, his home.

"I hopped back and forth between Korea, China, Japan, even went to Russia for a bit. I fell in with a group of Ayakashi – all Ayakashi, from any Clan. These," he gestured vaguely at his back. "Are symbols of my status there, if I ever choose to go back to them."

Wait, what?

A line formed between her brows. "From any Clan? There are Ayakashi like that? I thought the Clans didn't trust each other. I thought they hated each other."

Despite the Territory Treaties, Hengen were still deeply mistrustful and suspicious of one another, though they were able to conduct business with each other for the sake of prosperity for their own. She'd seen it occasionally in the way some of the people here looked at one another, felt it in the tension beneath the friendly words they spoke to one another.

Ayakashi were so fiercely protective of trying to maintain the peace that they even managed to tolerate each other for a little bit every year in the name of keeping the threat of blood and war away.

Without turning, though his hands had ceased all movement from sensing how close he could tell she was, he said, "The Clans do. These are Ayakashi who left, who don't ally themselves with their Clans anymore. They're an admittedly notorious group, and not for the right reasons, exactly. They call themselves the Yakuza Ayakashi."

Sorry, what?

She blinked. "Yakuza?"

He nodded, but he still didn't turn. She watched his hair shift like silk over his nape, momently covering the chikara tattoo before it peeked out again.

"An underworld organization, made up of Hengen who decided to set aside their differences and live, work, be together as one cohesive unit. They're a law unto themselves, and will take orders from no one but themselves, though they don't actively seek out trouble with the Clans." He laughed snidely, a bitter sound. "You could say that they are an entire Clan all on their own.

"Yakuza Ayakashi," she repeated, tasting the words, trying to imagine Shin being a part of something like that. "An underworld organization? Like...like the, um – the human Yakuza?" she stammered, not knowing how else to say it.

"They're not affiliated with the human Yakuza. They were before the humans stole the name from them." He said. There was a faint hint of something in his voice, something she couldn't quite pinpoint. She thought it was a tone of jest, maybe. "But that doesn't mean they're innocent and run charities."

"Oh." She mumbled. Her attention was still vastly held captured by the tattoos, her eyes running over the curving black and red ink, the sharp and angular lines. She asked hesitantly, "Can I touch them?"

She wouldn't have even asked to, the audacity of it almost stopping her, but curiosity was her driving force. It was her fatal flaw, and it drove her to near madness when she wanted to know about something but couldn't. Right now, she wanted to know if the tattoos felt like something attached to him, bumpy and ridged and alien, or if they were smooth and velveteen on his skin as they looked.

She bit her lip as she waited nervously for his answer.

After a moment's deliberation, she was surprised when he gave her a small nod. Spreading his hands out to loosely grip the edge of the chest of drawers in his hands, he gave her complete freedom. Her dysfunctional heart quivered uncertainly in her chest as she wondered what it meant for them that he so readily allowed her to touch him.

She licked her dry lips as she inched forward, drawing closer, reaching her hand out. Her fingers trembled just at the thought of touching his skin.

The muscles in his back rippled gently as he took a deep breath, waiting patiently. Her own caught in her chest and she hesitated briefly. Then, pressing her lips together in determination, she finally crossed the few inches of space between them. Nervous tension radiated from every fibre of her being. The tip of her finger brushed over the tip of the dragon's claw inked into his skin, just under Shin's left shoulder blade. It was only then that she realized she was holding her breath.

It blew out in an explosive gasp as her whole world exploded in an angry blue and red sea around her as she looked down at the blood welling up over the palm of her hand.

The stinging pain from pressing the sharp edge of the blade so hard into her palm was nothing compared to the pain that lanced through her heart every time the images of bloody carnage flashed through her mind, whenever she closed her eyes. Her hands were shaking. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest, she was surprised that the man standing in front of her, watching her, made no comment.

Blood rushed to her ears as she stood on the grassy knoll, loud and drowning out the sounds of the twittering birds wheeling in the sky above her, the wind blowing through the trees and in her clothes. Nothing else seemed to exist except Shin and the pain in her heart, in her memories, and in her hand.

Her eyes flicked to the side when she saw a movement, and she scowled at Kouta menacingly when the other boy made a move. Kouta pressed his lips into a disapproving frown, though he knew that no matter what he said, Shin would not change her mind on this.

