Kenta's Point Of View

Rei was a kid that grew up in the mountains, and every year our families would spend winter together. Well, partly. Rei and I always would, but sometimes my parents and siblings visited other families. It was a game of alliances after all.

I married up. My family wasn't particularly prosperous or glorious, but my mother was a chui. Rei was from a prestigious and highly honored family of water aspected magicians.

Since my family was strong and athletic, and Rei's was too, we would often run about in the snowy garden and compete. Be it sprints, climbing, lifting or so on. She was a bright child.

"Hah! You will lose today Ken-Chan!"

She jumped up from one of the branches to one that should have been way out of range for her.

"What?! Never!"

I burst out and pulled myself up on the branch I was grasping at and reached for the next one when she turned on the branch she was grasping and flashed me a grin.

"Eheheheh, let's see if you can keep up then. Loser gives up a manju."

She turned it into a competition. Of course...

"Better be ready to lose your dessert!" I growled back at her and jumped for the next branch. When she stopped climbing a while later she had reached what we usually thought of as the top. I climbed up next to her and was faced with a sparkly and bratty grin from her.

"Hai! Your dessert is mine now Ken-chan!"

While I remember her as being quite cute back then and at times miss the nickname she used, back then I wasn't having it. A certain amount of pride is expected from my family, and losing when there was a possibility to win was not something I was going to swallow.

There were two parts to the competition. Who went the furthest and who got there first in case of a draw. Since this was what we considered the top point, it was a sprint game. I turned it into a dare.

I remember Rei's golden lion eyes widen as I moved up past her, but she didn't move.

"...Ken-chan that's dangerous, the branches aren't as flex-"

I remember her worried warning quite clearly, the crack of a thin branch under my foot... and the drop and lift in my stomach as I fell backwards. I think I hit just about every single branch on the way down before falling down into the thick snow with a low crunch-like sound from the snow.

"Kenta!"

I could hear Rei's scream as I got a sense of what happened. Most importantly, I was alive. My breath was ragged and painful because of the impact with the branches, but other than being painful I remember concluding 'It could have been springtime' and 'Oooooow'.

In the end I didn't move until Rei flipped me over. She had just started learning medicine back then, and she was the one that had determined the safe height to climb. She couldn't hold a sword properly even if she tried, but she noticed things that I would never have noticed. She could guide me through the garden with a blindfold on, and guide me with a blindfold when I trained against a dummy. We had lot of silly games like that.

Rei had looked so worried, which I think was because one of the branches had torn into my kimono and ripped my skin. If an adult hadn't arrived she might have panicked and have used her obi to put pressure on a wound that didn't need it. I remember feeling stupid and a bit bad for being a sore looser, so in the end I'd tried to make her smile.

"Manju is still mine though," I had insisted with half a smile through the pain. I remember how her golden eyes had glimmered and a small grin crossed her lips.

"Baka Ken-chan."

Rei was always lively. A bright person that knew just how to deal with both me and people in my family. Even when we grew up she would still give that bright grin of hers when we went out for a drink with our brothers and sisters in arms. She became an officer very quickly, and when drunk she would playfully use that authority to start small drunk competitions and play games. Of course, with higher rank she stuck with those like her most of the time, but she was warm.

Then that happened.

—-*—-

"Rei."

I look down at her tense figure. This is the tenth time I've called her... at least... she's staring blankly into the air as if her soul has left her body, and if I shake her lightly she remains stiff as a plank.

All of our brothers and sisters in arms have died. Many for Rei and many, many more charging the walls. It was a horror. The continuous orders to charge, and Rei that became paler with every order and every life lost in front of her eyes. She would look to the left and see someone she used to play hanafura with be cut down, and then to the right where two had fallen while she had looked away. I saw her fall apart bit by bit on the battlefield as if every person she lost had been a part of her... left was this...

I sit down in front of her and wait it out. There is nothing else I can do.

Rei doesn't smile anymore. She doesn't grin, and she cannot care. She stares blankly at the scenery that has already passed, but she cannot move on. I too mourn the passing of our brothers and sisters, but we must move on. Instead... she suffers... she keeps up a pretense that she is fine, but in the night she cries and screams in pain.

She's a shadow of what she once was, and the frustration of being unable to do anything for her puts me on edge. I can only grit my teeth.

