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07: extinguish the stars
i will lay the world at your feet

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When she closed her eyes, Sayuri could see the sea with perfect clarity. The feeling of the salted breeze against her skin, the scent of prismatic hydrangeas in full bloom. She remembered the taste of the spicy tonkotsu broth they shared, the dazzling sun above clear blue waters. The sound of his laugh filling the empty sky and her hand reaching for his across the sparkling white sands. A promise made and broken in a single breath, weeping constellations flooding the night.

Okinawa, she would whisper into the silence as her heart bled onto the tatami mats. The taste of plum liquor on her lips, fragmented memories flung all around her. The moment her heart soared and plunged into the swelling waves. Okinawa, she grasped at her chest as tears leaked down her cheeks. Ragged breaths escaping her asphyxiated lungs, hands clenched around the fabric of her kimono. They had been such fools, lulled by siren songs and azure blue dreams.

But when she closed her eyes, she could see him under the silver moon as he singlehandedly ignited every star in the god-made heavens. How he carved a constellation of grief and rapture onto every inch of her skin, his touch that caused her to bloom like night cereus before dying as the morning sun rose. Drowning in his lips, burning in his embrace. She ached for a future that she knew they could never have.

To meet him at Sugawara Shrine, to see him in a five-layered kimono under the sacred rope. Nuptial cups filled with sake, san san kudo and sakaki twigs offered to their ancestors. What she would give to see it come true.

But when she opened her eyes, all she could see was his shattered body and blood-soaked hair in her arms. The taste of despair on her tongue as the world spiralled into the abyss of the sky. Something inside her broke into a million pieces that day, disintegrating to dust and taken away by the heedless wind. Even with all the blessings at her fingertips, she could not undo death when all the breath was stolen from his lungs. She would have given him every single one of hers if she could.

"Don't leave me," she begged, grasping his face and finding darkness within the ocean of his eyes. No galaxies or endless summer hues, only emptiness within the void. Voice faltering as her fingers grasped his shirt, laying an ear against his still chest. Sorrow was a hundred daggers plunging into her heart as her pleas scraped against the back of her throat. "Please... please wake up, Satoru. Don't leave me like this. Not like this, please! I'll do anything! So please... just breathe... Satoru... I love you."

And all she could think of was how she would never hear his voice again or find herself between his loving arms. The warmth of his hands and the taste of his lips, silver locks interweaved between her fingertips and the longing in his eyes when he looked at her.

The gods had forsaken her, left her wanting for mercy in the abandon of their iniquity. The haunting past repeating itself by edict of the fates, trapped within that endless cursed cycle of hatred and grief. She screamed and screamed unto deaf ears, until the sun hid its face for shame. Until the anguish drowned itself at the bottom of its own sea and all the salted tears dried upon her cheeks.

For the first time in her life, Sayuri felt the creeping madness within as if it were her very own. A thousand years' worth of resentment flowed through her veins like an insidious corruption of her soul. Possessing her with such a feral hunger that she could ravage the stars. Whispers of the damned cajoling her reluctant body to rip itself from his cold corpse.

She remembered her feet taking her to the Tombs of the Star Corridor, finding only more blood left in the wake of the murderer's onslaught. Suguru had grasped hold of her stained hand when she tried to heal him, murky eyes filled with the want of retribution as he bled on the ground. Without a need for words, they understood the helpless anguish on each other's faces.

"Kill him, Sayuri..." he had urged her with rasping breath. "Whatever it takes. Kill him."

In that moment, she despised her own wretched existence more than anything else. Blaming herself for the lives that had been stolen, cursing her own failures and weaknesses. She who stood in their protective shadows with lacklustre talent over her own birthright. She wanted to ask him, what could she possibly accomplish on her own?

But the monster inside her has known more about revenge than any other soul, outlasting even the rocks that have crumbled and the rivers that have run dry. Eternity was simply a blink of an eye compared to the everlasting spite in its woeful grudge. Life for life and eye for eye. Tooth, hand and foot, it would lay hold of them all. The monster inside her answered, Everything.

Even if she had to destroy herself in the process, even if it was at the cost of her own life. She would exact vengeance a thousandfold, pit sinner against sinner, and unleash the song of utter obliteration. She would hunt each one responsible to the very ends of the earth and watch them grovel at her feet for a shred of nonexistent mercy. She would drown them all within the depths of the Sanzu River.

With gleeful laughter ringing in her ears, Sayuri walked unknown paths until she found herself at the House of the Children of the Star. Stopping across the long pavement leading to the entrance of the building, she stared death in the eyes as he smiled ruthlessly back in spite of her grief. The man stood tall and proud, basking in the glory of his hard-earned rewards and accolades.

"Did you come here to die too?" he mocked. "Did you want to see your boyfriend again that badly?"

Something inside her pulled taut and broke into a hundred little ribbons as she mustered a smile of equal ferocity. She felt the liberation of her soul as she unshackled the gates of hell, felt its heinous power surge through her like a euphoric drug. Her laugh was manic and wild and utterly broken. "We can see him together," she said.

