Twisted like a knife
Saiyuki
T+
They say if you kill a thousand demons, that you too will become one. I never gave much credence to it though; chocking it up to a mere urban legend. Guess I was wrong. Considering what I did, I'm surprised they didn't kill me. I was expecting it, longing for someone to put me out of my misery, but then again, I had always secretly thought God was a sick, twisted bastard, and nothing I've seen has made me feel any differently.
Standing there looking down at her, I could feel what little control I had slipping, so when the last demon made a running leap at me I didn't even blink, just gutted him like a bloated pig. His entrails were wet and slimy, the smell like rotting meat wafting up around me, my hands sticky with the quickly drying blood in the cool air of the castle, I hated them all with such unbridled fury that I never noticed the knife.
I was halfway out the door when I realized something was wrong. My guts felt like they were on fire… everything burned. I must have been in shock, being able to get that far without falling, without noticing that I was leaving as much of myself strewn across the landscape as I was their blood and her vengeance. I remember the fall in sporadic little leaps of time and flashes of brilliant, searing pain that I'm thankful that I can't recall more of my tumble down the hillside.
I'm not really sure how long I lay at the edge of the woods. The moon came up at least once, probably more, before it started. I'm sure it was my penance, the changes that ripped my body in the night. The crawling vines across my skin a physical reminder that I'd never be able to forget, to forgive, or to move on. I'd always be trapped by my hatred and grief. Any passer-bys must have thought some wounded animal had crawled into the depths of the forest, it's baying the sound of the man I had been lost in the belly of the beast I had become; divine justice for my atrocities.
I'm not sure when I became human again. Or at least wore the semblance of what I had once been. Maybe it was my sense of propriety, it really wouldn't be appropriate to meet someone wandering around looking like a crazed demon covered in blood, not nowadays at least. Maybe it was the last little bit of my sanity trying to fend off the stockpile of guilt I felt at letting her get close enough that she could do that much damage to my heart. Maybe it was for his benefit, his eyes were wide enough as it was. Hell. Maybe it was just another whim of God.
I'm not really sure what happened between the ending of my old life and the beginning of my new life. When Sanzo took me away all I wanted to do was wash my hands of the whole situation, but afterwards all I could think about was getting back to the only person who knew me. The real me. The me from before. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time dealing with things without him. Why, no matter what inane, stupid, hurtful things he says or does, I just can't leave. Maybe that's why he can't either.
After all, he's the only one to ever see me cry. *heh* We both are.
~Fin.