'Mira.'

The lights. They drifted before me gasping, quivering. Once I had thought them immortal, those raging suns, but now they were twin rays of softest dusk. They shuddered, folding their wings to dive off the edge of eternity. They would never kiss the world again, never warm my soul.

They were dying because I had betrayed them.

The Pitch was already spiraling around me, already threatening to pull me back into its suffocating embrace. Its black tendrils cinched around my ankles and slithered along my flesh to lick at the curve of my spine. It tickled me, tasted me, fed on me.

So, I fought. Not for me, but for them. Those dying suns. They were calling to me. She was calling to me. I clawed myself after her, snapping the tentacles of Pitch dragging at me, breaking free from Izanagi's grip. "Mother," I whimpered, trying to drag the lights back into her eyes, trying to awaken their dawn once more. "P-please don't leave!"

But her lashes drifted lower and lower, eclipsing those suns of her eyes. The strings that made her – those threads of musubi – they were what bound her to existence, and one by one they dimmed, flickered and fell away. And one by one, I watched as the spirit of a kami shattered.

I tried to move, but the Pitch had surged around me, chaining my arms and legs. Its ink coiled around my stomach, nestled along my neck. I could feel it twitching against me, pulsing as it snickered at me. At Mother.

I shrieked and raged, but I could only watch as she slipped from me – only wail as Mother faded before me, each strand slipping away, each sun dimming to embers. Yet over it all – over the pain, hurt and fury – I could hear her. 'You are my daughter, Mira,' her words reached me, caressed me, died with me.

The strands of musubi kept collapsing, fracturing into countless pieces. Those flecks of ethereal gold hovered and drifted, falling around me like snow. The Pitch hissed at the light and drew back, letting me breath, letting me weep.

'You are a wolf.'

The threads kept melting away – all but one. That final strand caught the hollow flames in Mother's eyes, and its gold darkened to red. I watched as that last, frail ribbon fluttered in a breeze I couldn't feel. I watched as it began to fray, and then I just couldn't.

I bowed my head, too weak to watch it snap and disappear. Too weak to say goodbye. Too weak to say she was wrong.

'You are not Him.'

I didn't raise my head. I didn't need to see. I already knew I was alone with the darkness. I already knew that when I looked up, the nightmare would begin again, and my mother's death would play out before me.

Again, and again. The last memory I would ever have of Mother kept repeating and repeating, my recollections proving enough for the worst dreams I'd ever known. I made no attempt to fight them, to escape them. And with every replaying, the Pitch watched as well. It trembled around me. Then quaked.

That was what woke me in the end: Izanagi's laughter.

Blurred consciousness eventually found me, but I didn't open my eyes. No. I just lay there, cold thoughts tumbling behind eyelashes that were heavy and damp. It was consuming me. This feeling in my chest. It nestled there. Right there. Right beneath my ribs. This strange sense of emptiness, hollowness. This void that echoed my own heartbeat. The musubi – the chakra – whatever its name was: I couldn't feel it anymore.

And I didn't care.

My tongue felt heavy, the pooling saliva creating an acrid swamp. Water nibbled lazy trails along my cheeks, but I made no move to hide them, to wipe them away. I deserved to be branded by them, by those tears. Those markers of shame were the final proof that Mother was wrong.

A wolf doesn't cry? Then I was no wolf. Not now. Not ever.

My chest weighed heavy on my lungs, keeping my breath shallow, limp. With every selfish twitch of survival, another wail rattled beneath my skin. The pain echoed through me, sliding overstrained muscles, battered bones, and mutilated nerves. But I welcomed it. Welcomed it all. The wind grating my raw skin. The salty blood corroding my tongue. The stench of sweat and gore raking my nostrils. It meant I had regained myself, taken back this broken shell of a body.

For now, the words clattered down the hollow curve of my skull, tumbling over one another to the starved Pitch seething far below. I could feel Him down there, past the depths of my soul, could feel Him coiling back to rest and wait.

I flinched – a wrenching of sweat-slicked brows and cracking whine that had someone murmuring, "Easy. Easy." Calloused fingers nestled into my shoulders, steadying a trembling I hadn't even known was there. "You're safe now," the man's voice continued hovering in and out of earshot. "No one's going to hurt you."

His hands dented my skin as he braced and lifted me. My spine groaned as it bent, though its mewling was hidden beneath my own. I peeled apart soggy lashes to meet his blue gaze. My sight worked, but my consciousness blurred its edges, made the world spin with every movement. I tried to steady limbs of stone and watched and waited. I expected a flash of fear, of anger in those eyes. Instead, I found-

Understanding? I stiffened but didn't break out of his grip. Or just a mask?

The man blinked – something flickering in those depths. He pulled away but not before shoving something against my back. And that's where I remained – existing in that limbo between seated and reclined, guarded and exposed.

