Blood Stains the Snow — A Premonition of Death
In which Oyuki finds an unlikely ally when she meets a wanderer who turns out to be a ghost from her past.
Our breath hangs like mist
in the snowy moonlight,
and our silence
hides the stories
we don't want to tell
A man lay dead in the snow, at the feet of a wanderer whose robes were dotted with dark spots that glistened in the moonlight.
Oyuki's footsteps made the wanderer spin around, reaching for hilts, but her own hands were already lifting, ready to step closer, to defend herself should those blades emerge from their saya. Old instincts.
The wanderer showed no sign of having noticed.
"I couldn't keep up with the Nine Tail," Oyuki said, but in truth she had let the man go, unwilling to stray too far from the wanderer after such a promising introduction, where a woman bold enough to wear the names of the Yōtei Six on a sash hanging from her waist had subdued an entire inn full of samurai with nothing but her fists. Yes, Oyuki wanted to know what the wanderer could do.
The wanderer's gaze relaxed somewhat, though her expression remained hard to read.
Oyuki stepped closer. "What happened here?"