“So she has. For those of my blood to have prevailed this far into the distant future–to have finally silenced what evil I swore was theirs to destroy at long, long last. She has done more than I could have asked, or dreamed…” And for longer than perhaps he could have ever imagined in those bygone days when he were young, hurting, rageful. Though he appears in this strange future so untraveled by time, the patriarch is older, tireder, and he brims today (most days) full with some numb and distant kind of dread to be here, seeing his pledge has bled so very far through time (how many sons? How many daughters? How many lives? He does not dare in this moment to wonder too deeply.)
The creature sniffs with almost an air of politeness that Leon has grown to call ‘familiar’ in their company–the question that joins it spoken no differently, even coming from a now much more human face. The answer stings in the Belmont’s chest even now as his weary smile parts with its company. “I used it to kill the woman that I loved. The woman that was the reason this gift was entrusted to me.” The thing is taken reverently back into hand. A prayer seems to whisper from the man’s lips, unheard and only silently pronounced in the lulls of his story. “She was ruined by a vampire of too much might for the whip to destroy, incomplete as it was. I was told it required a soul to become its true, whole and most powerful self.” The metal burns cold under the dancing tips of his fingers as they map out every curve and edge, and her voice from somewhere within rings in his head so much like it once had before.
“Sara offered herself to me as sacrifice, so that nobody else should have to suffer as she did, and so that she might always be with me.”
Kairi’s eyes lowered as Leon told his tale, keeping his gaze dead set on the blessed whip. Sorrow grew in his eyes as Leon went on, despite how he tried to keep a neutral smile on his face. He’s heard tales such as these before in his long travels, humans who sacrificed their very beings in the defense of those they loved… Such things always saddened the tanuki yōkai, no matter how often he heard them.
He would not lie to himself. Such a tragedy had never happened to him and he knew that his sorrow over this fate would be but a shadow of how Leon and Sara must have felt. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t understand. He, too, had lost those he loved before he was ready. It was what happened when one lived as long as his kind did.
“How terrible a fate…” Kairi said, genuinely and mournfully. As sad as he was, he could not bear to touch this whip directly now. Both because it was something so sacred and because the rage that Kairi felt inside it frightened him.
Kairi had been kneeling on the floor before the patriarch, and there he stayed. He looked up at Leon now with that same sympathetic look. The tanuki spoke again in a softer voice. “Leon, my friend, you look so weary... I thank you for sharing this story with me. I shall never forget it…”
“I am sorry to hear how much sorrow you carry in this new life. I do not understand the ways of this world, but it has sought to give you a second chance. You are here, but you need not lament on your own. I will share my time with you if you will it. I feel a fondness for you, and I wish to keep your company.”
“Please. Allow me to stay with you for the night. I would like to hear more about your life. Sadness need not be such a lonesome burden.”
