Lady Kuragami. Hanata Kuragami. My mother. When the outer reaches of our clan were desolated by dragons, Adachi united in the mountains. And she, along with the others, integrated into the main clan.

  But unlike everyone else, she had nothing. Nothing but a suckling child and a tarnished name from some unsung crime my forefathers committed long ago. She knew that, without a husband, and without anyone willing to take her on as a wife no thanks to our reputation, there would be little chance to make money and support us. So… rather than be rejected from the vocations our clan so proudly worked, she made her own occupation.

  Prostitution.

  She was young, pretty, and desperate to take care of me. So, she did what she had to do. I never hated her for it. No, I just didn’t understand it when I was young. One day, in my foolish innocence, I asked her how she could handle it: day after day, for scraps, for just enough to buy flour and water.

  She told me, with that sweet smile of hers, that she “just pretended it wasn’t happening. Even when it was.”

  “I go to another place,” she said while combing through my hair. “Its a kind place. One in which your father, you, I are all laughing and living together in a field of flowers. With a nice cabin and perhaps a cat. I’ve always wanted a cat.”

  I think that was the first time I learned what hate was.

  And I relearned it. Again. And again.

  Until it was all that remained.

  …

  Brick and stone huts dot the mountainside like goosebumps. I weave around their number—duck under a clothesline next to which is a half naked clan warrior giving himself a morning bath with a bucket. He curses at me and I feel his thrown scrubber bounce off my ankle. Others just ignore me. Many don’t know me, many more shun me, and a select few despise my very existence. I can’t fathom now how I didn’t see it back then—this open isolation. Rejection.

  Sorina teasingly calls me a dog at times. But these… things who disguise themselves as people—they treated me as less than that even.

  I’m nearing my home when an older man bars my path.

  “I’va beena trying to holler ya, but ya keepa goin’ boyo.”

  “What?” I ask. I peak around his shoulder, past the alley that leads out of this district.

  “Your ma. How much shea costa—”

  It's a dream.

  Just a dream.

  “Area ya deaf boyo? That whore Hanata—”

  You said it yourself: doing anything here is pointless. Useless. It does nothing for you in the real world.

  Your vengeance has to be pinpoint. Precise. You can’t just—

  I blink.

  Realize that the man has stopped screaming.

  I withdraw my thumbs from his popped eyes in their bloody socket pools. My hands are shaking. I force them to stop.

  Breathe.

  Lapse of judgement.

  Don’t let it happen again.

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  But, unlike that time I cut Hikaru’s hands off, there is no lingering doubt. No pinprick in the back of my mind that tells me, ever so slightly, that this is indeed wrong.

  No, the blood feels good.

  Seeing the old man’s body twitch now—that feels good.

  The witch is simply indulging you. Let it go.

  I sigh. Take a breath.

  Wipe off the vitreous liquid of the eye that drips off my thumbs. Then, I’m off to the races—I won’t let the dream end before I see her this time.

  I won’t.

  …

  She was born with gray eyes, like Hui and many others in our clan. I had black eyes back then—before the tower. They later changed to the color of my implement, no thanks to me breaking amulet after amulet and choking my veins with angel dust.

  Nonetheless, it is the sight of her gray eyes that elicits the first tears. I see them through the window slit. They are furrowed and worry lines crease them, and yet, they are so beautiful.

  “Mo–” I begin, but my voice catches. A sob hicks at the back of my throat. If Thraevirula can grant you this, then does anything else really matter? I shove that thought aside for now, and, with a harrowing effort, choke back all my sobs. Winding around the hut’s flank, I come to the open door, practically running the whole time. I leave behind a trail of tears in my wake. However, all that momentum comes to a stop when I run headfirst into a strong, barrel-chest.

  I flop back on my but, arms flailing. Rubbing my head, I look up with a certain fury at whoever this obstacle is in my path.

  It takes a lot of effort to keep my jaw from dropping.

  Masaru stands there, imperious and unmoving. He looks down upon me with those dark eyes of his and his robes flutter in the wind—the top of them undone. His chest hair glistens with sweat.

  When he follows my gaze, he scowls and folds the robes over before turning back inside.

  How is he even here? Why?

  I don’t remember this event in the slightest.

  “Kuragami, your son has arrived,” he announces. My mother peers around the door. Her hair is long, wavy, and crow black. Her face is petite and her eyes are sharply downcast.

  When she greets me, it is not with the smile of my memories, but rather, the horror of someone who just made an irreversible mistake.

  My fists ball.

  “What did you do to my mother?” I ask. The rage cuts so deep that my voice is a mere whisper in the wind—a small, fiery thing that shakes and crackles with years of imagined fury fueling it.

  Imagined fury at what I’d do once I got my hands on him. On them.

  And here he stands.

  I step forward.

  Only, the world falls away. My soul wretches forth, much like it did when blue soulfire whipped against it. Rather than burning away, however, that glass orb of storms and lightning now breaks free of my body. No—not free. It is expelled.

  And once more, just like in the most recent of Sadai dreams I had, I am now a spectral. A spectator.

  My younger self stands there, confused and open-jawed like some dumb donkey.

  “Sorry Raiten, but for you to truly understand what has been stolen, you must bear witness to it,” a voice whispers.

  I seethe. “You dare take this from me?”

  I turn to find her dressed in blue, gloved in white, armored in silver, carrying with her the raw steel of the Meteor Blade.

  Thraevirula gives me a pitying look. “Yes.”

  Time seems to stop in the dream. My younger self remains suspended in ever-lasting disbelief as Masaru’s mouth hangs open and my mother’s horrified expression pierces me.

  I scoff as the witch approaches.

  “I might as well call you the Witch of Dreams. So skillful are you in conjuring up my personal nightmares.”

  She pauses at that, her eyes widening at the moniker. But it's only for a moment.

  “These are memories, Raiten. And remember, I’m on your side in this regard. You have the right to know this. The only question is, are you willing to accept it?”

  I look back and forth between her and the scene before me.

  My fury heightens. But, these are just memories. Doing anything to him here means nothing. Same with her. My victories here are fruitless.

  Even if she is playing me, I’ll just pretend I can believe it for now.

  I sneer. “Do your worst.”

  Rather than laugh or even provide some sort of teasing, seductive rebuttal as she usually might’ve, she just smiles.

  A sad, empathetic sort of smile. As if to say, ‘I understand.’

  And for the first time since I unleashed my nightmares on her, Thraevirula elicits from me a spark of gnawing fear.

  Because now I understand: the Witch of Plagues truly feels sorry for me.

  “What do you know that I don’t?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “See for yourself.”