A harsh, biting voice cut through before Kouta could make another move, the thought so clearly evident in the open book of his eyes. "Don't interrupt, boy."

"This is madness," Kouta protested, his yellow eyes beseeching. He was clearly so disturbed by what was taking place that he made no comment on being called 'boy', as he usually did. "If he does this we won't be able to help him afterwards, if he even lives. My father will have to turn his back on Shin-kun and deny all association with him."

Sharp indigo eyes snapped to Kouta, and he quailed at the bitterness in the older man's eyes. "Maybe your father should have thought of that before he allowed the bastards to get away with murdering one of our own because of a damn paper."

"He had no choice. That paper keeps the rest of us alive!"

"Choices are not something that can be taken from a person. The lowliest slave has a choice in whether or not he remains labourer to his master's wishes, even if that choice comes with the pain of death. Now shut up." The eyes slid back to watch the silent bent head of Shin's dark hair. "Make the wrong move and he'll be dragged down to Yomi-no-kuni just like his little friend was, roaming that lonely world for all eternity like the cursed goddess who rules it."

Kouta's mouth snapped shut, as if he were a marionette heeding the whims of its master. He only glared at the older man who had so quickly shot down his protests.

At the same time, Shin's blazing blue eyes shot up to the stern, tall figure of Kobayashi Hiiro, who stood imposingly over him. Her lips pulled back over her teeth. "Don't ever say that in front of me, ever again."

Kobayashi stared down at the young boy with an inscrutable look in his eyes. His dark grey, thick eyebrows rose as he continued to look at the boy. As he watched he saw something, a flicker of red steal across the blue of her eyes, a quick look into the depths of Shin's soul, and for a moment Kobayashi realized that he was staring into the malevolent, hateful eyes of Shinigami. The maelstrom of twisted emotions almost made him dizzy, they were so powerful.

Finally, he nodded in acquiesce. Shin glared at the older man for a few moments longer before she looked down again. Kobayashi silently watched the fierce determination in Shin's every move as she pressed down harder on the blade.

The cold wind whispering through the trees and ruffling their hair stung the open, gaping wound of their hand. Blood pooled in their palm before overflowing and running down their arm, staining the sleeve of their dark blue kimono lined in thin white edges. The glinting silver-metal edge of the tanto blade dripped with blood as Shin savagely drew the blade down their palm, marking out the final curve of the kanji that they knew would rule their every thought until the deed was done.

"Speak the words I taught you," Kobayashi said in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. His indigo eyes were glowing faintly, making him look almost inhuman in the intensity with which he watched the young boy in front of him. "Speak them, and imbue in them all your anger, all your hatred and loathing, your bitterness. Make the words a part of who you are, and who you will be."

Despite the shaking of the young boy's hands, Shin spoke in a clear and unwavering voice. Their blue eyes melted into red as Shin allowed the words to wash over them, to overcome them, to become the truest part of them alongside Shinigami stirring restlessly inside. They flicked down to the ground, to where it was believed Yomi-no-kuni, the realm of the dead, resided beneath the feet of the living. Fat drops of their blood plopped to the ground and soaked into the grass-covered earth, becoming one with it. As they spoke, they were entirely unaware of the double-voiced quality that crept into the words they uttered.

"With my voice I speak these words of fulfilling this oath. With my heart I swear to carry out this mission, with my blood and soul I vow to see it to the end. Izanami-no-Mikoto, grant me the power to become the death I seek to bring upon my enemies. Izanami-no-Mikoto, give me your blessing to deliver you the souls your husband helped bring to this world. Izanami-no-Mikoto, grant me the prayer I give you to become my true namesake and do what needs to be done."

×

Pai yanked herself savagely from the stinging pain in her hand, pulling herself away from Shin.

She stumbled back on unsteady feet, and fell to the ground, landing with a harsh gasp. Her gaze dropped down to her smarting hand. She expected to see blood there. She could still feel it dripping sluggishly down her shaking fingers...but there was none. Her hands were trembling again, buzzing with invisible pain at the wrists.

But there was no blood, no cuts shaping into a single kanji that was becoming all too familiar a sight. She stared uncomprehendingly at the hand she gripped by her wrist with the other, trying to quell the pain rolling up her arm in numbing waves.

