"Im-mu-ta-ble." The Doll enunciated.

Gyomei stumbled over the word. The accent of his mother tongue continued to plague him in his attempts to master this new language. Perhaps his fellow hunters had the patience to bear it, but the heaviness of his mouth continued to frustrate him.

"You may even use the doll, should you wish." Gehrman whispered.

"Oh, I...plan to." Gyomei assured, speaking thickly. At the time, he'd only spoken what little English he picked up from his rare sojourns into the cities.

Gehrman's eyebrows vanished under his hairline. "That's..." the man seemed lost for words. "That's good..." The elderly man slowly wheeled his chair around, slowly making for the door. He seemed lost. "I'm glad."

Gyomei was surprised. Had he not been meant to speak to her? It was already shocking that she spoke Japanese so fluently.

The Doll's dress rustled as she moved, stopping at the doorway behind him. Gyomei blinked heavily as he turned to face her, the light still blinding.

"You will not come inside?" He questioned in his native tongue.

"Never, dear hunter. This room is Gehrman's alone; he requested I never step foot inside. It is the only place where he may be miserable in peace." She replied in flawless japanese. No ill-intent was meant by her words; the man very clearly knew and wished to remain melancholy.

"He is wallowing." Gyomei understood. He could not help the thrill of scorn in his chest; he did not understand at the time the weight of what Gehrman bore.

"Forgive him, sweet Hunter." She whispered, hair framing the light in whorls, "For a long time, it was only he and I, the hunters of his time long passed."

"Lonely."

"Very." She agreed. "He built me for love. But he taught me for loneliness. The Dream remained empty for much of this time; it was not until Lawrence himself that another trod these stones."

"You learned Japanese?"

"Another taught me." She blinked her glass eyes, turning to face one of the many graves dotting the region. "I built his stone myself, and carved it in his tongue. He was a good teacher. It brought him joy in his last days, unlike the thoughts of his home in the East."

The japanese she spoke was nearly a different dialect, odd inflections and contractions punctuating every sentence. It was as much struggle to understand her as it was for her to parse his words; in this they were equals.

"Teach me." Gyomei requested earnestly. "Teach me English."

She turned back to him. "Very well, dear Hunter. Then you must spend time here every day. Are you sure you wish to do that?"

"Yes."

Her doll face had not the wherewithal to smile, but the look in her eyes warmed him. So deeply he forgot chill altogether for a bare moment.

"You're doing very well Gyomei." She soothed. Gyomei, however, was not so easily placated. Learning a new language was hard, this one even worse than most he'd heard. It was nonsense! Bizarre conjugations and nonsensical structures. He despised English.

Hunched over a too-small notebook as the messengers cavorted about him, he frowned deeply into the pages. A tug at his ankles revealed itself to be a messenger bearing the crude pen he'd hurled aside. The liquid inside reeked of brine, an insult to the stately ink his own master possessed and ground for use. He took it grudgingly to resume his penmanship.

Time passed in this manner, the Doll's endless patience at times frustrating and at times soothing. But always she remained, silent as the nib continued to scrawl across the page.

Then, between one moment and the next, a breeze gusted the back of his neck, and Gyomei whirled around with his blades drawn, a roaring bloodlust borne of a sudden fear echoing in his cry.

Gehrman chuckled, wheeling himself past the taller man, and slowly reached down to the fallen notebook. Gyomei held himself, tense with a sudden cold sweat drenching his shirt.

The man had made no noise! Even his damned wheelchair had been silent!

"Hunter, you've made good use of the doll I see." He grinned, flipping through the pages with an odd twinkle in his eye. The old man continued to chortle to himself, snapping the book shut and tossing it to Gyomei as he wheeled to the little messengers and very gravely handed one a tophat no larger than a thimble.
It squealed with a wordless glee, holding the little scrap of cloth aloft and with a great pride. All fell silent as the little beings began to fight amongst themselves for their newfound prize.

"Sir Gyomei." Gehrman spoke quietly, reclining easily into his chair. "Take some time in the waking world. Meet with those you know and call friend." The doll silently stood and walked beside Gehrman, taking hold of the handles of the chair and beginning to wheel it back around towards the warm home at the top of the Dream.

"How long do I have," Gyomei called after him.

"A sennight, no more." Gehrman arms tightened on his armrests. "The scent of a hunt is in the air."

The crow flew high overhead. Death! It called, No respite! The Hunt is on!

Perhaps some of that was in his head, Gyomei mused wearily. Though he dreamed deeply, his rest was rarely satisfying.

The midnight moon was chill on his shoulders as he stood stock-still

'Why do you shut your eyes, Gyomei-sama?' whispered a voice like moonlight

Gyomei raised his hand reflexively, lifted them to his eyes, hesitating for the briefest moment before reaching forwards.

His fingertips touched his closed lids. They were trembling.

Images roared past his shut lids, not a single one he'd seen in this world, all of the gothic beauty of faraway Yharnam. Oh! How he loathed it, cursed its name yet yearned to fall asleep!

