- Chapter Six: What's Next? -

Heather coils unfurling sparingly in the Stygian expanse, the scintillating cobalt radiating from the stars merging with the distant peach glow of the humble cook fire against an otherwise stark portrait of a quiet winter wood, an ebony-locked youth expressed his doubts of the story being fed to the two males by the dark-haired vision and her pearly companion, "I don't see what any of that has to do with Master Hanzo..."

Joint kill already divided between the parties by mutual agreement of need and stored for the reluctantly partnered pair of hunters to go their separate ways, bellies as full as they were going to get for the night, the unseasoned deer meat was settling in the gullet better than the narrative was. Displaying every sign of having heard the tale at least once before - each time that the name Ko'atal was mentioned she muttered what sounded like an apology under her breath - eyes cast downwards throughout, even the teen traveling alongside the blatantly mistrusted demoness was acting uncomfortable. Although if the pale one was to be believed, it stood to reason why she'd be so squeamish at the intimate details. Swayed by the eternal fires that burned behind sparsely marked bronze eyes, if her guide and guardian was as infamous a betrayer as his master indicated it only followed that she would be following suit, but it would have been a real shame if that was the case: Hitomi was as strikingly pretty as the flower that bloomed on the floor of the mountain only after the season had shifted. Possibly even more so (ignoring the fact that girls were a virtual nonentity on the mountain).

Glaring at the woman opposite him as if weary that the fair creature was more than capable of delivering the sweetest of promises one moment and doing everything in her power to escape the next, Takeda surmised that Master Hanzo also had yet to see the relevance. "You always were skilled with your tongue, traitor."

Two sets of more innocent eyes demurred momentarily from the singeing stab, however the strange woman remained fixed in place like a wilting Rhododendron Campanulatum that withered unfed in the rocky slopes, determined to take every insult hurled her way without complaint. Whatever had happened between the pair of them - truly happened - it was blinding Master Hanzo to the most believable thing about this whole scene: the remorse. Four bundled individuals clustered so tightly around the moderate blaze that there was no space but fabric between kissing knees, apprentices crammed between, the boy gathered that it was quote unquote "the best for Takeda's sake" that the former wraith was able to clearly observe their unexpected guest and any foolish move she might make. While the young Shirai Ryu could not deny that he had no idea of what the outsider was capable of, her visage alone hinting that like the veteran shinobi she was no stranger to kombat, the swordsman's son had to concede that the warrior woman appeared to be a threat to the two of them in no shape or form.

Sighing with a sad look at the girl introduced as Hitomi - who couldn't quite bring herself to meet the woman's gaze and merely stared at... well honestly Takeda had no clue what she was staring at on the woman when almost every part of her was obscured by furs, but to hazard a guess he would have said the girl was looking at the demon's chest - the hellion instead gazed to the heavens. Judging from both everything they'd heard so far and the way Master Hanzo wanted to roll his eyes, that seemed to be something the succubus did a lot. "I thought you'd be a better audience and save your questions for the end." Bothered by the interruption but undeterred to say whatever she came here to say, the huntress continued with a tug on one of the silvery ropes spilling from her crown, "I made more than my far share of mistakes, I will accept the consequences of that as they come, but it's not right that continue to keep lying to those I love, no matter the intent. I ought to have learned that with my firstborn," voice threatening to tremble, she turned to Hitomi, "none of you will never know how sorry I am that I didn't."

Reaching to the demon's face with a hand gloved all in white, the younger of the two wiped away the faint glitter of the half-formed tear that dared to show itself in the argent haze of the fire, "He'll forgive you. It won't be easy, but I know. In the end he's half of my heart, and I understand why you did most of what you did."

World suddenly growing instantly darker as a being of fire and brimstone crossed his arms underneath an infuriated grimace - though the rage wasn't quite enough to draw out the infamous Scorpion - Master Hasashi labored underneath the assumption that they were referring to himself and roared, "I forgive nothing!" Spittle flying out so far as the blaze, Takahashi followed the same path of reasoning and found the reaction to be a legitimate course of action from the pieces he had assembled, though as for the bit about being half of Hitomi's heart, that just kind of fell by the wayside, an unimportant thread of thought too fleeting to be followed up on.

"..." Silence an answer of many faces, something told the orphaned Shirai Ryu that his sensei was going to take this the wrong way no matter what fell from the woman's cranberry-hued lips.

"Your memory is selective indeed to forget!" Leering with eyes colder than death at the lascivious-looking lady and utterly disregarding the particular way she beheld him in return, there was an intensity burning that Takeda had failed to recall seeing on his master's face on even the worst of days as the former wraith became increasingly incensed by the stroking fingers of the past. "When you vanished without a trace everyone thought that you had died. I thought that you..." refusing to choke-up on the swallowing clutches of sentiment and lose momentum, the fury redirected itself, "I alone resumed the search for your body long after the order had been retracted, and do you know how my effort was rewarded? I find a whore returned to the arms of a fool."

Accusations of forgetting anything inconvenient enough to raise Hitomi's hackles, on principle the woman being implicated in such a fashion caused the young bloom to flare up, actual flames licking the ends of her flowing chocolate locks as she prepared to lunge at the offender with a murderous cry, "Back off, you don't know-"

"Hitomi!" Hand lashing out with frightening speed that seriously made Takeda reassess the hellion's threat-level, the demoness yanked the girl back and into her arms the way a mother would hold her child, soft soothing words on her tongue until the smell of burnt hair was the only remainder of the outburst. "This is my fight, not yours." Despite reprimanding her comrade with a certain kind of stern tone that he himself missed, there was also a hint of pride in the girl as she explained, "Hitomi inherited not only her father's short temper but the flames of his wrath as well."

And there it was again. "..."

Embracing the other as if intending to hold her back for the remainder of the night, the demon resumed weaving her web with a mild shrug, "Now as I was saying before all this ugliness, there is a connection between everything you've heard so far and what I came here for. More than likely my journey will come to a close before the dawn, however one can't rule out that you'll just take it as the prattling of an ancient terror grasping at the frayed strings of the past to destroy whatever's left, or just maybe you can accept that this is the confession of a woman that can never hope to make amends. It's inescapable that there's no redemption for my soul, but there's still a chance I can at least try to do right for my children... they deserve better than what they were given. I royally messed up raising my kids - I was so frightened and ashamed I let the worst part of myself rule, and worse than that, I knowingly hurt everyone involved just to save my own skin. Hitomi has heard me out so graciously, and again when dealing with her brother, so she could have just came to you with this story herself, yet I had to be the one you heard this from." Tempted to call him by name, the demoness refrained and instead addressed the shinobi most respectfully in his native language (the translation loosely being), "You of all people have more than every right to call me every foul name you can think of and cast me off this mountain, but I beg of you that you'll hear me out to the end. Once I've told you everything, my life is at your mercy."

Concerned not only for what it could do to Hitomi to see the demoness lay down her life but also touched by the loss of his own mother, Takeda looked to his sensei, genuinely worried what the man so notoriously bent on revenge would do...