Mount Apikuni I went through hell to get to high water

"What the fuck did you do?"

"Did you kill her?"

He drops her scruff. I-I didn't — One step back, then two. How could he have made this mistake? How could he have trusted this warmth to last? His last true opportunity for it had died back in the place where he'd been born. I tried —

No, she was sick.

I wasn't fast enough.

I'm sorry. I didn't know, or I would've been faster, I would've helped, I-I — I wasn't there. I wasn't there until it was too late to do anything but watch her die — It should've been me. I'm sorry. His vision is blurry. He doesn't remember starting to cry. All he feels is heat, horrid crawling heat through his face and his lungs and his eyes, and a deep hollow ache in his chest. Alessia is dead —

And all he sees reflected in Taikon's eyes is the monster that he has become.