FCL64: KIYOSHI! GET OUT HERE! NOW!

Kiyoshi: (from behind a door) No.

FCL64: YES. (opens door, drags Kiyoshi out, ties him to a chair). Now write this chapter. You've been talking about it. You know what happens. You just won't tell me in enough detail for me to write it down! Now go!

Kiyoshi: Grrr…

FCL64: Oh shut up. We've kept them waiting long enough, and this chapter isn't going to be very long (sorry about both of those things). You can suffer through writing one chapter.

Kiyoshi: I hate you.

FCL64: And you started writing a new story! So I know you are not lacking in inspiration! I have more reason to hate you right now than you have to hate me!

Kiyoshi: You tied me to a chair.

1587 A.D.

Kurama pov

"Kurama. We need to talk."

I look up at Ayaka. "Sure."

"This isn't going to work anymore Kurama."

"What won't work?"

She moves so that we are both on the same side of the fire. "Our partnership. We can no longer work together effectively."

"Yes we can. We have never failed a raid when working together."

That's true. But it's not the same without…without… There has never been a time when Ayaka was there when he was not. It just…I see her, and I am forcibly reminded of the empty space where he should be sitting. Well…assuming he could ever sit still for more than a few seconds. Why must it be so painful to think of such things? It's been six decades. The pain should be fading by now. But each time I think of him…whether of the way he died…or something small, like how he could never sit still…the pain comes back, like it was never gone.

"Kurama…we haven't gone on many raids since…since that day. In the past sixty years we've been on less than one hundred raids. That's only slightly more than one per year. Before…before we had an average of around one each month."

"You want to pick up the number of raids?" Those are the worst times. We occasionally have to go on raids, for various reasons. But raids were the one thing Ayaka never tried to force her way into. If one of us felt a two-man raid would be better, she easily sat back and waited for us. It was never a problem. We never left her out on purpose, but occasionally our targets required a two rather than three-man team.

"No. You can't look at me without thinking of him. He was always there. I never knew you without him right there. You never saw me without him close by."

Why does it hurt so much to hear her voice my own sentiments aloud? Why is it so painful to see her sitting there, nearly knee length hair in a knot on her head with the empty space around us? Why does this aching sadness never go away, even after more than half a century? I can't find a response to her words because everything she has said is completely true.

"Goodbye, Kurama." She stands and walks away, back into the forest. It's almost exactly the opposite of what she looked like the first time we…I saw her. She walked out of woods quite similar to these, and now she disappears back into them. The only difference is who is watching her walk through the forest. I am alone now.

But I cannot bring myself to follow her. Some part of me wants this separation too. Perhaps not seeing Ayaka will ease the pain of the loss of my best friend.

Of course, it could amplify it, since she is my only other friend. But somehow, I think this is for the best.

I am forced to wonder, though, if this separation is temporary, permanent or something else entirely.

Well, now I suppose I should answer reviews. Not that I deserve any for this chapter, long as I made you wait.

animegrlsteph: Too bad I don't remember what the last line was...

White Rose Fox: Thanks for the review!