Mukuro rubbed her bare arms. They felt oddly bare and insecure after over a thousand years in bodange. Her pearly skin and deep marks indented where the shackles had been, showed it as well.
For so long, almost as long as she could remember, they were part of her. To remind her who she was: a slave out for vengance. To pillage and burn the wealthy lords and gain her own power from them, like any lowly slave would if they had the chance. To make them all pay for what one man had done to her. They were all the same, and she was becoming like them. The hard iron wrapped around her arms always served to remind her where her proper place was: a slave, and that she wasn't where she should be.
But Hiei was right. She wasn't a slave anymore. She was a great and powerful demon lord. A finalist in the Makai Tournament. She felt that, over a thousand years too late, she had let go of her old self. She didn't feel trapped in her body, in her life, destined to be the same lowly concubine she was born as.
She tugged her sleeves back down in a quick motion and stepped toward the ring, prepared for the final battle. Win or lose to Enki, she knew, she knew, the best was yet to come.