You're going to hate me for seeing you like this, and you're going to forget you ever lapsed. I'm sorry. I had no intention of intruding; I have every intention to now.

So often I have seen the sins of holy men, but never did I suppose that they had contrived such a torment it could rob you of your pomp (I swore was inexhaustible). Such simple words wash out the lights behind your eyes.

Just words.

Yet so much worse than wounds. You cannot see these cuts, they took away the ground and now I see you – cockerel with the head chopped off.

He spews damnation in your face and it clouds the air, rolls down your throat, and eats away the fight that inflates your being. A sliver of you stands petrified, mouth agape to swallow each demon he speaks into you.

"They claw," they claw, "they bite," they bite, "they drag you down and crack your skull a thousand times into infinity!"

You flinch at your name.

I wish I'd been here when you stepped on his foot or bumped his arm so the flood had never come. It's cheating, using words against a mind like yours, an unmatched duel reduced to slaughter. You cannot slice the sounds, you cannot see their movements. I watch them clearly, follow their steps against your slackened jaw and bite my lip with every wince in response.

It is my duty to intervene, I will implore you to understand when the time arrives for you to hate me.

We do not have to remember that you were weak, that I stepped in, that you could not fight back, or that you were beaten. I will not stand by while a battle is fought for the sake of ego. With tongues or swords you fight for honor, even you know this, and so you cannot attack in the face of a pure bully. Adaptive, but even so, not amply to feel out this playing field.

I come to break the spell, stand behind you on the inn room's threshold. Hell's flames, hell's demons, the days of no sun, you've lived through ten times worse, I know.

It's just the words.

"That's enough religion for now, jiji."

He's stolen all your color and mouths at me like a crab, boiling in his own spittle.

"Go."

He trails profanities his order ought not to know, but all the same his voice is gone, the trance is vanished. And I will too, except you turn to me and look straight into my eyes. There I see fear. So much unknown at once, you cannot even ask me 'what?'.

I answer all the same.

"Lies," I shake my head. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

I will shake my head again, shake until you do the same and I know you understand.

"Lies, Mugen, just lies."

"Okay."

You know.

"Okay."

You shake.

"Okay."

I will forget that you closed the distance and that your head is on my shoulder and that your nose is pressed against my neck (and that it is soft).

Always I will remember not to hurt you with my words.