More horizon. More ash. More walking.

I had been alone with my thoughts for far too long now. I had contemplated everything to contemplate. All I had done. All I was currently doing. And all I'd yet to accomplish.

Previously, I had thought that continuously walking was my future, but my old friend gave me hope that something was hiding in the ashen wasteland I trekked.

With nothing to do but continue walking, I allowed my mind to wander. Trying to remember what happened before I ended up in that place was like trying to look at your reflection in a rushing stream. The image is there, but it shifts and distorts, making things much more difficult to get a clear grasp of. I had more clarity in the things that were currently missing than actually picturing what had once happened. The scars on my arms were gone, and if I focused on why having unburnt forearms were unfamiliar to the mind, I was able to bring memories back to life.

Since I had woken, I remembered, it was simply hazy. When I concentrated to remember it simply faded away, like trying to grip tighter onto a fistful of sand only for it to fall out of your grasp quicker. But by focusing on the injuries that I should have had. The injuries my old friends should have had. I could remember the details with precision.

I had finally come to terms with the feeling in my gut. I knew where I was.

As I came to terms, my focus went back out to my surroundings. My eyes widened with surprise as I caught a flash of red in my corner vision.

Quickly turning around, I saw the figure that I very nearly walked past. A long and stark red kimono, pitch-black hair flowing behind it as she walked farther down the horizon.

I hastily chased her, sliding onto my side as I tried to turn in the ash. I was able to speedily bring myself back to my feet and run after her.

Once I had sprinted a good while and grew close enough, I saw the face I hadn't seen in the flesh for almost two decades. She was more beautiful than I remembered in my dreams, although my mind couldn't resist sending me flashing images of the horrid and mauled version of her that I had found at the doorstep of her palace.

This woman was familiar enough that I was confident in calling out her name. The ash floating in the air coated my throat, making it hard to speak initially. After clearing out the dust in my throat, I spoke. "Amaterasu..." She turned to face me. A smile grew on my face, but her's stayed completely neutral. I stared into her eyes for the longest time, and without words, she turned and began walking again. "Amaterasu? Do you not remember me?"

I followed behind her as she continued to walk. "I remember you..." she said.

The tone in her voice was the kind that she would only speak in when she was angry. It was at that moment I realized I had gotten ahead of myself. Although I went through an entire journey seeking redemption, the last she heard of me was when I betrayed her. "I-I'm sorry..." A little blunt, but I was at a loss for words seeing Amaterasu again after all this time, even if she was understandably upset.

She turned to look at me now, brow furrowed into as angry as I had ever seen them. "You're sorry now. You weren't sorry in the seventeen years that I hoped you would come back, no, you're sorry now that we've accidentally found each other in this limbo."

It was strange seeing someone so endlessly merciful mad, especially when that anger is pointed towards yourself. That feeling only made the lump in my throat bigger. "You... Deserting you was the biggest mistake of my life, and I was too stubborn and self-pitying to come out of my walls and my hiding place... But even though I was bitter and tried to hide the feelings in the back of my mind, I haven't stopped feeling endless regret over that decision since the day my consequences came to me."

Her grimace lessened a small bit, but her eyes still showed sadness and anger twirling in a fight for power. "Even if you regretted it, you still did nothing to fix it." She began to turn again before one of those two emotions finally got to her.

Shit. Stop refusing to tell her. "No!" Too abrasive, but it got her to turn back. "No. I didn't just regret it. In the last six months I've fought against the Shogun. I went back for you! I climbed Mt. Fuji again with my companions and we went to save you!... I didn't think you were... Gone."

"And how do I know you aren't lying like you've done before?"

"I..." I had no way to prove it in this place, I only had to plead. "I've broken my legs and healed them. I've cracked ribs. Fractured arms. Cut off my foot and been stabbed in the back. I jumped off a building just to make sure he couldn't get to your body. I've done so much to right my wrongs, and I know that it will take a lot more to make up for leaving you like that. But for the past two months, since I escaped imprisonment, I've only thought about finding you once more."

Her brow shot up. "Imprisonment?"

