"Michi!"

Michi slammed the door open so hard that it hung crooked, and disappeared into the house within. Shinobu stopped short of following her in and sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping. For a moment, there was silence, until Michi's voice issued out of the dark house.

"I am what I am, Shinobu." The darkness, in fact, seemed to bulge slightly out of the open door. Tendrils of it came free and crawled around the doorframe like little flames. "You want me to be something different."

"I do not, Michi," Shinobu muttered. "Times are changing, that's all. We are not small gods anymore. That's not my FAULT."

The darkness abruptly burst forth from the doorway, streaming in thick tendrils past and around Shinobu with a low whooshing sound; she threw up her arms to shield her face automatically, and cast a glare over her shoulder in the direction that the darkness flowed.