ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST / REVERSE / DYE / RED / TIE (HERE) / RED
With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sakura died early in winter. Just after the final leaves had fallen from the trees.
It felt right, that everything was withered and brittle when she wasn't around. It would have been unfair, he thought, for flowers to be blooming as her blood seeped into the ground.
For weeks, he could barely recall where he was, when the last time he had slept was. The thought of what he had done always left him retching in the dirt somewhere. And his only companion, constant companion, was the anger that boiled up wherever he went.
It wasn't right.
Sometimes, he wandered back to the hut, standing in the doorway with a body that felt too large now. He expected her usual entourage of animal skeletons to be rattling around as they swept and cooked. She would be lounging by the fire, her heels up on the stones to keep her toes warm as she read.
But all was cold and covered in cobwebs. Her wards were gone. Everything lay in frigid ruins.
Sometimes, he would sit there by the dead fire, staring into the ashes as if that would breathe life into this place. Out of the corner of his eye, he would see something glimmering in the dark. But it was just his mind playing tricks on him.
Sometimes, on the coldest nights, he sat there and wept.
"I kept them like you asked… but you're still not here," he wept. Wishing, begging for this to all just be a nightmare. The pain in his chest never seemed to grow any easier. It was suffocating at times.
A phantom whisper on the breeze mocked him.
I'm here now.
"No you're not," he sobbed.
A town had sprung up near their hut in the woods.
It was inevitable, in a way. After centuries of building up their little settlements here and there, people had begun to creep their way onto their peninsula.
"Do the scary thing and chase them away," Madara suggested, laying on his side. A slice of sunlight came in through the window this time of day, making the sheets the perfect temperature for a nap.
"The scary thing?"
"Yeah, the thing with the bones and the shadows. You know."
Sakura's head popped in through the door. She was busy beating their clean laundry with a big stick. Her little animated skeletons struggled with the heavy lifting, and she didn't happen to have a bear skeleton laying around that she could charm to do the job for her.
"We can't keep scaring them off forever, Madara. They're going to settle here someday. There's already a settlement forming across the river," Sakura reminded him.
Madara squeezed his eyes shut.
"There's only around a hundred of them. You could summon a storm. Or dry up their water," he suggested.
"You want me to kill them?"
He didn't respond. Let her draw her own conclusions.
He could hear the thumping as she beat the dust off their blankets. He never pointed out that a spell could accomplish the same thing much more easily. There were some things, she always claimed, that just felt better to do by hand. He didn't really understand that. Magic made life easier. Why work hard when you didn't have to? But he left her alone because the breeze smelled nice and she was humming.
Madara started awake when her laundry basket thumped to the ground. She slapped her hands together before she put them on her hips.
"Have you visited them yet? They all walk dreams," she said.
Madara yawned. "Dream caster is a stupid name. They should have called it dream walkers," he complained. Sakura sat beside him on the bed. She put her hand on top of his head. He tried to swat at her hand, but she gave his nose a light pinch instead.
"I know. But I think they're afraid of people getting it mixed up with sleepwalking," she replied. She waggled her fingers in front of his face. This time, he pounced, grabbing her hand so he could bite her.
"Ow! Asshole!" Sakura complained.
Madara released her, laughing.
"Come visit the town with me. It'll be fun and maybe you can kill a few pests," Sakura suggested. She shook her hand. The leaves of a nearby plant withered as her skin knitted itself together again.
Madara's ears perked up. "Like rats?"
"Maybe even a couple birds," Sakura suggested.
Madara bolted to his feet. She giggled as she followed him out the door.
He ended up taking down a lark before they'd even made it to the village.
It was crazy, Madara thought, that these humans were building so many things at once. It wasn't like he could ask them questions, so Madara was forced to sit on her shoulders and occasionally ask something, which Sakura would pretend was her own question.
Apparently there were some people out west who considered dream magic to be a less legitimate form of spell casting. So several families had packed up their things and headed out here to make a new place for themselves.
