Epilogue: Future Days

Eien Akagawa

I stared at the sliding door that led into the seers sanctuary. It was covered in a dark blue and black background with distant stars shining brightly. I thought back to the last time I had been here a week ago. When I had left this very image had been on the door. The seer had always known what I was.

“Are you sure you want to go in alone?” Iroha asked from behind. I turned back to face her. She sat with her legs under her making tea with the teapot on the table. I guess the seer had heard our complaints from last time and thought to add it in the waiting area.

“Yes, I don’t need your support this time.” I straightened my newly mended red suit, this time without the haori. That had been in tatters and it would take a long while for Iroha to repair it for me.

Iroha giggled softly. “Oh, Eien. You will always have my support.”

“I guess,” I said as I turned back to the door. “That I should know better by now that I’ll never be alone.”

I slid open the door and stepped through, shutting it behind me. The room was the same as last time, a large circular room with green lanterns providing light. However, it seemed that the seer had left the plants that she had grown when she had spoken to Kizuna. At least, I thought it was the same plants from what Iroha had told me.

The seer had made a nest of webs on top of the cherry blossom tree in the middle of the room. Despite her webbing, petals floated from the tree and around the room. She was leaning back in a position I assumed that was comfortable for her since she had to contend with the large body of a spider below her torso.

I walked up to the tree, far enough away so that the branches wouldn’t obscure my view of her. I studied her as we both remained silent. Her black eyes were fixed on the darkness that hid the ceiling from view. Her chitinous hands were clasped together as if in prayer.

“Eien,” she said, her low voice soothing. She moved her head slightly, her black eyes flicking to me. “Do you know what cherry blossoms stand for?”

I put a hand on the hilt of my katana, or at least tried to. The familiar gesture failed me as I remembered that I had yet to replace it. I also missed the comforting weight of the revolver but there hadn’t been enough left of it to save.

“No, I don’t know what they stand for.” From this angle the seer almost looked like a tragic beauty. My mind flashed to Kizuna’s face as I had carried her across the beach and I winced. “I assume that it’s important to what we’re about to discuss?”

She pursed her black lips before speaking. “They stand for the transience of life.”

“How fitting,” I muttered with bitterness as I looked away from her to look at the roots of the tree.

“Have you come to kill me?” she asked abruptly.

“Don’t you know the future?” I countered as I looked back to her eyes.

“Yes, and there was a future where I died by your hand.”

We stared at each other in silence for a moment before I raised my hands. “I don’t have any weapons with which to kill you. I have my jitte but that really isn’t meant for lethal blows.”

“Anything can be used lethally,” she said as she climbed down the tree.

“That is true, but I have no desire to use it for such.” I walked over to her as she sat beneath the cherry blossom tree, next to its roots. “I had always wanted to use it to protect but as you no doubt saw, I failed in that regard. One of the many reasons that the god residing inside of it rejects me.”

She smiled sadly at me. “Have you come to ask about Kizuna?”

“You know that I did.” I sat on one of the roots of the tree. “Did you let Kizuna know that her choices would let her die?”

“That is a risk we all run every day, but yes, I did show her the paths that would cut her life short.” She gazed out across the room, her eyes unseeing. “I told her I wanted to see how her story ended. I had a pretty good idea what she was going to choose if she ended up in a certain set of futures.”

She turned her head to look at me and I had to remind myself that her circular eyebrows were another set of eyes. “I let her know that she would have to be cruel and allow you and Iroha to expend your lives. I believe that Iroha even said to allow the pair of you to use your lives to protect her. However, Kizuna was far too kind to use the two of you in that way. Even if it meant her death.”

I let out a long and shuddering breath. “That answers that question. Iroha said that Kizuna knew the risks but I had to ask you myself.”

“Do you regret taking her job?”

“No. If I hadn’t she would have lived until she turned into a living god. I can’t say that I would have wanted that for her.”

“Because you know what it’s like?”

I resisted the urge to run a hand down my face to feel for cracks in my skin. The marks had vanished the day after we had come back to Edo. “Yes, I know what it’s like.”

She waited for me to elaborate but when I didn’t continue she looked away from me. “So, what will you do now?”

“The same things that I have always done, minus the scavenging. That put too much of a burden upon my soul.” I stood from the tree root and stretched. “I’ll continue to take jobs from people and help them.” I began to walk away towards the sliding door. I heard her take a breath to speak but I spoke before she did. “And yes, if you need help, I will help you too.”

I felt her smile at my back. “See you again, Eien.”