The girl's blood ran cold before the words had left their - his - mouth. Distinctly male. She hadn't seen him- not even from a peripheral vision. She hadn't heard him beforehand. His steps were too quiet.

It was... different. No, she had no time to ponder how she'd known he was there a second early - her timing could have been off, in her fright, for all she knew. Why was she overanalyzing this? Why was she still thinking about it? He was still staring, probably. Why wouldn't she turn arou-

"Carla."

...

... Not harsh or coarse enough to be Sojiro. Then-

She barely stopped herself from jumping out of her skin when she felt a hand on her shoulder. He was closer than I thought.

When she finally got herself to turn around and dip her head upwards slightly, the rattling in her heart softened in a way of relief after what she saw, but kept ever weary. Especially after...

...Especially after last night.

"Hanzo."

She was met with a young boy, only a couple years older than herself.

No. Not myself. This is my vessel. Carla is dead.

His hair, of the same raven colour as her own, was parted at its top. Both strips of hair fell in the opposite direction down the sides of his face while covering his ears, stopping at about the end of his jawline while his back hair fell into a loose pony-tail like her own. He who stood before her, sharing similar traits - the narrowed eyes, intense-thin eyebrows, and the family name - was meant to be her brother.

He kept a bitter, displeased expression on him, but remained silent; he seemed perfectly happy to gall her, but apparently, attempted to give her a chance to speak by saying nothing. It wasn't as if he had a happy expression on him all the time - he was going to be groomed to take over as the clan leader for most of his life. Far too much stress on a child, she thought - but the looks he kept now... they weren't just annoyed. They were more than that, and had reason behind them. They were knowing.

She knew why.

What he hadn't been expecting was for her to say nothing else. No explanation, no rile, no response. She'd uttered nothing more than his name.

Without meaning to, both children were caught in a bout of silence as they stared one another down; as if seeing which one would talk first, they'd impossibly vexed one another even more. Finally, and as the closest thing to exasperation - for Hanzo - crossed his face, the hush was broken.

"Are you so intrepid that you would endure father's wrath just to spite me?" Are you going to stare me down until he finds us?

Hanzo spoke quickly in his native japanese tongue. She would need longer to... adjust. She prayed they wouldn't take notice. Maybe pin it down as the trauma of what happened.

"..."

"Filth on your hands is more punishable than blood on them."

Right. Last night. He's talking about last night. He saw. Blood on my hands. It wasn't meant to be hers. It wasn't-

"I needed the air. I slipped," she murmured, finally. "And now I'm going inside."

Just as she turned to get past him, he stopped her with a hand to her wrist again.

A harder grip this time.

"Don't be stupid, Carla," he said indignantly.

"Father's servants need only look at your sorry state once. He'll know." He's saying there's no point. ...I should leave tonight, I-

She only paused her train of thought when they began moving east. He held her by the wrist, and she could have swore he was muttering a few choice words underneath his breath. She kept a note of concern - they weren't going back from where they came, but they also weren't returning to their homage. A part of her stilled upon contemplating if he really had planned on ratting her out- she'd have expected as much, but the way they were going, it didn't seem like it. Maybe she'd just always been a bad choice of character.

Or maybe the body I chose is still taking over. I cannot forget. I can't.

She didn't feel like glancing at Hanzo's hair dancing in the wind ahead of her, much less the Shimada grounds, so her eyes skip to the sky above instead. Pink streaks begin making themselves known, as the sun dips slightly higher than it had been. Morning was teetering at the edge of the distant mountain-range.

She wasn't sure if it had occurred to her how beautiful Japan was. Hanamura was just one of those places.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

The girl was given no answer. It seemed Hanzo was the silent one now. Still, it wasn't long until he stopped- by the brief glance she caught from him, she couldn't have been the only one uneasy in her boots.

When she cast her gaze away from him, the first thing she caught was a river. Weirdly clear. A roster of trees she'd previously seen on the way there cast shadows over the stream, arched down in curves.

She bet they looked beautiful in Summer.

"Here," she heard, looking down to see Hanzo at its edge. He cast the freezing water over his palms, washing away whatever dirt he'd collected upon holding her earlier.

"If father plans on killing you, die clean," he muttered. Maybe she'd have heard the slightest hint of humour if the meaning behind what he said wasn't so serious.

If only.

