A misshapen jigsaw piece lays here. It holds only a glimpse.

Sevai sniffs around harder. As much as he can. The scent is really bothering him, he thinks he's caught a whiff of it somewhere before. Not one of the scents of Saranga, but much more recently...

And then it hits him in a flash of recognition. A small hint of gunpowder, fragrant oil, leather and strange substances... a memory comes flooding back as Lekha channels him. The owner of the strange scent in this room... Flames rage in his memories as he thinks back, and a figure emerges from his thoughts - the form of the assassin, Killjoy.

With this information, Lekha has enough for an augury. A quick nap on the way back to Kawamura leaves Lekha drifting off to another world...

------

"How far would you go for the sake of others?" a voice whispers on the breeze. All is black, enshrouded not in darkness but a wind, its terrible, dark gales visible to the naked eye. A woman wanders through the gusts, an arm raised to her face. She's been alone for so long, ever since a fateful day, long ago.

Her feet march side by side, kicking up the dust of the past. In the distance, through the stark midnight storm, a memory looms. A battle she bore witness to, scythe against scythe, silent all save for his laughs. Even now they boom, echoing across the tempest. Those terrible, mocking laughs. The sound of steel meeting flesh, crimson ribbons meeting black wind. The woman walking through the darkness comes to a stop by a river. It was stained red. The body floats by, clutching its soul as a lifeline. The night falls, and vision is lost, but still the sounds persist.

"Cursed child, you must stay strong. She will not find you here."

The wind begins to clear. The assassin stands on a ridge overlooking a snow-peaked mountain and the beginnings of jungle underneath. A stolen soul is held gently in her hands, its anger, its outrage gleaming terribly along the surface of its blade underneath the silver sun. She whispered an apology to its deaf ears. She must needs hurry, a black, hungry beast was on her trail. Her voice picked up again.

"I understand. It is far too late to trust in the falsehood of words. One can only trust in that which is..."

She made her way towards the mountain to climb it. The soul would not be coming back down.