Ren stepped through the threshold of the Respite.
As soon as he made his first step, he felt its calmness in an almost tangible way. Everything he had experienced outside of it was in direct opposition to that place, as if it understood and adapted itself to be the most comfortable environment for the one person inhabiting it. He was starting to understand what a Respite truly was.
The tatami mats absorbed any sound, unlike the broken ground they had crossed to get here. In the center of the room, a low platform held a bonsai tree on its surface. It was the first thing Ren saw. It must have been magical in nature, no doubt, to have survived in a place like this, alone. Two paper lanterns stood on both ends of the room, giving an overall sense of warmth to the space. Their flames were kept alive by the Respite itself, like an unspoken sign that the place was aware of those who entered it.
Looking at it all, Ren thought that even there, in the heart of a place that had tried to kill him in more ways than he could count, he felt at ease in this small building. Like it had been built only for him.
He crossed the room until he reached one of the broken stone walls. He slid down and let himself rest on the tatami floor. He then took a slow breath in, only then realizing how badly he had actually needed one.
Kagami circled the area for a while before choosing her own place, and she found it in a raised section of the floor where the tatami floor was intertwined with pieces of wood. She folded there with her tail settling against her side and her head resting on her paws. It seemed as though she was about to let herself sleep, but her golden, glowing eyes never entirely closed.
For a while, neither spoke. Even the Akariwake had gone dormant on Ren's finger.
He then reached into his pocket and drew out the piece of cloth from earlier that day. It looked the same as when the bandaged stranger had handed it to him. There seemed to be nothing relevant about it all. But then... why did that person give him something like this in the first place? What did it even mean? He unfolded it slowly, letting the light from the lanters better outline it.
From her place on the low platform, Kagami slightly changed her position. She mumbled something to herself with her eyes fixed on the piece of cloth.
"What?" Ren asked, curious.
Kagami repeated the incantation with a louder voice, but Ren still couldn't understand it. It had to be some kind of old dialect only witches knew, he thought. Still, he was able to recognize it as an incantation of sorts.
"What's that supposed to do?" he then asked.
"It's a ward," she explained. "It keeps remnants of corrupted magic from absorbing into you."
Ren then smiled faintly at her, with a sense of mockery somewhere in there as well.
"You're getting protective."
"Maybe because you're being reckless," she replied with a tone in her voice that she intended to be harsh, but succeeded only half of the way.
It was weird to him how she had these bursts of softness at times. After all, she had left him to fend for himself in dangerous circumstances before, like when he had his first encounter with a Hollow or even when he was forced to defend himself against the Guardians back in the Grand Library. Was she changing in some way? Or did she have an ulterior motive? Or maybe it wasn't change at all. Maybe it was only how she decided that moment should be, something that would make her feel she was still in control of things.
He was still thinking about it when the bandage suddenly stirred.
Ren frowned and redirected his complete attention to the piece of cloth. Faint orange lines appeared at the edges, pulsing in and out like burning embers. Soon afterwards, symbols appeared on the surface as if being written down slowly by an invisible force.
Kagami's head lifted from her paws, and her ears tilted forward, toward where Ren was.
Then the strip of cloth lifted from his palm entirely. It hovered there, twisting in the air for a few moments.
Ren looked at it, almost fascinated, when the bandage snapped forward toward him in a single flash. It wrapped around his left forearm in a quick motion, biting hard into his skin as if trying to become one with it. Ren tried to free himself of it, but the cloth pulled tighter and tighter, winding on itself until no skin showed beneath it at all.
"What the hell...?" Ren exclaimed as the pressure on his arm increased even further.
The ember glow spread up the length of his arm, like something alive crawling beneath his skin.
Kagami quickly crossed the space and approached Ren.
"Hold still," she told him.
She lowered her head and closed her eyes, mumbling a different incantation this time. Ren couldn't hear it, but that didn't matter anyway because whatever she was doing, the cloth resisted it.
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of it.
"This isn't ordinary corrupted magic. I can't break through it," she remarked.
The crawling light was past his elbow by this point, going toward his shoulder in fast-moving streams.
"It burns..." but he didn't finish the obvious remark. The heat surged again, scorching from within.
By the time it reached his neck, the golden glow was in his eyes as well. He felt his vision blur as everything around him was turning to light. Across from him, Kagami's eyes mirrored the change. Her eyes went golden and vibrant in a matter of moments as she braced for what was about to unfold.
The floor under Ren's feet suddenly dissolved and was replaced by a glassy surface that suddenly rippled. Water. Ren looked down and saw a reflection that wasn't his at all. There were bandages wrapped all over him. He moved his hands around, and as he did, the motion was reflected in the water's surface perfectly. Even so, he could not recognize those hands as his at all.
He looked like... the bandaged stranger he had seen earlier.