There was nothing there. There was nothing there, just like when she punched the mirror and it didn't break even though felt the pain of it.

Where's – where's the blood? I – I cut myself, I saw it –

Shin was on his knees in front of her, his hands on her shoulders as he called her name. It was like she heard him from far, far away, his voice muffled and more like an echoing remnant of what it usually was. When she finally looked up at his face, clouded in frantic worry, her eyes glazed over as she replayed what she'd just seen – who she had just been – in an endless loop.

Tiny black stars danced in her vision, marring the perfect sight of Shin. Her chest was tight. It hurt. It hurt, so much that she thought she would collapse from the pain that felt like it was killing her from the inside. But this pain, it was different. It wasn't her pain and anger that pounded through her chest, stinging her palm, burning her eyes, twisting her insides to broken pieces trying to stick together.

It was Shin's. The memory of it, muted and dulled by the unforgiving brush of time, but still his.

"I saw." She mumbled, words running into each other.

A single tear fell down her cheek as she lifted her eyes to his worried blue ones, but she couldn't make a move to wipe it away. His eyes were midnight diamonds with the pupil a tiny pinprick hole right in the middle. Flecked around the limbal ring around his iris were slivers of red, so faint that she wouldn't have seen them at all if he wasn't so close.

"What did you see?" he asked, his voice tight.

"Kouta," she whispered. "Younger. He was a boy, a boy like Ryuu, and – and a man with purple eyes – " tremors rocked through her, and her own voice shook as she tried to control her breathing, failed. "I – I saw you – I could feel you – me – my – my hand – "

She broke off as she lifted her hand between them, staring at her palm. Her hand was almost too white, more ghostly and translucent than usual. Her palm was empty but for the criss-crossing lines imprinted in her skin. Nothing more was there.

No blood. No cut skin flapping at the edges, loosened by the tanto blade that sliced it open. No kanji – no kishoumon forever imprinted into the fabric of her physical being.

"Shit," he breathed.

She barely heard it. She still stared at her hand, as if the longer she looked at it, the easier she'd see the scarred oath.

Shin lined his hand along her cheek, cupping her face in the palm of his hand as he tilted her head, forcing her to look up at him. His thumb brushed over the tear that streaked down her cheek. "Pai – "

Before he could continue, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her in an unbelievably tight hug. She blearily took note of the fact that he had pulled on a black t-shirt at some point. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying to ground herself in the moment as she immersed herself in the heat of Shin's body, the feel of her arms around him. Her breath came in short, harsh bursts as she tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, her heart weighed heavy in her chest as she unwillingly saw too-colourful bursts of pictures in her head.

A younger, shorter version of Kouta with his prized blond hair just at his shoulders, yellow eyes begging his best friend not to do what he thought would get him killed. A man, old yet still giving off the vibes of being strong and able, the intensity of angry indigo eyes glaring down at Kouta, snapping cruelly at him. The blade of the tanto, ice cold as she – he – forced it down on her upturned palm, cutting into the skin deep, so painfully deep.

And Shin.

Shin.

Shin's arms wound around her waist, one hand resting on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades. She was so small in his arms, like a bird, so fragile and easy to break, but her grip on him was impossibly strong – and desperate. She clung to him so tight that he couldn't imagine letting her go. Shin had never realized what it felt like to be held like this by another person before she had shown it to him.

Before.

Before her, he repeated to himself. Shin had started to categorize a lot of things in his life like that; before she had shown up in his life. Before Pai. After Pai. With Pai.

"Your pain," she finally said, her voice muffled by his shirt as she spoke against his shoulder. "I saw – I felt it. I saw you swearing that you would..." she trailed off.

A ball of cotton was choking her. Her whole being was overwhelmed by the sheer overload of emotion she'd felt from just one touch. Everyone thought that he was aloof, that he remained indifferent, that he didn't feel like everyone else did. And that was true. He didn't feel the way they did – he felt more.

Shin didn't say anything for a long time, and the quiet stretched out between them like a gulf of silence. He simply held on to her. She didn't realize that he did it for her as much as for himself.

"I'm sorry." His words were terse, concealing something darker, colder, that lived inside him. "I was lowering my mental shields so that making your memories visible would be easier. I didn't mean for that to happen. I didn't consider that your own senses could be sensitive enough that you'd see one of my memories."

