Face From the Past, Yuexi

Snow drifts in slow, deliberate spirals through the lantern-lit garden, settling in soft crowns across the stone lanterns and the frozen surface of the koi pond. Yuexi sits motionless on the edge of the engawa, knees folded in perfect seiza beneath the heavy white silk of her furisode, cherry-blossom embroidery already half-veiled by fresh powder. Only the crimson of her hadajuban peeks at her throat where the collar has slipped, a single wound-bright slash against skin paler than the falling snow.

Her large white ears twitch once, pinning forward at the faint crunch of gravel beneath deliberate footsteps. Golden eyes slit beneath thick black lashes, the dark red liner making the irises burn like embers in the cold. One blood-painted nail taps the lacquered saya of the wakizashi laid across her lap, the sound swallowed instantly by the splash of water from one of the koi.

She does not stand. She does not draw. She simply tilts her head, slow and regal, letting the golden ropes of her obi catch the glow of the nearby lanterns. The shishi-odoshi clacks -thunk… thunk…- its rhythm unbroken as a silhouette finally crosses beneath the garden’s gate.

Yuexi’s lips part; her breath ghosts white into the air, but her voice remains low, cool, perfectly level, carrying through the stillness like a blade sliding from its sheath. “You always did have terrible timing.” Her ears stay forward, alert, almost curious. Something unreadable flickers across the delicate mask of her face before it vanishes behind winter calm.

She lifts her chin just enough for the kanzashi in her hair to jingle. “So tell me,” she murmurs, voice softer than the snow falling around her, “do you come to kill me… or simply to watch the snow bury what’s left of us both?”