Heroine Syndrome
By Any Unborn Child
She had been thrust into this path.
The path of killing Shikabane, the undead, if only to save a spot in Heaven, a paradise that seemed so far out of reach.
It was not of her choosing.
Not one bit.
In all of her years, she had never imagined that there was a possible life after her death. Like the little girl that she was, she had ascended herself towards that of the innocence that death was no more significant than the monsters under her bed, that death was an illusion far far into the future, where it would do no irreparable harm to her.
Well, she knew now how foolish she had been.
Even then, in the back of her mind, she could feel the wiry grasp of death, running its tendrils alongside the carefree thoughts circumnavigating her mind. They disturbed moments of calm with massacred thoughts of the inevitable fate that brought no sense of closure, but only gaping holes of doubt and despair.
Memories….they did not forget so easily…
The impending heat that surrounded her as the Hoshimura home crumbled did little to distract her mind from the malevolent glow of the eyes of the Seven Stars leering before her. They were the ones to seal her grisly fate, to savagely cut the thread of her existence, to rob her of any innocence she had left.
They were the ones that ultimately destroyed her.
And why?
There seemed to be no purpose at the time – just for the cruel delight.
After what seemed like an eternity, the flames licking her form, there was no more.
No more of the old Makina.
For now there was the damaged, the battered, torn, deceived, the undead, Makina.
It was later that she was brought in front of the monk Keisei.
Yes…she had known of him. They did have a connection to one another.
It was so strange, so surreal to see him surrounded by a couple more monks, faces she did not recognize or care about.
All that mattered was the mix of concern and shock she could see in his bespectacled orbs.
All that mattered was the festering need to be free wriggling inside of her.
She did not beg or plead for a contract with Keisei.
Her steely, glazed-over eyes locked with Keisei's, and she demanded one.
At the time, vengeance was the only thing on her mind. It was the only thing that was literally keeping her alive, the regret of not being able to prevent the madness that was eating her up.
The days stagnantly went by. Trying to fracture together the bond that she supposedly had with the monk was not an easy task, for that depended on the fact that Keisei would recollect anything worth remembering about her. But over the course of a year, Makina was able to trust again, if only through Keisei's kind and irreverent nature.
She was foolish to think that he would be around forever, and that she could depend on him no matter what.
No….the being called Death claimed him too.
Blood and all.
She had blamed himself for his death – if she had gotten there sooner, if she had not met him when she did, if she had not gotten him involved in her strife….
But….
She vowed to live on, in the limbo that had been constructed, in such a world that she had made for herself…
…for his sake.
And for his sake it shall stay.