It was an old-fashioned way of thinking, even in Madara's opinion. Magic was magic. It served a purpose no matter what. Cosmetic and housekeeping magic were considered the lowest forms of enchantment. On the other hand, summoners tended to be some of the most arrogant of the bunch. They saw their ability to pull animals and elementals seemingly out of thin air as an incredible accomplishment.
"Do you think a mother will ever need to summon a fucking tiger in the middle of her house? No. They need a spell to tidy up after the children and a salve to treat her cracked hands," Sakura ranted one evening as they left one of the cities. A procession of skeletal mice carried sacks of herbs she had purchased on their trip.
Madara laughed. He liked it when she cursed.
And he laughed more because a particularly arrogant summoner's bragging in the last city had completely snapped Sakura's patience. She had ended up summoning shades to drag him by the ankles for a while. She hadn't really intended to, but once he had started blubbering about dragging him to hell, she had leaned into it for a bit. The skeletal birds clacking their beaks on her shoulder had really brought it up a notch.
Ultimately, Madara decided that he didn't really care about these humans. Sakura didn't reveal where they lived. And a quick cloaking spell before their departure made it so that no one would be able to follow them home. Whenever Sakura headed into the town to seek new information, Madara always followed her, to make sure she was safe. The people here seemed nice enough, but Madara had lived long enough to know that that thin veneer of kindness only lasted so long. People were only ever kind for as long as it served a purpose for them.
Sakura would offer advice on how to ward their roofs against the rain and how to shield the foundations of houses to keep them from sinking into the mud when snow began to melt. Of course, she charged a fee for her consultations. Madara would have never tolerated it otherwise.
They built walls and covered them with roofs to keep the cold out. Families grew and the town did along with them. He had been wrong to think that they were building a city too large for them. In fact, more and more people arrived until they had to begin building up to accommodate all of them. The buildings grew taller. The flimsy structures made of wood were replaced by brick and stone. As the settlement continued to flourish, Madara began to wonder why Sakura hadn't decided that it was time to go on another trip.
Late one night, curled up on top of Sakura's stomach, he opened his eyes. Hers were open too. She was staring out the window. The moon was particularly bright. He wondered why she never bothered putting up curtains after all these years.
"Can't sleep?" she asked, not looking at him.
"Why aren't we going somewhere?" he wondered.
"You have somewhere particular in mind?" Her gaze turned to him. She smiled at him and reached out to pat between his ears. A purr rumbled up his throat.
"No. But you like to wander," Madara replied.
Her hand stilled.
"Are you unhappy like this, Madara?"
Madara rubbed his head against her hand. "Of course not. But this isn't like you."
He alone was fit to say something like that. Everyone else was temporary. But he was her heart. She had said so. And only he had watched over her for so many centuries. He knew what each sigh and each eye roll meant. They had watched over each other through so many different seasons. Even the men that sometimes caught her interest were temporary. He never had to be jealous of her attention because he knew that his was a position that could never be filled by someone else.
"I know. I just want to watch a little while longer. I'm curious to see what these people become. It's kind of nice to relax every once in a while, don't you think?" she explained. She resumed stroking the top of his head.
"Do cats like to wander?" Sakura then wondered.
Madara shook his head. "No. We usually hold onto our territory. Some fight to the death for it."
"So you don't like traveling? Why didn't you ever say so?"
He leveled her with a look. "How many other cats do you know spent their formative years being run out of every village because he accidentally bound his soul to some spooky kid that likes to make mouse bones dance for fun?"
Her forehead wrinkled. His words were always coming out rougher than he had intended. But he didn't know how else to convey them.
"I'm fine. I go where you go," he then added. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, yawning.
"You've got my back?" she asked.
"Yeah. And you've got mine," he replied without hesitation.
The winter that Sakura died, Madara couldn't recall large chunks of time. The people who had been around at the time were too afraid to divulge details to him. And it was only many years later, when the rumors had circulated through several rounds of people that he was able to hear any part of the story. And by then, he wasn't even sure how true those rumors were anymore.
The nearby settlement had become a sprawling town by then. Their building projects never seemed to stop. Sakura was especially delighted when she found that one of the next tasks was to build a library. They stepped to the side to allow a carriage to rattle past. Madara wrinkled his nose as he lifted a paw off the cold cobblestone.
