It mattered little what haunted her these days, for it were always the same things. Regrets of days long gone. Regrets and hurts that had never bothered her in all these long, long years. A lie, perhaps. At one time they had threatened to destroy her, but she'd managed to restrain them, reign in those feelings and channel them into becoming her strength.
Yes, she'd thought she'd gotten over them.
And now, she realised.
She had never been.
Not when that spark had reflected in the depths of Palkia's Spacial Rend. Those familiar voices whispering in her ear, coaxing her to believe again. To believe that the dead could stand beside her once more. Ever since, Kyrenai had heard her voice resonating in her head more than once. And every time the fear of it being truth had grasped her heart, squeezing it ever so slightly. And every time it squeezed, she felt the grip get tighter and tighter.
Had she skipped a few nights of sleep?
Had she forgone meals at times, and neglected her duties to escape her own thoughts?
Shamefully she admitted;
yes.The assassin had allowed herself to spiral into something that she had to fix before it was too late. Yet when the reports came in of Penelope Livy having died during one of her expeditions, and having risen from the dead just as quickly, Kyrenai's greatest fear became a reality. It became her hope.
A flicker of doubt still danced in her eyes as she took her first steps through the portal leading into the Borders. Something -her heart, her guts, or something beyond, who was to say- had lured her back to the Borders. To make sure. To see if the voice that had whispered in her ear back at Mt. Pyre had truly been
her. Deep down she knew, however, that if she'd be granted a single more chance to be with her, she'd walk the Borders forever.
~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~ • ~
How long had she been wandering about the endless sepias of floating mountains and isles?
If one told her time flowed differently within the Border, she would've been inclined to believe them, for the concept of time had faded from her mind a long time ago.
A long time, she thinks. But she's not sure.
The only certainty is the pull dragging her heart and her feet onward; she's long since passed all the notable landmarks she'd come across during her exploration and ventured into territories yet to be mapped.
"I'll find you." she whispers to the winds, and for a moment her hand finds itself back on the blade's hilt.
A memento, of arguably better days.
Her blade.She'd never been able to part with it. And after the investigations had been concluded, she'd done everything in her power to retrieve it. A token meant to remind her whenever her mind dared waver.
Something unspoken calls the assassin to attention, and when she lifts her gaze from the voids occupying her thoughts she sees the fields before her; hundreds, if not thousands of flowers dance upon the breeze. Among them a single flower; Poppy. Piercing blue. It stands proud among the sea of white, like a cloudless sky among snowbound peaks.
She crosses the floral sea towards it, and for a second time she lingers before it, and kneels. Her fingers tenderly graze its petals, yet she does not question why it was a flower so blue of all things that called for her; its loneliness a silent reminder.
It only reminds the assassin of
her.
Of Yuki Hanakata.
"I missed you, Yuki," she whispers to the flower, fingers lowering to its stem, silently admitting.
"I still miss you."And then she pulls.