This has spoilers for the ending and the series throughout.


A Warm Heart

Kyoshiro's hands are cold

Sakuya remembers a time when they weren't, when they where warm and small and caked with mud from the ant-bridge. The one they'd built together.

She remember a time when they where warm, from the blood of the Crimson King, freshly spilled, before she grabbed it, not caring about anything except getting him out. The world could have crumbled around them and she wouldn't have cared, wouldn't have seen, because she was too focused on his warm hand in hers.

They'd grown warm as he healed the villagers in the small village they lived. They'd been warm when she had treated the wound Kyo had given him, when he'd stood in front of the sakura-trees, refusing to move. And she'd held on to them, tightly, letting their warmth seep into her own hands, because she remembered all too well a time, when his hands had been cold as his heart no longer beat for the victims he had slain.

She fear the day they will become cold again, and they do, as she watches him kill her brother, as he battles Kyo in the snow. And all of the sudden, they're both gone and she's all alone.

She doesn't mind staying at Kudoyama (Yukimura is such a dear friend and his ninja are all sweet), but neither Kyoshira nor Kyo are there, and so it is an imperfect world and every night she has the feel of cold and warm hands in hers, the only thing warming them being the blood from his victims.

Kyoshiro's hands are still cold in the Mibu palace. They're almost freezing as he cuts Yukimura's shoulder, his best friend bleeding for a broken promise. She doesn't hold them, but she can almost see the hilt of his sword turn to ice, the temperature from his hands making his powers match Akira's. He nearly kills them and she can see the ice take hold in his eyes. The girl, Yuya somehow manages to stays behind and she hopes and prays that the girl's strength can reach him.

It does and he comes back, like she – deep in her heart – always knew he would. She tries not to flinch as she picks up his hand: it's still cold. She holds on until they're out of the Mibu lands, but then she lets go and forces herself to walk away from him (which isn't as hard as it should have been, but his hands are cold) and walks over to help Yuya and Akari bandage up the others.

She takes a small bottle of medicine that Yuya is handing her and she's startled as their fingers brush.

"Your hands are cold." It slips out of her, before she can stop the words. Yuya looks at her with wide and curious eyes (green deeper than the ocean) and blushes a little under the focus of Sakuya's brown orbs.

"Yes, they always get cold very quickly." She mutters and snatched her hands back, rubbing them against each other, as if trying to get the warmth back. "Brother always used to tell me…"

Yuya stops at that, because she realizes for the first time that her brother is actually Sakuya's brother, and while the seer has already discovered and embraced this fact, she can see that it still comes as quite a bit of a shock to the younger woman. Sakuya doesn't say anything, a little worried about how Yuya will take the news, but the blonde just smiles softly and continues.

"Brother always used to tell me: 'Cold hands means a warm heart'."

Sakuya wraps her arms around herself, as if she's now the one who's cold. Without another word she gets up.

She finds him standing under a sakura-tree, gazing towards the Mibu lands. Maybe he's looking for Kyo, but Sakuya knows it's futile: the demon won't show up now, not for a long while, but eventually he will be back. For Yuya.

She walks quietly to his side and takes his hand in hers. It's cold, but it isn't frozen and the warmth from hers helps, and the temperatures are matching in the blink of an eye. She looks up at him and smiles.

"I'm glad you're back."


AN:
This one came to me in art-class, where I was complaining that my hands where always cold, and my friend Marie, told me that 'If you have cold hands, it means you have a warm heart.' I immdeatly thought about Sakuya and Kyoshiro and how she comments that 'his hands are cold', right before he slays the Crimson King (I can't remember which chapter it is)