---

Osamu

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❁

With a sharp jolt, the crane’s head shot up from it’s rest. Another nightmare haunted her psyche — where she had to continue living under the oppressive hoof of Grimwald and his group of volatile followers. She nosed her own shoulder to seek the injury where he’d rammed into in her dreams — nothing. A paw lifted to feel for the lump when her head slammed against the cavern walls — nothing. Her head lifted to confirm the ceiling crack that never stopped dripping — yet there was no opening to be found. Just another dream. The crane bird sighed as she sat upright, eyes heavy with an exhaustion that probably won’t be solving itself tonight.

She couldn’t sleep, and she hated it. Hated the hold that vile creature continued to have on her. Izumi would’ve been gullible to expect the months of captivity to melt away from her shoulders the moment she was free, but the lack of control she had….even over something as trivial as sleep. It felt as though every waking moment was spent looking over her shoulder in fear. Would it be this way forever?

The woman swayed till her knees buckled, far too tired and weak for a graceful landing. Legs curled beneath her, tail glued to her side as if protecting herself from something. She was afraid of something that didn’t exist anymore — but haunted her out of proper rest…

---

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Skill: Guardian

Something in him had changed since Izumi's return. Actually, it had changed the very day she was discovered missing - while he was admittedly less familiar with failure, given his many years of service, he had once been able to turn its bite toward the edge of his own blade as a tool of vengeance.

Yet that day, the once-familiar feeling of molten retribution had been replaced by cold desperation - fear.

Weeks, months passed, and his search for her had only resulted in overwhelming fatigue and a once-groomed coat ruined by the thorns and detritus of his travels. He hardly remembered to eat, and only by sheer force of will did he manage to swallow down what morsels of prey he came upon. How could he eat, when she might be in pain? When she herself might be starving on an empty stomach, wasting away in some forsaken hole gods-knew-where?

Or even worse - but that was unthinkable.

Since her rescue, Osamu had remained largely silent, his face drawn and pensive. He followed Izumi like a silent shadow, lingering close by and rarely letting her out of his sight - he had spoken barely three words since the Empress had been returned to them.

She jolted awake, and from a dark corner of the den Osamu leapt to attention, ears swiveling and eyes narrowed as he took quick stock of their surroundings to ensure their safety.

Only silence greeted his assessment, and his hackles gradually lowered.

Osamu padded toward the Empress on quiet paws, settling near her in a bid to comfort her with his presence.

She would never be taken from them again.

---

❁

Out of the corner of her blurry, sleep-deprived vision, a smoke of grey lingered closer to her -- Osamu. The last he'd seen her, he and the others were still covered in blood from the attack, but somehow it was like he'd never left the battle that day. She barely heard him say anything, even though the samurai was always so close. They hadn't even had the opportunity to speak properly since then. The empress knew he would've been on edge for her safety even after everything....but he was disappointed in her too, wasn't he?

Osamu.... Yes, he had to be. She was his student, after all. How could she allow herself to be captured so easily, allowing the pack to go to waste as she sat in a cave and pondered her own failures after all this time. Of course he hadn't spoken, he was upset. Pensive, the crane's lips sealed themselves together tightly after calling for him, averting her gaze. Unsure of what to say -- scared of what he would say, to be more accurate. He looked exhausted.

What are you....thinking about?

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Skill: Guardian

Only the quiet drip-drip of residual moisture from an earlier rain shower sounded in the cave. She called his name, and he turned his head to hold her gaze with an unreadable expression.

Failure.

Not hers - his failure.

He had not kept her safe. Izumi had nearly died due to his negligence, his complete and utter lack of awareness to their surroundings when it had been his duty to guard the borders - and more importantly, the Empress herself.

The situation had been entirely preventable, and it was all his fault.

Izumi seemed more withdrawn since the incident, more terse than she had been before, and why shouldn't she be? If the crane had one iota of mercy less than she possessed, she would have cast him from the pack outright. No; if this was to be his future in her presence, he would endure the punishment with dignity. It was enough she allowed him to stay, not that he deserved it.

Her question caught him by surprise.

I? Osamu asked, as if there were any other souls around them. His mouth went suddenly dry.

Cold silver met frosted lilac, and the warrior knew he could never lie to her.

How I have failed you, he said, his voice low and pensive. 私はあなたの許しを求めません。 私は価値がありません。 (I do not ask your forgiveness. I am unworthy.)

Osamu bowed his head.

私はこの重大なエラーを解決するためにサービスで私の人生の残りの部分を過ごすことになります。 (I will spend the rest of my life in service to remedy this grave error.)

---

❁

According to Osamu, it had not been her own mishaps that affected him so – it was even worse.

He blamed himself. Consumed himself with thoughts of how he’d somehow failed Izumi.