I winced on the inside. My choice for words were certainly not the wisest. "When you took away my ember, and I had realized what a mistake I had made, I left the Shogun and his temptations. The power. And hid... Once the sun set, he found me once more and made sure I suffered. I escaped and vowed to never run again."

Amaterasu simply looked down and thought.

"I died just to make sure you were safe from that Doctor. So he couldn't harm what was left of you. Please..." Seeing her now, I wanted her to believe me so badly.

She looked back up at me, confused. I kept forgetting over and over again that she wasn't with me during my journey. "Who is this Doctor?"

I sighed. "He's... A deranged old man. He's trying to merge man and yokai into one. He was going to use your blood and body to perfect it... That's when I jumped out of the window of our old bedroom. To get away from him and to keep you, and everyone else, safe from his twisted ambitions." She kept looking at me, her anger fading away slowly like charcoal glowing with the final embers of a roaring fire. My pride still made it hurt, but I continued to speak. "I'm so, so, sorry. I'm beyond words for how much I regret what I did. How much I still... You know." The tiniest bit of a smile cracked at the side of her mouth as the smallest tear formed in the corner of her eye. It was still hard to see as she stared at the ground. My entire body felt awkward, but I finally choked the words out. The ones I had been waiting to say for what felt like forever. "I still love you. And all that I hope is that you'll say the same."

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She opened her mouth and spoke, but it was so quiet I couldn't hear. I understood what it was when she outstretched her arms. She finally looked up at me with a smile and tears softly rolling down her cheeks. And I would hate to say it, but I was crying just the same as I finally felt her embrace once more.

After letting the emotions clear out a small bit, I managed to speak through the hair in my face and the lump in my throat. "I had imagined myself to be more manly in this moment." She chuckled along with me as we finally let go of each other.

All that I had wished for was to see her smile again, and I had the sight right in front of me.

With a bit of a pause, Amaterasu spoke. I could tell things were still tense and uncertain, but that only made me appreciate more when she told me. "... It is good to see you again, Kenshi."

We sat for a while, giving me the chance to finally explain to her in full what had happened in the past six months. I could fully explain the time I spent isolated and lonely at Mt.Fuji. The Shogun's temptations of riches and power. How much guilt and regret I felt over giving in to such foul promises.

Amaterasu was always generous and understanding. She was the goddess of life and mercy, after all. The more I spoke about my tribulations and the journey it took me to come back to Mt.Fuji, the more comfortable she seemed to be around me. Eventually, she began asking more questions about my friends and the various people I had met and the places I had been. It became less and less of myself explaining my actions to an actual conversation. The stories I had to tell were more than I expected, but Amaterasu seemed happy to listen.

I felt like I could talk with her forever and be content. My memory truly failed me when it came to remembering just how pleasantly listening to her talk was.

We seemed to speak with one another for hours, going through every topic and thought that had been brought up since we had departed with each other.

In any other situation, there might have been more anger. More accusations and pain from the time we spent apart. But at the ashen end of the world, things seemed calm.

After a long while, I began to go quiet. It almost pained me physically, but I knew we would have to quit our conversation. I still had a duty to accomplish, and we had been sitting for far too long. If I truly did want to redeem myself with Amaterasu, I needed to fix all that was left to fix. And to fix the problems I had left behind, I needed to continue forward just like my old friend had told me to do.

Amaterasu realized this as I stood, and stood with me. She spoke. "Time to continue walking, then? I assume you are searching for the same thing I was." I nodded my head. She nodded her's back. "Then let us proceed."

With that, we continued. The endless walking feeling far less lonely with Amaterasu alongside me.

It still felt like a dream to be with her again. I felt as though she would just disappear from the corner of my eye and be gone again, but she never left.

Hours passed as we walked with the occasional conversation. Hours became days, days became weeks, weeks became months.

Time didn't feel right in that place. It felt like both minutes and years from when we had first reunited.

The walking continued. The ashen dunes and smoky landscape staying the same.

Finally, the object of our search came to view. A towering pillar black as night shot out of the ash, reaching far into the sky and out of view. Once we noticed it, our walking turned to running. The object was much farther away than I initially expected, but after much determination, we reached the spiraling obsidian structure, I raised a hand out to it. Before either Amaterasu or myself could touch the thing, the long and thin pillar swayed and moved as the earth shook below.

