"What good are you, anyway?" Saruwatari accused Yori. "Twice you've been fighting alongside Jiro, and twice you have failed. I can't believe Amaratsu would choose someone like you. Maybe she's counting on seeing you burst into flames."
"Enough!" Yori barked back. "I didn't see you come rushing out when the manor was under siege either time."
"I'm retired, boy. I know I'm not in my prime. I'm simply Kawazoe's bodyguard now. I'd only get in the way, like how you get in Jiro's way."
Jiro was still in the recovery room, under the watch of Kawazoe. Yori had helped briefly, under the stern guidance of Jiro's sister who was now his spirit guardian. She had, very patiently, taught the future inept man how to properly prepare tea and simple meals, apply bandages and moist cloths, and stitch in the police badge into his new clothes with a needle and thread. Most importantly, he was taught how to meditate, which he was trying to do in the meditation room.
"You should just leave." Saruwatari continued. "We were doing just fine before you came along, half-golem."
Yoko, who could only be heard by Yori, wanted to slap Saruwatari back to his senses, and make him aware that his frustration should be directed towards the aggressors, not at the man who came from a different time and place, but was willing to stake his life in an ideal to protect.
"If you are looking for a fight, you'll get much more than you bargained for." Yori finalized.
Saruwatari turned around with a grunt and stomped out of the meditation room. He tried to meditate again, but all he could see was flame. His thoughts reached towards home; that place of grating metal against the pelting of acid rain and the racking sounds of gunfire, lasers, and explosives. Yoko kept repeating soft mantras to help Yori to concentrate and repeat, with patience only a high priestess could possess.
--
At the same time, Ayako stood alone in the impossibly bright white room. She could barely tell which direction was which, as the floor appeared to disappear from under her. She tried as Mr. Himura had instructed to search herself for the truth, at first in the literal sense of analysing the soul, the Zae Stone. It only returned the material components of it, with no other meaningful information attached. She stomped in frustration and pulled at her hair, moving frantically about in the emptiness. The door from which she entered was gone; something else had closed it behind her. Ayako was searching for something to trash, anything to exact her frustrations. The golems she faught had been perfect for that.
When she had followed Yori though the time stream, she had spent nearly a century calculating flight paths to prevent her destruction. At least at that time, her equations had kept her company, the urgency of the moment always taking her to a place where she didn't have think only about herself. Now there was only herself to think about. Suddenly she was alone. She suddenly what it really meant to be alone. She felt like collapsing, but there was no floor to break her fall. She felt dizzy, falling perpetually into a void.
