Ootoriko was sitting up and inconsolable yet again. “I—I killed your friend.” She rocked back and forth while she sobbed. “I—I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Hush, now. None of this is your fault.” Kiyomizu floated beside her, attempting to console the sobbing woman, but she was also a distraction. “Breathe. Let the emotions swell and break, and then you will be free of them.”
“I—I can’t.”
“You can, and you will. You are stronger than this, Ootoriko. I have seen it.”
Tama controlled the last stream of light and ki, letting it coil and uncoil around the length of Ootoriko’s body. They stripped away the last of the stone encasing her wings, and her individual feathers snapped free of their frozen positions to rustle and glimmer in the light of the Quiet Realm
