"-You really…"
Amidst a sea of flames, beneath the watchful eyes of the four-armed, four-bladed Buddha, they had fought.
Her brother, and her.
"-You'd really kill me."
A hand pierced her heart, and she smiled. He'd finally put an end to things and granted her wish. Beloved younger brothers were reliable like that.
She fell, and something fell with her.
Something wet landed on her cheeks.
Ah.
Are you… crying?
Darkness claimed her. That was almost a relief. She wouldn't say it had been a good life, but it was at least the death she'd hoped for.
Light returned just as suddenly, blurry and painful. But then, pain mattered little to her. Making sense of her surroundings was more important… but as she was, that proved impossible.
Perhaps it was punishment for her. They had fought while the Buddha watched, so it would only make sense that this was karma, right?
The gods had chosen their punishment well. Her first father had thought that her condition to be a curse from the gods, a shackle to bind her for daring to be born strong. She hadn't thought much of it back then, but…
In being born strong, they made it impossible for her to use that strength. In trying to escape that punishment, they forced her to go through another life. That would make sense, right?
At least her new life hadn't been so bad. She was as sickly as ever, her body still collapsing under its own pressure and afflicted with countless diseases besides, but her family wasn't so bad this time around. They were…
Normal. Hardworking and loving, even when they struggled.
She had siblings, too. None that could compare to her beloved younger brother, of course, but having two sisters was novel, if nothing else. She was no longer the eldest, and that had taken some getting used to.
It was a gentle, quiet life.
It came to an end as suddenly as it started, when the wildlands her family farmed in turned into a deep, dark swamp. A monster with two curled horns and four arms attacked and -
Nanami Yasuri woke up slowly, and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
A dream, then. She tried to decide if it was a good one or a bad one.
Bad, she concluded. Dwelling on the past usually was, and she would know. She was an expert at it.
She looked around the small, one-room hut, fished out her sandals from beneath a pile of hexagonal wood carvings, and, after tightening her obi, went outside. A bit of gardening was just the thing to keep her mind off of that dream, and it wasn't like she ate much to begin with. She could afford to skip breakfast so long as she remembered to eat later.
The cold air was a little uncomfortable, but that was fine. She could use the help in waking up properly. She walked towards her garden, with the soft click of her sandals against the stone path as one of her companions, and the gentle moonlight as another. She hummed a little tune as she walked.
A fine night for weeding. Perhaps the dream was good after all - she might have spent today lazing about in bed if she hadn't had it.
She reached her garden, checked the gravestones for signs of damage, and got to work. The dirt parted around her pale hands, as she reached down and plucked the weeds out by the roots. She took special care with the weeds that had grown around the graves - they tended to grow in deep enough to damage the headstones if she wasn't careful when pulling them out. She could make a new tombstone if she really had to, but…
The thought felt wrong. There was little enough left of her second family as it was, and even less of the first.
Careful to not let the weeds touch the ground, lest they seed again and give her even more work, she dropped them on the cobblestone road and returned to the tombstones. She traced a circle into the dirt around them with her finger, then started evenly depositing False Shockbloom seeds into the circle. A new strain that she'd found on her latest weeding trip into Yusi's swamps. They looked pretty, with the arcs of static that set the light purple of the flower alight and yet left it intact, and seemed invasive enough that she thought they might push the constant efforts of the weeds away.
She finished covering the seeds back up, dusted her hands off, moved slightly to the left, grabbed her attacker by his exposed left side, spun around in a circle, threw him, and smiled softly as she looked down at her handiwork.
Ah.
Nanami looked back up, and was greeted by the sight of a heavily armored person collapsed in a heap against one of the trees surrounding the small clearing she lived in, trails of red running along their body.
A red Phantom?, she thought, but no. Even in the darkness of the night, it was clear that was just blood. A broadsword, still crackling faintly with lightning, was embed into the ground not far from the figure.
She approached.
The armored figure struggled to get up, then gave up and slumped against the tree. A crack ran up its bark starting from the point of impact. It was a pretty weak throw, she supposed.
"Wh-what the hell was that…?" He said, and then coughed wetly.
"I could ask you the same," she replied, giving him a blank look. Some internal damage then. Perhaps he made up for a lack of durability with speed and armour? The latter probably worked against him here… She wouldn't be surprised if the reason he couldn't get up was because his spine snapped from impacting against his armour. Padding could only go so far.
"Did that annoying dragonclad man send you? Trying to get my attention like that was cute at first," she continued, "But it's starting to get old. Honestly, I'm not even interfering much in whatever he's up to."
"Does whether I talk… even matter?" The armored man got out through clenched teeth. A little pain and he was already struggling. How sad.
"Hm, well, I suppose it depends on whether you want a quick death or a drawn out one," Nanami offered, softly playing with a lock of her hair.
Wait.
She ran a hand through her hair, and found it missing a hair tie and an inch or two near the bottom. She looked back and, indeed, a tied-off bundle of hair had landed around where she'd dodged.
She smiled.
Blood splattered on the grass, on the bark, on the leaves.
She watched the corpse fade into white dust, and slowly walked back to her garden.
"In your next life, don't touch people's hair so casually, okay? Ah, but, I suppose you can't hear this anymore…" She mused.
It really was a lovely night for a bit of weeding.