Even the dreaded sorcerer killer recoiled from her hysterics, face contorting with disgust. "What the fuck is that on your shoulders?" he spat out. "Since when did the Kurosawas learn curse manipulation?"

"You have an idea of what my techniques are," Sayuri stated quietly, "but only the Gojos are privy to all the secrets between our clans."

"It doesn't matter," he retorted arrogantly. "Because you're weaker than them."

She knew there was a grain of truth behind his words. Barely dodging the man's barrage of attacks, feeling the pain of his relentless lacerations across her skin. She had little choice but to rely on the very thing that had tormented her all her life. "In return, lend me all of your cursed power."

Her eyes were stained with the crimson death of a blood moon, hand raising to open all twelve gates of hell within her control. Cursed energy saturated the air in a thick and heavy fog, demons stirring from their slumber of dormant shadows. The man jumped back in surprise as the vengeful ghost that clung to her laughed and laughed in pure ecstasy. She unleashed her technique of fatalistic devastation, rot blooming forth from her fingertips. Scarlet decay staining the ground they stood on, corroding the stone path and wilting the surrounding leaves to a bare crisp. Creating distance between them, she touched her thumb to her ring finger in a seal of the sun.

"I alone will show you what hell truly is," she uttered.

But just as she was about to expand her domain, she heard a voice call out her name, "Sayuri." As soft as the whispering wind, laced with bitter regrets and sorrows. A gentle caress upon her prickling skin, icy blood coursing through her veins. The breath left her lungs in a torrid rush and for a heart-wrenching moment, she thought she had died. That the sorcerer killer had cut her down without her noticing.

Sayuri turned around to find azure stars reflected in her gaze. A desperate ache clawed up her chest into her throat, heart stopping before the advent of a god. Immortality made flesh, enlightenment crowning his brows. The sun caught in his silver hair and the birth of new galaxies gleaming brilliantly within his eyes. Exaltation of the highest form at his divine awakening, adoring veneration of his second coming. Falling to her knees in reverence, in awe and disbelief in the light of his excellence.

Even as he knelt before her, reaching for her face so that she could feel the warmth of his hands. The blood roared in her ears, phosphenes dancing in her vision. "S-Satoru...?" she whispered faintly as the tears fell unbidden onto her cheeks. Her trembling fingers curled around his, the earth tilting once more on its axis to swallow her whole. She grasped hold of his collar as she folded into his arms, sobs wracking her body from an overwhelming joy that caused her heart to ache more than it ever did before. With his name spilling from her lips over and over in fervid devotion.

"Sayuri, I'm sorry," he said in earnest, cradling her head against his chest. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, please..."

They held onto each other to keep themselves from falling apart, knowing with painful clarity that they could never undo all that had already been wrought.

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Years had passed since that fateful moment that had ended the halcyon days of their youth. The scars had faded and yet, the memories would remain forevermore. Seared into her eyes, into her very soul. Haunting her in every waking and sleeping moment that she would beg the gods to spare her of the misery and guilt. Losing her mind within the darkness of her inebriated thoughts, day after day as her vengeful ghost tied a noose around her neck.

Sayuri was cursed to live an endless cycle of despair, where everything she touched would turn to ash. She always wondered what their lives would have been like now if that day had never happened. If that blighted sorcerer killer had never been born. She would curse his soul over and over, until she too crossed into hell and joined his loathsome company. So that she could wring his throat between her hands.

Her bare feet crossed the threshold of the sacred shrine, the sleeves of her ceremonial kimono trailing from her arms to the stone floor. All things must come to an end eventually, reclaimed by the hands of death. Izanami awaiting her due. Standing before their ancestral altar, she raised a dagger to her palm and offered her blood as penance for her faithlessness. Unwrapping the inverted spear of heaven, she lifted it before her to admire its keen edge and the foreign energy radiating from the cursed tool. She placed it upon the altar for safekeeping before drawing a circle around herself to summon the wretched remains of their blessed mother.

Long ago, Kurosawa Chizuru had been the epitome of their kind. The supreme sorceress who held life and death in her hands, heaven and hell within her eyes. Blessings and curses fell from her lips, judgement and enlightenment were the boon of her grace. Her legacy undone by the blade of love, reduced to a pitiful shadow that clung to life through the blood of her cursed progeny. Her wails of dissent filled the cavern, ringing in Sayuri's ears as she was throttled to the hard ground.

"A binding circle?" Chizuru questioned with icy hands clenched viciously around her collar. "Your tricks never last long, little girl. How long will you deny your destiny?"

"Forever," Sayuri whispered back. For years she had been searching for an answer, always seemingly out of her reach until she finally ventured out of the country. Retracing the steps of all those who came before, gathering all of the lost knowledge buried within the ancient temples of yore. She had finally found what she had always been yearning to acquire. Craning her neck back, she gazed upon the cursed object that she had placed beforehand. The remedy of her cursed existence, the final piece of her sacrificial offering. With a fatalistic smile, she uttered the command, "Gate open."