"There has to be a better way to make roads. It's so noisy," he grumbled as he eyed the bumps on the street.
Sakura leaned over, her arms extended. He hopped into her embrace, putting a paw on her shoulder.
"Why? What're you thinking?" she queried.
"Don't know. Something smooth. Can't be good for the wheels to be crashing around like that," he observed.
"Hm. I think you're really smart, Madara. Cat or not," she remarked.
"I know," he replied.
As Sakura threw her head back to laugh, she caught sight of the clocktower rising from the half-finished skeleton of a building. A passing builder had told them that it was supposed to be the mayor's new office. They had just finished construction on the clock a few days ago. They could even see it peeking over the trees from their hut.
The face of the clock was round, illuminated from within by a spell. The machinery inside clunked. The longer hand jerked over one notch.
"That thing's loud," he observed. The clack and whir of things moving around never stopped. It was a constant buzz in the background.
"Yeah," she agreed, wrinkling her nose. "Must've taken them a fortune to build it in the first place."
"Waste of money, if you ask me. How's it even work anyway?" he wondered. He wriggled a little. Sakura half-lowered him to the ground. He jumped out of her arms when he was close enough. He took a few steps closer to the building, sniffing.
"Whole thing is filled with cogs and pulleys. It's jam-packed with metal," she replied. And then, in a softer voice, she added: ""Someday, they'll figure out a way to make it work better. Make it quieter."
As the minute hands hit the top, the bells inside began to ring. The sound made his ears flatten against his skull.
"Loud!" Madara complained.
She laughed again.
Madara look over his shoulder at her. And as he did, a shiver ran up his spine. His fur bristled. From head to toe, he was filled with the feeling that something was very wrong. Sakura stopped laughing.
"Madara?"
There was a deafening crack.
His gaze flickered back to the tower. It was shaking. A huge fissure like a lightning bolt began to spread through the stone base.
"That piece of shit is collapsing. We have to go," Madara realized. But when he began to step away, Sakura stood frozen.
"Let's go!" he snapped. But it wasn't fear that rooted her to the ground. He could feel the rush of shock and then pity as she looked around the bustling town. A few people nearby had noticed something strange. But most were running around without any understanding of the disaster that was about to befall them. She looked at him, her eyes already beginning to glow.
"Don't you fucking dare."
"They'll die, Madara. The little ones too."
"Fuck them. What've they ever done for us?"
"I know, Madara."
And with those words, she was engulfed in black mist. Gold light began to seep from her eyes and her mouth. She ran up to the building and slammed her palms into the creaking wood.
Madara had always understood, in theory, what made Sakura's magic work. Necromancy stole energy from life to make things happen. That was why she didn't heal. She pulled life from something to heal something else. And, in theory, he understood why they had been feared and chased out of so many towns in their early years. Sakura would never do this, but he knew that if necessary, she could drain the life right out of someone's body to cast a spell.
"Everyone stand back! The clocktower's collapsing!" Sakura's voice boomed out, amplified by magic.
Most people did the logical thing, which was to run in the opposite direction, shouting warnings for others to hear. A few foolish people ran toward the tower. Sakura extended one hand. A barrier wove together like the threads of a cloth. Each of the individual threads was gold, tinged with a hint of red. When people reached it, they bounced off it and flew back a good distane, landing gently on their feet, looking bewildered.
Some people struggled to help from a distance. But their spells could only hold together so many pieces of crumbling stone before they lost grip over the dust and debris.
Madara watched, horrified, as the magic pouring from Sakura's mouth and eyes began to turn red.
"You idiot! Stop!" he shouted. He wasn't sure if she could even hear him over the rumbling as more of the clocktower began to slough off in an avalanche of dust.
The clocktower finally fell to pieces. But instead of scattering ash and cracked stone all over the town, Sakura's barrier kept it contained in that tiny area. Her magic constricted around the structure, like a corset wrapping tight. Her blood flowing through each of the magic threads reinforced the spell, warping nature in ways that it shouldn't be warped.
