Yabona only pretended to sleep. She could feel Sai's gaze on her all night, and her face was flush with tears and shame.

She knew she couldn't save anyone.

She knew that her flight for her swords was a pretext for true and proper flight, that she only wanted to run and to keep running and to forget the way Fumihito went limp and the sound of Junko crying and the grunt that burst out of Gin just like his blood.

Every time a scream crept in through the walls, whether distant or close, she tensed, held her breath. When the sun began to filter in through the windows and thin walls she opened her eyes, slow, and found them crusted. She wanted to lay still a moment longer, but Sai was over top of her now, leaning over.

“Are you okay?” He said.

She nodded. Saw the dark red and black of blood on his cheeks, the red around his eyes. How his hand was clenched around a cloth dyed dark red. She sat up quick, reached out.

“Are you?” Her hand brushed his, and he recoiled.

“I am,” he said, and then after a pause. “No, I am not okay.”

She hugged him.

“My parents are dead.”

She hugged him tighter.

“I couldn't help them,” his voice began to waver. “But I killed the one that got them. I killed it.”

She could feel his tears against her collarbone, soaking through her dress. He didn't make any noise. She let him cry, and then gently pushed him back by his shoulders, saw a subdued, tired fear in his eyes.

“You saw them too?”

“I did.”

“What did they look like?”

“Men, but not. Other things too in the street.”

“And you got one? You killed it?”

He nodded, and looked down at his left hand, still stained black. If Sai could kill one, then Gin could as well.

“It was not hard, it was clumsy.”

“I saw them too. One killed Fumihito, one of the other ones, the snake ones. It,” and she gestured at her neck, and couldn't bring herself to finish the thought. “One of the man ones wrestled Gin, it looked weak but Gin was losing. I... thought I could get my swords and go back.”

Sai shuffled away, revealing her his swords behind him and dragged them over to her. “I went and got them.”

It was Yabona's turn to cry. Looking at the simple unadorned scabbard.

“I couldn't do anything, even if I went back I couldn't have done anything. I'm not good at fighting like you.”

Sai shook his head.

“You're stronger.”

Yabona was avoiding his eyes, and now she looked at him.

“You are. I know it. I am afraid. More afraid than ever. I did not come here to save anyone, I came to hide.”

She was about to confess her own cowardice when Miyo entered the room. He looked more ragged than ever, even when he had been drinking until the small hours.

“You're awake,” he said.

She found herself sitting up properly, and noted that Sai did the same. It was reflex now. Miyo waved his hand dismissively and sat down heavy, on his backside, not his knees. He planted his sword in between his feet.

“It's quiet now,” Sai said.

“I haven't seen anything in the street for an hour, maybe two. It is still, eerily so. Some of the fires were doused...” Miyo rested his head on the wall, closed his eyes.

There was nothing Yabona wanted to do but remain here, in the light, feeling safe. But she had to check. She had no choice. She stood.

“I should get back to the inn,” and she was looping her swords through her belt, looking ridiculous, the hilt of the long blade coming near her shoulder.

Miyo grunted, and stood up at great pains.

“Stay! You said it's quiet, I will be okay,” she had hoped her protest would not be taken in earnest, that Miyo wouldn't slink back down, shoo her away.

“I promised you last night. We will all go, stay close to me. If we must fight, you will watch my back and do nothing else. Understood?”

“Understood, Master,” they echoed.

“Sai, wash your face before we leave, and that arm. Wait! Let me see your wound. Good, it's closing. Wash it well.”

The front yard was strewn with bodies and black blood.

Two of the pale bodies had fallen to look as though they were sitting against the outer wall, their black blood in fine and dripping arcs on the white wall. One was navel down, decapitated, another split from shoulder to stomach, another was missing a leg. Another two crumpled on each other. In the day light their skin was nearly translucent.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Miyo pointedly did not look at them, and so Yabona did not comment, but she looked at Sai, and they each shared a look of awe. She felt assured, more confident about striding out into the streets.

**

The city bore scars.

Blackened and smouldering buildings, corpses in ones and twos and then piles. Those few people on the street were skittish, wild-eyed and jumping at every sound. There were soldiers in large groups going street by street, home by home. One such group was before the trio now, and they staved open a wooden door, dragging a pleading man out by the scruff of his neck. A moment later the remaining soldiers inside came back out and spoke a quick word with their officer, and then they saw Miyo, Sai, and Yabona. One of them ran up, his spear was levelled at them.

“Stop right there,” he barked. Another solider came up behind him.

“They're fine, Iwata. Look at them for fuck sake, they're normal. Human. Two children at that.”

The soldier with the spear, now close enough to see underneath his helmet, was young. Just barely a man, and Yabona noted the tip of his spear wavered. This he raised upright, looking a little bashful, but no less afraid.

“Are you unharmed?” The other soldier said, looking at them.

“We are, thank you. What happened? We've been up in the temple quarter all night,” Miyo bowed slightly.

The soldier turned out his palms and shook his head. “What's happening, you mean. Nobody knows, but there are devils among us. I suggest you head back. If there is someone that can save us, it's the Gods.”

As if to punctuate his point, the men down the street erupted in shouts as two of them ushered a Pale Man out of the shop they had just entered at the tips of their spears. They pinned it to a solid looking beam, and one of their comrades decapitated it. Another bent over and vomited.

“Those are the least of them,” the soldier said. “If you see anything else, don't run and don't fight. You might get lucky. I did.”

Yabona thought of the snake thing that killed Fumihito, that went after Azami. It struck the boy as he was screaming, and it followed the first person to run.

His troop was waving him back.

“Stay safe, we cannot help.”