She trod softly down the pebbles at the lake's edge, pausing for only a moment before shaking off the trenchcoat and setting it softly at a rock's edge. She took a step forward, looking down at the clear waters. It was a pretty fast-moving current, yes, but at one end of the stream, the land had been hollowed out into still pool- rocks outlined its small size in a circle, small surges and torrents of water escaping between the small openings and spating back into the river below. A small sanctuary admist the currents.

But it wasn't the pristine lagoon that caught her gaze and made her stare into it far deeper than she needed to.

It was the reflection, and Carla Shimada that stared back.

Vampirism. Is that what people called it? Was that the name grandparents told their grandchildren on their lap, book in hand, over a hearth for decades of years over, interwoven into history?

But not all stories are real. A silly myth parents told their children when they became too scared to go to bed themselves.

It isn't real. Is that what they said?

The truth was, even she doesn't know where she came from. She's never met anyone like her. No-one with the same parasitic traits, both physically and through the mentality she's learned to pick up in order to survive.

She can't remember because she's lived too many lives that aren't hers. She can't afford to look back. She can't help it. She has fallen into a hole so black and so deep she cannot see or feel her way up. The girl who barely remembers her name over anything else cannot escape her own mind, and the prison she has built for herself.

Who is she? Where does she come from? How does she do what she does? Is she no-one? A ghost among people? Shunned and hunted and burnt and tortured if she ever told a single truth, following what she assumes is her family tradition.

...No. I remember.

I will not forget, no matter how many people's faces I must steal to live.

My name is...

Petra.

The word instantly fills my mind after my fingers fumble around my neck, grabbing at a small piece of stone. It's made out like a necklace. At the end, where both chains meet, there is a circle-shaped clasp. I open it, and inside there is a miniscule photo of a girl. Engraved on the opposite smooth side is my name.

All these thoughts run through my mind like bullets against my head as I grunt. There is a man on top of me. He twists my abdomen viciously, and a shoot of pain runs through my body - pain tolerance or not, it fucking hurts.

I hiss under my breath. There's another girl on the other side of the room. Her screams are still running through the room.

Her name is Carla.

We're inside the Shimada house. She's pressed up to the door that bangs wildly from the other side, an oversized katana in hand. There are people on the other side. Their shouts are ringing louder than hers; actively threatening whoever is at the root of the ruckus, and that Carla is going to be okay.

I twist my body just in time as the large man makes another effort to keep me down. A second too late for him, I strike my elbow out into his gut, earning a roar and a punch my way. I slip away just in time, my quick reflexes earning me a skip in my step.

How did I get here?

My stomach tightens wickedly, but it isn't because of the injuries I've sustained.

It's because I'm starving.

My hand hovers around behind me, feeling at the wall and grasping at whatever promising solid object touches my hand as another wave of pain passes the entirety of my body.

"You little bitch." He turns around, revealing a knife that hadn't been there before and swings it mercilessly. He doesn't care if it's an untidy job anymore- his mind is turned into overdrive, ignoring every other sense there is. He's stalwart on killing me.

Just as I'm a second away from a stab to my chest, I swing around the object behind me. A winebottle. He's seen it, but it's too late. It curves around-

-my hand wraps around his wrist-

-and it smashes, hard, against the right temple of his face.

Things seem to go in slow motion. The cracked glass falls away, piece by piece- rivers of wine slip inbetween, its container now broken and gravity taking control. Shards embed itself into his forehead as blood -oh, god, the blood- perpetrates his skin, pressure pushing out from all directions. When I hit, I hit hard. His skull must have broken. The side of his head explodes.

And then there is silence. The hard bangs against the door, the kid's scream, the man's cry of pain seem to fade out of existence as my eyes are focused on one thing and one thing only.

I fall over forward, no longer able to care that this man is still alive. The small doubt in my mind, stating he must be unconscious flickers away as my drive for sustenance takes advantage and takes over.

My hands grapple at his face, pushing away the remnants of the bottle. My mouth cups over the bloody hole and laps at the oozing liquid. I don't stop to breathe. I just eat, not bothering to sink my teeth in. He's still moaning.

I haven't eaten for almost three months. I should be dead.

The effects are instantaneous. The adrenaline is still running through my body, but I can feel the relief wash over me like a tidal wave.

