KOKORO NO SOSHITSU/LOSS OF HEART./KIKO WA SUKUWA RETA/KIKO IS SAVED.

NOROI

I hear them come softly and I dare not to turn around lest it is all in my head again as every other time up until yesterday.
Gentle footsteps.

The kind I would feint sleeping for to hear longer so that she will sneak to my side,'A poor excuse.'She would say to me in a whisper before she would kiss the tip of my nose.

In each of our few lives we had together that was always a sign of that being her,an only her thing as she put it in words.
I am seated crosslegged on the ground now after being assailed by Kiko remember when it was indeed her I saw in our real lifetime or second or whatever it is and I still can't see anyone there but Sakura.
Now though I see her hatred in another way but no other way can spare her in my eyes from taking my children from me over and over,even not caring for her own shared with me all for the fact that if I cared is the only time she did.

And Kiko wondered how I could not love her or see her in that way....

Arms,silky and long are slowly wrapped around my neck.
Mind,quiets for a time in her grasp and I savor it for the inevitable short term it always is but I am too greedy to not take it but not greedy enough to keep her longer than she needs to be either.

"It is over now,for her.I have Tennami and my Grandmother left for this to be over.I-I am so-sorry My love,to no end I am sorry."

No words are required really.
I know why Itoshi could not utter what was done to me by Kiko,she hoped,vainly,that the girl would be at least caring enough for me to hide that one secret but I felt it soon as I got to the forest.
That secret was buzzing in my head like a caged insect waiting to finally be released.

My eyes are studying this camp now cleaned of all ronin,the Vermillion samurai,my cell is as though it had not existed.
That wicked child could not bear to view anymore her acts due to failing.
This place makes my eyes burn and heart sick.

Time to change that.
I twist quick enough that Sakura can't ,for all her recent learning ,cannot time quick enough to back away from as planned for I use this opportunity to take hold of her as she staggers forward ending up with my arms very securely wrapped around her waist and eyes much closer than usual and not close enough for me.

"Why are you apologizing."
"I knew it might happen,you would see the first...I never wanted you to see that,didn't want you to know that past if I could help it.Awful enough that it all happened."
"You did try to save her before but she fought it,you know that right?"
"No,Noroi.I didn't try to save her enough,that is why our children,why I died, by her.She knew all I could think about was you and somehow making it out alive.Not her."

I can't even begin to express how it feels knowing someone well enough to know that nothing done at all is ever enough,sometimes it can be frustrating others intoxicating.
Now?
Saddening.

"Kiko,she chose to do what she did because I did not choose her.You,I,and she knew what I was and felt.The only thing I do feel is very strange at the fact that all my memories until now have proven to be tainted by the knowledge I loved her without knowing what she did and what I was to her.I feel very tired now,I haven't breathed in three years it feels like."

Sakura to my displeasure leans back just a little,pushes aside the hair from my face,afterwards cupping it pulling it closer together than it was before.

"Lets go away from here,not much time left to catch Tennami before things really get chaotic."

She refrains,I wish she wouldn't.
I want the distraction if I'm honest,to feel her warmth and the taste of her kiss but it must wait.
Her eyes,My Itoshi Hito eyes,look haunted now.

Very well my love.


SAKURA.
MOMENTS AGO.

"What did you think would happen when you showed him that?Really?"

The young woman before my eyes is at a loss,her beauty failing her as well as her rage so she sits quietly on the dark ground letting images of her once and only happy life play out like a movie on a puddled leaf in front of her.
I am trying so hard to keep the images of her gutting me,killing our children from taking my calm from me.
It is immensely hard and more than a little trying a task 

But I must.
For all of us,even this evil child that didn't get a choice either on how our lives were going to go at first.

"It is...wrong.You stole my fate and my brief joy,Couldn't you have just let me have something?Could those little fiends you hold in your womb just remain there and not overwhelm what should be by rights mine?Is that so much to ask?"

I am fighting it again.
So hard.

I kneel in front of her,ignoring the memories of joy she plays on the puddle and take her chin in my hand and raise it up to eye level.

"No more child,you will not remember any of this.That is the only mercy from me I was able to give you but by no means will I ever forgive you.GOD will be the only way I could ever do that.You are going back to your true life,for that I am sorry.But you will not be alone in death for I will not be long behind you."
"What of Noroi?Will he finally be free of your curse?Perhaps smile for once?"
"He....Will be free for the first time...Yes."

Kiko,she stops her tears and sits upright while I fight even harder the urge to make her cry out like she did my children.
It is so hard.
GOD please help me I want to hurt her but I also helped create her because she was right.
I did not try to save her,not that much as I should have I only remembered in one life aside from this one and all I did was let her move in with us.

I had no idea though at first it was her who I had shared a body with,I did not know because I only knew the adult not the punishment that Grandmother gave her.

"No longer."
"No longer."

We say to each other.
Like a brief attempt at some form of acceptance.

I bring my fingers to her each side of her head at the temples and slowly pull out every memory like one would a splinter and send them to the ground,listening to them whistle in pain or moan as they hit the earth beneath us until she is just a beautiful lost young woman that I send for a long walk towards the fields in Fukui.
Where her journey rightfully begins as it was supposed to have been.


PRESENT

"Are you sure we cannot just kill him?I would rather be tortured within an inch of my life than help that snake to live any longer."

I caress him,when Noroi has refused to go any further with me until I speak up.

"He has his place in the true timeline,his changes created the groundwork for the mutations to occur,his line were the ones who developed the vile hundred fold death.If he remains as he were there will be no one in his line with that ability,only when I was in his line or when you tried to kill him did things change.It must be this way my love,it must."

Noroi,the expression he has is like if I punched him rather hard but I have no other choice.
That snake must live,even if I hate it as much as my love does.

"Do not let me near him,I will do any other task but I will not suffer him to live if I see him."

No matter what,no words could ever appease him of that time.
I cannot comfort him on this nor the barrage of memories he has just gotten,with so little time left I want to comfort him,love him but our remaining time is almost solely a fight now.

"Tennami,if there has ever at any point been any kind of good in you.Don't be in his sight now,please."