All pain faded away into nothingness. I felt some mixture of serenity and the kind of regret that churned your stomach. It was a mixed brew inside me.

My feet sank into the ashen dunes. The horizon was nothing but grey fogginess.

I absentmindedly walked forward. Walking felt strange... It felt like I was forgetting something.

Looking down at my legs, I noticed that my left foot was intact. Why did it feel as though that shouldn't have been the case?

While looking down, I noticed my arms at my sides. They were unblemished, which yet again felt wrong. My back felt good as well when I thought it should've been in pain...

Then I remembered the knife in my back. The dishonoring scars on my arms, and my mostly severed foot. Then I remembered the one I loved. My companions. The fall off the ledge.

I already had a feeling brewing in my gut, telling me where I was, but I didn't want to listen to it. Not yet.

My clothes weren't what they once were. I wore a silky red kimono with embroidery of the sun on it. The clothes that I used to wear those many years ago when I lived atop Mt.Fuji.

While I had a foot to walk on, I continued to do so. The horizon just simply spread out wider and wider. No ashen dune was the same, so I knew I wasn't going in circles, but nothing changed. No change in the horizon. No sound but the wind carrying ash in an infinite twirling dance.

There was no fire, no light. Just ash and the reminiscent musk of smoldered wood.

My eyes easily lost focus in the expanding landscape as my mind wandered. Voices whispered in the back of my head. I could only hear them with concentration and a clear head. Honing in on the shushed tones was like forcing your eyes to see the blue-hued fractals of color when one's eyes are closed. Like trying to listen to the faint yet lingering ring after two glasses have clashed together.

I couldn't make out any of the words they spoke, only wisps and hums of phrases spoken by a multitude of voices. Some sounded deep and masculine, others higher and in feminine tones.

As my mind drifted, I lost my sense of balance and ended tumbling down the unstable and shifting dune I was previously descending. A few gentle tumbles and I found myself firmly planted in the soft debris.

I stared at the immensely foggy and black sky. There was no source of light yet everything within sight was perfectly illuminated.

With no motivation to continue, I let myself lay in my bed, watching the hazy ceiling to the box I was entrapped in.

Hours. Days. I really didn't keep track of how long I ruminated in the nothingness. That was, until the ash shifted around me. Pouring over my body from the dune next to me.

Leaning my head up, I looked around. There was now a figure with his hand outstretched. He wore a simple grey cotton kimono. An insignia embroidered onto the lapel from a familiar tea-shop.

I obliged the man's kind gestured and took hold of his hand, helping myself lift back to my feet. The man stood much higher than I did, his chest the size of a barrel and his hair tied into a tightly wrapped bun atop his head. His mouth smiled in a familiar and genuine way.

Brushing the ash off myself, I spoke. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to help. You know I've always made an effort to lend a helping hand when those under my wing are in need of it."

"Why are either of us here?"

"You have already found the conclusion to that question in your heart, haven't you?" With a sigh, I nodded. The large man continued his train of thought. "Why were you laying here? You were so determined to complete your mission and find redemption in yourself."

"How would you know all that? Last you and I were together, I had only the faintest embers of my old ideals in heart."

"Because I need to know it in order to help you..." He spoke his question once more "Why have you given up, friend?"

With a shrug, I finally replied directly. "There's nowhere to go. I walk one direction, and it's ash. Another, only the familiar sight of ashes piled over disappointments."

My friend chuckled. "Ashes piled over disappointments. Pah. Even with your newfound determination, you're still the same as always. Nothing is the end if you don't decide it is so."

I looked away from him as he emptied his chest of his hearty chuckles. "Then what should I do? Where should I go?"

After finally getting his fill, my friend replied simply. "Forward."

"Why? What's forward? How am I supposed to fix all of this now?"

"So many questions when the answer is so simple. Forward. In heart, and mind, and body. You'll be consumed by the ash if you don't move forward, and you'll be swallowed from the inside first and go hollow."

"Forwards... But... Hmmm..." I tried to continue my reasoning, but it all faded away by his simple words of advice.

He smiled and nodded his head. "It was good seeing you one last time. May we meet again on a more cheery note someday."

The large man walked back up the ashen dune and out of sight. Climbing back to the top showed that he was still nowhere to be seen.

I shook my head and descended the dune, continuing forward like he had told me.

Again, it felt as though I walked for millennia with not a single difference in scenery. Yet I still continued going. I never grew tired, and I never grew hungry, so I continued without slowing.

