Prologue: The Night is for Dying

It wasn't pain that drove him to his knees. Not the gunshot that punched into his side, despite the coat protecting him, nor the agony spearing his limbs. Nor even the anguish that tore greedily at his heart as nothing had done in a long time.

It was simply exhaustion.

Sheer, crushing exhaustion. The incalculable weight of what he had done –

No! No, now wasn't the time. With skill only a contractor could master, he stamped back the tendrils of distraction, and emptied himself of thought. Yet even this was not enough, not nearly enough, to quell the ringing in his ears or the fog obscuring his eyes.

The part of him still thinking rationally knew the exercise was pointless. If he approached the wall, there would be an army waiting for him – whose, exactly, was a little vague: it depended on who had won, and for one thing and another he hadn't really been paying attention. Still, it remained that whomever he would meet he no longer had the strength to fight. And, for the heavily armed squad behind him, he couldn't go back. For any other contractor, the choice would have been simple: surrender and agree to barter his charge for his life.

It was the logical thing to do.

Even with his thoughts in check, he flinched from the idea, his heart colder than if it had been packed with ice. Unbidden, the eyes that were themselves like the night sky dropped to the girl in his arms. She was naked but for his holding her to him, her skin still shining with the strange, white light; her hair a cascade of moonlight that fell sheer of his right arm. Moments passed as he stared at the porcelain features, the hand behind her head brushing so slightly against her cheek.

Would that he could simply have killed her. Would that he had just done what he knew he must and brought the knife to her chest…perhaps it would even have been less painful.

The smallest movements travelled through the gloved fingers as the girl stirred, jolting him back to reality. Despite the protest in his legs, he rose achingly to his feet and forced his vision open. There wasn't much to see: under the false stars' half-light the desolation and lifelessness surrounding the gate was compounded in the jagged shadows, yet here and there were pools of a deeper darkness that filled him with an untraceable unease. He stared about in indecision, considering the narrow list of options. Within this ghost city behind the wall, there were plenty of places to hide…

The pale-white girl, still held tightly in his arms, suddenly shifted so her face burrowed into his chest. A hand, the colour of true starlight, rose like a feather in the evening breeze, fingertips gently seeking out the sharp line of his jaw; the high, graceful profile of his cheekbones. It was imperceptibly soft, and for just a moment the slender fingers travelled unchecked across his skin, slipping in movements likened more to water than flesh.

He froze, wide eyes darting down. The hope and terror that had carried him so far burned painfully inside as the violet eyes fluttered slowly open, and turned to look straight into his.

It was a moment for which he thought he had prepared himself. He had braced for an empty shell, devoid of everything of who she had been. For an entity, alien and strange, the last remnants of humanity washed away.

For Izanami.

And, right on the edge of hope, for the girl he had waited so long, fought so hard to find.

Yet now she gazed with eyes shining silver bright, full of a sad beauty that seemed to swallow him whole and bring him crashing back to his knees. A wave of exhaustion followed like a brick wall, blurring everything except her face. As blackness gathered at the fringes of his mind, a single whispered word escaped his dry lips.

"Yin."