[Late, late that night after most of the people gathered in the castle have gone to bed, Utsusemimaru is patrolling along the outside wall, sword drawn, senses alert to any change in the noises of the forest. Despite managing to help organize a more or less successful meal with his new found companions, a deep unease has settled into Utsusemimaru's heart that refuses to abate even as the night wears on.
And yet even the vague premonitions of his feelings cannot possibly prepare him for what he sees emerging from the woods.]
Oyakata-sama?
[His voice is choked with shock, and his sword arm falls uselessly to his side. Passing silently through the dense woods and drawing ever nearer is an apparition, pale, insubstantial, but unmistakably the visage of Utsusemimaru's deceased lord. How long has it been since he has seen his lord, not through the echo of resemblance in King's face, but as he was in life?
Far too long. Even as the shock begins to wear, every moment he continues to stare, fixated, on his lord's ghostly face only intensifies the pain tearing Utsusemimaru's heart in two.]