The centipedes skittering across the damp stone instantly shattered, exploding into a cloud of dazzling, luminous dust that drifted through the dark air like falling stars.
"Just as the girl believed she truly understood herself... her world was turned upside down," Shion continued, her voice wavering. She swallowed hard, her bloody hands beginning to tremble uncontrollably as the dark memories caught in her throat. "They came in the dead of night like thieves... and thieves they were. They stole my whole world..."
"Tell your story, young sun," the pink-haired girl urged softly.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. Below her waist, her legs had completely dissolved into ash, leaving only her crumbling torso suspended in the dim lamplight. One of her crimson eyes had vanished into an empty socket, and only a single, decaying hand remained attached to her side.
'I'm running out of time...' Mitsuki thought to herself, raising her one remaining hand toward the ceiling, staring at her blood-stained knuckles through her single eye.
A faint, chilling smirk touched her lips.
'This ritual certainly took a toll on my spirit... but if I am destined to die here, I will make sure I leave a mark upon this world, something that will turn it entirely upside down.'
Her demeanour shifted completely. As Shion fought through her emotions to continue her tale, Mitsuki began to murmur an ancient, unintelligible chant under her breath. Deep within the left side of her chest, the rusted, phantom chains wrapped around her heart began to groan, twisting and coiling tightly to constrict her fading life force even further.
'I am glad... to die here,' the pink-haired girl thought softly, a faint, genuine smile gracing her lips. 'For the first time in my existence... I was able to share a real conversation with someone. Just as I always wished.'
She lifted her gaze, her single remaining eye meeting Shion's. Tears were streaming silently down the kunoichi's cheeks, her voice growing shakier with every word of her past she forced into the air.
There was an old belief among spiritualists, a warning passed down through generations: Words carry weight. Be careful what you speak into existence, lest you curse your own soul.
When the Yokai had first touched Shion's spirit, she had sensed the dark, muddy turbulence of the girl's suppressed Reiryoku. Beneath Shion's cold, unyielding exterior lay a heart choked by self-inflicted lies and unresolved trauma. And so, the Yokai had taken it upon herself to force the truth into the open, ensuring that at least one girl might escape the suffocating curse of a frozen heart.
Beneath the horrifying decay and the blood-liquor ritual, her core remained fundamentally kind. Yet even that lingering warmth could not erase the bitter scars etched into her soul.
'I hate the Heavens that twisted me into what I am,' her thoughts spiralled, floating gently through the darkening chamber as her final breaths grew thin. 'I hate the world that showed me only cruelty... and I hate myself for being too weak to save anyone, even myself.'
"—but the girl lived," Shion continued, her voice trembling softly into the void. "Not because of her skill... but because of her status. The very recognition she had fought so hard to prove to her father was handed to her the moment he died."
Around them, the structure of the mental house began to shatter. Fine, spiderweb cracks split across the wooden walls and ceiling, widening into deep fissures that swallowed the dark shadows. The low table between them crumbled into nothingness, leaving Shion sitting face-to-face with the dying Yokai in a vast, open expanse of pale light.
"Do you resent them?" the pink-haired girl asked gently. "Those who took everything from you... is the real reason you are still breathing right now just to get even with them?"
"..."
Shion's lips parted, but she couldn't bring herself to answer. She knew precisely what admitting it would mean: it would brand her a selfish hypocrite. If her own core motivation was rooted in dark, ugly vengeance, what right did she have to save the innocent children? What right did she have to deny this tragic specter her own revenge?
"It's okay," the pink-haired girl murmured, her gaze filled with a serene, otherworldly understanding. "Feelings are human, after all. And before you are a shinobi... you are a human being, first and foremost. Too bad for me, though... I lost what it meant to be human a long time ago."
The Yokai paused. Without a trace of hesitation, she raised her single remaining hand and violently drove her fingers through her own exposed ribcage, thrusting deep into her chest.
"..."
Shion froze, utterly taken aback. Her mind raced, unable to comprehend why this girl, the very same spirit who had just confessed her desperate desire to live, was now willingly taking her own existence.
"Yes..." the pink-haired girl wheezed, her breath rattling through her fractured chest. "Hatred... should be resolved. But it should never be the reason that you live. That very same hatred is what turned me into this... into that Yokai."
Her voice strained with raw, excruciating tension as her fingers clamped around her own chest, violently tearing her heart from her ribcage.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The heart didn't merely beat; it hammered against the hollow silence of the vast, open expanse, echoing like a war drum. Blood dripped into the void, yet the Yokai sat there in the pale light, a tranquil, beautiful smile resting on her pale lips.
"I refuse to die as a pawn of fate," she declared, her single eye shining with a fierce, unyielding light. "Thus, right here and right now... I take charge of my own destiny. Little girl... please. Remember my story. Keep my name alive... and in doing so, allow me to live forever."
With a final, decisive breath, her blood-stained fingers squeezed down tightly against the beating heart.
"HA? What is she doing?" Shion wondered, though she knew the truth deep down in her heart.