Ainako: FINALLY!

Thank you for reading, you awesome people who watched Gatekeepers. I have wrote another AU (well, not rly a AU but something in settled in the future after GK21) for the series. But I don't know if I will share it here, or even ever to finish it since it scaled much longer than I ever had written before.

Once again, thank you. You may now find a grammar nazi to shoot me down as I had sinned so badly, someone might need a brain/eye bleach. There's some afternotes in my journal, go see if you're interested. It's nothing much rly.


The valley that was once where her home town is now a field of flowers. The Iwatsumesou flowers bloomed and decorating the earth with its pretty white petals, all as if praising life. Had anything more beautiful than this ever existed? She breathe in and can smell their sweet scent spreading across her every senses. In the midst of the breeze whispering the joy of summer in her ear, she heard a familiar sound. Hisame danced around her feet. She had kept him away from freedom for her own sake in that cage. She crouched and nudged it with the back of her palm to tell it to run, to let it roam and find its own freedom, but it refused. Hisame climbed up to her shoulders and kissed her cheeks. She thanked him for choosing to stay.

Ahead, she saw the boy and his friend rejoined. He smiled of happiness, as so does the little girl. Hisame raced towards them. She flew alongside, but stopped halfway. For some reason, she is still unwilling to face the boy again. Was it because of how he reminded her of the man she loved and lost? She turned her back to them, wanting to run. Too much time she had spent without a soul to talk to made her afraid. There is no telling either when will the power inside of her to go uncontrolled and hurt and separate them again. But she needed to thank them for the butterflies and the flowers rejoice.

"Ah but I didn't do much. But you're welcome, uh…"

"Yukino. Houjo Yukino."

She thought she had forgotten her own name amongst the loneliness, but it popped right out when the girl asked for it. Or was it really her name? She can never be sure. Her memories had failed to make sure if it was. Yukino. The snow. Befitting of someone alike her.

"The cold bird is over that canyon."

She pointed towards to where the men had crawled out of the strange bird's innards only to die right after. How can anyone ride a bird so great, not to mention riding inside its belly instead of on them like one would a horse? There were the demons then, perhaps chasing after them but she must have defeated or scared them away with her own rings of light. For the dead, she can only make them a little tomb with stones she found around the valley. She placed their belongings on top – one kept a small painting of their family, a pity their loved ones would never return home anymore – and gave a small prayer for each. It was all that she can do.

From the direction the children headed, she heard cries of her name, repeating over and over from the echoes of the valley. Thank you, the voices shouted.

Gate; the same power as mine.

For the first time for a long time, she smiled. She would never be alone anymore.

~End~