The footbridge over the pond was painted red. That didn't change.
The creak the boards gave was the same every time Tojiko stepped on the bridge — she had legs, wondrous things now that she had lost them. The glare of early afternoon sun reflected in the water the same way every time Tojiko viewed the memory.
Every time, Futo's eyes rose slowly from the lazy koi in the pond beneath. Every time, she met Tojiko's gaze steadily, without a hint of hesitation or guilt.
Tojiko watched from afar as Futo closed her eyes for the final time, controlling her breathing as best she could.
Tojiko grasped Futo's hand like it's the only thing keeping her from drowning, but nothing could stop the poison in her veins. She heard her own voice vowing they would meet again.
Tojiko escaped the room the moment Futo's lips touched the dark liquid, both hands desperately clamped over her mouth. Miko might suspect something, but it couldn't be helped. She had thought herself stronger, but all assurances shielding her heart were for naught as Futo's impending death pierced through them.
Tojiko looked on as Miko wiped the cold sweat off Futo's brow as Futo mumbles a few final slurred words, feeling nothing.
Futo smiled. That also didn't change.
"My friend."
"My child."
"My love."
"My ally."
Tojiko opened her eyes in the familiar darkness of the mausoleum, cursing herself. She would never get anywhere if she allowed herself to be constantly interrupted by false memories.
She closed her eyes again and focused. Of course, she had no way of knowing which memories were false and which ones weren't. The best she could guess was that of all things, the footbridge in the garden and her discussion with Futo while standing on it were the most likely to have actually existed. Thus, she clung to it, focusing all her mind on that sunny afternoon a day before one of them had died.
"I heard you've decided to join us."
Tojiko frowned at Futo's tone. "Why is that a surprise?"
Futo bowed her head, but only for an instant. "I suppose it isn't. It's just since you needed time to think about it, and seemed so worried about dying, well..."
Futo coughed up blood, staining her clothes and the floor with noxious red spots.
Tojiko tore her mind free of the disrupting image and plunged back in.
"That's why I assumed you would decline."
Tojiko gave Futo the most withering look she could while still maintaining some semblance of civility. "I had some matters to settle. Relations I had to take into account." She feigned a courteous acknowledgement. "I understand you might not have thought of it, Futo, but unlike you I have some earthly ties besides the Crown Prince I had to take into account."
Futo smiled, but her eye twitched. "Of course. I am glad you will join us, regardless."
Tojiko felt Miko's hand on her cheek, wiping away fresh tears.
Tojiko held her head, biting her lip. She would never get to the bottom of the matter if she couldn't focus. What had happened in the garden that day?
The garden flashed before her eyes once, and then Miko stood before her, the small lithe Miko whose body she had been guarding, gently comforting her. Someone was dead. Futo, probably.
Her mind was ablaze, and it hurt in a way nothing in life or dead had hurt before. And yet Tojiko kept focusing.
Futo was still smiling, but only faintly. "She had already prepared everything necessary for three people." She chuckled. "Isn't it amazing? It's like she already knew the decision you would take before even you did."
"Indeed." Tojiko looked back at Futo, daring her to meet her eyes.
Futo did so, as if completely oblivious of the steel in Tojiko's gaze, smiling with her big, bright eyes.
Eyes staring at Tojiko with guilt and pain...
Tojiko gave a start, and found herself back in the mausoleum. Stubbornly, she squeezed her eyes shut.
"Here." Futo all but shoved the jar into Tojiko's hands. Tojiko hadn't noticed it before, but the clay was ever so slightly lighter than in her other memories. "You'll need this tomorrow."
Tojiko frowned at the jar. "Where did you get this from?"
"I saw you setting it aside in the storage. It's better that you keep it on you, now that the moment of the ritual is so near." Futo turned away and leaned on the railing, smiling down at the water.
Her head felt ready to split in two, but again Tojiko focused.
Futo raised her hands, now stained with blood, and stared at her palms. Her skin was paler than her hair, and getting paler by the moment.
In a manic flash, she looked up, and sought something with dimming eyes. Her gaze landed on Tojiko and found her eyes.
She smiled, but her eyes shone with immense pain and something much akin to regret.
Tojiko heard only static as Futo rather gurgled than spoke her last words, but she knew what the words whispered were from the movements of Futo's lips.
Forgive me, Crown Prince.
The world was grey.
The colours, already muted before, had slipped away so subtly Tojiko couldn't even tell when she had cast her last glimpse at them. They still existed in some of her memories, but the effort of reaching them was rarely worth it.
"Tojiko."
