Hey yall! This is only gonna be a series of short one-shots, this one being the longest at 600 words. The next one is a drabble (100 words), and the one after that a double drabble (200 words). The following two will probably be around 400-500 words, so yea.
Anyway, I'm really having a lot of fun writing these, because they're so different from how I usually write, style-wise. So you can actaully expect an update.
Like I said, as it stands now, there will be 5 of these, but you never know. I might get inspired.
So, anyway, enjoy!
Meditate.
It was… strange.
Because… because he had tried so hard.
It was strange because all that effort had been for naught.
I… lost.
And he had even spared someone their life. That had not been planned.
That little omnitsu girl.
She should have been dead before the attack on the Aioya.
Not only had he not killed her, he had let her go back to help save the Aioya.
I should have killed her.
I had the orders to do so.
And yet…
And yet…. He hadn't.
I let her live.
But why?
Why couldn't I kill her? It's not like I knew her.
How strange.
I suppose that it's only because I saw in her everything I wanted to be, deep down.
Yes. She was innocent, emotional, and genuinely happy.
Everything that he had been, essentially, robbed of as young boy.
So young, so innocent.
No, he did not remember ever being innocent.
I suppose that the children of whores don't really have a chance to begin with.
No, that's not true.
That boy who follows Himura-san around. Myojin Yahiko…
Yes, he seems to do just fine for himself.
But that's because he was saved.
NOBODY HELPED ME.
No. I cannot be bitter. ShiShio-san helped me immensely.
Did he?
I would never have come this far had I not tread the path of the Tenken.
If it had not been ShiShio-san, I have very little doubt that I would have died long ago.
Perhaps.
Perhaps… I would be alive.
But I would not be happy.
Happy? He has never been happy. He is not happy.
Were it not for ShiShio-san, I could be happy.
No.
I would be rice-farmer under those two brothers… my cousins?
Yes. He would not be happy.
He would be working all day in the field with no pay and little nourishment, just as he was before. He would be weak.
I am still weak. Did it make any difference in the end? Going with ShiShio-san?
No family.
I don't have a family now. ShiShio-san and Yumi-san were my family.
No.
The ninja girl.
That's her?
She is coming here? Why?
This is the market. A public place.
Does she know him?
"Tenken?"
Yes.
He saved her.
One does not forget such things.
"Makimachi-san."
I do not recall her name.
"No." She is married? "Misao."
Her name is Misao.
"Misao-san, then? I am no longer Tenken. I am Soujirou."
"Sou-kun." So vibrant, so happy. So affectionate, even to past adversaries.
But he was not really an adversary. Not Soujirou. That was Tenken. Soujirou saved her.
"I'm going to the temple. Would you like to go?"
He had never been to a temple, as long as he could remember.
I went there once, as a small child, with my mother.
Ah, yes that's right.
So small, so innocent.
So very long ago.
"Yes. Who are you bringing the tea for?"
Her face is no longer happy, regardless of her smile. She is like him.
"Aoshi-sama…"
He understood.
It was I, after all, who made him into that monster.
"Oh. I apologize."
I have confused her. She looked up, as if expecting more.
Give her more.
"It is, in a way, my own fault he has become this way."
"Don't blame yourself."
But he did. He blamed himself for everything bad thing that has happened to her or her friends.
"You are not a bad person, Sou-kun. You saved me."
That's right. I saved her.
But for what? So she could be miserable without her Aoshi-sama?
No. To save the Aioya.
Why?
I did not want to kill.