It was raining the night that I died. I had just lost everything that had ever held any scrap of meaning, so what did I care if I slowly bled to death, lying face first in a puddle of mud mixed with my own vomit and blood? My wife, my home, my sanity; it had all been stolen from me in a matter of moments.

"I'm sorry, Gonou. This is goodbye..."

"Kanan!"

My eyes shut tight, as if that would succeed in blocking out, or better yet, erase the painful images that were still burned into my mind. My beautiful wife, my loving sister, gone forever after uttering those final, haunting words. I had killed so many. So many people, and yet, I still couldn't save her. I couldn't save her.

I wished for death. Above all else, I longed for the sweet release from this world, though, somewhere deep inside me, I knew that I didn't deserve it. My body was wounded, my spirit, broken. I wasn't sure if it was my dying wish finally being granted or the pouring rain that was causing my body to numb from the pain of my open sores. Either way, I welcomed the tingling sensation that was soon to replace it all. It was a slow process, however. Almost too slowly.

"Finally... We'll be together again."

My final words. Well, at least I had planned for them to be my last words. Fate, being the cruel bitch that she was, had other plans in mind. For at that moment, for whatever reason, I opened my eyes. I opened my eyes to the blurry yet concerned features of a man crouched down before me. Concerned? No, that couldn't be right. No one was concerned about me. No one ever truly cared. No one but her, and she was gone.

"Hey man, you alright?"

The voice was rough and scratchy. The added result from years of smoking, I gathered. Through my obscured vision, I could see a shock of crimson hair, and eyes that matched, everytime that lightning lit up the sky. A halfbreed. A child of both human and Youkai parents. Taboo in our world, yet nearly unheard of in our town. Our town. Heh, there wasn't even a town left to claim. I had flattened it all. Those bastards didn't deserve to live after what they had done. None of them did.

"Yeah, stupid question. C'mon, man, lets get you inside and out of the rain."

He was speaking again. The halfbreed. I could only make out a few words of what he was saying, but soon, I felt my body being lifted, and a fresh wave of pain took place of the once comforting numbing feeling. I was too weak to make a sound. Too weak to even scream. Luckily ernough for me, this new wave of pain was enough to finally knock me unconcious. I had hoped to stay that way, so that I might join my beautiful wife once again.

However, as I stated before, Fate is a merciless crone that enjoys nothing more than to watch her victims writhe in agony for the rest of their mortal lives. I say this, because I had woken up, sometime later in the night. I woke to find that I had been tucked beneath a warm blanket, put into dry clothes that were just slightly too large for me, and placed upon a soft bed. I had been healed. I assumed, by the man that had found me in the woods, and that I was now taking up residence in his home.

"Well now, you're finally awake."

The bare arms of said man were planted firmly on either side of my head. I could see through one eye only, my right, and now I could confirm my earlier suspicions: this man, my savior, was one of the rumored taboo children. His crimson locks were kept long, but swept back into a ponytail. He bore two, identical scars beneath his right eye. Scars of which I knew had to have a story behind them, but at the time, I couldn't find the strength, nor interest to ask for it.

"Yes... I am awake."

Unfortunately. I stated before that it was raining, the night that I died. Well, I wasn't lying; it was still raining, and I did die that night. The night that Kanan was taken, raped, and killed. The night that my sanity was shredded as if it were wet newspaper. The night when I had lost all hope of retaining my humanity, was the night that Cho Gonou died.

No, I had a new life now. I had been given a second chance, for reasons, even to this day, that I do not quite understand. Cho Gonou had died, so that the demon, Cho Hakkai, could live.