Within seconds the beasts began to make their attack and had managed to pin Akira to the ground. Snapping back to attention, Akira wounded the wolf closest to him and another before losing his only weapon in the snow. Void of any other acceptable offensive strategies, Akira began to retreat into the forest to try and make it harder for them to surround him again. This venture, however, was not successful, because in no time at all Akira found himself tumbling right off the same cliff that he encountered three years ago, only this time he was not so sure that he would survive it again.
But once again, he found himself straddling the line between life and death with full knowledge that only a single factor would determine which one of these forces would win. The question over which of the two he desired more though was not as clear this time; living would result in the eventual demise of him by the Snow Woman and quite possibly the whole village, depending on her level of rage. Dying, on the other hand, would provide a slim guarantee that the village would continue to thrive. In either instance, as Akira deduced, he was out of the picture anyway, so what was the point of resisting this time? With the irony of the situation sinking in, Akira once more accepted the call of death and begged the gods to make it quick.
“To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know what’s more pathetic: the fact that you journeyed alone into the mountains at night, or the fact that I’m finding you in the same position I found you in three years ago.”
Opening his eyes with a start, his heart practically sprung forth from his chest with ecstasy, but the figure that greeted him was a woman of fair complexion and who was revered throughout the village for her skills with a needle. “Yuri-chan? Is that—what are you—?”
“Hush now, you dense, little man, and I’ll show you the answer to your question,” she said with a mischievous grin. In no time at all, her hair became long and darker than the night, her skin as pale as the frost, and her eyes as deep and rich as the woman of his dreams.
Akira was absolutely, totally bewildered. As the realization of the fact that the woman that he had been enchanted by was right in front of him all three years of his ordeal came upon him, he began to writhe with disappointment in himself and became anger over the circumstances thereof. In that moment he wanted to reprimand her for this deceit, but the words just couldn’t leave his lips.
“I know you must be upset with me right now, and I’m sorry for lying to you all these years, but you must believe me when I tell you that I had no choice but to resort to these measures.”
“And why is that?” Akira asked coldly.
With no change in her noble exterior Yuri explained, “Because ordinarily, we of the Yuki-Onna are forbidden from sparing the lives of mortals, let alone promising to marry them.”
“Why?”
“Because it is our job to track down those who are about to die in the cold and end their suffering. To get a better idea of who to look for in these instances we occasionally hide ourselves amongst humans, but it wouldn’t do us any good if just anybody knew who we were.”
“But why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?” demanded Akira in a near shout.
Pausing for a few moments, Yuri blushed and said quietly, “I thought it was rather obvious…” During the silence that fell between them, Akira reexamined all of the signs that he could think of to confirm this: the extra affection that she always had for him, the way that she distanced herself from all other men except for him despite being at the marrying age, the clothes that she made especially for him on New Years, and how she seemed to be the only other woman aside from his mother that really took the time to understand him.
