Sakura had hugged Benjamin's torso, weeping aloud that he shouldn't leave her alone, and that she loved him so much she wanted them to be a family now.
Her arms were still wrapped around him like weak chains on a giant, trembling with every sob that tore from her throat.
Her tears soaked through his kosode in hot, spreading patches, and her face buried against his chest as if that could physically anchor him to this place—to her—by sheer force of will.
Her voice cracked on every cry, raw and desperate, the proud Queen of Shishi-no-su reduced to a woman pleading for the one thing she had never begged for in her entire long life: a man's love.
But Benjamin, though he initially almost agreed, finally got some clarity. He had been taken away from the Amazons, from Sara and the others. And he had to get back there because it was… his home now.
