it's gonna be okay.

it's all my fault.

The overgrowth and shadowing of the red leaf maple trees and largely overgrown flowers that have always surrounded their place, the plants that are always nursed under Vinestaff's care. Shuriken waltzed through the area, scaling up a tree. He leaped from tree to tree, going over to Vine's garden. It was silent, a hushed wind could be heard.
Where was his sister? Usually he heard her humming tunes to herself or the watering of the flowers, but nothing was heard, it was still. He looked around the garden, lotuses around every corner. The garden was still ridden with healthy looking plants, but at the same time, it felt like Ghostwalker's presence walked alongside it. "Sis?" Shuriken called out, hoping to hear her voice. there was no response.

"Vine?"

He trucked along, his voice and head filled with more concern.

"Sis, this isn't funny!"

He called out desperately. With no response still, Shuriken saw engravings of wood and branches seeping into the cracks of cement on the ground, his heart stopped. It was a trail, a trail leading to a tree with beautiful blossom petals falling from the jagged branches above.

Shuriken tried to make out what his sister once was.

The figure of his sister was made out against the tree. her horns, her face, her body shape, all sunken and woven between strips of wood with petals falling from the branches, the lotuses blooming from places of her body that were once her skin. Shuriken stood there, staring and hoping that this was all a sick dream that he was destined to soon wake up from. He ran over to his sister, hugging her, or hugging what was even left of her.

"Vine, please don't go, please, please.. You have to stay with me, please wake up." Her face was content, eyes closed with a neutral expression on her face as the branches swallowed her whole. shuriken realized this was not some dream, it was a nightmare that he couldn't wake up from, it was real. He gripped onto the tree, his claws digging into where the back of her head was as tears streamed down from his face, choking out hiccups and sobs from his throat, hugging the tree as if his sister was still there and he was longing for her embrace. Her embrace never came back to him.

Shuriken's claws scorned the bark of the tree, slouching down and clinging onto the tree tightly as if he was gonna fall from a building. He didn't wanna let go, he couldn't let go. "Wake up, wake up..Please.." His words were barely audible now, they were covered up by voice cracks and sniffles. It felt like eternity that he was lying there, in denial that his sister was truly gone. There couldn't have been a way on how this was all for nothing, could it? Everything that he and his sister have done, to phights and swearing not to leave each others sides.
Shuriken felt as if he betrayed her. Betrayed his sister for not acting sooner, betrayed her on not being there for her as she felt her body seep into the roots down below.

But in reality, there was nothing that he could truly do. From praying to Illumina, to taking action upon this infectious curse.