An awareness of light. Then the burning salt. Breaking the surface of the water, Sekhmet gasped and sputtered. Initially thrashing, he soon discovered a sandbar beneath his feet, and deep crimson bathing his armor. The sea was red.
The distant sound of clashing vessels, war cries, and shrieking metal carried down the beach, along with flotsam of corpses. Human and animal, women and children, all manner of disembodied limbs; a feast for the crabs. The bulging, pleading eyes occasionally stole glances at Sekhmet from their lowly states, demanding to know why he had been spared as the entirety of the clan he had served seemed to bob and toss within the red foam of the Shimonoseki straits.
The white plum of Ikuta Wood whirled and fluttered with each charging soldier's pass. Snaps of limb, both wood and flesh, punctuated the thundering hooves and distant Taiko of the mountain fortress Dais had been tasked with defending. Shoulder to shoulder with not a gap to breathe moments ago, now he found himself with a scarce few foot soldiers, facing down one of the Generals of the opposition, similarly out of position, and cut off from his defenses. As the smell of blood began overpowering the subtle but ubiquitous fragrance of white plum blossoms, to Dais's shock, the General relinquished grip of his sword with one hand, reached up, and picked one of the blossom bedecked plum branches. His steely gaze locked on Dais and his kin as he composed on the spot: "Even if the petals fall… surely their fragrance will cling to my armor." Magnificent.
Whether by luck, or deliberate mercy, Dais awoke from under a blanket of petals, the killing blows rained upon his comrades had not found him that day. The drums were quiet, and the woods smelled of flowers.
A field of arrows. Corpses so obscured that even the crows couldn't take their share. As the winter crescent moon rose over the barren cherry trees of Mt. Yoshino, it cast a silvery pall over the pitiable battlefield where so few had thrown themselves against impossible odds.
The wind stirred the fletching, pristine white proudly marking their victim's final step, and the ground heaved. Cale shoved the bodies of his short-lived comrades aside and shed his borrowed armor. No more would he stalk the roads and cull the weak, this had awakened something deeper. The sight of the killing field stirred his blood and brought a morbid smile to his face. Impossible, surely, that he should be standing where so many had fallen. Death had granted him a reprieve. The taste, too bitter.
The smell of ash and wet paper became a musk that clung to the inner chambers of the Heian palace. The latest in a rash of suspicious fires, recently extinguished, brought to the evening sunset a horrible sense of foreboding. Anubis refused to heed the warnings of his retainers, and would often walk the quiet, freshly charred halls of the grand Dairi in the dead of night, savoring the precious few moments of complete silence in the ever-bustling capital of Heian-kyo.
But now the scent of rot grew stronger, and shadows drew themselves close to obscure the moonlight. A low rumbling gripped his chest as he was certain the black of the burned-out reception hall had been staring into him. He felt rooted, tethered by some unknowable force as darkness filled his peripherals, and an amused voice for his mind alone beckoned him further into the ruins of the palace.
The air thumped, striking the wind from his chest and bringing him to his knees. Another wave of pressure. A sickly, slithering voice wormed its way into his mind. The rhythm of the cold heart continued to beat him down until…