Chapter 1:

The Yato

Anchorage (noun)

The desire to hold on to time as it passes.

Edo crumbles from within as the wealthy and those who can afford to scrape all of their funds together flee to the safety of space. Buildings begin to look more and more weathered without proper care or maintenance as they stand against the elements of Earth's seasons and varying weather. Oddly enough, the Terminal seems to collapse within itself at the tail-end of the first panicked year, but people are too concerned with surviving to worry about the condition of the once-stalwart tower of unbending metal.

Kagura isn't sure what called her to stand amongst the warped steel at the base of a sad, derelict grave. Perhaps, the young Yato muses, it's a sentimentality. Her father had warned her within the first few months, months after Gin-chan had disappeared and hundreds had already begun to die, that if she didn't leave now, she would never set her feet off Earth again. It is only now, standing in the rubble of the Terminal with a deep foreboding that shakes her core as badly as her mother's death and Gin-chan's disappearance, that she believes him.

Nobody will escape Earth, and there isn't a soul in space who spares a thought for this dying planet anymore. Kagura remembers blood spilling into endless rain, and decides that whether she had remained or left does not matter, in the scheme of things. In her mind, there was never a choice between Gin-chan and the cold house on a distant planet. Just as her father and her brother did not return to that dead home, neither will she. The home she is waiting for here will return without fail, and she will hold ruthlessly on to time until he stumbles through the doors and falls flat on his face in the hall, too drunk to balance. Kagura will scold his deaf ears as he snores, and then she will sigh exasperatedly through her nose and throw the warmest blanket from her futon on him.

Sadaharu whines, interrupting Kagura's fond memories while he paws at the dirt as he paces in front of the abandoned tower once a monument to the power of the Amanto. His white fur is a stark contrast to the heartless gray metal. Kagura brushes a hand over his thick fur, then gently digs her fingers into his scruff, saddened by the bones she feels sharply under his skin. He has grown weaker since the Terminal had suddenly caved into itself, and she worries that yet another of her family will be pried from her arms. She refuses to wrestle with him anymore, has refused for three years, and will refuse for three more until the trees stop wilting and Gin-chan returns and Sadaharu is fluffy and fat and the White Plague is cured.

She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear, unused to its growing length, and sits on a jutting piece of metal debris. Kagura tips her head back and stares at the empty blue sky, closes her eyes, and waits.

Published: 8/17/2017

Edited: 8/18/2017