He lifted his hand away, and visions of that land fell away like cobwebs, leaving him in a fond darkness once more. There he stood, and allowed his consciousness to slowly drip away. Drop by drop, his focus settled, he grew conscious of the earth underfoot, the sound of the cricket to his left, the smell of a decaying body concealed under a thick, bitter pungence.

And the demon, poised before him, holding its breath as though concealed, despite reeking of fear and excess. It moved smoothly, the sound of shells underfoot smoothly crumbling into a gravelly scrape as it began circling around him.

The kind god of the shrine would surely not take offense to his actions, but nonetheless he did not wish to shed blood here.

Have mercy on this pitiful land, 'o demon, can you not tell even the beasts turn against you? The birdsong has fallen silent and the wolves prowl here no more.

The demon charged him, and was met with a bone-shattering blow from his knee.

I can see you, even without eyes.

It screeched, loudly in pain, and began furiously whipping up the dirt about him, a whipcrack of flesh heralding the gale. A cloud of dust buffeted his clothes and strained even his prodigious strength. His feet slid into the dirt, head bowed as his hair threatened to tear itself from the roots of his skull, the pain anchoring him and centering his feet. The winds tore at his clothes and skin, and it was with gritted teeth that he finally brought his granite hands in front of him, crossing them and slowly moving forwards.

And just as suddenly, the wind stopped. Gyomei stumbling forwards in shock, and instead using his newfound momentum to dash slightly to his right, the panicked beast squealing as he nearly collided with it. The strain in his ankle was blinding for a second as he halted his movement in the fraction of a second, spinning in place and swinging his other leg like a sledgehammer into the demon before him. He felt throbbing flesh against his shin, and beneath it brittle bones as they splintered, tension gathering against his stone leg, the skin peeling apart until something gave way.

His leg was awash with gore as he tore it through the demon, absorbing the force like sponge. The demon coughed wetly, a sound he wasn't aware was possible through needle teeth and four tongues. Or so he felt, as he leaned forwards and seized it by the skull and went to dash it against the flagstones, only remembering at the last second a heartfelt request to not shed blood on sacred land.

Alas! Gyomei's heart softened and his hesitation nearly cost him, the demon sliding up his leg in a fit of fury, unbalancing him as its intestines caught on his shins and nearly tipping him backwards until he lashed out.

The demon's maddened swipes tore his hand but a thunderous strike landed against something hard and tense before it shattered like eggshell, leaving him awash in filth.

For a moment, all movement ceased. It was unsettling.

Something wet slid down his hand.

Forgive me

A voice like rain called to him as he stood in the carnage, treading lightly over the gore with no hesitation to his steps.

"Gyomei." The man rasped. "Are you still eating well."

"Giyu. I am, yes."

He continued to move, steps pattering over the body. There was no respect to the movements, no honor to the fallen. It exhausted Gyomei, though he had not the heart to challenge the younger man.

The Water Pillar sighed slightly. "You're crying again Gyomei. Are you sad?"

The man stepped up quietly beside him, whispering softly, "Oyakata-sama sends his regards, and wished to transmit information." Here he paused, the nuance of which was lost on Gyomei, but he'd chosen not to question the orders and that was a comfort. "Far in the north is a stone named Seki that brings ruin."

Gyomei waited a moment. "Is that all?"

The young man started slightly. "Yes, of course?"

Gyomei fought back a sigh. How he wished this byplay and nuance remained far off from his domain, but he'd found himself caught in it's eddies, tugging at his ankles.

A messenger quietly burbled comfortingly in his ear, and Gyomei fought back the shiver. Indeed, one day, the messengers had appeared in this world.

It made a man anxious.

It made him question what a dream could be.

Still, they held his weapons lovingly, and there were rare few places safer for his axes when not in his hands.

"You turned your head to look at me." Giyu whispered, and Gyomei felt his heart stop beating.

"You haven't done that in years Gyomei." Giyu continued, and Gyomei knew the man was far from oblivious regarding Gyomei's obvious distress. But how could he explain? How could Giyu ever understand?

"Thank you, Giyu." He said instead, and his words were final.

"Dear Hunter." The Doll whispered softly behind him. "Why do you close your eyes."

"Because I cannot see."

"You have the eyes, Hunter." Her dress rustled; she moved up beside him. The scrape of her porcelain feet on stone was harsh. "Use them."

Gyomei was silent for a moment.

"I don't know any other path to being strong." He whispered. It was both avoidance and answer in one.

"Others do." She soothed. "Many. So many. People were strong before you. They will be strong after, too. Why hesitate?"

"Because I chose this path." The conviction in his chest was faltering. A tear ran down his cheek, one after another and soon they were running thick and fast down his cheeks.

He clapped his hands together solemnly.

Namu Amida Butsu

"It is the only path I know. The only one I chose to walk. My conviction is what makes me strong."

"You could be strong another way." She spoke softly, but there was a hint of something else to it. Yearning. "Let me help you. I can make you strong. Stronger than any before, so long as you had the will for it."

"Even well-intentioned, never. Not in this lifetime or the next."

Her hand shook a little. They were pale white, smooth joints bending as they clenched, some filth staining some of the bony knuckles.

Gyomei's eyes were open. He'd opened them without meaning to.

Damnation.