It was not often that Izumi shed tears. Only once during her imprisonment – yet the stubbornness, hunger and need to spite her captors distracted the crane from more crying afterwards. Once again after her return to this island –  in mourning the loss of young Penumbra, and the quiet stillness of the lands she’d been taken from so long ago. Now the Empress sheds tears again. Lilac eyes glossed over with emotion while tears left her eyes in silence, looking towards Osamu.

愚かな男だな (You foolish man.) The woman responded, upset at the idea that he would even dare blame himself for any of this. Her voice cracked. どうして私を失敗させられると思ったの? (How could you ever think you could fail me?) How dare he carry such a heavy weight on his shoulders? How dare he hurt himself with such thoughts, to have Izumi see him in such a state? It hurt worse than the starvation she’d endured for nearly a year.

She gritted her teeth. お前はいつものように任務を果たしたオサム。 あなたは私がいない間でさえ王朝を守り、私たちのメンバーを私と他の人たちを私たちが所属する家に連れて帰るように導きました。 あなたが私を失敗したと言うのはどうしてですか？ あなたは価値がないということですか？ (You served your duty as you always have, Osamu. You protected the dynasty even while I wasn’t present, and even led our members to bring me and the others home where we belong. How dare you say that you have failed me? That you are not worthy?) If anything, it was her that was not worthy. To have a man in her presence that was willing to risk so much for her – an Empress who failed her pack and left it to ruin with one, gullible mistake.

He was so…perfect. So wonderful, in ways that made her love him with a painful ferocity. Can he not see how wonderful he was? You…

Her voice softened again, and more tears flowed against her hollow cheeks. You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders as if it's feather weight…I don’t like that Osamu. Can’t you be selfish just this once and let me carry that weight with you?

---

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Skill: Guardian

She called him a fool, and he averted his gaze. If only he could go back in time and right the wrongs he had committed, the atrocities he had allowed to happen right under their noses - she would dismiss him now, most likely. Where would he go? What would he do? Osamu pushed the thought away, refusing to wallow in self-pity in light of the horrors she had endured...

Because of him.

Even his muscles were already poised to leave, waiting in that singular moment to hear the words fall from her lips.

They never came.

Instead, she surprised the wolf by admonishing him for... thinking he had failed. Osamu frowned, perplexed by this development, and lifted his gaze to meet hers with one hundred unspoken questions hanging in the air between them.

Why?

Izumi seemed to have that all figured out - but even in spite of her reassuring words, the query persisted.

Why?

The burden of this world is light, my Empress, so long as - Osamu cut himself off, realizing what he was about to say. What he very nearly ruined. He coughed, feigning a hoarse dryness in his throat, and swallowed. So long as you are safe.

So long as you are in it, was what he silently meant.

Would that I had died in place of your capture, he said solemnly, casting his eyes away from her. To spare you every pain, every weight, my lady - that is what this samurai wishes.

---

❁

Izumi softened, for just a fraction. Yet her ire returned the moment he even dared speak of his own peril. Died in my place? Her eyes were sharp when her gaze snapped in his direction. Her voice grew cold, yet with a hint of bruising within it. Almost as if his words bruised her…actually, they had. What do you mean by that, Osamu – that this existence would be jovial regardless of your presence in it?

Still, he saw her as none more than an empress under his protection – it felt like a barrier between them that she couldn't dream of clawing through. In the beginning, this was fine. Their relationship as student to her teacher – ruler to her samurai – she could get by. Yet now, Izumi had made the mistake of allowing him to become something more in her mind. She’d long since recognized that; yet maybe she hadn’t recognized how easily she was letting it slip from the cracks.

That is not what I want Osamu! I am not some coreless feather that breaks in the wind, I am your student -- your friend! I… she had to recoil for a second to find her words – her composure. Her ears pressed against her crown. What was she saying? What could she even say? Is….Is that what you truly want? The idea that you might’ve died in those mountains, and you’d become nothing but a wisp in my memory….is that something that would truly make you content?

---

---

For such a slight woman, her disapproval was sharp, and he felt his ears switch back reflexively as she laid into him. If he had been an outsider looking in on the conversation, perhaps he might have laughed - a great Samurai, strong and hardened against the world's terrors, reduced in but a moment to a self-conscious boy. Some part of him did find it amusing, but Osamu was too busy absorbing the righteous wrath of his Empress to make note of it.

Even when she was angry, she was beautiful. The wrinkle of her lip, the exposal of a single curved fang, as delicate as she appeared - but she wasn't.

Izumi was an Empress. He had never, in all of their days together, thought her weak. She was stronger than the great Zelkova tree, her roots far-reaching and expansive, a shelter for those under her rule; as graceful and bountiful in her generosity as the Japanese plum, extending herself and her gifts without thought or consequence.

More than these things, she was the crane - silent and still as the cold winter morning, her world hidden behind a veil of lilac eyes.

Eyes that were, presently, boring into his skull.