My ripped clothing, clammy skin, sunken eyes, knotted hair pointing in all directions hardly matter. For a few moments, nothing goes through my mind. There's absolute silence- every alarm in my body that had previously been blaring were quiet. There was nothing but me and my food.

Ten seconds. Fifteen seconds go by by the time I realize the kid was standing over me. I'd been so engrossed in the stuff that kept me alive that I'd not once stopped. I didn't even see the katana raised above her head. It came down in an arc... almost peacefully.

Everything else happens quickly.

My head snaps in another direction - unnaturally, by the look on her face.

Oh, god, I didn't mean to. It wasn't me.

But it wasn't me in control then. It wasn't.

One second was all it took. One moment she was standing over me - this Shimada kid locked in the same room as me - and the next, she was on the other side of the room, a trail of blood in her wake the moment she was thrown.

I could hear the sickening crack of skull against metal. She was dead instantaneously.

The girl glanced away from the water's edge, wasting no time in jumping directly into the pond. It was freezing, but she didn't seem to care, as she disappeared into the depths. It was a better distraction than last night, and she couldn't afford to waste time right now. It may well be the last time she saw Hanzo, for all she knew.

If Hanzo huffed, she didn't hear it from under the water. Not until she came back to breathe, at least- breaking through the surface, she whipped her hair one way, water droplets escaping in large quantities. The first thing she saw through the holes in her hair was a none-too-happy face.

"Carla," he snapped. "Are you trying to die? You'll freeze to death before you leave the water!"

She huffed again, still ever quiet. "I'm fine," she said, despite a sharp feeling making its way up her abdomen.

It hasn't fully healed yet.

"Am I not allowed to feel alive for a little while longer before father takes me away?" She wiped away brown smears that had made themselves at home along her arms, cursing as her breath hitched. Cold.

Any concern that had flashed by Hanzo's eyes was quickly shut down as he extended a hand, too stubborn to let it show.

A ridged eyebrow on her face shot up for a moment before she took it, refusing to show any more discomfort. Calling the cold wind against her drenched clothes pleasant would be... the wrong choice of wording, but above anything, it made her feel alive. The blood running through her body, adrenaline coursing through her vains and her heart beating a thousand miles a minute - all working to keep her awake - was what she yearned for, behind this facade.

The water seeped from her clothes, her hands wrapping around her clump of hair and throwing it over her shoulder.

"All gone," she murmured. Hanzo let go once she stood on her own two feet, staying unnaturally quiet.

Moments passed by as the pair said nothing. Her eyes were cast over the rippling waters as a familiar ribbon danced in the air, loose from her wrist.

I don't know what happened. I can't remember. I can't.

She was on her feet now. She didn't know how long she'd been standing, or how much time had passed since. Nor even was she aware of how she'd been able to stop lapping at the blood that kept her alive.

Maybe because the bangs on the door had stopped. Maybe because she was in a daze.

Either way, the pressure was getting to her. If the silence was any indication, the head of the Shimada family was about to burst through the door. Walking into a room with a mess of a girl, a bloody corpse and their dead daughter... they would torture her worse than just burn her on a stake.

My name is Petra.

Her heart beat faster as shouting from outside the door neared. The voices were different now. His name is Sojiro, I think.

My name is Petra.

I didn't have time to make a decision. I couldn't jump through the window- the fall probably wouldn't kill me because of what I am, but the guards and their silver spears certainly would.

I whipped around to the still little girl on the other side of the room and look at my hands. Before I know what I'm doing, I find myself glancing into the grand japanese-esque mirror on a desk beside me.

A pair of wild, sharp eyes belonging to a woman looks back. She has dark, thin eyebrows, short black hair that curls at its ends and freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. Her face is smeared with blood and dirt, more than one small cut littered across it.

It isn't even my old body, and I'm doing it again. I'm running further and further away from who I am. I'm turning into more of a ghost every time this happens.

But if I do not, I will die.

She woman turns away from the mirror, and I move towards the girl. I trace my hands hesitantly across her face, sliding a finger down to her wrist, while a hand presses against her chest.

I know she's already dead, but a part of me is screaming that I check anyway.

I am not surprised by the stillness of the result I get, but I feel a part of me break. Why do I feel like this? I knew she'd died the moment she hit the wall. Why?

This is fucking useless. A waste of time.

My hands turn deft, staring intently at her corpse while I feel around her head. I don't slow down, even as my finger makes contact with the warm blood fresh in her hair.

