Mine

The wind stopped.

The rain stopped mid-air, suspended in defiance of gravity.

The leader paused, the baton hovering inches from Kenji’s head. "Who are you talking to?"

The temperature dropped twenty degrees in a second. The puddles on the ground froze over with a sharp *crack*.

From the darkness of the shrine’s inner sanctum, a sound emerged. It was the sound of a thousand kimonos rustling.

Two pale hands gripped the rotting wood of the shrine doors. They ripped the doors off their hinges like they were wet paper.

She emerged.

She was not the shy, domestic spirit of the apartment. She was the mountain. She was the storm. She stood ten feet tall, her hair floating around her like a halo of black fire. Her jaw was unhinged, hanging down to her chest, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

The Yakuza leader turned, his eyes bulging. "What the fu—"

Ai moved.

She was a blur of white and black. She didn't strike them; she flowed through them.

She grabbed the leader by the face. Her fingers, tipped with obsidian claws, sank into his skull. She lifted him into the air.

*"MINE,"* she shrieked. It was a sound that shattered the trees. *"HE IS MINE."*

She threw the man. He flew fifty feet, wrapping around the trunk of a cedar tree with a sickening crunch.

The other two men scrambled, dropping their weapons. "Demon! It's a demon!"

They ran. Ai didn't chase. She simply extended her hair. The black strands shot out like spears, piercing the darkness, wrapping around their ankles. She yanked them back into the shadows. Their screams were cut short by wet, tearing sounds.

Then, silence returned to the forest.

Kenji lay on the steps, his leg broken, his arm shattered. He watched the white figure looming over him.

She shrank. The monstrous height receded. The jaw snapped back into place. She floated down until she was kneeling in the mud beside him.

Her white kimono was stained with blood that wasn't hers. She was trembling. Not with rage, but with fear.

She hovered her hands over his broken body, afraid to touch him. Afraid he would send her away again.

Kenji used his good arm to reach out. He grabbed the hem of her blood-soaked sleeve.

"I'm sorry," he wept. "I'm so sorry, Ai. Don't go. Don't ever go."

She froze. Then, slowly, she lowered her head. She pressed her cold, pale face against his feverish forehead.

*"Stay,"* she whispered. *"Stay. Stay. Stay."*