A scaled body as large as Nihon itself emerged from the ash. The face of a serpent moved from below our feet, revealing the black pillar as just a mere whisker on the reptile's face.

Ember orange eyes stared down at us with the wisdom of the universe shining through. Breath the force of a thousand tsunamis burst the ash at our feet into clouds of dust behind us, revealing the scaled hand we stood on.

Face to face with the elder dragon.

It's great mouth opened, letting it's voice rumble, nearly pushing both of us to our feet. It spoke slow and contemplative, like something that hadn't the need for language in millennia. "Wwwhhhhyyy haaaave you disturbed meeee?"

Amaterasu was the first to speak in the diplomatic tone she would always use when attempting to speak in a professional manner. "We wished to speak with you about the state of things..."

She halted her speaking early as the elder dragon opened it's mouth once more. "III am awaaaaare ooof the state of the woooorld I've given you..."

I spoke up. "Then surely you wish to help us fix it?"

Amaterasu stayed silent. The dragon's enormous eyes shifted from Amaterasu to myself. He spoke faster this time, growing familiar with speech once again. "Whhhhy should I do such a thing? I owe you nothing..."

I crossed my arms. What a situation to be in, arguing with the creator of the cosmos itself. "Because you made this world! Surely you want to preserve it!"

Its brows furrowed. "I did create the world you call home. I created the seed for all life, even the one you wish me to aid you in killing..."

"The Doctor is deranged and foul! He's trying to destroy his fellow man. You would assist in bringing justice to help the rest of humanity, right?"

Amaterasu interjected. "If I am not brought back. No one will be able to move to the afterlife. The righteous won't be able to live in peace, and the evil won't see retribution in the afterlife. Without light to guide them, all humanity will end up in this place between places. We all linger. Our stories never end."

The dragon stared at the both of us for what felt like eons. Its torso rumbled and shook the world with it as he contemplated. "Hmmmm..."

I shouted out to it, my emotions getting a small bit ahead of me. "Don't let it end like this! We can't let this be how we all die out!"

The elder dragon looked back to me. "I have been alive for longer than your mind could imagine... In the infinite blackness. Fighting the rest of my kind in a struggle for power. And when all was done, I saw the scales that were thrown off our backs, the ones that created the stars and the life of humanity. I brought myself into a slumber, letting you all use my power to thrive... But the wounds I have received never heal. I am dying, my creation..."

Amaterasu spoke, still diplomatic but much more pleading this time. "But you aren't dead yet! You could still help us fix this!"

Its eyes closed and reopened, now looking at Amaterasu. "Child of the light... I gave you the responsibility of the sun. To make sure the crops were prosperous and the people lived happily... If I were to bring you back, I would die. You would have no more power to derive from... I could bring back the sun like you both wish, but it would listen to no command, and it would not ensure the bountiful harvest that it once always did."

I looked to the endless horizon as I thought aloud. "But it wouldn't leave us dying as the world grows cold. It wouldn't leave those things growing from the evil and the shadows to continue, would it?"

"The yokai, as you call them, have grown prideful. They leave themselves in the open, with no fear for the light... If I were to bring your sun back, they would be destroyed... Save for those your enemy has amalgamated with man. They derive their power from more than just the darkness. The soul itself is tapped into when kept on the razor's edge of yokai and man."

Amaterasu spoke. "Then do it! Bring the sun back, and bring us back."

I continued her plea. "The Doctor will continue to bring the world to darkness, even if the sun is returned. The people need Amaterasu. The Doctor needs to be stopped... Don't let her story end like this. Don't let mine end like this. Don't let the world end like this! We deserve more than to fade into the dark!"

The fire in the elder dragon's eye grew brighter as it thought and stared the both of us down.

Soon, the world around us went black. Amaterasu faded from my view. My own body ceased to exist.

Everything was dark and cold until a flash of light shone in the blackness. One last chance at redemption. For myself. For the world.

Let us end this story with more than a whimper.