My name is Petra.

I bring it to my mouth.

At first, there is nothing.

And then I feel it.

A small buildup of pain makes itself known in some of my joints. I can feel my insides shifting, parts of me moving aside and knitting together- I'm not sure where I'd start if I had to explain it, but if I had to choose a single word, it would be... changing. I press my eyes closed, pushing away from her body; small temporary fractures shiver upside my body, but I've done this for so long I barely give the pain any notice.

By the time things subside, I've hunched my body forward and everything gradually feels... smaller. Shorter. The ground feels closer than it had been before, and when hair far longer than it had been before falls over my shoulder, and I open my eyes to flex my knuckles, I know it has been done.

I waste no time. I put my hands under her body, hauling her up and standing on my own two feet, walking towards the window. Her body must be... deposited elsewhere. I'll bury it. I have to.

I stop only once to glance hesitantly into the mirror I'd looked into before.

Carla Shimada, daughter of Sojiro, sister to two brothers, stares back.

"Did you plan on staying sour, or are you going to say something?" Carla - or rather Petra - asks.

Hanzo had a few choice words in mind, but decided to try an alternate route. He was running on limited time... couldn't afford to waste anything. Catching on the risk of her getting a chest infection only shortened how long he could spare- she needed to be inside soon, but not before he took his chance. He needed to see what he could pick apart while he had the opportunity.

Ever the suspicious twelve-year old Hanzo.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

For a moment her heart almost sunk before she was able to check off any chance of him knowing. No, she was fine.

"Mm."

"Lier."

"You want to wear Sojiro's coat?" She asked satirically, finally turning to look him in the eye.

A slight sneer crept up his features. "No."

"You won't get the chance again. So melodramatic. Too unfashionable?"

"Please," he huffed, but allowed the tiniest smile to steal away his lips for the first time. Good a sign as ever, right?

A quiet laugh-snort escaped through her nose. A pregnant pause ensued.

I panted slowly, having forgot how frail the body of a ten-year old is. I cringed slightly at the thought, deciding not to dwell on it anymore. Reverting to my old one, I could have brought the body from one side of the room to the other, but like this, it took me precious time. Still, I could not afford to turn in the heat of the moment. Pests are to be exterminated, and she had no doubt in her mind they would do worse than that.

The last minute had been spent snatching cups, containers, glasses- crumbling through her fingers, falling in cracks- anything able to keep in contents.

After that, she'd scrounged the man's body; she'd done it too many times to feel any bout of sickness at the image. His mutilated body must be harvested quickly - broken like an eggshell so that the contents will pour fresh in similarity to his skull. He was no longer recognisable, and whatever godforsaken excuse she could tell to them in this little girl's body was the least of her worries now. Oh, god, Sojiro could have opened up the door at any moment... fancy goblets and little ringboxes she used to keep his blood, he'd have watched his daughter cannibalise a man for his lifeblood. It was sprayed over her fingers, her hair, clothes, knees- it only deepened the situation she would be in further down the line, but at least he wouldn't have to walk into her only minutes before- without control of her what her own mind nor limbs chose what and what not to do, it would have been beyond a savage image. His insides were still spread across the floor now, and a sight to see even a Shimada assassin would have trouble keeping inside his stomach full. She'd slid them under the bed - drawer - even outside the window and into the bushes below, to collect later. Upon second thoughts, it probably wasn't a good idea to hide blood in the same room that would likely be pilfered, foraged and cajoled mercilessly later on - probably wasn't a good idea to start with my next few month's food supply over hiding the body, either - but in the heat of the moment, I'd made a decision.

Fuck if I'm a bad decision-maker. In any body.

Now, at the end of the room - at the window where she leaned precariously, body in arms - she was ready.

I had no time. I had no right to, but my fingers were already tracing her skin softly, as if wiping away tears if she'd had the time to cry any.

No child deserved this. It wasn't even some sort of... sort of victim of war thing.

It was just a mistake. A fucking unlucky inconvenience.

I cannot change this.

My palms opened up, my fingers letting loose as she slowly drifted away further from me. Her small body rolled off of my arms, gravity claiming her to the grounds. She was swept softly down the bushes, rolled into a field of flowers underneath a canopy of leaves.

I'm sorry, little one.

And then the door burst open. I'd already turned around a second early - what kind of reflex is that? - and there he was. Head of the Shimadas.

