Blood Stains the Snow — Waiting by Glowing Coals
In which Oyuki ponders the implications of Atsu's return.
Atsu.
Oyuki's hand trembled under her cup. Slosh of tea, wisps of steam. She set the cup on the low table in her room at the Red Crane Inn and contemplated the coals glowing in the hibachi by her knee.
She should have looked more closely at Atsu's blades—instead of assuming they were nothing more than the mismatched sword-gear of a drifter. She should have recognized those twin wolves, same as the ones that had been seared into her flesh, and though the brand had stretched and thickened into a shapeless scar on her forearm, she saw those wolves every time she dreamt of that night, still vivid after so many years. The bright heat of the burning tree, the pain clawing through her arm, the screams of the young girl they had left behind to die—
Steady. She pressed her palms into the tops of her thighs.
But there was no steadiness here. The girl—Atsu—had survived and grown up and returned to Ezo seeking revenge. No one was more deserving. And once she learned the truth about Oyuki, nothing on earth would stop her from trying to cross the real Kitsune off her list.