He might have felt pride, had Osamu actually taken stock of her defensive posturing. His training had obviously served her well even after so much time, but he didn't think about that, he didn't care about that; the only thing his eyes registered was the willowy silhouette and sharp lilac gaze of the woman he'd once thought gone forever. Even tear-stained, her angular cheekbones stood out in stark contrast against the soft drapery of pale fur that framed her face.

The Samurai and the Crane beheld each other for several breathless moments - hesitant, afraid. Uncertain if one or the other was a dream, or even some vivid hallucination of Osamu's driven by a grief so powerful that it finally shattered what was left of his fraying mind and had at last driven him mad.

Izumi, he uttered, his mouth suddenly dry.

The word was almost foreign to him now. How long had it been since her name last crossed his lips? Months? Years? Time was impossible to measure when it meant nothing at all.

Nothing without her.

He couldn't move - if he did, she might vanish into the air and disappear someplace he would never find her again. Even as she swept toward him with the graceful flow of the tide itself he remained rooted to the earth, four paws planted in a grounding stance while he held his breath and wondered if this was truly his Empress made flesh once more.

Oh! Blessed was the scent of wisteria, holy was the salt of seafoam as her scent assailed him and sent the man plunging beneath the waves of his own heart in a baptism. Osamu caught her in his arms and they fell all at once, a tangle of silver and white and ash as the two cleaved together in blissful silence. Tightly he held her, pressing Izumi against his deep chest as the curve of his neck followed her own graceful line.

大藤原氏の皇后, (Empress of the great Fujiwara Clan) he rumbled quietly against her ear, She who wears the light of the stars in her fur.

The silent crane had returned to him, and Osamu felt himself breathe for the first time since the day she vanished.