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“Shoulda’ known he’d send you,” Shihodo sighs, a note of resignation in her quiet voice. She has her back to him, but she knows that presence. She knows him better than almost anyone.Hishigi doesn’t speak. He can’t.Muramasa is gone. Hishigi knows they won’t meet again. The disease has begun to tear at his own body, and Fubuki is the only reason he hasn’t ended it himself. Fubuki is the reason he stayed, the reason he refused Muramasa’s invitation to leave the Mibu and never look back.Because of Fubuki, he couldn’t refuse the Sendai Aka no Ou. If not for him, Hishigi would have died a thousand times before carrying out this order.He tries to say her name, but his voice is less than breath.“Save it, kiddo,” she stops him, turning to look him in the eye. “I ain’t gonna fight you. You do what you gotta do. I fucked up. Shoulda’ killed him when he told me to, but I didn’t and that’s on my head.”There are too many memories in his head, too many images of sitting by her side and listening to every stupid joke she could spit out. Hishigi remembers learning from her when he was young, seeing the world in ways he’d never imagined. And now, for the crime of allowing one of his dearest friends to leave this place in one piece, he has to hurt her.His fingers clench around Hakuya’s hilt, and his heart pounds heavily in his chest. The pain that has become a constant now (a spike driving into his left eye, fire in his blood, ice in his bones) reminds him he’s a dead man walking.Hishigi wonders if it would be easier to do this if she fought. He doesn’t think so. There’s no world in which he wants to harm her, and no way to avoid it now.“He needs you, dumbass. Don’t fuckin’ leave him alone over me,” Shihodo snaps. “Your reconstruction bullshit ain’t gonna work. I know you’re dyin’ now, I can see it in your goddamn face, but you’ve still got shit to do. I already failed. Do your job, Hishigi. Make it look good.”Nothing has ever been as agonizing as drawing his blade against her like this.“I’m – ”“Don’t you dare apologize to me, boy,” she cuts him off, and her voice is cracking ice.He doesn’t know if her intent is to provoke him or steel herself for the attack, but it hurts either way. Hakuya weighs more than the world, and Hishigi wishes he could drop it and run. But she’s right. He can’t leave Fubuki. And he can’t spare Shihodo.Hishigi’s sword rises, and he feels his heart break as Shihodo’s hand twitches toward hers… and then falls back to her side. She faces him with her head held high, doesn’t move an inch until blades of pure energy cut her down. She crumples, broken and bleeding, and she looks at him with fading eyes that know exactly why he did it. Shihodo understands sacrifices of everything you are, the sacrifices made for those most important, better than anyone.Hishigi knows how much damage he’s done, but he also knows he hasn’t killed her. Shihodo will survive down here, waiting for a kinder wind to blow through Mibu territory. He doesn’t think he’ll ever speak to her again, and he doesn’t deserve to; that’s his punishment for the horrific thing he’s done.As Hishigi turns away from her broken body, unable to look at her for another moment, he sees the beginning of her graveyard for the fallen. The victims of a reconstruction project that Hishigi knows will never be completed are remembered here; the ones who left bodies behind are buried, the others represented by little markers that Shihodo has crafted.
Shihodo… I am so sorry.
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Hishigi knows he has to do it before the disease spreads too far to impede, but his skin crawls at the very thought of the Devil Eyes.He will test it on no one else. It will work or it will not. When Hishigi implants the eyes into his deteriorating body, he will have Fubuki waiting outside the door. If Hishigi cannot hold them back and they invade his mind, Fubuki will kill the husk that remains.Fubuki promised. Hishigi can only pray that his friend will not let himself be swayed by emotion. There is no way to know if any of Hishigi’s consciousness would survive possession, but even the idea terrifies him. Fubuki must kill him if he cannot master the eyes.Hishigi’s left hand shakes too violently and is too painfully stiff to be any use. He lost all sight in his left eye three days ago. His bones are ice, brittle and cracking and searing needles of frost into his muscles and nerves. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to walk if he leaves this another day.The black mask lies on the table, ready for its purpose. Hishigi tries to take a deep breath and only achieves a coughing fit and more blood on his desk.Every step toward the table, toward the eyes, is agony. His knee gives out when he’s almost there, and he stifles a scream as he hits the floor and feels his ankle snap. Quick, harsh breaths hiss through his teeth. He pulls himself to his feet and finds that the left can’t take his weight anymore, but that doesn’t matter. It will.Hishigi lifts the first eye out of the solution where he has kept them dormant for a century, cautious to keep it pointed away from his own line of sight.Too dangerous, too volatile to utilize, he always said. Those who knew told him they would be useful eventually. Hishigi supposes he’s finally found his breaking point.Writhing tendrils snake out from the eye’s core and pierce his shoulder, pulling the eye itself out of his grip and grafting it into his flesh. Hishigi didn’t think the pain could get worse; how pitifully naïve he feels now. He screams, because he can’t do this, he can’t, nothing has ever hurt like the parasite burrowing under his skin, nothing has ever scared him like the voice he’s already starting to hear.
Give up. You can’t save him. You can’t even save yourself. Slip away, it can’t be worse than fighting.
Hishigi drags air into damaged lungs, nails of his right hand digging into his bleeding palm. He can’t do this, but he will. He needs to.He pushes forward, through the pain, through the compulsions growing louder and stronger with every Devil Eye that takes hold of his failing body and bleeds its corruption into his veins. He can’t tell if the overwhelming desire to let himself die is coming from them or his own mind.The last one takes hold, destroying the blind remnant of a gray eye that used to shine crimson.Hishigi will never sleep again. He cannot lose focus, cannot stop fighting, not for a moment of the time he’s borrowed. For now, he can control them. The day he fails, he hopes Fubuki will remember his promise.Hishigi buckles the mask over the left side of his face and wraps bandages around his arm and leg. His ankle is still broken, but he can feel the parasitic tendrils wrapping around the bone and stabilizing the fracture. The pain is worse, but the leg holds him. That’s what it needs to do.He never wants to see his own face again. “I prefer that my friends survive, no matter the state,” Fubuki tells him, a day later when Hishigi remembers how to speak.He thinks he’s being kind, doesn’t realize those are the cruelest words that could ever be spoken to a man who is living in a broken body for Fubuki’s sake alone.“‘No matter the state’,” Hishigi repeats softly.He can’t do this, but he will.