Yabona lead the way, though only a step ahead of her companions. The rest of the walk was without incident, and without comment. They held silence. No words seemed appropriate. There were more bodies, more soldiers, more ruin and caved in walls and little sputtering fires. There were people loading all their earthly possessions on wagons who refused to meet any ones eye. Once Yabona had thought she glimpsed one of the snake things, but if it had been there down the alley, it was there no longer.

“It's just up here,” she said, pointing. They came out into the square with the fountain, this was cracked and there were corpses hung over the side. The water frothed red. Gin's Inn looked much the same as it had any other day, but the door had been knocked loose. Dark inside, like a devils eye. Miyo placed his hand on Yabona's shoulder when they reached the threshold, and took the lead.

Sandals were strewn about the foyer, the shelf for them partially blocking the entrance. Miyo stepped gingerly over this, he was ready to draw.

Yabona licked her lips, her heart thumped. The air was still, it smelled like metal. She too gripped at her swords, as did Sai.

“Gin,” she whispered. “Master Gin.”

Miyo glanced at her, and then returned to scanning the room.

They were now at the front desk, where she had fled. There was a pool of blood where Gin had been, and then there, feet sticking out behind the front desk. Everyone saw it. Miyo gestured to stay back, and he edged around the desk.

He looked up and shook his head. “It's one of them, the pale ones.”

Yabona let out the breath she was not aware she was holding. Yes of course, of course, it couldn't be Gin, Hiromi. It couldn't.

She nodded towards the kitchen, towards the dorm and Azami's chambers. They went. She refused to go inside the dorm, to see Fumihito, and so Miyo entered first. He came back a second later.

“There's nothing,” he said.

“No bodies?”

He shook his head.

They went into the courtyard.

There at the base of the great tree, sheltered under it's shimmering leaves and shade, Gin sat, head drooping into his chest.

Yabona rushed out, jumped off the walkway onto the grass, stopped herself suddenly and nearly fell.

In front of him there were bodies draped with blankets in a semi-circle.

With a gentle nudge from Miyo, they all approached.

There was a bandage wrapped around Gin's stomach, but he wasn't moving, and his eyes were closed. They came a little closer. There, his chest, rising and falling ever so slightly. He heard their foot-steps on the gravel and looked up with vacant, tired eyes. His mouth dropped open, and a tear fell from his eye.

“You're alive. At least you're alive, I hoped...” He said, deep and grumbling.

At least.

Sticking out of the bottom of a blanket, Setsuko's dress, distinct pale-blue.

Yabona brought her fist up to her chest, clenched it tight.

The others were there too, under the blankets.

“I haven't given them their rites,” Gin apologized, “I couldn't say good-bye yet.”

“Did anyone make it?”

Gin's stare spoke for him, he couldn't look Yabona in the eye for long. His gaze darted away, concentrated on the pond.

Miyo stepped up to Yabona, squeezed her shoulder. This caught Gin's attention.

“You must be Miyo,” he said. “Yabona has spoke of you.”

“I am. I have no words, your loss is great.”

Gin sighed deep. “Hardly knew the lot of them, really. Still, I was building something here. I thought I was supposed to build something here.” He spoke low and soft, and he looked up at the great branches of his tree. “Will you help me build the pyre? I shouldn't delay any longer, there's too much to do.”

“You are a monk? You said you could perform their rites,” Sai said.

“I am, I was. I know the ceremony.”

“Will you perform them for my parents?”

Gin's immense hand rubbed his cheek as he sucked in air.

“You've lost them, this night?”

Sai nodded.

“I will guide their souls, and these ones here, and any other I can.”

“Thank you.”

They began by hauling furniture into the courtyard. Nearly every piece of wood in the Inn. Gin then took a woodsman's axe to the larger articles, and attempted to make uniform pieces. By the time they were about done hauling everything into the yard, Miyo left with Sai.

Yabona and Gin took to setting up nine separate pyres, attempting to make the piles orderly and dignified and largely failing. When Miyo and Sai returned with a hand cart bearing the boy's parents, they broke down this cart too for extra fuel.

“I would wait for night, so the guiding spirits could better see, but I suspect they are looking down on our city with keen eyes. And I do not want to be out in the dark,” Gin said, and they all stood in the courtyard for a minute longer, none wishing to get on with what must be done. Sai was the first to move, and then Gin, Yabona, Miyo. They worked in pairs and bared the bodies onto their pyres.

Yabona worked with Gin. They were moving Eika. She knew it was Eika by the shape of her head, by her hair that fell out of the blanket. They settled her atop the pile of wood. Yabona stared and Sai came over to her.

“You knew her?”

“She was my friend, or I thought she would be. She's very kind. Was... very kind. She wanted to come and study with us... it's the last thing we talked about.” And then she remembered the emerald, and reached for where it would have been hanging around her neck. It had been lost sometime in the night. She walked back to the dorm, scouring the corner where she had been that night for the piece of jewellery, not expecting to find it. The room was a mess, the broken slats of the window, futons scattered, the wall to Azami's room broken where Kyou had been flung. But there behind a cushion it was nestled. She clutched it tight, put it around her neck.

Gin had stepped away and when he returned he had an immense red bead necklace draped around his neck, and he had a stick with some paper diamonds attached to the end, and some flint and steel. Together with Miyo they began the fires as Sai and Yabona stood back, under the tree. Soon they were smouldering, and then they were burning. Gin flicked his ritual stick, swept it, clasped his hands with his beads in prayer, he sang in an odd cadence. He repeated the process, going from pyre to pyre and then back again, and he did so until their bodies had turned to smoke, and their souls in that smoke conveyed to heaven.

Yabona leaned into Sai, resting her head on his shoulder. Gently twisting the emerald against her chest back and forth which caught the fire and glittered.

She didn't cry.

There didn't seem to be any tears left.