It was only a few seconds before the new angle had hoarded the tensions throughout my body. The pressures roiled and clashed with one another, making my stomach gut bubble and broil at the strain. They popped against the back of my ribs, rising and seething. My chest caved as an acidic bubble erupted against the back of my throat – the muscles clenching just in time to keep the mucus from spilling out. I dropped my chin against my neck, hoping the added curl in my throat would somehow suffocate the nausea.

"It's okay," his reassurance came again, garbled and distant. "Do whatever you need to."

Between rattling breaths, I cracked my eyes open to gauge him, noting he hadn't backed away. He hovered over my left shoulder, his head tilted just enough to make his blonde hair sway in the frail breeze. Flickers of the dream – shreds of those ribbons of musubi – fluttered before me, mapped onto a blonde that was a shadow of that celestial shade.

Minato, the thoughts teetered forward. Shinobi. Helped.

Silent visions sparked of his wounded arm wrapping around me, carrying me to Mother. My gaze fell to his side, and I could only blink. No longer was his skin shredded and bloodied. The scarlet had since been washed from him, the skin since healed. His torn outfit was exchanged for fresh fabric, and the worst of the muck had been cleaned from him. The guise of the battle-hardened warrior had fallen – or just concealed once more.

It was hard to tell in this dulled state. It was hard to care.

I sieved through the rest of my memories, finding them in scarlet-coated fragments. No embers ignited, no clear scene hissed to life. All I had were dead ashes – the remnants of that chaos. Flesh and fur. Pain and terror. Screams and shouts. They all lay shattered in wreckage I would never clean, never attempt to organize or piece together.

I remembered enough.

"Better?" Minato murmured, the concern softening his voice, his eyes.

I dipped my chin only for a fresh wave of sick to shoot up my tonsils. I took slower, curdling breaths, blinking against the sting as spittle dripped over my lips. I swiped the saliva from my face, pain slithering over my nerves as a girl's voice cooed, "You have a bit of a fever."

I looked to her, the name 'Rin' floating up to me. Or should it be 'san' now? that shallow thought breached as I met a gaze marbled with sympathy and concern. She hovered over my right side, her brows creased and low. "How're you feeling?" her question slipped over me: though her lips moved slowly, the words crashed into me like a fist.

I didn't answer. I stared down at my chest, watching it rise and fall in a shaky rhythm.

"Can't she hear us?" a boy's disembodied voice floated over me, the words gargling against my ears. "You think she's deaf or something?"

Rin murmured something, but the words were too far away for me to hear. All that slipped through my daze was a soft "catatonic", but I could only register the strange rattling noise in my chest – heartbeat or shuddering lungs I wasn't sure.

Minato continued, "Do you remember anything?"

A shiver slid along my shoulders, rousing a pain to grate against raw nerves. A strange sort of noise crashed against my ears, and in the corners of my mind, I registered it had come from me. Strange, since it sounded so distant.

Minato let out a breath. "I'm sorry, Mira." The dirt hissed as he settled at my side. "I should've done more."

I gritted my teeth but said nothing: I stared straight ahead.

"We're just on the outskirts of the mountain," he continued minutes or hours or days later. "About a twenty-minute walk from Ojiro. We would've stayed, but the mist was too strong."

The tenor in his voice fell flat on my ears.

"We won't take you any further," his voice trickled on – lyrics to a tune I couldn't remember. "If you want to go back, you can, but my offer still stands." He stopped, his pause creating a strange sort of rift between us, something that demanded my attention. It was a command I was too weak to ignore.

My eyes stung as the air sizzled against them, but I refused to close them. I lifted my gaze to his and watched as something flickered there, not knowing, not caring what it could be. His mouth moved, but I heard nothing: I didn't need to.

I already knew my answer: it had fallen like a stone into the pit of my stomach. It was the only solid thing in me anymore – the only thing that seemed certain. It was my voice that answered, but I hadn't felt my lips move. Still, the word hung out there, bridging that fault between us – a soft, feeble "O-okay."

And with that one word, I was sent careening into unconsciousness once more. I slipped and slid back into oblivion, descending once more into the tortuous dreams. I didn't resist it, didn't scramble for consciousness. There was no point. Who would I have been fighting for? Who would I have-

'Sister?'

I lifted my head, my hands shaking as I tried to sit up. I ignored the palms that supported my shoulders and stared straight ahead, reality gouging stakes to pin my mind. Spines swelled in my throat as I stared at Teru, and for the only time in my life, I was glad I didn't have to meet his eyes.

A/N: Hey guys! A short chapter this week as I've been a bit busy. Edits are still ongoing, but hoped you liked the update! It's a bit flowery, but I just wanted to flex those muscles for a bit especially after writing action for so long. Either way, these few chapters will be the darkest and most angsty I plan to write for this story. With all that's happened, I'm sure you'd understand why since it'd be weird if she was chipper at this point.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments! Thoughts, feels, and ConCrit encouraged!