You're a very sensitive one...she could only just recall Konohana's gentle voice soothing her shot nerves. You not only hear, but see me as well. Most of you can't even hear me.

"That was you. I was you." She mumbled, disoriented and frowning as she tried to sort through the confusion in her head.

She fell back to sit with her legs folded beneath her, but she still kept her hands on his shoulders. She reached up and pushed away a curling strand of jet-black that fell over his forehead. Shin watched with an inscrutable look in his eye, but he made no move to push her away.

"Did you – you kept all that in?" she asked disbelievingly. "All this time?"

Her eyes flicked down to his lips as he pursed them. He didn't say anything. He didn't look like he was going to admit it aloud. She knew with unflinching, complete certainty that he'd locked that pain away, deep inside himself, in a place where no one else would ever see. She just didn't know why he'd kept it all to himself, why he hadn't let anyone in.

Sorrow filled her to the brim. This man, so strong, had been through so much more than she could possibly imagine. The first time she'd met him, she couldn't imagine there being anyone stronger – in every imaginable way – than Shin. What she'd seen in the memory was just a bare fraction of what he felt. She couldn't imagine how horribly wrong she had been to think that Shin wasn't without scars he kept hidden from the world.

"Why?" she asked, voice thick.

Shin leaned back, remaining sitting on his haunches but dropping his hand to her waist when he saw her sway slightly, her balance knocked off. He shook his head, and there.

There, there was the wall, the one she hadn't seen for the last few days she'd spent with him. The one she couldn't see past to his true self no matter how hard she tried. It came crashing down on anything he might have said, his eyes shutting away any emotion she might have seen swirling in the blue depths of his eyes.

She whipped her mind to attention and jerked herself back from him when she saw his wall falling between them, and Shin moving away from her. A cloud of hurt settled over her, and she felt so foolish, so stupid, for feeling like that when she had no right to. It wasn't like there was anything between them.

Pain was coming at her from so many places and all at once that she simply didn't know what – how – to think. Scrambling up to her feet, she retreated back a few steps to put some distance between them. At least then she would be able to think. Thinking was what she did best. For better or worse, she was a person ruled by logic, not emotion.

In order to give Logic the reigns back, she needed to be as physically far away from Shin as she could get, without totally running away. Being near him scrambled her fried brain apart, lighting the nerves under her skin in odd ways she couldn't understand. Logic simply abandoned her around him, and she desperately needed it back right now.

"I'm – I am sorry." She shook her head resolutely, blinking rapidly to stop the fall of the tears threatening to dive, burning her with liquid fire. "That was private. I am sorry that I saw it."

"Pai – " he started, standing up after her.

Her heart thudded at the sound of her name on his lips. He so rarely said it – why did it take something like this happening for him to speak her name?

"No." She cut him off, knowing he was going to say it wasn't her fault, because that's who he was. He tried to take the blame for things so she wouldn't. She wasn't going to let him do that this time round. "I should not have seen that. I am sorry."

His lips twitched. "You don't have to say sorry all the time."

"It was my fault," she repeated firmly. "I should not have asked to – I am sorry."

Speaking to him so coldly, so formally, it felt wrong. Before, it sounded weird for her to speak informally, almost scary. As if she feared some punishment would befall her for being informal. This strange new dynamic between her and Shin was too novel, too different and unknown and raw.

With everyone at Ayashi House she knew her definite place and relationship. She was perfectly fine and at ease with all the others at home, she knew what lines there were between her and them and knew not to cross them. Shin was different and she didn't even know why. With Shin, she was thrown into uncharted territory. She didn't know what was right and what was wrong. She didn't know how she was supposed to handle herself around him.

She could only stick to what she did know, and chose to speak and act as she had for one year with him; like they were perfect strangers.

So she obstinately clung to the distance her use of formal speech created between them, even as a part of her lamented over the how far it drew her away from him. The space she forcefully put yawned between them, stifling and almost making her change her mind. It hurt to do it, but she needed the somewhat shaky stability it gave her because of its familiarity.

Routine was a painful comfort.

She made a move to bow as a visible show of her sincere apology, but she stopped herself before she could. She recalled how Shin told her – practically demanded, even – that she never bow to him again, that day on the roof at school. She remembered how uncomfortable and ill at ease he was when Tengu in the Palace and the village bowed to him. Gulping down her nervous awkwardness, she smoothed her hands down the front of her homongi, wondering what she could possibly say.

Shin spoke into the silence for her. "Do you still want to do this?"

Her heart clenched.

So they were going to leave the turbulent, leaden emotions between them thrown up in the air, untouched. Everything that built up in the last few days between them was unravelling, like strings cut in half. The broken threads were still there, thin, clinging to one another, but faded out so much that it would mean one of them taking the risk to breach the wall between them to fix the strings, to weave them back together and hope they didn't snap in half again.

Not everything comes with strings, Kuniumi once said. Some strings are broken before they can ever be spun into something meaningful.

A mild panic flowered in her stomach at his question. Eyes darting up to his, she quickly bobbed her head in a nod. "Do you?"

"Only if you do."

"I want to."

"Are you sure?" he pressed.

Without warning, Shin leaned forward and caught her chin in his hand, holding her in place and capturing her full attention with those intent blue eyes of his, trapping her in their depths. Her skin lit up, fried in an electric shockwave at his touch. She couldn't look away from him even if she tried.

"You saw what happened when I let you in," he warned in a low voice. "If we do this, it won't be to the extent that I'll be you in your memories, but I'll see. I will see it all, and I will know what you feel through it. Are you certain you want to go through with this?"

At his words, she paused. He'd already said as much before, that she wouldn't have any secrets from him about what happened that day. But she needed this. She needed to know.

What happened just now scared her, the intensity of witnessing a part of Shin's past like that terrifying her to the point that a tiny part of her wanted to change her mind. She didn't want anyone seeing what was inside her head. She didn't want anyone knowing something terrible about her memories before she got to know of it herself.

But she couldn't let it hold her back. She needed to know what happened that day, to know what Shinigami said to her that made Kuniumi squirm with discomfort, that made her forcibly block of the memory of what happened in the Torimaku just to stop Pai from learning the truth.

Nothing scared Kuniumi. Nothing worried her. She grieved, she laughed, she cried, she never feared – but whatever Shinigami said to Pai, it was clearly enough to warrant worry from the strange woman.

Enough that she blocked the memory away from Pai's mind.

She gritted her teeth in fierce determination, heart burning with it. "I know what I am getting in to."

He continued to watch her in silence for a moment longer. She held his gaze unflinchingly, knowing that he was testing her. She knew from watching the Daitengu interact for over a year that these little stare-downs were like soft tests of dominance.

Look away and you were weak. If she did that now, even for a split second, he would take it as a sign of weakness. He would deem her unfit to go through with this, not ready, even if she only looked away because of a distraction.

She would not let anyone see her as weak, especially not Shin.

He took a deep breath and sighed as he unfolded his arms and gestured. "Sit down."

Blinking, she looked down. "Here?"

At his nod, she slowly lowered herself to sit stiffly on the tatami mat laid out over the floor. Shin sat down beside her, crossing his long legs and bracing his elbows on his knees. "Turn around. I need to touch your neck to do this."

"My neck?" she repeated, her heart thundering. Logic was slipping away at how close he was, even as she tried to keep a firm hold of it.

She followed his instruction and turned around so that her back was to him. Her skin felt too tight stretched over her bones, her every move too stiff and bunglesome. As she moved, her eyes made a cursory sweep of his room. She was mildly surprise to see that Shin's room was as plain as hers was, with only a few personal markers.

Hanging by a red thread on the window sill was a simple paper charm that swayed gently at the cool gust of the evening wind that carried to them the faint sounds of the festival. On the other side of the room from his chest of drawers was a parchment hung up on the wall, filled with messily scrawled kanji that she thought might be a poem, though she could hardly make out what it was. There was a simple futon neatly made right under a window overlooking the expanse of the sprawling Palace, and the forest beyond it.

A quiet rustle of clothes as he shifted closer. Her eyes darted down when she saw his jean-clad knees on either side of her. She could feel the heat from his body at her back. Her bones were brittle, so easy to snap at the slightest movement. She held herself still as her ponytail was lifted, and a shiver raced through her muscles at the brush of his knuckles on the back of her neck. barely managed to suppress a shiver at the brush of his knuckles on the back of her neck.