Osamu lamented his lack of a brush with which to write down his poetry, but such wants grew ever more distant as the Samurai had become fully dependent upon his mind and his fangs and claws for all of his needs.

Forgive me.

His head was low, bowed in reverence.

Nevertheless, his ears swiveled forward just slightly as he hung onto the 'I' following her declaration of friendship.

What - he wondered - what had lain behind that?

The moment passed, and she finished.

Empress - Osamu paused. ... Izumi.

He would normally balk over sounding so familiar with the Crane, but she had opened the door when she called him friend.

If you ordered me to lay down and die, he continued, his voice uncharacteristically soft, I would do so in an instant, and without question.

Gentle eyes of silver lifted their gaze to meet her own.

世界は私なしで上に行くだろう, (The world will go on without me) Osamu said, あなたの記憶の中でウィスプになることは最大の名誉でしょう? (To be a wisp in your memory would be the greatest honor; for what would be left of the world without you in it?)

---

❁

He uttered her name from his lips – and Izumi could’ve sworn she felt her chest swell with warmth. Soften then, she did; because curse her fragile heart. Curse how vulnerable he’d always managed to make her feel. The empress couldn’t even be angry at him properly. A small part of Izumi even wished Osamu would snap back at her, because it would’ve been much easier to stay angry if he was, too – yet the empress knew the samurai wasn’t like that. He’d never become upset with her.

Realizing this, a hopeless cloud of guilt surrounded her for even daring to wrinkle her nose at him in such a way – to reduce him to a state where he’d flattened his ears and asked for forgiveness. no, what had gotten into you, foolish girl? You….you still don’t understand, Osamu. Her voice softened considerably, still wounded. Her mind was still racing with reasons to be angry at him, but her guilt overpowered that anger.

The moment you leave this realm is the moment my world crumbles, why can’t you will yourself to understand that? To understand how important you are to me? she said, her muzzle lowering to the ground, eyes shutting tightly. While trapped in those mountains, I longed for nothing but to know that you were safe. For a moment where I’d be able to be by your side again, because the thought that i’d never get that chance again before I died hurt the most… She had no choice but to be honest – at least to some degree – lest her true feelings scare him away. After all, he was but a soldier by the contract they made for him to protect her, her family, and her pack. She could never add the burden of her love on his shoulders, for he already carried too much.

She sighed. Her eyes peeked up ever so slightly to look at him. I told you before, didn’t I? That you are stuck with us…., stuck with me. You will not die and you will not be forgotten to me or this pack. Not as long as I'm here. I’ll never let that happen. Her brows furrowed once more in irritation.

So don’t you dare talk like that again….

What was this childish stubbornness? Izumi didn’t even know what she was rambling on about anymore…

---

---

"... To understand how important you are to me?"

Osamu was not one to be easily surprised. He had known they shared a camaraderie, a bond of duty between them, that of guardian and guarded, mentor and student; she cared for him because he was one of the Fujiwara Clan's stalwart Samurai, one who cared deeply for the wellbeing of their pack and the members within it. She cared for everyone in this way. Izumi was an Empress, a sovereign, a benevolent mouthpiece of higher understanding and capable of a gentleness he could not begin to fathom.

Why, then, did she now make it sound so personal? So - intimate?

He listened silently, looking back at her with an unreadable expression bordering on numbness. How she berated him with her caring, eyes shut, lowering herself to the ground as she steadily and methodically cut into his heart with the words he had only ever heard her speak in dreams.

Was it possible?

What did she mean, of longing to be by his side? Surely no student would miss a teacher's tutelage so much as to dream of it in captivity.

She had called him friend, but she had hesitated -

Osamu was perceptive, but he was also a tired, grizzled wolf approaching middle age, and the finer nuances of a woman's desperate beating heart often remained a mystery veiled in shadow.

And yet.

Of every soul left behind in the Clan with her absence, of all those who she had come to love and cherish and held so close to her heart, it was for him - against every impossible wish - that she survived.

An intolerable moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes. He could have blinked it away, but she alone, if no one else, deserved to see the Samurai weep.

It was without conscious thought that he moved forward to embrace her, gently tucking her into the warm curve of his neck as his body moved of its own accord. His head draped tenderly over her shoulder and he breathed in her scent as a drowning man, held only to this life by the precious oxygen she provided, for she was the sky, the sun, the stars above and the earth beneath him, the raging waters and the gentle breeze in summer; she was his purpose and the very air in his lungs.

Izumi, Osamu said her name again. It felt foreign, still, perhaps a little clumsy - but already it came easier with her admission.

Izumi.

The name tasted sweet upon his tongue.

If ever a soul belonged to another, he said, and he did not hesitate; he was a warrior, and a warrior did not waver even if he faced defeat. It would be said, and he would die with the words engraved in his heart and the final satisfaction of having spoken his truth. 私は持っており、常に維持するためにあなたのものになります。 (Mine has and will always be yours to keep.)

---

"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" - Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis