She is dying to watch the fight.

She wants to go back. She wants to, oh, she wants to go back. She wants to see, she wants to see the edge of insanity Shinigami trails so dangerously close to, so, so close.

She wants to see Kagetora again, wants to see the knowing looks he gives her and not Pai, looks that the girl doesn't notice, looks that tell her that he knows she is in here with Pai. She wants to see him because he gives her the recognition she so longs for, so tired is she of being bound to Pai. She knows he hates her, loathes her, but she still wants him to see her, she still wants to see him.

It's been so long, too long.

But she can't. She can't go because if she does she might see him, too. She can't risk letting that happen. It is too early. Pai and Shin haven't even gotten anywhere yet. Pai has only just realized why her stomach flutters when Shin is around her, why her skin flushes when he touches her, why her cheeks redden to beautiful rosy fires when he looks at her.

All this time, all this boredom, and only now does she realize why she reacts to him when she is so aloof to almost everyone else around her.

She wants Pai to have a little more. Enough pain, enough sorrow and misery has plagued Pai's life. She wants to let Pai have just a little more, a little taste of happiness before the pain returns with a vengeance.

"Cruel..."

She reaches a lazy arm through the greyish brown cloud-ground. Her fingers trail over quiet, icy water, and she swirls her hand in circles. Her lips move in a half-smile when the tips of her fingers brush over huge, reptilian scales that swim just beneath the surface of the ocean that normally boils in rage, but is now calm and docile according to her mood.

"Some would think us cruel for wanting her to have some peace before we snatch it away. But we're not, are we?"

No, my Queen, a great, gravelly voice replies, its thundering echoes stretching far all around them. She listens to the water below the cloud-ground surging as the massive serpent below arches his body over the tranquil ocean he dwells in. You are not cruel. You wish the child to know that the world is not as evil as it will soon seem to her. This way, there will always be a part of her that remains pure when everything else fades to darkness.

"But isn't it?" She questions curiously, an old and familiar anger churning in her gut. "He promised us forever, and then he stole it from us. Pai dares accuse us of condemning her to our madness? He sentenced us to this place! Is that not evil? Is he not the cruel one?"

He is, the serpent replies, choosing to languish just below sight, obscuring his massive body from view in the waters that swirl around him. But you know why you must not go to her now.

"We know." She begrudgingly assents, pouting as she takes her hand out of the water and flops back on the cloud-ground, allowing the mist to coil around her naked body, obscuring her from view. "But we want to see."

If you go and he shows himself, even momentarily, you know you won't be able to control yourself. It will not be him you kill then – it will be Shin. Do you think Pai will let you continue invading her mind the way you have for so long if you kill him?

Her lips twist. She doesn't like Longwei's tone, but she won't reprimand him for it. He is right. He knows her better than almost everyone who knows her real identity, of the woman who hides behind the false name of 'Kuniumi' in order to protect Pai from the truth. He knows of the madness that eats at her, that blackens the deepest parts of her that she tries to hide from herself.

"Pai knows what will happen to her if she tries to get rid of us." She answers, as if that knowledge is adequate protection.

Gooseflesh rises over her skin as a low growl reverberates beneath her. A vortex of wind whirls a few feet from her, whipping the clouds to a crazed frenzy, sending little tornadoes racing away from the centre of the maelstrom. Stone cracks, splintering as it breaks away from where the Imoogi uses his strength to blow away the stone and clouds that separate him from his Lady.

The ocean whirlpools, huge waves crashing as Longwei lifts himself out of the water. The great white serpent Pai glimpsed months ago hovers over her, water streaming between his monolithic scales and dripping waterfalls everywhere around him, fanning hood moving about his head slowly, as if still through the incredible pressure of deep waters.

He spreads his great jaws apart, stretching them wide open to show the huge, sharp teeth nestled in his mouth. Two sets of canines are fastened on either side, easily twice her height. A waft of hot air blows from the serpent's mouth as he breaths, before it cools as he drags in a deep, deep breath and closes his mouth again.

Longwei, an ancient dragon the world has not seen in aeons, gives her one long and searching look with eyes gone white, eyes that look blind from battles long past, yet she knows he sees more clearly than most. She returns his gaze impassively, as a petulant child intent on maintaining an air of innocence will.

Pai knew what would happen. Longwei does not use his mouth to speak. He doesn't need to. In this lonely, desolate world she rules, she can hear the thoughts of every single scurrying swimming desperate creature that inhabits it. Pai can too, if not for the block in her mind. The Onmyoji tampered with her memories, and she has only just begun to recover them. She no longer remembers the risk to herself if she forces you out. Even if she did...if you kill Shin using her hands, she will separate herself from you, and you will wait another millennia for a chance like this to come again.