Madara felt something snap inside of him. It was an indescribable pain. Like someone had taken a knife and severed something crucial inside of him. He suddenly couldn't breathe properly. But still, he forced his body to move ahead. Heat spread from that point of pain. It exploded out from his body as he ran straight into her barrier. He pierced through, the magic shattering like glass all around him.
Sakura was screaming. He hadn't been able to hear it properly through the barrier. But he could hear now. It was a sound that made his skin crawl. He tackled her.
"Fucking stop it!" he was screaming too. She toppled, as did her spell. All the pieces of rubble fell to the ground in a perfect circle in the shape of her barrier.
She was dying. Madara wasn't stupid enough to wish for things that would never come true. And she was blinded, blood dribbling down her cheeks, down her chin, and even out of her ears. Still, her arm stirred. She was reaching for him. Her mouth was moving, but her voice was so faint that he couldn't hear her. Or maybe it from all the screaming and stamping around behind them. His head was spinning. It was so hard to tell what was what.
Madara approached her. He crawled around the bigger chunks of debris to worm his way under her chin. He curled up against her throat. The sluggish beat of her heart filled him with terror. He was close enough now that he could hear the wheeze of her pained breaths. And the sounds her mouth was making now.
"Madara. I need you to eat me."
His blood ran cold.
"What?"
He twisted his head to look up at her. Her eyes were closed. Not that she could see out of them anymore.
"Flesh, eyes, hair if you can. Keep the bones with you. If you do that'-" She stopped to catch her breath. "Then I'll be with you."
"I can't eat you. We don't eat people, remember?" Madara protested, his jaw trembling. He butted his head against her chin.
She went on. Whether it was because she was ignoring him or she couldn't hear anymore, he couldn't tell.
"It'll change you. But you'll carry a piece of me inside of you. That's the only way we can meet again."
He wanted to ask her more questions. And to say goodbye. Or at least to tell her how much he loved her. In all their years together, it was the only thing she had been able to say so freely while he struggled. Had he even managed to say it once?
The worst thing about their bond was that he knew right away when she was gone.
It was like someone punched him in the gut. The ever-changing swirl of thoughts and emotions connected to his mind suddenly went silent.
Her head fell heavy on top of him. He nudged her cheek, knowing that it was a pointless effort.
There were feet running back and forth in front of them. Madara just stared at them, uncomprehending. People might have been saying things. He couldn't hear any of them over the rush of his heart pounding in his ears.
The next moments, Madara could never remember. Or maybe he chose not to.
But when he came to, there were people screaming behind him. A barrier woven together with thorns and shadow kept them at bay. None of them dared to bang on it. Not from the way the twisting pieces glinted with menace.
The taste of blood was in his mouth. He looked down to find that his paws were missing. Instead, spindly black hands with even darker nails were turning over in front of him. He willed his paws to move. The hands responded instead.
He looked down at the ground but his mind refused to understand what it saw. The cobblestones were red now. He couldn't think of why that was.
"Monster!" The cry pierced through the fog that had seized his brain. His head jerked toward the noise. Someone let out a shrill scream in response.
His body moved before he could stop it.
He snatched things off the ground in front of him. And then he was running as fast as he could. Bounding off walls and then rooftops. He fled with the tang of metal in his mouth. Tears blurred his eyes as he moved in whatever direction his instinct took him.
The rest of the next few months was a fog.
When he came to, he was inside the hut. No one was banging at the door with torches. So at least he hadn't been stupid enough to let someone tail him home. There was even a barrier surrounding the place. The way the individual threads of magic locked together in a grid reminded him of her.
A sick feeling welled up in his stomach.
He fell to his knees by the cold fireplace. A scream rose in his throat. He felt like he should be crying. But his eyes remained dry as he sat shrieking in the darkness for a long time in a voice that he no longer recognized.
The next time he came too, the scenery outside was different. Snow had piled up outside the windows. Mud clung to his hands. He scraped the worst of the muck off with his nails, trying to ignore the fact that his twisted body still hadn't returned to normal. He was still too big, too lanky. Dust covered the inside of the hut. He had the vague sense that he was hungry, but he didn't much feel like eating anything.
