A/N: So while I'm blocked on my other story, I had a plot bunny. What would it take for Yasuo to have been guilty? For what reason would he have killed the elder?
Then I thought of his blood moon skin. :3
Blood Moon Rising
He is a boy of six, and the Ionian sky is painted red.
"It is the blood moon," his brother tells him.
He thinks it is a fitting name, not only for the color of the celestial orb, but for the rush it sends through his veins, for how it resonates with something inside him, making him both lighter and heavier at once.
He wakes the next day. His hands are covered in blood, and the corpses of small, woodland animals are strewn around him.
He sits unmoving for what seems like hours, until his brother finds him.
"What is this?" his brother asks. "Did you kill these creatures?"
He says he does not remember.
His brother frowns. "Brother, you need not lie to me. You know this was wrong. Why did you do it?"
But he does not remember, and he says so again. His memories of the past day are a haze, a red fog clouding his mind.
His brother's face grows grim, and he mutters something about the blood moon.
The memories return.
He is watching the night sky, eyes tracing the red-tinted clouds, when the chatter of small critters interrupts him.
Methodically, mechanically, he stands up, finding a tree branch sharp enough to serve as a weapon, then lunges with unnatural speed at the animals who dare to disturb him. He should not be able to catch them, but the red moon lends him a strange power and grace.
Once they all die, he sits down once more and returns to gazing at the sky.
He does not tell anyone, least of all his brother, that he remembers now.
He learns the sword. It becomes one of his few true joys, for how naturally it comes; it almost seems as if the wind itself aids him in each movement.
Then the wind does come, does aid him, and he is the first in living memory to learn the legendary wind techniques. Suddenly, they look at him differently, and he is no longer merely a young swordsman, but one destined to be a hero.
They do not mean for him to hear, of course. His brother cautions him about pride, and attempts to teach him the importance of patience.
He thinks he learns those lessons quickly, but something in his brother's eyes is strange when he looks at him.
He is no longer a child, but a man, a prodigy, a legend in the making. But then they say, the blood moon is coming, and his excitement is nearly childish in its nature.
He does not show it, of course. It would be unbecoming of him.
The excitement, however, is dampened by his recollection of the occurrences during the last such event.
He asks, perhaps, if he could journey abroad for a while, to travel and learn of other places, to see their cultures and ways of the sword. They give him leave to do so, naturally. How could they refuse him?
His brother tries to ask him something.
He cuts him off. He does not want to hear the question.
When he comes to, he is once again covered in blood, but the bodies surrounding him are human.
The memories return more swiftly, this time.
He stands on the dusty road, eyes turned to the sky. The night is silent, and the light that falls is a bright, deep crimson.
There are no clouds, tonight. He sees the blood moon in all its terrible, beautiful glory.
He does not notice the caravan making its way down the path until he is spoken to.
"What are you looking at, boy?" asks an old man, his back hunched from age.
He does not reply. He is staring at the moon.
The man tracks his gaze. "What, the blood moon?" he scoffs. "Why would you look at that? It's an evil thing, everyone knows that. An evil omen."
He draws his sword and slices off the man's head, in one fluid motion.
The rest of the party stands stock-still for a moment, but then they all charge him, screaming for vengeance for their friend's death.
The wind he calls that night is red. He does his best to forget this.
He does not flee his crime. He tells himself this, and almost makes himself believe it.
Nevertheless, he returns to his school.
They greet him as if nothing has changed. Why would they?
There are whispers of an awful crime, the murder of an entire caravan along one of the roads leading out of Ionia. It is spoken of in hushed tones, and quietly used as an example of the people the young learners should use their skills to fight against.
They do not find the murderer. The only ones travelling along that road on the night of the blood moon cannot tell, will not tell.
They are either dead or the murderer himself. And he will never tell. He will never stain his honor so.
His brother still looks at him strangely, sometimes, but he is better at pretending, these days.
And then there is war. Ever power-hungry Noxus has waited for too long, and there is war; there is an invasion.
Even as the armies clash on battlefields far away, he is kept safe, far away from the fighting, sequestered in a corner of Ionia where they tell him he cannot fight. Not yet. He must hone his skills to perfection, they say.
What they do not say, but he can tell is their true meaning, is that they do not wish to risk him. He is their hope, their once-in-a-generation hero. The master of the winds cannot be put into a true war, not yet, not a war in which he could bleed, could die.
The peace all around him has never tasted so bitter.
The school cannot stay in its own little world forever.
They come on the night of the blood moon.
He cannot see the moon, but he knows. The Noxians have covered the sky and the stars with their chemicals, with their smog from their machines of war, products of Zaun.
He goes to fight, but is stopped.
"Your task is to guard the elder," his brother says.
His arm reaches for his sword of its own volition. But he hesitates. This is his brother, his best friend, his mentor and his companion, and these thoughts pierce through the red fog for enough time.
His brother takes this as assent, and leaves to fight.
He cannot see the blood moon, but the blood moon sees him.
The elder asks him where he is going; he tries to stop him.
He feels nothing for this decrepit old fool, unlike his brother. Who was this man to deny him, to deny the singing in his veins, calling for the blood of his enemies, the blood of those who dare to darken the blood moon with the smog from their chemicals?
This is an elder. He has studied the sword all his life. He is a master of combat.
He falls as easily as all before him.
Red drops spill, splattering onto the floor and his shoes. He ignores them.
His comrades are glad to see him, glad to receive the aid of his sword.
The Noxians are little challenge. They die like prey, dropping onto the cold ground, their lifeblood spilling out on the earth.
It is no replacement for seeing the moon.
The Noxians retreat, but the smoke does not dissipate until well after sunrise.
They accuse him of killing the elder.
But he did not! He tells them this, screams it at them when they remain unwavering. He did not. He thinks he would recall something such as this, and it was hardly as if there had been a blood moon the past night.
He did not see one. No one else mentions seeing one.
He remembers. He remembers after he cuts down the guards, after he runs far away, the wind swirling at his feet.
They send warriors after him. He knows he should let them kill him, to regain the scraps of what was once his honor, but he does not want to die.
It is cowardly and foolish. He is not innocent. He has no reason to continue on. He knows this, but he still wishes to live.
They are still no match for him. None of them could ever hope to match him.
It is not hard to kill. It is far too easy.
He hopes against hope that this man is not his brother, but he has known his brother for too long to delude himself.
He still does not want to die.