"I've been thinking about letting my hair grow white."
Mokou cocked an eyebrow. "Why now?"
Kaguya combed her fingers through her hair as though already imagining it a different colour. "Why not?"
"It'll look stupid."
Kaguya turned to give Mokou a once-over, then quirked an eyebrow.
Mokou ignored the look and kicked an errant pebble out of her way. It flew deeper into the cavern and fell amidst the debris which lay everywhere beyond the narrow path. Not that the path itself was much better: it was really just a strip of dirt, one which hadn't been maintained for so long it might as well have always been an uneven collection of rocks and scorched earth.
"I don't see the point of it," she continued. "Why now after all this time spent preserving your original hair colour?"
"I haven't needed to make an effort on it for that long. It has only been for these past hundred thousand years."
"So, only half your life?" Of course, Mokou's own hair had gone silver during her first century. She had once made herself a dye from some bitter roots pointed out to her by Eirin, just to see if her reflection would match her most fleeting recollections of her black-haired self. Once the colour had faded, she hadn't bothered to re-apply it. It had never felt right on her, any more than pale hair would look right on Kaguya.
Kaguya didn't reply with so much as a look.
The long stone bridge which had previously stretched across the bottomless chasm had collapsed since Mokou's last visit, the remnants of its supernatural trappings hanging in tatters from the edge of the cliff. Without a word, they flew across.
Once they alighted, Kaguya turned towards Mokou. "You cannot blame me for wanting some kind of change."
"We're still on this?" Not that Mokou minded. New topics were rare in a world with only three people in it, and as far as she could tell, this really was new. It had surprised her, something which meant a lot when more often than not she could tell what Kaguya was going to say before she opened her mouth.
"I could keep quiet and instead push you into that abyss."
"Try it. I dare you."
Before Kaguya could make good on her threat, Mokou spotted the path ahead and sauntered towards it. Kaguya followed.
An hour must have passed before Mokou spoke again. "And what will you do if your hair doesn't turn out like Eirin's?"
"What of it?"
"What if it turns out like mine?"
"Why would that be an issue? It's a hair colour, not a statement over which one of you I prefer."
"I know."
"Eirin will always come first."
"I know."
The passageway had grown wider and wider as they walked. Now, it opened into a massive arena, its back wall yojanas and yojanas away from them. Except for a few cave-ins and rock formations, there was absolutely nothing to see but dirt.
Without consulting one another, Mokou and Kaguya descended onto the plain.
They might have walked for a few hours, or it might have been days. Either way, it was pleasant enough: the air was stuffy and spicily warm, and the ground was solid beneath Mokou's feet.
For a moment, she considered the possibility of pausing and burrowing into the earth. Would she find more dirt? Or would she find the foundations of the buildings that had once stood on in this cave?
She kept moving. As long as some doubt remained, she could ignore Eirin's assertion that everything underground had long since decayed to naught, to the point that nothing might as well have ever existed there. At least she knew that if she did try to dig, no matter how deep she dug, she would never find oni bones. The oni had relocated themselves in another world once this one had grown too dull and lifeless for their liking. They had. No-one could convince Mokou otherwise.
Her feet came to a halt. Without bothering to see if Kaguya paused or kept going, she closed her eyes.
And she opened them in the capital of Former Hell, standing on a brightly lit street surrounded by red-roofed houses and endless chains of lit lanterns. Laughter and snatches of songs rang in the air, punctuated by sounds of violence. Nearby, a pair of oni struck their sake dishes together and drank deeply. The sight made the bitter aftertaste of drink burn on Mokou's tongue.
She ignored the sensation of having just been resurrected after liver failure and looked up. High above, visible even through the haze of smoke and lantern-light, she saw once more the articial constellations the local youkai had created to substitute for the real night sky.
"Ya know how they say ya gotta make your own entertainment? It can apply to stars as well."
She opened her eyes. The cave was empty once more.
Only, it was filled with light.
Kaguya stood a few feet away from Mokou, wreathed in starlight that was no longer there, staring into the distance at the lost city that likewise wasn't there. Her profile was limned in an internal, ethereal glow, both delicate and immovable. Her long, gleaming hair, black as a starless night, descended gracefully down her back like a glossy waterfall.
Time stuttered to a standstill as Mokou stared.
She knew the eternal shapes and contours of Kaguya's face as well as she knew the shape of her own hand. Its breathtaking beauty had long since become mundane, a constant that meant nothing. Love could make an ugly countenance welcome and beloved, but, in the end, even if time couldn't ravage Kaguya's beauty, it could still render it meaningless.
Except it wasn't meaningless. Not when Kaguya turned her glittering gaze towards Mokou. Not when Mokou heard distant words echoing from the deepest recesses of her memory, their speaker forever lost in time.
"If only you had seen her. Then you would understand."
Kaguya smiled. Faintly, mockingly, but not cruelly. An apparition of a goddess.
She wasn't smiling the next time Mokou became aware of time. "Mokou?"
"Yeah?"
"It's time for you to take your medicine."
Mokou opened her mouth. Kaguya's expression turned pitiless, devoid of any emotion but boredom.
Mokou sighed. Without once looking away, she fished the translucent pill box Eirin had given her earlier that week out of her pocket.
She held the pill she snatched out of it in front of her eyes. Translucent blue.
She narrowed her eyes. "I hate you."
The most fleeting of smiles crossed Kaguya's lips. "I hate you too."
Mokou lobbed the pill into her mouth and bit it in half.
Later, as she extended her hand to help Kaguya on top of a pile of rubble, she happened to gaze into the distance. Against all logic and reason, she saw heat haze shimmering above the rocks.
Kaguya extracted herself from Mokou's hold. Her brow furrowed. "Was there a point to climbing up here?"
"The view, obviously." Not that there was anything to see in this vast cavern that had been devoid of life since the dawn of time. Really, Mokou had climbed up just because she could.
Kaguya no doubt knew as much. Either way, she rolled her eyes. "Of course. I wouldn't have wanted to miss that expanse of dirt over there."
"Don't let your hair turn white."
Kaguya met this abrupt change in subject with silence. She observed Mokou as though trying to decipher how many layers of reverse psychology stood between them. "I suppose I won't. I wouldn't want to look the slightest bit like you."
Mokou punched Kaguya's shoulder. "I hate you."
Kaguya laughed. "I hate you too."
They climbed back down hand in hand.