A Love Beyond Time

Gate, Pāragate

Some cross,
Some turn back
Some stop walking and never move again

Shinsenkyō — Horai, The Grand Castle, the previous night

Rien sat in the dark.

Their eyes were closed, bright purple lashes against pale cheeks—plume celosia on snow. Legs folded in the classic lotus pose. They breathed in lightly through the nose.

That was easy.

They breathed out through the mouth—and the breath caught somewhere in their throat.

Rien's eyes flew open. Their lungs clawed for air, heart hammering, strange sounds roaring in their ears. Sounds that had haunted them since that dreadful night in that terrible cave.

That night when Rien had lost the one they were made for.

Ran.

The name snapped through their skull like a whip.

Heat stung behind their eyes. Rien blinked once, twice—only for scalding liquid to spill and flood their face. The stuck breath became a stuck sob that refused to emerge, no matter how hard they coaxed. Instead, it hardened and lodged itself in their throat as a solid lump.

Suffocating.

Choking.

I miss you.

Rien clutched at their throat, then at their heart. Heavens—how could it hurt like this? How could it keep hurting like this?
They gasped again, sapling-thin body shaking as though caught in a hurricane. Unable to bear it any longer, Rien folded in half, still choking, still trembling.

Someone—

Please—

Make it stop.

More tears spilt, soaking the silk pillows. And still the pain kept coming, wave after wave, relentless as a tide.

But amid that flood of consuming grief, something else pushed through.

Something steadier.

Something sharp.

Hate.

Ran.

"I will avenge you," Rien whispered, voice raw, broken clean. "If I can't breathe, then I will burn the world. For you."

===

The Valley—Central Region, current times

Breakfast today is decidedly...peaceful, Yuzuriha mused, spooning a generous mouthful of millet porridge into her mouth. Eyes of limpid amethyst drifted over the faces around the dining table carved entirely from nephrite a rich spinach green.

Green nephrite table in a bamboo grove. Longevity. Resilience. Strength.

Our pretty Seimei is really big on symbolism and meanings. The Kunoichi's shapely lips curved as she chewed and swallowed. Her glance slid to the Fox, noting the pink of his cheeks, the shadowy darkness of his lashes, the delicacy of his features.

Pretty as a white jadeite figurine. Prettier inside, if one considered the things he had gone through and survived. The kind of prettiness forged from fire.

Softness stirred within Yuzuriha then, an unfamiliar tenderness, the kind that babies and kittens pulled out of people without permission. It warmed her chest.

It had been ages since she felt softness. Since Saya was gone.

Saya. Her baby sister, sitting in bed, sweet face aglow with wonder as fireworks blossomed in the night. Fireworks that Yuzuriha had put on for her. For the first—and the last—time.