Sometimes a person wonders at the end of a journey, why it finishes as it does.
The chill of the snow encased her, but she numbly walked on, her mind foggy with exhaustion and pain.
Concerning every story book she'd read, every tale she was told as a child, and every movie she'd watched; the ending always held a sobbing female, clinging desperately to a guy who claimed to love her endlessly.
It had always seemed both romantic and hopeful to her, a dream come true in her lonely upbringing. But it was a lie.
The pain of her injury grew too intense for her to stand and with a soundless thump, she dropped to her knees. Nanami's hands shook and her chest quivered with the force it took to draw air in, but she had promised. She had sworn to safe him and so she couldn't afford to yield to the cold plush bed of snow beneath her, not yet.
With another shuttering gasp, her left hand braced itself on the nearest tree trunk and her right knee weakly lifted so her foot could gain leverage. When she raised her head the world flew into a tornado of colors and she felt nauseous. How could she end the spinning? Her mind rummaged vainly for a solution but all she could think was to close her eyes, so she shut them but still felt the world shifting beneath her. Her head leaned into the rough bark of the tree for comfort and she tried breathing, focusing her mind on anything but the pain and the chaotic movement of the world.
The cold wood soothed her, and without realizing it she slumped into its chilled embrace.
What did she have to do again?
The thought reverberated in her skull like a bullet and her grasp on reality loosened further.
There was something, right? Something, extremely important.
Nanami opened her eyes to watch the world around her dance a spinning jumble of black, white, brown, and purple.
Purple.
The color felt important, more important than anything in her existence.
She racked her brain quietly, flashes of her life coming and going as she drifted on her finally bed.
Purple.
A hazy grey beckoned her and she obediently looked into her mind's eye, the color of silver.
What was purple and silver?
Her digits and legs from her knees down were too numb to feel anymore, there no longer was a dull ache in her lower body but her gapping stomach wound continually seeped.
Purple.
All at once she saw him, his silver fox ears swiveled as he listened indiscreetly to every noise she made, his skilled hands fixing her food, his face as she egged him on, and finally his longing expression as he saved her from her many troubles.
Purple, the color of his eyes. Silver, the color of her fox lover's hair. Her Beautiful Tomoe.
Nanami snapped her head too quickly to the side, falling face first into the snow as she retched.
The taste was copper and too frightened at what she might find, she blindly grabbed a small portion of snow, put it in her mouth, swished, spit, and pushed back up to a sitting position against the tree.
Her Tomoe- Where was he?
Her body shuttered, jerked, and twitched. The blood from her stomach, warm and wet against her right hand, oozed slower as she tried to recall where her fox was.
Something was important about Tomoe.
Nanami allowed her head to lull back, her eyes glazed and visibly pained as she searched the darkened sky.
His terrified face flashed across her mind, the black tattoos that branded him as dying, his strong words and the pungent odor of blood. It all flew back to her.
That's right!
Her heart lurched and her lungs once more struggled for air as she moved to crawl forward. She truly had to make it. If it ended her, she had to save him.
Her right hand fell away from her midsection as she used both to pull her form forward towards the edge of the mountain, towards Kuromaro.
After five long minutes of painful crawling she crested the hill and lost all strength once more. To weak to even lift her head and confirm her sucess, she laid breathing in choppy gasps, her face more than scrunched in pain, and her muscles useless. Certainly she would die. Misuki had warned her to return if danger found her, but she couldn't. She had to save Tomoe. And now here she was, bleeding to death in the ice. But it would not be a futile death.
Nanami's body shook violently, the pain of her wound was only a dull throb and her mind was hazing further than any time before but she only had one last thing to do.
Gathering her courage, she lifted slightly, sharply inhaled, and murmured the fallen god's name as loud as possible.
The wind whipped louder and the wood around her creaked in protest as the storm strengthened but Nanami would not be deterred. She called again.
Nothing happened.
Her head lifted higher still from the ice to survey her surroundings, searching desperately for his black form amongst the white.
"Kuromaro."
Her voice cracked from a strangled sob she refused to release.
"Kuromaro."
She hysterically whispered as that was all the wind she had left to use within her abused lungs. And still when nothing appeared, she drew another painful lung full.
"Please.."
Her voice rasped beyond recognition and her eyes filled with tears of anguish. Could he not hear her?
Nanami's throat chocked with defeat and her chest tightened in misery.
Had she failed him?
Her gaze frantically searched the charred remains of what once had been the fallen God's home.
His name a mantra on her lips as she dug her frozen fingers into the covered ground and pulled herself forward. Each breath used only to call out to him.
"Kuromaro!"
Her mind begged the fallen God to hear her, to see her, over and over.
"Please."
She whispered with her finally breath, too weak to even be heard over the whipping winds.
Nothing happened.
Nanami's sight blurred with tears and the warmth of the salt liquid coated her face when she realized how horrible wrong the end was, how terrible undependable she had been for Tomoe, and finally as she grasped that she would die vainly. A ragged gasp forcfully barreled down her throat, burning a trail as it went. She didn't care, why should she.
The burn in her chest grew to unbearable lengths and at the climax of the pain a hiccupping sob tore out.
She had failed him.
Her face slammed back into the snow, defeat, shame, and pain fighting for the lead, tearing her apart.
Why did she have to be so useless!?
Why was it going to end this way?
Her hand pulled into her face, furling and unfurling as she tried to recall his tender touches. His gentle yet firm hold.
Her Tomoe.
Nanami closed her eyes and tried to stiffly her weeping, to accept her bleak reality. But what killed her more than anything was her thoughts. Her useless frivolous thoughts.
To even ponder that she had been unsuccessful tore apart her chest worse than anything else. That she had other's depending on her success only added to the pain. And when she thought about her sweet, cocky Tomoe, her demanding, bossy, caring familiar leaving forever-
The burning in her throat returned and she tried to stop but it just keep coming, it moved like a it had a life of its own, traveling to her eyes and tickling her nose. The burning was just so great.
Her chest shook with the energy it took to reframe from screaming and still she pushed the pain deeper, basking in it.
If anything, she deserved this pain. She deserved to die in agony. The hurt continued to bubble higher and higher till a shreiking cry broke the night air.
And Nanami wondered vaguely who was voicing her own anguish. When the cry was heard again, and her throat burned with the crisp winter air she realized it was her screaming and she relinquished all control.
Another body shaking cry erupted from her and in the throes sorrow, Nanami curled into herself on that snowy bank.