A/N: I am happy, for some reason I cannot state. Until the end then,

'Kuga-sama.'

Her presence is something I cannot forget, even when I stand in the room that was previously inhabited by Fujino-hime. Now, this room of the princess, houses someone which has brought back my sanity. What has become of me? The hot summer heat, the blaze of sunlight runs into her room and I feel as if history is being repeated, like the years that have passed and has been brought back. Her voice echoes in her room and I feel a shiver despite the humid nature of summer.

'Yes, Shizuru?' I paused as I look over to my companion, her red eyes holding my frame, mixed with much confusion and concern. Her eyes remind me of the past that I have dread, but then, why did I even create her in the first place? It was just not a simple wish; it wasn't just something I couldn't just neglect. It was something much more. It was a shared emotion that we both had, that is why things are the way they are today.

However, was I being selfish?

'Is there anything wrong, Kuga-sama?

I move over to Shizuru silently as she moved over to tend to me as I shed my soiled yukata onto the ground. I am used to the contract's consequences, and I am fully aware of why my yukata is drenched with blood every morning. I am use to it, for I am the one that brought about it. The contract's seal, language of the ancient, burned my skin, leaving my arms marked with black. It has already started to trail up my neck; soon it will eat up my face. How long will it be until then?

Shizuru never questions me about this happening, if is as if she knows what is happening to me. She keeps silent every morning as she sees me drenched in fresh crimson liquid that flows from no source, no injury and no mark. It is as if she knows everything, when she is merely a spiritual paper doll. Shizuru keeps quiet, but her eyes tell the tale that she has been eager to tell me. I know her, as I had known her; her eyes always tell the tale.

I pulled the bounds across my chest free as I feel Shizuru's hand dance across my back, taking along the night's bandages away from my body. My eyes take hold onto her hands that go round my front to clear the pool of bandages and I reach out tentatively to hold her hand. It feels as soft as I can remember her to be.

'Kuga-sama?'

'Hold it here firmly.'

I put one end of the new roll of bandages in her hand and I move my own around my body to do up my bound. Her soft breathing beating against my neck reminds me of how I sleep with her, naked to the day that she was created. Why do I do so? Simply for the fact that I yearn to hold her, to protect her from my worries and to inevitably keep me sane.

It was a connection I couldn't neglect, yet it was a bound that is forbidden, something that I could feel was made wrongly.

Am I desperate to keep her with me? Until this living day?

Yet, who am I really keeping?

'Thank you Shizuru.'

I felt her hand move away from my chest and I pulled back up to adjust my bound so it was not as tightly bounded as I wanted it to be. My ears picked up the soft shuffling behind me and I was soon presented with a new set of clothes. She knows my colour too well than I had to her. A clean smoky blue coloured yukata was placed in front of me, folded along with a set of a light coloured pair of hakama pants. I watched her pull up from her kneel and I watch her graceful movements that become more obvious with the help of the colour of her yukata. The light colour of purple brings it out the most, that was what it use to be, and it still does.

'Shizuru.'

I hear her footsteps stop upon the matting and her soft acknowledgment answer back to me. She is still as elegant and graceful; why am I still comparing? Is it because I am within the spell of the past, or is it that I still cannot forget her. What Mai has said is correct, Fujino-hime still walks around and I am running with my tail between my legs. I am running from the past, I am running away from insanity, I am running from myself, I am running away from her…

I am running away from the truth.

However, it was a wish!

How can I neglect a wish from her!?

I noticed now that it is true, Fujino-hime still walks because what I have done. To eyes that have not seen what I have created still believes that Fujino-hime still walks. The very essence that made Fujino-hime who she is is within the Shizuru that I have so feelingly created. That is why I am still hiding, still running, still living in a lie. I cannot tear myself away from the fact that Fujino-hime is long dead.

That Shizuru is nothing but fabricated from a wish.

A wish that I had interpreted wrongly.

A wish…

'What are you reading Shizuru?'

I found her eyes locked onto an old book that looked so familiar, and I tightened my sash across my waist and move closer to her. Her aura is nothing compared to that once of Fujino-hime, of course she is not. Shizuru is nothing but a spiritual paper doll… she has no aura.

'A dairy I had found in the closet, Kuga-sama?'

A dairy? I use to write a diary when I was young and stopped when insanity robbed me of the last few hours of true light. I have no clue where my dairy had gone to when I left the Grand Shrine years ago. I do not recall bringing it along with me to Kyoto. I do not recall burning it; I do not recall anything of it. How dearly I want the past to be erased. It this not why I created Shizuru? No.

Shizuru is nothing but fabricated from a wish, she…

She…

I am running.

Mai, I am running.

I calmed myself and eased myself down next to Shizuru that had handed over to me the dairy that she had found in her room. The edges torn and tattered, the dairy thick and bounded with a strong string. A string that only paper doll makers had with them. Was this my father's dairy? No, my father never had a dairy; he never had the time to write. I flipped the pages quickly with my thumb and I watch the dust rise. How old is this diary, how long has this been kept in this room.

This room.

Is this Fujino-hime's dairy?

No, Fujino-hime never kept a dairy. She was…

I closed my mouth with a click and Shizuru noted my change in aura and mood as I felt her tense up a little beside me. My true scent that has been hidden under my lies has been broken, due to how much Shizuru and Fujino-hime are alike. Aren't they supposed to be? Yes they are.

I stopped my flipping and I opened to a page with a few lines written in ink that has partially turned brown due to the passing of time. Whose dairy is this? The hand writing seemed so familiar and I made out the words from the messy hand writing. I read the characters that ran downwards, starting from the right top hand corner. There was a month and a date but no era period. I guessed as much this person only relished in the two simply details. Yet, it seemed so familiar, so very familiar:

XX month, XX date.

Summer has come, and the heat has been pestering Mai. However, Mai, isn't she a baby of the summer? A person much like this season that is full of passion and vibrance? That aside. Father has been in his room for more than a day and I have not heard from him. I have finished painting the layout of the Grand Shrine, a map so detailed and neat that my father would be very proud of. It is after all a practice for me in order to do up fine and perfect lines when writing the texts and spells on paper dolls. I hope that my father will come out from his room soon and give me a new task.

I had visited the room in the east wing, the lone room that sits at the edge of the residence area. It faces the mountains that looked upon that rest of Ise and the lush forest that resides upon it. The bamboo grows thick and grass tall to my knees. Why has not anyone tended to this place? Has Mai been forgetting to tend this area? I will have to tell her about this.

However, what caught me to stay on longer was a figure that sat on the veranda and looked beyond what just my eyes saw. It was lady, a person that looked slightly older than me. More mature than I was and above all, elegant and graceful. Her hair was the colour of sand, the sand that I saw once on the shores of the far away Sendai bay. The colour of sand that had been wet with the waters of the sea.

Her eyes.

Her eyes were the colour of a sedated Amaterasu. It was as if there was no life.

It was as if she was dead.

Who exactly is she?

A/N: Now Natsuki past will slowly be revealed, as the story progresses we will see more. This time, however, there is no dialogue preview, that I am sorry. If I give a preview so, it will be a dead give away to everyone that has been reading. Thank you for all the support, I hope all will continue to enjoy this story.

Then again,

Cheers!