I'd be damned if I stopped listening to the one person who had never led me astray before. Although damnation was probably already all but achieved.

Upon going farther, nothing had changed. My brows furrowed as I kept walking. The ashen bed beneath my feet called to me once more, but I still refused. Don't stop walking. Don't stop walking. Whatever you do...

My pace slowed as I contemplated. There was still nothing ahead of me. Nothing behind me.

One more step. One more dune. My heart hadn't lost itself just yet.

After climbing yet another dune of ash, I was met with yet another figure sitting down at the base of the shifting hill. His hair was unkempt and went to his shoulders. He wore a utilitarian and dirty white kimono, like prisoner's garb. He turned to look at me with dark bags under his eyes. Once he realized who I was, he scoffed. "A lot of good came from that sacrifice, eh? We still ended up in the same boat."

I walked down and sat next to my old friend. "A lot of good did indeed come from that sacrifice... You did all of us a greater favor than we could have hoped for."

"Then why have you ended up here?"

"One of a thousand cuts brought me here, and I'm afraid that I can't find the way out."

He snorted at the thought. "That's the same for both of us. I've been here for... However long, and I still haven't found the exit."

That brought me to think. I wanted the way out, but I didn't feel like I was looking for an exit. "I don't know if escaping should be your focus. There's something else hiding under our noses."

The man glared at me oh so familiarly with his baggy and apathetic eyes. "Then what are you searching for if it's not the exit to this damn place."

"I... don't know..." I looked into my heart, trying to find what I hoped to see. Nothing resonated other than the command from my former superior ranking samurai.

We sat in silence for a moment before the baggy-eyed man interrupted my thought. "Still day-dreaming instead of focusing on the task at hand. As expected."

With a chuckle. "And I see you haven't changed much either, with your criticalness." We went back into silence as I continued to think. "Say, why are you still going?"

"What? I told you, to find the exit."

"Why search for this elusive exit? Doesn't the soft ground seem inviting enough for a rest?"

He looked away from me and at his feet. "I can't rest..."

My brow shot up. Usually, he was always so blunt, but my baggy-eyed friend had decided to start playing coy here in all of places? "Why can't you rest?"

"I... Nothing..."

"Stop dancing around the subject. The man I fought alongside always went straight to the point."

His generally unhappy expression cracked a grin. "That was me, wasn't it..." After another long silence, he responded to my question with his serious face worn once again. "I don't know where I'd go... Most of my life, I hadn't been a good man. I felt like I helped a good cause in the end. Sacrificing myself for a friend surely would solidify me as a good person, right? But there's some part of me that remembers, even when I don't want to. Some part that still follows the anger and the hate. I'm afraid that if I rest I'm going to end up with the other people that have done what I've done."

I made sure to take my time to respond. Never had I seen him speak about his fears like that. If my old spear-wielding friend was supposed to be the one to give me guidance, I guess that was my role for the baggy-eyed and regretful one. "You were once a person deserving of punishment, yes. But you overcame yourself. You fought against your own nature, quelled your anger, and learned to even sacrifice your own life for someone like... Well, me... If you ask me, someone who overcomes evil deserves peace much more than someone lazily born into easiness and never had any tribulations."

He chewed on those words for quite a while, contemplating my philosophies. "That makes some sense, I guess."

I shook my head with a grin. "Everyone goes at their own pace. Hell, I definitely took my time realizing I wanted redemption."

My good-hearted and baggy-eyed friend finally smirked. "You never did tell me exactly what that mysterious past of yours was."

With my own inner peace, I obliged my friend and explained to him my upbringing. The warriors of sunlight. My father. Climbing Mt.Fuji. My time spent with Amaterasu. My time spent under the Shogun's command. The seventeen years I took brooding over my own failures. All up to the day I was moved into the yokai hunting caravan and sparred against my baggy-eyed friend for the first time of many.

Through the story, his composure gradually lifted from somber and contemplative to attentive and determined.

After I was finished and a bit of silence passed, he spoke once more. "I still feel anxious, resting. There's no way to know for sure."

"There never is. The only way to answer that question is by finding out yourself."

"And what about you?"

"I still have my searching to do. Once I know I can rest in peace, I intend to join you wherever you may go."

My baggy-eyed friend leaned back against the soft ashen dune and closed his eyes. "That sounds nice..."

Standing up and brushing myself off, I agreed. "It does indeed."

My feet sunk into the ash once more. No looking back.

Find peace, friends. I would stay to recollect, but my job isn't quite over just yet.