Author's Note: Alrighty, before we start, let it be known that this is the beginning to an A/U story that I am currently writing in my free time. As I do not have much of that, I don't know whether or not I'll be posting the story in its entirety. Still, I hope you enjoy this and please feel free to leave whatever comments you like. In fact, I urge you to. Enjoy.

An Unnamed Prologue

By JadeAnime

Red. No other color seemed so prominent in his life. Always was it there; haunting him, teasing him with it's fateful promises. Promises it never failed to keep. Such beauty the color could stand for, so that it hurt his eyes to look at it sometimes. However, such horror it represented, it broke it heart to see it.

And it seemed that no matter what he did or where he went, he couldn't escape that terrible color. It was in the sky when the sun set, in the flowers he cared for, and in that fire from his childhood that stole his parents. It was even in the color of one of his team member's hair; a stoic man he loved dearly, if secretly.

Still, it left him confused, these feelings. He couldn't decide whether he liked the color; or hated it. Thankfully, most of the Koneko no Sumi Ie's customers chose to let Aya deal with their roses, not him. Most of the red-colored flowers were dealt with by him, in fact. Perhaps, the customers liked to color-coordinate their florist to their flowers, he supposed. Mayber the girls thought it was cute or something.

Personally, he found it rather disturbing considering all the color red meant to him. However, their customers were mere innocents. At least, the ones that were there for the flowers were. To them, the color red was just that; a color. To those select few, though, it was a way of life; one he and his team members shared. Each had their own reasons for being here; Aya had his sister, Yohji had his murdered girlfriend, and Omi had some rather disturbing family problems. And what were his reasons; what were Hidaka Ken's reasons?

Justice. A concept few truly understood and even fewer that cared to live for it. Still, it was a reason that seemed to pale in comparison to the others. It made him wonder is all the blood he shed was truly worth the price he was paying. If he had not chose this way of life, would not Aya's blade be doing it in his place, serving his ideal? Murder was murder, irregardless of the reasons behind it. The reasons were simply what made it bearable. But was his belief in such seemingly insubstantial reason strong enough? It had been thus far, but would it remain so days, months, even years from now when he was still committing such atrocities as to leave most people in a sate of shock?

Worse yet, would his mind itself hold out that long? Aleardy, Ken could feel the guilt gnawing away at his sanity. Every night, he lost it a little more, got a little more vicious and every night, he came homw a little more guilt-ridden. It was a never-ending cycle from which Ken could find no escape. After all, once an assassin, always an assassin. Nothing and no one would allow otherwise.