Self-imposed Single-mindedness

It was snowing.

Again.

Just like it had that night.

Enishi was never a very nostalgic person, or so he liked to tell himself. Actually, he'd been one for a while, ever since Kiyosato came into their lives.

Tomoe still looked after him, but whenever she was with Kiyosato, softly laughing and smiling, he would find a small corner to sit in and think with sickening sentimentality back to the days when it was just him and his sister.

Then Kiyosato was killed. Killed, it was whispered, by the new hitokiri, by a killer who slid in and out of the shadows and killed with a demonic blade. A hitokiri who left behind a trail of flame as he moved, clad in a a red gi that matched the color of fresh blood.

Enishi ran away, then. He knew he had his sister to himself, but he couldn't bear her sadness. So he fled and promised himself that he would bring back her happiness, all the while knowing it was a lie.

First and foremost, Yukishiro Enishi was self-serving. His sister came close(so, so close), but in the end, Enishi lived for himself. He loved his sister, and so couldn't stand the hollow wraith who stole Tomoe's face and swam in chilled sake. He couldn't bear hearing the lovely, sultry voice of his sister tinged with such sorrow and regret.

When he ran away, with a group that swore to kill the Battousai, he didn't do it so his sister would feel better. He did it so HE would feel better. So HE would have his beloved sister back, and they would never, never be touched by the world again.

Of course, when he got back, his sister was gone. "Taken by the hitokiri," a beggar said, a lucky second witness to the meeting of the flame-haired assassin and the cultured, calm girl who didn't even flinch as a torrent of blood fell on her and ruined her best kimono.

Shifting his position, Enishi poked at the fireplace with his watou, splitting a log in half to expose the rotting wood inside to the ravenous flame.

At last, he found her. And she was different. Tomoe was Tomoe…but now she had another man. Battousai.

Enishi could not and would not accept that not only had he been replaced again, he was replaced by the man who had caused him to lose his sister a second time. So he ran away again, ignoring the promise of a happy home and a warm fire and being in a real family had he just stayed.

Of course, then his sister was split open by a bloody blade, guided with strong and quick hands along a cruel path that ended with death.

Enishi wasn't a fool. He knew the Battousai didn't mean to kill Tomoe. But he couldn't accept the death of his sister, knowing that she could never be his again.

So he chose to hate the hitokiri who'd stolen his happiness from him forever. Or so he said to himself for comfort on the cold nights during the war, and later, in Shanghai.

The truth was that Enishi simply didn't want to accept the truth, once more; he was the one to blame.

So he killed and killed and killed, rising through the underworld of Shanghai into one of the most feared men on the continent. His watou was stained with the blood of hundreds(thousands, some whispered, and Enishi heard), but it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting his sister's smile back, getting that brief bit of all-transcending joy that came when his beloved Tomoe showed him approval even from beyond the grave.

He knew it wasn't Tomoe. He knew the real Tomoe wouldn't have approved. But that didn't matter. Enishi fooled himself, wrapping himself in layers of hatred and self-loathing and regret and deceit. He wrapped the truth he knew as tight as he could, then shoved it down to the bottom of his mind.

Where it still came up, every once in a while.

Two months. A mere two months, and he would be setting sail for Japan, to let his Jinchuu play out. He would carve his vengeance into the body of Battousai's woman, carve the hitokiri's beloved 'Tenchuu' into her flesh.

Then, finally, Tomoe would smile at him continuously, maybe even laugh. And he would finally be at peace, peace he won with his bloodstained hands, with the lives of hundreds hanging from his neck.

Tomoe would smile. And he would be happy. That was all that mattered, then, now, and ever after.