Ink Stained

94: please say something*

何か言って

They remained in the forest, sitting between the upraised roots of one of the huge trees towering above them. Going back to the house was out of the question – there were too many people there, people she wasn't ready to face yet with her fragile emotional and mental state after telling her true story out loud.

Shin held her spooned in his arms the same way as before, her back to his chest, his legs folded a little in front of her, arms wound around her waist. It was like he was trying to hold her to him, making sure she couldn't run away. But this way, at least, she'd been able to let it all out in as coherent a timeline as she could manage without having to look at him.

He was silent for a long time after she finished talking. Too long. He hadn't uttered a single word the entire time. She feared that she had said too much. She shared too much. She wanted all her secrets back for fear of rejection because of them, because now he knew everything she did.

He knew everything now.

He knew that her first kill had been the Tanuki with his human lover, out on a beautiful day that ended abruptly and finally. He knew that she so stoically used formal speech because that was demanded of all trainees. He knew what Akira did to her, and that she killed him for it. He knew why she shied away from physical contact with almost everyone around her, even those she trusted, sometimes without even realizing it.

He knew that a man named Yamato was the one to torture her as the punishment meted out by So Fu for killing an Agent, and that her hair went white because of it. Now he knew why she'd attacked him in the forest; she'd had a memory, and in her sleep-walking state she'd reverted back to what she was and only seen him as Hengen, instead of Shin.

He knew that she'd orphaned a young Tengu girl, and been the one to burn the little girl's decimated body.

She didn't tell him about the kill chips implanted at the nape. She didn't tell him that she found a way around the kill chips and tried to end her life by getting another to do it for her. That was too much, too soon. She'd already let go of too many secrets in one day. She needed time before she let any more escape her grasp.

There were still holes in the story. Midori was the biggest, because she still couldn't figure out why her sister was in So Fu, and why Midori ran away when she saw Pai in Kyoto. Other holes were her family's disappearance, the fact that she wasn't as human as she'd always thought, why So Fu did what they did and who exactly they were, who Rikuto was to her (she was, however, starting to put together the pieces, puzzling it out, and slowly coming to a realization that left her reeling with its impossibility over what the boy was to her), and how Kagetora was tied into all of it.

Getting everything out in the open only glaringly highlighted everything she still didn't know.

His silence was killing her. She didn't know how long she could go on. He hadn't spoken for ten minutes already. What was he thinking? Did he hate her now? Did he want to move away from her, scream at her, rage for all the Hengen deaths she was responsible for? Was he as disgusted by her inability to save herself from Akira as she was?

"I'm sorry I kept this from you," she whispered, biting her lip to keep it from trembling as she stared at a squirrel scurrying along on the branches over their heads. She couldn't take the silence anymore, but still he didn't speak. "Pl – please say something, Shin."

He didn't for a few moments. He was tense behind her, she could feel it. She didn't know what it meant. The uncertainty of it all was going to be the death of her. The anxiety sat like splinters between her ribs. The nerves, the guilt, the fear, it was like everything was centred in her stomach, tearing it to pieces that she was desperately trying to keep from vomiting out. Did she make a horrible mistake in giving too much of herself to him?