Yuhi couldn't sleep.
Not really.
Ever since the dream - of the battlefield, of him - something had shifted.
Like her soul had stirred from centuries of sleep, and now... remembered how to ache.
As if it had never forgotten at all.
The morning light slanted through the window - gold, soft, almost merciful.
She touched her forehead.
It burned faintly.
Not from fever.
From... something else.
"Still yours," he had whispered in the dream.
That voice - it was the same one she had heard as a child in this life.
When she cried in the dark.
When no one came.
Always a voice in the wind.
Always the same promise:
"I will find you again. I always do."
She stood slowly, legs shaky, and walked to the mirror.
And for a heartbeat-just a flicker-she saw someone else's face layered over her own.
Same eyes.
Different century.
A priestess.
A warrior.
A queen.
Always her.
Always his.
Her knees nearly buckled. She caught the table edge just in time.
What is happening to me...?
Then-
A whisper from the open window:
"You remember."
She spun.
But he was already gone.
Only the edge of his coat was disappearing around the garden wall.
Only the scent of ash and rain was left behind.
Later that day...
Yuhi walked without knowing why.
Past the temple.
The academy.
The stone garden.
Her steps were pulled by something deeper than memory.
She stopped before a forgotten altar - carved with ancient runes long abandoned.
Her fingers traced them.
One burned warm under her touch.
She gasped, flinched back -
And then it happened.
A memory.
A lifetime.
She knelt beside a dying king.
Her hands were glowing with sacred light. Her lips were chanting old healing spells.
She was a healer - the last of her kind.
And at the door stood he.
Not Demon. Not yet.
He wore no horns. No shadowfire. Only grief in his eyes, and a sword that had never touched her.
"You always risk too much," he said.
"You always worry too much," she replied.
And for a moment-just a moment-their hands touched.
Not lovers.
Not yet.
But their souls sang.
Yuhi staggered back from the altar, her breath ragged.
"No... not again..."
Another lifetime.
Another version of them.
Always drawn together.
Always torn apart.
That night, she sat beneath the stars, knees to chest, arms wrapped around herself.
The sky was still.
But inside her, a storm had begun.
The demon stood in the shadows.
Silent. Watching.
She didn't call him out.
She simply whispered - to the wind, to the night, to her breaking heart:
"Why do we always end like this?"
And from the trees, his voice answered:
"Because the world keeps breaking us...
But we never let go."