CHOTTO MATTE TE KUDASAI/PLEASE WAIT A LITTLE BIT FOR ME.

5 MONTHS LATER
1872

"Where are you?"

Feet are moving faster than ever,I am tired but I can't stop now he needs me.
The camp is coming into view quickly now and I pull away my blood wings and guide that blood back into the vial I keep it in so I do not have to harm anyone to get to and from as fast as this method allows.

The camp is dark,muddy and smells like death itself has to avoid venturing here and if I hadn't already seen as much as I have the last months I would have fled but now I just barely stifle the urge to vomit and stay hidden behind this massive oak at the edge of the camp.

Warriors are all along the camp,not samurai or shinsengumi but they almost look like ronin except there manners are more akin to vassals.
I see no banner or anything to match any records I read about so I try not to focus on that and instead focus on the bigger issue.

Where is he?
Where is Atarashi Ikari....?


NOROI

Could it be possible that they have had enough?
Thinking about that does no good so I do not refrain from the desire to spit in the face of my escort who happily and with vigor shoves the hilt of his baton into my stomach.

If I had anything in there it would have vomited out but good for me then,I have nothing else to humor them with after the last fight.
I would rather that the wolf had lived than to have entertained these fools any longer but I can not die yet,I don't really know why I even keep trying to live here.

The point is becoming less and less relevant now except that I get a small relief when I sleep,few moments here and there as they are but that is how GOD lets me breathe a little.
Dreams....

I hate this wolf blood on my hands,makes me feel as feral as that starved dog that is as alike to me now as I have ever felt with anyone.
But those dreams though.

She still is radiant to me,like a sun in a that defies an eclipse that stays around for me,even if that sun always either is destroyed or I blink and gone she goes.
Three years since I watched her go away.
Three years and I could never find that woman who took her.
Three years and have known no rest,no peace and now here I am only kept because both the snake and a girl that I thought of as a what she never wanted to be.

I never really remembered what it is she hates me for,she would come close to telling me a few times but Kiko remains as ever resolved to keep it within.

Fine enough for me.

I will lie here in this mud behind bamboo walls that are keeping me in that I have fought numerous times and have only lessened in that I have a feeling I will need my strength.

What I overheard has given me a bit of much needed spirit.

"What are you talking about?That can not be the truth no one has ever been able to change her mind or keep her back!She is a witch."
"Lady Takahira was found with her whole body drained,even the guards did not know what to do so they ran here!I hear the other witch has returned after all these years,that one that bleed the samurai nearly out.I am leaving I have no oath to Lord Takahira and you would be wise to flee now!"

Could you be real this time?
I have seen you arrive often enough but only in moments that remain with closed eyes,I want to feel you again.
I can't live with watching you leave me again Itoshi Hito.

"You are being requested to be taken back to Lord Takahira!Get up now!"

The guards rise,I stay reclined on the mud smirking happily behind my mask.

"Aw does Lord Takahira neko-san feel lonely?You have to be right there always and now needing me along?I am all too boring for you lot  and I am rather fine here."

I laugh at them mockingly,maybe I can buy enough time to see if she actually comes for once and for real this time.

"Run!"

I hear the screams like some kind of creature has taken over the camp and through the bamboo bars holding me in I see a glimpse of a winged blood bird doing twirls the air and in the heart of that bloody bird is a young woman in pink.

I do not know if I am hallucinating from the lack of food or am dying but if this is how I die then I will die being out of here and going towards that terrifyingly beautiful sight.