"May I?" he asked softly. She could tell nothing of what was behind his thoughts. As per usual.

'Usual' hurt.

She didn't want their usual to be so stiff and distant like this, but she didn't know what they were without it, what their boundaries were. She didn't know what she was supposed to do without limits. She was scared of doing something wrong and ruining everything.

Rigidly, she nodded. She felt her hair tie sliding down the long length of her hair, so slowly, so agonizingly slow. Her eyes closed as she savoured the feel of Shin's hands on her hair. He finally slipped the hair tie off, winding his fingers gently through the artificially black strands.

She swallowed thickly. Was this supposed to feel so – so intimate? Or was she alone in that thought?

He parted her hair down the middle, his hands feather-light as he touched her hair. She automatically reached up and took hold of the two halves of her hair, pushing them more securely over her shoulders. She laid the long tresses on her chest on either side so that he could have complete, unobstructed access to her neck.

Sitting like this left her more vulnerable than she had ever been before. She was at Shin's complete mercy. If he were any other person, he could so easily snap her neck. If she didn't know him as well as she did, if he really was a perfect stranger to her, she would rail against herself for being so foolhardy as to allow herself to be so exposed, so alone and defenceless, to an Ayakashi.

But she did know him.

He was as complicated and polar as they came, with his own dark, scarred past, but she knew him. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her. He was skittish enough as it was to go through with this – the thought of Shin purposefully trying to hurt her was simply ludicrous. Such absurd ideas belonged more in the realm of fantasy than in the reality she was in.

She felt his hesitation. "Is there something wrong?" she asked.

"This," the whisper of the tip of his finger trailed down the back of her neck. Goose flesh lifted the hairs of her arms. "Is this from the Onihitokuchi?"

She realized he was talking about the faint scar at the back of her neck. She'd never seen it with her own eyes, but when she bathed or fixed her hair up she could feel the bumps of the knitted, tender skin there. The scar had never faded and still felt tender like it hadn't healed completely. She'd already resigned herself to the fact that it might stay with her forever. A constant reminder of her naïve weakness.

Frowning as she wondered why he was asking, she said, "Yes."

"That was three months ago." Steel control in his tight words. "Why hasn't it healed yet?"

"I do not know," she admitted. She had wondered why the scar hadn't faded since it wasn't a deep cut, but then she'd simply forgotten about it. There were more important things to fret over than a scar. "Kanou-san said the scar might stay. Is it a problem?"

"No." He said curtly. It didn't seem like he would tell her why he asked her about it in the first place, and considering her sudden take of aloofness with him, she wasn't all that surprised. "Are you ready?"

A nod.

There was another long moment of hesitation, but she didn't say anything this time. She had already told him she wanted this, that she was ready for it. Even if a part of her wasn't entirely sure she was.

Maybe he was regretting telling her about what his Ability could do considering the unknown dangers it might entail, but it was too late for him to change his mind now. She'd already made up hers and she wasn't going to back down.

She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and tipped her head forward, exposing her neck to him more, openly inviting. Behind her she heard a slight hitch of breath. She was tempted to glance back to see if she could catch what expression flitted across his face.

His fingers brushed over the back of her neck once more, and then he laid out his palm over her neck, fingers splayed around the base of her head as if he was cradling her skull.

It happened much faster than she thought it would.

An unexpected jolt of electricity arced through her body, her nape made all the more sensitive from the tingling rush she still could feel coursing through her veins at seeing one of his memories. Her stomach jumped, her heart squeezed tight, a sudden pain in her chest for every beat it gave. Her eyes started to slide shut, heavy, so heavy she couldn't keep them open anymore. For one perfect moment she felt weightless, disconnected from reality and her body.

Then there was a deep tug in the pit of her stomach. A plunging sensation dragged at her, and she was so sure that she was falling that she tried to open her eyes to see if she really was. Her senses were sluggish and muddy, and it took years to finally open her eyes.

Hearing, sight, smell, touch, it all snapped back to her with almost painful clarity, all at once, like wires being reconnected to the ports of a dying computer. It wasn't the wall of Shin's bedroom that she was looking at when her eyes flickered open.

It was the glowing red irises of Shinigami, his lips kicked up in a wild smirk that threatened to devour all she was.