"Wench!" Chizuru shrieked, unable to move as she was shackled to Sayuri within the ritual circle. The prison realm unfurled itself before them, its one eye locking onto them before ensnaring them in place with its cursed flesh. Maniacal laughter filled the air and she could feel the spirit's claws sink into her skin. "Misguided fool of a girl, do you really think you can escape your fate?" Chizuru grasped hold of Sayuri's face, forcing her to look into the mirror of her own eyes and her own identical face grinning back at her. "My pain is yours, and so is yours mine."

Tears brimmed over her lids as she closed them. "I know..." she whispered. "I am the other half of your soul, the part that still loves him with every breath I take. The part that would rather claim my own life instead of his."

She knew the truth of it, the endless curse that haunted their footsteps. Doomed to suffer that ill-begotten tragedy of their first lives, hungering for the illusion of peace. Chizuru continued to laugh with absurdity on her face that soon gave way to pity. "I tried that once before and look how well that turned out."

Sayuri was exhausted, felt it deep within her bones as she prepared herself for a long slumber. Perhaps this would be atonement enough for all those she had failed. Riko, Suguru, I'm so sorry, she would seek their forgiveness for aeons to come. She hoped with every fibre of her being that when she awoke, it would be in a better world for them all. Satoru... of all the words left unsaid between them, the summer dreams of their lovelorn hearts, she would beg the gods to spare him of this misery. To free him from the fate that bound them, to break that endless cycle of torment.

She inhaled a breath to utter the command once more, "Gate close."

Resigning herself to an eternity of restless respite, she welcomed the cold embrace of the prison realm as its flesh engulfed her whole. Skeletal hands wrenching her body unto a bed of brittle bones, entrapped within that pocket dimension of eternal purgatory. Finally, it had all culminated to an end. The taste of her fruitful endeavours was one of bittersweet ambivalence. Relief and desolation escaping her lips in an empty sigh as time stood still.

She reached her hand out to the darkness as she recalled the sensation of infinity within Satoru's embrace. The world expanding and contracting all at once between the imperceptible seconds between them. Endless life after death in the convergence of time and space, reliving a hundred centuries of perpetual devotion and fidelity. How eerily familiar it felt within that wasteland of obscurity that she was almost comforted by the comparison.

Sayuri had no concept of the duration she had spent captive within that realm but she felt it as clear as day. A sudden shift within the ether surrounding her, a shattering of the barrier separating her from the outside world. A shiver of trepidation ran through her body and she cursed her lack of foresight. No matter what she did, she was always fighting a losing battle, struggling against her own futility. She should have destroyed the inverted spear of heaven when she had the chance.

Its mythical blade pierced the gate of the prison, nullifying the seal of her incarceration. Her self-exile had been shortlived and denied by the infernal gods. She felt phantom hands ripping her away from her ivory grave, the glow of candlelight flooding her vision as she was spat back out onto the stone floor of the sacred shrine. Falling into familiar arms as she glimpsed refulgent sapphires and moonbeams. She wanted to scream, extinguish every star in the traitorous heavens and overturn the foundations of hell.

Sayuri lashed out with vexatious hands, crying out in quivering rage and seething indignation, "Why?! Why won't you let me go?! Do you not understand?" Her fingers clenched around the fabric of his clothes, misery and woe brimming from her eyes as she turned her face to his. But even as she said it, as she looked upon his seraphic grace, she knew it was all for nought. "We have always been destined to die at each other's hands."

"How could I?" Satoru questioned back, voice soft and filled with remorse, grief etched into every stroke of his face. "How could I, Sayuri? When you would do the exact same thing."

She gazed into his eyes of stunning empyrean skies where her dreams took flight in. Hands reaching for his face that caused her heart to ache with burning desire. Their fate was spun by crossing stars and fickle deities but their love transcended beyond the imaginings of mortal flesh. Each one laying the entire world at the other's feet, throwing themselves at the sins of the sun and the intoxicated moon. Ash in their lungs as their souls were lit ablaze, unspoken wishes trapped within the bottom of Pandora's box.

She wept bitterly into his chest. "I can't bear the thought of you dying again. Not again."

"Sayuri," he murmured. "I love you more than anything, I can't ever let you go. So please... just stay with me." His fingers caressed her face, cradling her cheek in a palm tenderly as his lips held a nostalgic smile. "Stay with me... we'll get married, have children and grow old together just like we promised."

Her lips trembled, fresh tears pouring down once more as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her throbbing heart bleeding across the infinitesimal spaces between them. "I want that so much," she whimpered longingly. Encasing herself within the solace of his arms, clutching him close to her body with shuddering breaths and crumbling resolve.

"We'll go to all the places you wanted to see, do all the things you wanted to do, so please..." he pleaded desperately, "Promise me that you'll never leave me again. I'm begging you, Sayuri, please."

"I don't want to," she whispered, hand grasping his as she made her vow to him. "I'll never leave you again, I promise."