My heart racing, I gently press my fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse.

There is none.

A hysterical laugh escapes my lips as I stare down at the one I once thought so powerful, so strong.

I can't believe I've done it.

I really have done it.

And now… he's dead.

And no one will ever know that I did it, since no proof exists of our ever knowing each other.

I laugh again as I gently wipe the single tear that has frozen upon his cold cheek.

"You poor thing… you thought I was really going to help you?"

I shake my head in disgust as I kick dirt into his still face.

"Hn."

I turn and make my way slowly away… away from the wretched person I once called friend, even loved one.

The one who made me suffer and held me captive in a cage of pure torture.

I whistle once.

A sharp, piercing call that echoes off the ice and snow around me.

At once, a black wolf bearing a halo of white around his shoulders bounds to my side.

"Well Mikoku, seems you have done your duty. We are free." Comes a strong male voice.

I gaze down at my companion in triumph.

"We've done it warugashikoi."

"You have done it, not I. I simply stood back and watched how my training aided you."

"Did I do well?"

"Indeed you did, you made even I, shake in fear at the thought of what you could do to me. But my fear was short lived as I realised that I am the one who taught you." He replies with a satisfied sneer in his cold voice.

"What will we do now, Koi?"

"We leave. Come Mikoku, you have served your name and I well."

"Yes master."

I bow my head to the wolf I know as warugashikoi, or just Koi.

"Say your goodbyes then, Mikoku, as I know you will not sleep without having done so."

The contempt in his voice is barely concealed as he remarks my hesitation to leaving the body as such.

"Thank you."

I slowly walk back over to him and kneel down, summoning a small flame with an incantation.

"I hope you realised, during your last breaths, that this is all your fault. If you hadn't put that seal on me… oh well, you were 'simply doing your duty' in sealing me, weren't you? You pathetic excuse for a legend."

I softly murmur another incantation and on his chest appears the word "Kataki." The Japanese word for Revenge.

I stand and walk back to Koi, and as he takes the form of the white haloed black wings that are my familiar, I throw one last glance at the one who imprisoned me.

"I'm not sorry… Dark."

(** Mikoku = betrayal warugashikoi = cunning koi = ancient ways/ feelings of the ancients.)