"..."

Rei stirs back to life, and stares at me quietly. Her eyes lock onto the blood on my armor as the first thing, and then move through the room and stop at the dead heimin clutching a knife while laying behind her.

She heard nothing. I can't read her expression, but I know she didn't hear. She had been frozen and an easy target to kill. She looks at me calmly.

"You've done well. As expected."

As she tries to stand it's plain to see that her legs are sleeping, but she forces it anyway so as not to lose face. We are going to investigate again today and head to court tomorrow.

I don't want her to go. It is bad for both of us. I don't want to see them humiliate her as she spaces out again... I don't know what to do. I want her to be able to smile again, but all she does is to suffer every day and every time she has nothing else to do.

I want her to have peace... so why am I this helpless and useless?

—-*—-

A scream eachos through my dream and wakes me with a jolt. My heart hammers violently against my ribcage together with a rush of adrenaline. I jump to my feet and push the sliding door between our rooms aside to find Rei writhing in her futon and clawing at both herself and the air.

The warm air feels suffocating as I run to her side and kneel down. Her open eyes stare into the distance with streams of pained tears soaking her cheeks. She screams and wails the names of our brothers and sisters in war helplessly, and all I can do is to pin her hands so the ground to prevent her from harming herself until it ends.

I put as much weight as possible onto the wrists I'm holding, but even then it is a struggle. Rei is as strong as me when she is awake, but in this panicked state she's always just about to throw me off.

"Samurai-sama?!"

I hear the call of the heimin from the door as they try to find out what is going on. This pained scream of hers sounds as though she's being killed repeatedly.

"Leave! Step in and you forfeit your life!"

I bellow at them. I would do it without a moment of hesitance. Rei's kimono is a mess, she was supposed to be sleeping, and it looks as though I'm trying to violate her. Even if they realize that she is having a nightmare, it is something they cannot keep quiet about.

I look back to Rei that twists violently underneath me to get free of the grasp while crying her eyes out... suffering... she suffers when she sleeps. She suffers when she is awake. Yet... all I can do is to watch.

"Rei..." my own voice ends up tear choked as she struggles on, probably trying to save them in her dreams.

A good while passes before she calms down again and just cries underneath me. She still twitches, but she's no longer struggling.

I move my hands off of her wrists and realize that her hands have gone pale from the force I used. I grab her hand momentarily and squeeze it gently. It looks okay.

She's calm now, so I head back to my own room to let her sleep on. I'm sweating from the struggle, and dread keeping up face if the heimin ask what happened tomorrow. I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow... but my dreams haunt me throughout the night.

—-*—-

I cannot watch this any longer. She has started throwing herself recklessly into fights though she is still merely a beginner with the sword. She moves out of my protection with pain in her eyes and fury towards anything that goes against her. She's trying to throw her life away, and the only thing getting between her and death is me. It's been nearly a year now...

In her screams at night she asks them to wait for her. That she will be by their side. Begging them not to die... over... and over.

I cannot watch her suffer like this. I cannot watch her try to throw her life away... but I am helpless. My words are like water on a leaf, my actions like another shadow in the darkness. I wish I could ask someone for help... for guidance. Haruki would have known what to do for sure. He knows people surprisingly well... perhaps Yoshio would have been able to crack a joke to make her laugh or Aiko could have taken her for a drink and talk for hours... but it's just the two of us. I need to stay strong and support her to get through this, but I don't know what to do or how to save her from herself.

Rei hides away somewhere I cannot reach... somewhere cold and lonely. Even though I stand right next to her at all times. Even though I've sworn since childhood to always be at her side... we suffer alone.

'How pitiful'

'How shameful'

The voices around us berate her... shame her... she puts on a mask of indifference, but she cries harder at night now than she did before. She struggles harder... fights harder... suffers more... Yet, she only gets worse. Her anger and pain makes the heimin shiver and tremble whenever she gets close. Scared that she will snap and harm them out of frustration or their knowledge of her nightly horrors.

She keeps glancing to the sake at the inn but never touches it. She just barely keeps herself together.

'Someone put her out of her misery'

I wonder when I heard that the first time. Just a quiet whisper nearby... but we were in the middle of a crowd. Rei heard nothing... and she never did... but those words hurt and lingered from that day onward like a shadow in my heart, which I should never have given in to...

