Yao noticed the shirt, first. The blood had made a travesty of the silk, but even now, unwashed, grimy from a thousand battlefields, the cloth still held strong; aside from the bullet hole, there were few rips in the fabric, little damage.
He had taught him how to make it; how to boil the worms, and weave the resulting thread so that the cloth was smooth as water and interwoven with steel. His fingers had moved under his, correcting the stitches - but even then, Yao needn't have bothered; Kiku had always been a bright child, always quick to pick up on things - quiet, yet quietly determined.
And even now, he was still standing. Standing, his eyes painted porcelain, and the blood - red, bright, viscous - flowing slowly through pale, tense fingers as Kiko swayed on his feet. But still stood.
It was a nice day. The sky was a wispy, pale blue, bordered by a fringe of treetops. Birdsong echoed in the untainted air, and the grass was red red red red.
From the metal, a thread of smoke spiraled lazily into the blue sky.
The hand with the gun was still held out, trembling and Alfred's eyes were wide, almost as if he did not believe that he had shot. Blue eyes. Blue, like robin's eggs or the sky above them all -
Blue eyes, tainted now, shock a thin line of smoke.
Slowly, Kiku took a unsure, unsteady step forward. And then another.
Alfred stepped back.
Another step, ragged hole in his shirt, slowly, something strange in Kiku's eyes -
One hand raised - salutation? a plead? mercy? - another step, and then he stumbled, fell onto his knees, blood quickly dyeing the crisp green red.
Yao gasped.
Kiku's eyes met his. Glassy and half-focused, yet, yet...
Still, after all this time. Little brother.
One foot moved, rustled in the uncut grass. The sound was tentative, unsure.
Yao took another step. His brother. His little brother. And besides - and impossibly, it was back, hope and love and everything he had forgotten - perhaps it would be today, perhaps just one more step -
Then sun danced off steel, and a thousand half-buried memories came back.
…the mothers and children - crying for mercy even as they'd choked on blood and the bayonets had pushed in - the shackles - cold things, cutting into flesh where there was scarcely any - the fire dancing across the rooftops as they had watched, bound, immobile…
And the night.
There are no memories. Only scars. Yao was good at that. The political uprisings, wars - they did not reside in his memory, but rather his skin, where they healed, slowly faded away and were forgotten. Ivan had told him though, promised that one day, they would be gone, would change and smooth.
But this wound was still half-healed.
Ivan had ideas. And one of them was this: that trust was fatal, was weakness comparable to that of mercy. He should know that by now.
Slowly, Yao turned. One foot rustles through the pristine grass as he left, but no one hears.