"This is our destiny"

Perhaps he was always the one that could see things the clearest. Perhaps he, despite all points and appearances had, in the end, been the most disillusioned. Kei, no matter how hard and cold always had a part of him inside that still hoped, however desperate. That was why he saved Sho. Even though it was selfish and wrong. That hope, that longing, bittersweet and hopeless. Then there was Sho. So naïve, and so bright. He was the sun to Kei's moon. All of them.

Son

Kei

Sho

Toshio

Yi-Che

Had it been anywhere, anywhere but Mallepa….

Mallepa who's destiny clawed at them and shredded them to pieces. A photograph capturing a single moment where their "destiny" didn't matter and Mallepa didn't matter. By the beach they had their own world without the meddling hands of fate, and the world in which they were born.

Toshio…

"Only the slow ones get hit"

He was almost as artless as Sho, perhaps, in some ways, even more so. He was the first to be devoured by the insatiable appetite of Mallepa, of society. Toshio the optimist. He never believed in some grand destiny, like Son. He took each day as it came, and was satisfied with the cards laid out before him. His "family", Kei, Sho, Son, Yi-Che, Shinji, they were enough for him. He lived in the present. He dreamed in the present. However living in the present has some unfortunate repercussions in a place like Mallepa. After all, in the end, he was the slowest.

Yi-Che

Sometimes it is the tragedy that makes thing beautiful. Such was the case with her. Mallepa had always been too harsh and cruel for one as soft and serene as her. So it swallowed her, consuming, from the inside out. She was never meant for this city. This is so evidently clear that it enhances the tragedy that she embodies. After all, one of the saddest things in the world is wasted talent. And she had it in droves.

Son

As mentioned before, he was probably the one who saw it the clearest. Their destiny. And what lay further upon their path. AS he became older he only saw farther and despaired. He saw their fates, clear as glass, perhaps to the point of being blinded by it, at least until the very end. When his looking glass was shattered. Sho, he'd always played by his own rules, never adhering to the calls of destiny. And so, when he raised his empty gun to Kei, he realized, his destiny was what he had made it, and this was his destiny...

The ground is hard, but not as much as the unyielding hand of fate.

Sho

The idealist. In the end it hadn't been Mallepa that broke him, but Kei. For even the clutches of destiny hadn't been able to destroy him, even as everything around him was rendered to ruin. It was this idealism that prevented him from shooting Son. It was by this idealism that he was driven for his entire life. Strong enough to be unbroken by the cruelty of Mallepa. Cracked, yes, but still whole. Only to be shattered by Kei. Kei who he trusted most. Kei who turned him into a monster in a moment of hopeless desperation. Kei who he forgave. No matter how strong and enduring Sho was, there was almost a fragile quality about him. Part of his childhood naiveté. It was why he despaired at being left alone, and it was why he could never truly bring himself to hate Son. All of his foolish notions and naiveté were deeply tied to his ideals. Sho was not blinded by destiny, he made his own.

Kei

The ever lonely, the everlasting. Perhaps the most jaded, yet he in the end wasn't able to let go as readily as he believed. In the end he still had clung frantically to his hope, no matter how derelict. He wasn't a fatalist like Son who discarded any semblance of hope. And no matter how resigned Kei was, there was always a part of him that loved Sho, dearly and closely.

Tomodachi--

--Friend

The words Sho had spoken to him struck a chord within, so deep and lout it managed to shake even him from his vegetative state.

"I'm all alone now"

"Please don't leave me all alone.."

It was what Luka had done, and it felt like a hole was drilled into his very being.

Vampires are lonely creatures…

Monsters deserve to be alone…

He accused Sho of being selfish for wishing such a fate on Yi-Che. And therein laid the ultimate irony.

In the end he was unable to let go of Sho, the person he loved most.

So they were---

Toshio, the ever flawed and most unbroken.

Yi-Che, a beautiful tragedy, one upon another.

Son, blinded by fate, chained by destiny. Destiny so clear and true it damned him.

Sho, blinded by his own foolish ideals, rejecting the fate the Son believed so fervently in.

And Kei. Hopeless, desperate, and selfish in his own way. But in the end all he did was love, and that's what hurt the most.

Mallepa is a city full of broken people, or those destined to be, coming and going..

What's another five souls?