Sometimes, if he stared into the darkness long enough, he could imagine the sounds she made as she threw together a potion. The clink of glass, accompanied by the sounds of her cheerful words.
He blinked.
He wasn't hungry anymore. Ashes were still were smoldering in the fireplace now. He looked down at his hands. The remains of some sort of roasted bird were held in his alien fingers. He tried to remember why the hands looked so wrong. What had hers looked like? Maybe they had looked gentler. As the thought crossed his mind, the sharpness of his hands changed. His fingers grew soft. The nails shortened.
When he shifted, he heard something clink together in his lap. He looked down. A gleaming white bone peered out from the rags sitting on his leg.
He turned his head to the side to vomit on the floor.
He couldn't understand why there were so many gaps in his memory. His first instinct was to ask Sakura. She spent so much time reading that surely she would…. oh. The trunk at the foot of her bed was covered in crumpled clothing. Her scent still clung to the dresses and blouses. It was still too painful to sort and fold these things. Maybe someday he would be able to gaze upon them without fighting back a fresh wave of nausea.
She was dead.
The little sausage girl who had walked beside him for… how many centuries now? He had no way of knowing.
He wavered in and out of lucidity for a while. His body made sure he ate. That was the animal part of him, he thought. That would fight to the end to survive. But this other part of himself that couldn't quite grasp its thoughts, he wasn't sure what it was.
One night, in a short window of consciousness, he sat inside the hut. He had woken in the middle of hunting down a large deer. He guessed that he was roughly the size of a human from the way he fit through doors. But he could still run on all fours. He was still too afraid to look into the mirror that she had once used. He had thrown a dark rag over it long ago and it hadn't moved since.
It took him several more years to gather the courage to look at himself.
He had become a thing. There was no other word for it.
He was neither feline nor human. Huge yellow eyes glowed from between snarls of black hair. His teeth were too long, too sharp. His mouth opened too wide, jaw dislocating like the mouth of a great snake.
He was horrifying to behold, he thought. And when he was reminded of why his shape had changed, the nausea roiled in his stomach once again. He smashed his fist into the mirror. The glass shattered. A shard stuck into his skin. The pain was real. And he knew that this wasn't all some nightmare. He was grateful when he was aware no more.
Once in a while, he wished that he had kept better track of the time. Just so he could know how long it had been since he had lost her. He could tell from the changing view outside the window. Leave turning green, then yellow. Sky dark and light.
Sometimes he stayed conscious long enough to fall asleep. That was the most jarring. Because the crystal clear waters of their shared dream had dried up. Instead, he was surrounded by writhing arms of inky darkness. They groped blindly. Once, one of them seized him by the ankle. His panicked screams in the waking world lurched him out of the dream. He woke drenched in sweat, finger-shaped bruises marking his ankle.
After a few more years, he began to study his wavering reflection in the river. He experimented with shifting the position of his mouth, his eyes. Humans had sharper noses that this, didn't they? What else did they have? Her face flashed through his mind. Eyelashes. Eyebrows. He held on to the thought for a moment longer before he had to vomit again.
Meanwhile, the nearby town continued to develop. A few times, he had considered rampaging through, smashing everything he could find. When he gathered magic to the surface of his skin, he was surprised to find that it was fire, and not water. He should have tried it out sooner. She would have delighted in the differences. Wondered why it was. Fussed over him as she tested the limits of his magic while he pretended to be annoyed.
It would have been simple to set the town ablaze. Engulf all those souls in an inferno that scorched down their throats. Maybe, as they screamed, they might understand even a fraction of what he had lost that day.
He never did. He couldn't bring himself to. No matter how angry he was. He liked to think that she could see his restraint somehow. That she would remember and return one day to pat him on the head.
He clung to the memory of her as hard as he could. Even as the sun rose and set. As the flowers bloomed and withered away. His best friend was gone and she had taken a chunk of his heart with him. He should have died, but she had somehow left him behind. It was the cruelest thing she had ever done to him and he couldn't even bring himself to hate her for it.