Ink Stained

93: i need to tell you something*

私はあなたに何かを伝える必要がある

Shin froze.

She watched hopelessly as the muscles in his body locked, eyes widening as they stared down at her. She couldn't read anything there, the wall she was so used to seeing now slamming in place to conceal his thoughts and emotions. She had no idea how she was forcing herself not to cry, and she bit her quivering lip to keep from bursting at the seams.

"What..." he licked his lips, hands tightening unconsciously on her shoulders. "What did you say?"

She gulped, breathing heavily, dropping her eyes to stare at his chest. She wished she could lay her head there and listen to his heartbeat, try to discern what he was thinking from that.

"It's – it's why I hate it when people touch me – when anyone but you touches me." She closed her eyes as she tried to block out the sound of her voice repeating those damning words, but she couldn't say them again. "He...he..."

She opened her eyes when she felt a tremor, but it wasn't from her. It was coming from Shin, from his hands gripping her shoulders. Her mouth fell open at the simmering rage in the depths of eyes gone blood red, a line of deepest blue outlining the red like a limbal ring.

She didn't think she had ever seen him look like this. Not when he faced down the Onihitokuchi. Not when she wanted to leave because she feared what her memories would make her body do after she attacked him in the forest. Not when he faced Kagetora at the festival in Kyoto. Not even when Shinigami had control of their body, and not once with Kagetora during their training, the angriest she'd ever seen him until now.

Is he angry? Is he angry I wasn't strong enough to fight Akira off?

"Are you saying," his voice trembled with devastating rage, and his hands on her shoulders were almost painful. "Someone did that to you? And you didn't want it?"

The thought, the very idea that she could ever have wanted it, was like a slap to the face with a metal chair wielded by a hurricane of violent rejection.

She shook her head vehemently. "No! I didn't – I never wanted it. I never ever asked for it." She reached up and gripped his wrists in her hands, imploring him to understand her side. "Please, Shin, you have to believe me." Her breath hiccuped. "I didn't – I never wanted it to happen."

Something terrifying in Shin snapped at her words.

She jumped back when he spun around and, before she could blink, punched the tree behind him. His hand went straight through the wood right up to his elbow, wood creaking as it bent and shattered. The bark of the tree broke away around his arm, and splinters of woodchips were embedded in his skin. He yanked his arm out with a low snarl, and she yelped when she saw slivers of red painting his arm, the skin at his knuckles ripped and bloody.

"Shin – Shin stop, stop, your arm – "

That wasn't enough for him. He ignored her, lips pulling over his teeth. She stared at his canines, the points longer than normal. He was Shin, but in this moment of unadulterated fury, he was Shinigami as well, the two more visibly joined together in this dark moment than she'd seen since Ukabarenairei.

With rage radiating from him in brutal waves, a growl reverberating through him, he reached up and ripped off the sturdy tree branch they'd sat in as easily as he would if the tree was made of paper.

The wood groaned when it tore apart from its main body, and her heart clenched tight as her eyes widened on him. She gaped wordlessly, hardly able to believe he possessed such strength she'd never seen before as he hefted the branch in his arms. A second later, he launched the heavy limb into the air, sending it hurtling thirty feet away. It crashed through the undergrowth, rolling and breaking apart the thicket surrounding them. The ground shook under her feet from the impact.