Ren sat still, tracing the scratch along his forearm. The skin was split in a thin red streak, which had already begun to dry, even though the sting still lingered. There had been no intention to harm her in any way, so her reaction left him more confused than hurt. He inspected the cut but deemed it not worthy of too much concern, except for the emotional part, of course. It felt unfair.
"I was just trying to help," he said, a little annoyed at the reaction.
Kagami turned her head toward him.
"You were trying to help me?" she repeated as if the words didn't quite sit right with her. "It was the other way around, actually. I helped you not fall to your ignorant death back there on the platforms. That's how I got this, mind you."
As he retraced the events, Ren recalled the moment Kagami pulled him out of that trance he had fallen into after the flashback of Haruki's death. He still couldn't explain how, but he remembered the sensation, how close he had felt her in that instant, almost like an extension of himself. Maybe that was what she meant when she told him to find an anchor. And maybe she had been his anchor all along.
And then, as he kept thinking about it, another realization came to his mind.
"I thought you weren't supposed to intervene during fights."
Kagami maintained her elegant pose as she raised her head toward Ren. There was a hint of challenge in his words. It was subtle, maybe even unintentional, but it was there. Little by little, he was starting to question things. And she liked that, as much as she dreaded what it might eventually mean.
"I wasn't."
"Then why did you?"
"In magic, you never take something without giving something back," she explained. "And in my case, pulling you out of that place came with a cost. The Pact oversees all that."
Ren frowned as he glanced at the wound again.
"So it burned you… just for helping me?"
Kagami smiled faintly, listening as he worked through the logic out loud. There was something childlike in the way he processed the world and it was endearing in its own way. He hadn't been twisted by it yet, unlike others who had lived through similar things and broke.
"Rather... it claimed something back. One can never tell what that 'something' might be, as the Pact cannot be questioned. It will do what it deems necessary. But what is certain is that it will always take something back one way or the other. That's the balance of it."
Ren went quiet for a few moments, letting her words settle. Kagami wasn't the warmest of presences in his life, but she had been there consistently through all the strange turns it had taken lately. Which was more than he had had in a long time. Not since Haruki. And somehow that made him feel guilty about how the Pact had punished her for his weakness.
"So if I expect you to keep helping me, it will keep hurting you."
Kagami smiled again, then readjusted her tail so that it would lie more comfortably along the wounded side.
"Grow. Learn. Do your part. If you do these things, everything will fall into place. Don't worry about things that you cannot control. Worry about those you can."
Ren looked down. He had heard words like that before, but in a different voice. Haruki's. He could almost hear the words echo over the memory of a back street and an old, torn jacket.
"How is it that this Reiji person knew about Haruki?" he asked with his thoughts still lingering somewhere in the past.
"You do ask a lot of questions today, don't you?" Kagami smirked a bit, and her tail curled a few times before coiling back around her.
"Keepin' busy," Ren shrugged with a faint smile at one corner of his mouth.
Kagami measured her words before replying.
"Because Reiji and I were once bonded. It wasn't your average Pact, like the ones nobles tend to pass down through bloodlines, nor was it made too public since people didn't really understand it. Ours was a true one. It was made by our own will, not by some useless tradition."
She turned her gaze to him.
"And a bond like that never truly fades. He still has access to pieces of me, just as I have access to you now. He can see through me... and by extension, through you. If you don't learn how to control your thoughts, he will use that instead."
So all those flashbacks and illusions of Haruki, of the moments Ren had had with him, were all just that: easy ways to manipulate him and drive him to his demise. But Ren was determined not to make the same mistake twice.
"Do you think he knows where your eyes are?"
"I don't know," Kagami simply said, as if the answer to this question still stirred all kinds of emotions within her. Emotions she clearly preferred to keep hidden, buried beneath that sharp, steady mask she wore so well.
Ren processed that in silence, and after a few moments, he looked at her again. He felt the need to acknowledge what she had done for him earlier.
"Hey... Thank you. For saving my life today."
Kagami chose not to reply or to look back at him. She simply continued licking the edge of her burn across the area where the fur was scorched.
And Ren didn't press her. For once, this was okay.
Eventually, he leaned his head against the side wall and closed his eyes. Sleep came easily, without resistance.