Notes:
- This story is part of the Retribution series. For full context, please read Retribution, Wolf Warriors, Happy Endings and The Ghosts of Chrysanthemum Bridge.

- The people Kyuzo refers to as his sisters are not his biological siblings. They are his senpai (his sensei's senior students).

- There is NO romantic interest between Kyuzo and the OC.

Vocab: senpai - senior

I am but a pale shadow

In your fiery light

Your twin swords lead

And my blades follow

Yet you do not know

My soul has always yearned

For its own wings

With which to fly

Is the all-encompassing sky

Not big enough

For the both of us?

Despite all that she had done for him, Kyuuzou could not recall a moment he actually liked Ayame. His senpai was not likable. To him, she was a twisted mirror, a disturbing reminder of the best and the worst he could be, at once his conscience and his demon.

In his childhood and his youth, Kyuuzou had felt many things towards Third Sister - fear, admiration, envy, annoyance, resentment, irritation, gratitude, perhaps even pity - but never fondness. She was older, but not by much; taller, but not for long. Yet she was always dominant, the fiercer fighter whose energy came from both the dark side and light side of the impersonal Force. An almost inhuman energy channel with the convenient ability to turn grief into rage, and rage into power. More demon than human on the battlefield.

It was from the berserker that the young warrior learnt how to convert pain into blinding bloodlust. It was only in the kill zone, the place without past and without future, that they could truly be free - free from all the shame of the past. Just for that brief moment, they were the shining new war gods who dictated life and death; she could forget that she was once a careless killer who took an innocent life and he could forget he was once a coward who betrayed with his silence the one who loved him best. But even the new war gods had to return to the mortal world, where they were still sinners.

If Ayame was a human demon, Kyuuzou was a walking corpse. He surmised they had both lost the better part of their humanity a long, long time ago.

--

Once upon a time

My young forgotten self

Might have foolishly wished

For a kind friend

Someone who could understand

And love me just the way I am

But I find no such love

Under all of heaven

For it was you who taught me

That those who beg

For the favor of others

Do not deserve it

And will never have their desires

Better then, not to beg

Better still, not to ask

And better yet, not to want at all

Despite all that he had suffered on account of Ayame, he could never hate her. The golden-eyed warrior had saved his life in battle many times. Kyuuzou had rescued Ayame once or twice. Not from the weapons of foes, but from herself. Strange how one could be one's own worst enemy, he mused. But maybe it was not so strange.

The young soldier felt free after he left the Master Sergeant's command. If he had not transferred to another battalion, he would never have become the warrior he now was. He would still be her shadow, the little brother under her wing. He would have to watch her fly but remain on the ground. But even Ayame's shadow was a better warrior than most men who were born samurai.

Third Sister's protectiveness he found suffocating. Yet Kyuuzou always felt guilt at this ingratitude. He should feel more warmly towards one who would have laid down her life for him but he could never feel what he should feel. Still Kyuuzou believed he loved her. No matter how much he disliked the merchant's daughter, he would die before he let anyone harm her. To the young samurai, 'love' was not an emotion. It was a decision. He did not have to feel it. But some days, love without feeling felt like a weary burden. A duty. An obligation. But perhaps that was how things were supposed to be.

Once upon a time, he must have felt love. But those moments seem so far away, like a distant dream in another life. His first parents - they passed beyond memory years ago. His second parents - they had loved him. And he might have loved them too, but perhaps not quite enough. For if he did, they would not have perished the way they did. Second Sister he liked the best of all three sisters. But she too had passed. It was always the ones he loved best and the ones who loved him best who died. Maybe he was cursed. Perhaps it was good that he felt no fondness for Ayame. Perhaps this way Third Sister would live on to die of natural causes, Kyuuzou thought.

As the years passed, the pale warrior wondered if he could truly feel that thing called 'love' for anyone anymore. Perhaps such a thing was forever beyond him. It would be better that way, the crimson-eyed warrior decided. In a way, he had found his peace.

But then he met him. The dark ronin who fought him to a draw. The kind of man Kyuuzou's sisters had always warned him about. The roguish charmer who did not keep his hands to himself. Shimada Kanbei was someone he should dislike on sight. Ayame would not have tolerated such dishonorable conduct. Not on her own person. And certainly not on Kyuuzou's person. But Kyuuzou was not Ayame. Instead of killing Kanbei for his offence, Kyuuzou granted him a reprieve.

Kyuuzou told himself he was letting the man live a little longer because there were questions he needed answers for, questions that perhaps Kanbei could answer. That was the only reason he followed him to Kanna, the silent samurai persuaded himself. Kyuuzou was sure he disliked Kanbei. Perhaps even despised him. But there was something more - a nameless emotion lurking just below the surface of his consciousness.

He did not know what that emotion was. Nor did he want to know. All he knew was that in the presence of this man, he felt unfettered. He felt like he could soar. The quiet warrior sensed that this leader did not see him as a shadow, that this man saw him as a star. Why? How did one dead man walking have the power to make another walking corpse come alive?

Why could he not feel love for the one he should love? And why would he feel for the man he should not trust? "If so, it is better not to feel at all!" Kyuuzou sighed to the sky. Then he told himself even if he did feel for that man, it did not matter. It would not change what he had to do.