Page 122 of Kotori
"I'm terrified," I admit. "But not of dying. I'm afraid of failing you."
"You won't," she says. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not going anywhere."
She's right. Looking around this sacred space, at the shrine to a woman who died protecting her children, at this girl who's been carrying impossible burdens alone, I know with absolute clarity that this is where I belong.
"Never," I promise. "Whatever comes, we face it together."
Mizuki nods, and when she speaks again, her voice carries new strength. "Then I'll stop trying to be everything to everyone. I'll just try to be the best daughter and sister I can be."
"And I'll be the mother you all deserve."
She stands slowly, smoothing down her yukata with movements that echo her mother's grace. For a moment, she looks so much like Akira that my breath catches. "Thank you," she says simply. "For understanding. For wanting us enough to stay."
She bows to her mother's portrait, whispers something too soft to hear, then walks quietly from the shrine room. Her footsteps fade down the corridor, leaving me alone with the goddess watching from her golden altar.
I look up at that breathtaking portrait, at the woman who was everything I could never be. Born to this world, beautiful beyond comprehension, the perfect yakuza wife and mother. "I know what you're thinking," I whisper to her image. "This foreign woman who thinks she can fill the space you left behind."
The candles flicker, but her eyes remain steady, watching.
"You're right. I can't be you. I'll never have your grace, your beauty, your natural understanding of what it means to be a Matsumoto woman." Tears blur my vision. "I'm just an American teacher who got in over her head."
The shrine room holds my confession.
"But I love them. God help me, I love your daughters like they're my own blood. Mizuki with all her strength and pain. Kohana with her gentle wisdom. Little Aya who just wants someone to stay." I lean forward, speaking directly to those luminous dark eyes. "I can't replace you. I won't try. But I can protect them. I can love them. I can be the mother who stays when everything falls apart, who fights for them when the world gets dangerous, who never leaves them to face the darkness alone."
The candlelight wavers, and for just a moment, I swear I see understanding in Akira's painted smile. Woman to woman, mother to mother.
"I would die for them," I whisper, my voice carrying fierce determination. "Just like you did." I bow deeply to her portrait, pressing my forehead to the tatami. When I straighten, something has changed. Not in the room, but in me.
Standing slowly, I take one last look at the goddess in the golden frame. "Thank you for raising such extraordinary daughters. I'll do everything I can to be worthy of the trust you're placing in me."
Walking back through the moonlit corridors, I carry Akira's blessing with me like armor. I'm no longer the woman who arrived here months ago, lost and looking for purpose.
I'm a mother now. Their mother. And I'm ready for war.
35
Paige
Istepfromtheshrine room into the moonlit corridor, still carrying the weight of my vow to Akira, and make my way toward the gardens. The September air is warm against my skin, but I need space to think.
I find him waiting in the center of the stone garden, a dark figure among the carefully raked gravel. The full moon casts everything in stark black and white. His face half in shadow, his eyes reflecting starlight. He's dressed for war: expensive black suit that can't quite disguise the bulletproof vest beneath.
Even from a distance, I can read the tension in his shoulders, the controlled stillness of a predator preparing for battle.
"You've been waiting," I say.
"I needed to see you." His voice carries roughness I've never heard before, raw and desperate. "Before I go."
"Go where?"
"Outside the city. Hiroshi sent formal challenge through the senior advisors an hour ago." His jaw tightens. "Traditional combat. Winner takes clan leadership."
"Then I'm coming with you."
"No." The word cuts through moonlight like a blade. "This is single combat. Ancient law. I go alone or forfeit everything."
The reality hits me then. The heaviness in his posture, the way he's looking at me like he's memorizing every detail.