"But we're bored! We're so bored, Longwei. She's slow this time," she retorts pleadingly, jumping to her feet and stalking closer to the serpent. She tilts her head back, long black curls tumbling over bare shoulders and down her back to brush over the cloud-ground she stands on.

She swallows thickly, clinging to the false façade of rational, of calm that has wrapped its sweet lies around her. She knows she is insane. She knows that none of her actions make sense any of the time, she knows that she is dangerous to everything and everyone around her.

But there are times when she tiptoes close to what she thinks might pass for being her normal. There are times when her mind isn't clouded with grief and rage and sorrow, times when her thoughts are crystal and pristine. They come rarely. She tries to make them last as long as she can. That is why she left Pai alone now, to face both Kagetora and Shinigami alone. If she remained, and if she saw him, even if for only a moment hidden behind Shinigami, she would lose that rare calm.

Longwei is right about that. Staying here, in this world Pai has no idea is so close, is the smartest thing to do.

But she is bored.

Remember, he cautions, a sad glint stealing into his milky white eyes. Remember what she has been through. Remember how innocent she was going into that world. Remember how warped she became when she came out of that nightmare. Can you begrudge her for reliving all of it slowly, piece by piece at a time, than all at once?

"Humans are weak. They die on the faintest whims of the most obscure gods so easily." She growls, frustrated. "She needs to be stronger if she's going to survive."

Longwei shakes his hood, sending water spraying all around him, and angles his head to the side minutely. The water falls around her, but not a drop touches her, as if she stands encased in an invisible sphere that keeps anything from coming close to her. He regards her with a curious look in his blind eyes, testing how much of what she said is lie, and how much is truth.

Pai, he says slowly. Is not Bibari. Pai is not Touka.

Her nose twitches at the reminder. "She should be."

Those two were trained for you. Pai is different. She was born unprepared, where Bibari's soul learned to expect and embrace you. Touka was the strongest of her line, and still she perished.

"Then Pai should be stronger than them all. She should be them all."

But she is not. She is neither of them. She will never be them. You found a loophole no other has because of your impatience, a piece that is separated from the whole. Now, you must wait for her to be ready for what is to come.

"Then how will she get stronger?" she asks, her lips twisting in displeasure. She is patient, but she is so tired of waiting. Her patience is not infinite. Maybe she was foolhardy when she found her 'loophole' with Pai, but she waited so long already. "How much longer do we have to wait for her, Longwei?"

As long as is needed. He answers sagely. Moving in characteristic deliberateness, he lowers his head until his eyes are level with hers.

She watches him, then steps forward and rests her forehead against his, between his white eyes that slide shut with an audible click when she comes close to him. He is cold, but his move of familiarity in an attempt to soothe her touches her in ways few things rarely do. It warms her.

You must wait. If you move wrong, she will crumble like this place she calls 'cloud-ground', and you will be responsible for what happens to her. You love her, my Queen. You cannot let her break.

Her stomach tightens as she thinks of how close Pai already is to breaking. Longwei is right, again, as he always is.

She loves Pai. She loves her, and she wants to protect Pai from the coming chaos, but she knows she can't. Not from all of it. If she tries to shield Pai by stopping it, the world will splinter, and even the Kigen will not be able to stop what threatens to come from the deepest bowels of the hells the Oni are borne from.

She wants to protect Pai from it all, but she is not meant to interfere so directly in the lives of mortals. Any mortal, even one such as Pai, even one surrounded by the meandering circumstances that have brought her to face two incredibly powerful Ayakashi, now.

Something cold stabs her. She flinches, moving away from Longwei. She is about to say something, to warn him to move away from her lest she hurt him like she did that one time, but she doesn't have a chance to as her throat closes off. Her heart freezes in her chest, and ice spreads through her veins as a manic grin breaks her face.

Izanami's madness has returned, slicing through her as its insidious claws dig deep.

Shaking his head, the dragon rises up. He feels the arctic wind whip about Izanami in a furore as her blackened aura condenses in a visible sphere around her. An indescribable, infinite regret fills him at the lamentable fate his Lady is condemned to by the man she'd trusted with her everything. He watches the white paint of Pai's hair bleed through the black oil of Izanami's hair, as her face morphs into a visage of the monstrous insanity that lurks deep inside his beloved Queen.