—-*—-

"Why did you kill me, Kenta?"

Her hands tremble as she folds them in front of her. Her golden eyes stare at me intensely to prevent me from cowering away from her question. She has been in the shape of the small girl Lily for so long that her appearance as Rei leaves me in pain as everything keeps flooding back... The pain... the regret... and the voices that kept lingering.

"I couldn't watch you suffer any longer. I couldn't bear to watch you want to die every single day... No matter what I did nothing helped. I had no idea what to do, Rei."

My voice gets hoarse though there's no actual body... though I'm a ghost.

"I lost hope to ever see you smile again." I admit my sins. My regrets. They change nothing now, and I know now that I have been a fool. That I have been ignorant.

"I wanted you to have peace. To let you live another life where you could smile again like you used to, even if I wasn't by your side. I couldn't watch you cry and suffer every day and night... or watch their cruel gazes as you hurt... I couldn't watch you lock your soul away. To refuse to trust... to refuse to care."

My eyes water up despite how I try to blink it away... but Rei is doing the same. Her lips quivers though she presses them together, and her eyes glisten with tears.

"Why are you here now?"

Her question came out with a tremble. I knew she would never want me by her side after what I'd done, but yet I could not leave her be. I wanted her to be happy. My throat knots up for a few moments before I continue.

"I failed my duty. Even if your last expression was relief, there was but one thing to do from there... but as I reached the realm of judgement and reached the queue I... you stood there further ahead of me quietly... blanked out as always, though content. Then, a portal opened and the god of this world snatched you away."

I grit my teeth as rage begins to seethe in my stomach.

"I went through the portal together with a guardian and ended up here. Everyone else were under the effect of the realm and were in a trance..."

I lower my eyes from hers down to the grassy meadow as tears begin to flow on their own. The rage subsides as quickly as it came as memories flash through my mind once more and bring me back to that evening.

"Rei... I am happy that you are living this life. I... I never thought I would see part of you return again after everything that happened... but seeing someone do what I couldn't brings me more relief than you can imagine. I could never help you... I can only use a sword to stand by your side, though on the other side of the veil. Even so, I just want to see you happy... and to see the smiles that faded away blossom on your lips once more like the flowers in spring."

My chest knots up and I'm short of breath. I say all the things I need to say... all the things I've held in and hidden away. The things I've been too prideful or shy to say.

"Please... forgive me, Rei."

I fall to my knees. I've failed her. I've hurt her... and now I beg for her forgiveness. It's selfish at best and she needn't forgive me. I'm ready to accept her anger and her fury.

"I am sorry, Rei."



A warm hand tilts up my head. She's crying as hard as I, but wipes my tears away in a way so gently my heart seems as though it is about to be crushed. Teardrops linger on her eyelashes as undeserved words spill from her lips.

"I am sorry, Kenta... for letting you suffer for so long."

"No, I-" She cuts me short with a single look... a tear filled smile.

"Thank you for worrying about me, and staying by my side through all of that. I never noticed you were in pain. I should have noticed and looked closer."

"Why.... why do you forgive me so easily, Rei?"

She wipes my tears away once more and then kneels down in front of me as well. Gazing at me with those glossy golden eyes.

"You've suffered enough... and so have I, Kenta."

...No... I have not suffered enough. There is-

"Ken-chan."

A long lost name comes from Rei's lips as she smiles at me.

"It's time for you to move on."

Move...on?

"No. I will not return without you, Rei. I will protect you until you've lived this life."

At least... let me do this. Please... just this I will not negotiate on. I will make sure that her soul returns to where it belongs when time is.

I expect her to scold me. I expect her to refuse... but she just looks at me softly... then nods. In acceptance.

"Should you ever find yourself in a ghost field I will be there for you, and if you call so will those that miss you as much as you miss them."

I put up a brave face as she looks at me with pained confusion... but the time is up... the guardian sends back her soul to her body.

—-*—-

"Samurai."

A small voice appears next to me. It is the voice of a young girl with black hair and violet eyes. She is in a white laced dress, as though she stepped out from a funeral.

"What is it, Ellie-kun?"

She smiles up at me as I try to gather myself.

"We can finally talk with Emilia-chan."