Eitsu's Nine Lives (永津の九生) [yuri/GL yokai reincarnation story]

34 - Kana

A/N: Sorry for taking an unexpected break and leaving you all with such an... interesting point in the story. We're back now.

CW: grieving death

***

A few flakes of snow spiralled downwards.

Eitsu looked at the motionless shape in front of her. It looked like Tsubaki. It had her form, her colours, her scent. It lay where she had been standing. All in all, it seemed like it would stand up at any moment, and address her with Tsubaki's cool little voice, and those shy dark eyes.

The body did not do any of those things.

At that moment, the only thought that Eitsu had was, What will I tell Aya-chan?

She thought that it might be a good idea to sit down. So she did, still looking at the body.

So this was what it was like, seeing the one you loved most in the world die before you. Sitting by their body. Eitsu thought of Tsubaki, crouched by the corpses of her previous lives. Over and over.

"Is this... my punishment? Tsu-bo, are you getting your revenge?" Eitsu rolled the corpse over almost hopefully. Death had stripped away Tsubaki's dignified beauty. The jaw hung slack, the eyelids rolled upwards and the dark eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. Already she was growing cold. Soon, the carcass would begin to leak fluids.

Slowly, Eitsu curled away. Even as she screamed inwardly at herself to take Tsubaki in her arms, hold her, cry over her, her body recoiled.

It's not her. She's not there.

Her vision skipped, blurred, dissolved and came together again. She couldn't remember how her hands worked. For some reason, the image of Rei swearing vehemently popped into her stunned brain and she giggled aloud. What a weird reaction! Why did he do that? Had he not expected to kill her? Had he not intended to? What an idiot!

An idiot...

Who's the idiot here?

The corpse crammed its way back into the forefront of her mind and she sprang physically away, from the body, from the thought.

She'd seen bodies before. Of course she had. She had lived nine lives over more than a thousand years. Why was this so different? She felt light-headed and silly. Is this what hysterics is like? So weird...

"Stop that," she snapped aloud. It was an approximation of Tsubaki's tone, a decisive voice to get her moving. Suddenly sober, she returned to the body and arranged it carefully, although there was nothing she could do about the face. She tried closing the eyelids, but they slowly began to creep up again and she didn't want to touch the body any more. Instead, she took off her outermost robe and laid it over the body, including the face, then compulsively scrubbed at her forearms.

Automatically, she clapped her hands thrice. "Izanami no Mikoto, Great Goddess of Yomi, please guide Tsubaki saf- safel-"

She stood frozen in place, throat working but no sound escaping her mouth.

Safe.

All those vain promises. She hadn't done a damn thing.

This time, Tsubaki had died.

Overwhelming anger stuffed a fist down her throat and tore a wordless scream from her chest. Black fur sprouted all over her. Her pupils became huge black holes, and the whites disappeared under her expanding gold irises. Black smoke oozed off her, pooling around her feet, rising off her fur, disappating as it did, over and over.