Tojiko opened her eyes wearily. The wicked hermit had lost her colours just like the mausoleum: her airy clothes and blue hues were all replaced with the same dull monochrome. Wearily, Tojiko looked away.
"Tojiko?" Seiga floated closer. She still had a smile on her face, accompanied by a slight frown. "Can you hear me?"
Tojiko took a deep breath, out of habit rather than necessity. Speaking meant making a huge effort, rarely worth it. For once, however, she had something new to tell the wicked hermit. "It was Futo."
Seiga tilted her head. "Yes?"
"It was Futo who switched the jars." Several fragments of memory flashed in front of her eyes in rapid succession, in alien colours: Futo in the garden, smiling at her: a glimpse of the jar the last time Tojiko had looked at it before swallowing the poison: Futo's blood, still crimson even after all other colours were gone from the world: Futo's eyes the moment before she had died. "Her and no-one else."
"Hmm..." Seiga's glance towards Futo's casket. "If it was something done by design and not a simple mistake done by a servant after your deaths, then yes, it was her. I could have told you as much before if you had been willing to listen. She was a mischievous girl, that one."
Futo had been a grown woman as far as Tojiko could remember, but she kept her peace.
"This is more than mischief," she muttered instead.
"Indeed. I presume Lady Toyosatomimi will agree."
Tojiko chuckled, with laughter that had never heard happiness. "She wanted to get rid of me."
Seiga cocked her eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
"I figured it out. The mystery is solved." She no longer had the strength to hold herself upright, so she allowed herself to collapse forward. "She was jealous and wanted Miko's full attention."
"That is what you think, then?" Seiga's voice was quiet.
"It doesn't really matter." Tojiko's eyes fluttered back open. She didn't in fact have any memories pointing towards a motive, but it was the most likely reason she could think of. "It's still her fault I'm dead. Her fault I won't be able to serve the Crown Prince as I was meant to." She allowed her eyes to fall shut again. "Her fault. Her fault."
"I hope you will be able to forgive her, nevertheless. You will have to keep working together once the time of resurrection arrives, after all."
Tojiko said nothing.
It was difficult to love, alone in the darkness. It was very easy to hate.
She hated Seiga, for all her cryptic warnings and failure to save her, for all the cruelty she had seen her display, fever dreams or not. She hated humanity, for leading Miko to her foolish decision, for being allowed to live and die and live again without having to share her endless hell. She hated Miko, for convincing her to join her.
And above all, she hated Futo.
Seiga must have been able to read her thoughts from her expression, because her next words were gentler and quieter still, so unlike the usually self-satisfied hermit. "Most ghosts cling onto their hatred, yes. I cannot say what the Crown Prince will think of it, however."
Tojiko's gaze lazily made its way to Miko's tomb. It was just a piece of carved stone.
"Hmm," mumbled Seiga after a long silence, leaning towards Tojiko and lightly touching her shoulder. "It seems your mind is already melting away."
Tojiko blinked slowly and made no response. She had to be imagining the pity in Seiga's voice. The hermit she knew had no compassion for others.
"I'll take you to my adobe."
"No." Tojiko twisted away. With gargantuan effort, she rose back into the air and continued down the corridor towards Miko's casket. "I must be here when she wakes. Like I was supposed to. Must. Must." Her eyelids fluttered. "Must."
"If I hadn't already attributed you as a lost cause, I'd be disappointed now," said Seiga airily. "Be reasonable. I may return here when the time is right."
Tojiko forced herself to sit up. "No. My place is here."
"Loyalty has its limits, especially when it serves no-one. Come."
"No."
For the first time Tojiko could remember, Seiga's smile lost some of its smugness.
"I'll be candid with you." She floated quietly downwards, and for the first time Tojiko could remember, landed on the floor. "If you cannot find a way to escape from this mausoleum, you will lose your mind. This is not a threat. You have endured far more than anyone but the most stubborn could, and have reached the limit. Either you escape, or you are destroyed."
Tojiko made no response.
Seiga sighed. "I can force you, you know. I can remove you from this place whether you fight back or not. I can rob you of your free will and make you my servant, or I can simply confine you elsewhere and ensure you retain your sanity."
Tojiko remained silent.
"What do you think the Crown Prince will say when she finally awakes and finds you reduced to an empty shell?" Seiga's grin returned. "Or perhaps that no longer matters to you?"
Nothing.
"Very well. Remain here, if you so wish." Seiga shrugged her shoulders and walked to the wall.
She had already pushed half her arm through the solid stone when she turned back to give Tojiko another glance. Tojiko glowered back, unblinking.
Seiga chuckled. "You were always a strange one." She waved her hand. "Farewell, Soga no Tojiko."
And with that, Tojiko was alone.