Sojiro.

While I was frozen in place, his expression seemed to do the same. A mix of a contortion of rage, dried tears that had probably been wiped away shamefully under the pretense lie that "a man should never cry".

He had already seen everything. The body, the blood, the knives and katana that had clattered to the floor.

And his baby girl, leaning on the window by her back.

Sojiro did not know when he had started running, only that he did. He ran and he did not stop. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around his daughter, and he did not let go.

Petra didn't know why her vision was blurred with little tears, after that. She had no right to cry deceitfully in the stead of this little girl. He had no idea what really happened to his daughter.

That is why she cried.

And under the mumbles of her supposed father, going over the same old 'you are alright' and 'you're safe' and 'we're okay's, under his break of character behind the curtain, over his shoulder -

Was a little Hanzo, staring into space and the chaos this little room held.

He had been the second faint voice behind the door, and Petra felt more deceitful than she ever had been in her life before, despite not remembering where her story had even began by how many lives she had pretended to live in the shadow of society.

But she couldn't care. She is nothing but a parasite. Parasites could not afford to, nor did they have the neural capacity nor brains to begin to know anything more than survival. Parasites do not have hearts.

Right?

I will bury her tonight. They may not have closure until the day they realize the supposed Carla has been outside the house for too long - I will have left - and they stumble across the grave whose date they will think is wrong.

I will retrieve her body,

and I will bury Carla tonight.

"Fuck," she muttered. By the look Hanzo gave her she guessed Carla didn't often swear.

Fuck.

But... it didn't matter. She'd be a fool to think that Sojiro would do anything else but seperate her from her kin and raise her differently. Or if the conversation of him and a relative she'd eavesdropped on earlier revealing this was any sign, at least. It would be her last chance.

And she won't have even met her youngest brother.

Maybe that was a blessing in disguise.

"I can't breathe in this tension. Just... break the ice," she continued, looking at him straight. "What is it you want to know?"

He looked at her long and hard, and for a moment, she even wondered how she'd get out of this one if he asked the obvious. She supposed it didn't matter now.

He shook his head, allowing himself a little flexibility by raising his legs and crossing them underneath them. It seemed the breaking of the ice had done some good, after all.

"I'm not going to ask you how. Such things should be private. You are alive, and that is all that matters."

...

...

"But you are aware of what this grand Shimada clan does, right?"

His eyes cast downwards into the waters thats ripples had since calmed dramatically, narrowing them as he went on.

"They kill. People. Trade the poison and guns father's friends use. The Dragons do not differentiate us from any other assassin across the country," he continued, whispering his last sentence.

"You wonder why my vocabulary is different from yours," he said sarcastically now, allowing the tiniest hint of satire as he raised his head to meet her eyes.

"I am the eldest child. They have been grooming me since the day I was born to take it over when I am of age."

And then he stopped. No continuation, no follow-up, nothing to say whether or not he desired the spot of the clan leader one day or if he didn't. The statement hung in the air grimly. She imagined this would have been on his mind for a while now- Hanzo never got close to 'opening up' - father would disapprove. He hadn't even so much as practised anything venting, and perhaps he wasn't doing it right. But... it was different when you were saying it to someone both people knew well they wouldn't see one another again.

They would know. Hanzo was in the same hallway as her when both kids overheard father in the next room.

But she said nothing, in turn. There was nothing she could say to change anything, and he just needed to say it- he didn't seek 'approval', nor anything close to understanding.

Just a listener who was about to disappear. He would allow that, and she knew respectfully that silence worked best.

Even if she was an imposter under everyone's noses.

"Alright," he finally murmured. "Contrary to what you may think, I don't want you to freeze to death. Yet."

A blouse fell over her shoulders, none too kindly. She knew what he meant.

A light snort escaped her mouth this time and she nodded, standing up. He'd already made his way up the rocks, trenchcoat under his arm, expecting her to follow without looking behind him. She only stopped him once.

"Hanzo."

"Carla."

"Can you do me a final favour?"

"No, but you will force me anyway."

"Don't tell Genji." About me.

He stopped at the edge. He glanced around to meet a sincere face- or something close to it, anyway. A wave of understanding had already passed him, even if he didn't show it- and of course he didn't, choosing to react with a slow but stoic nod instead.

In what they'd overheard earlier, Sojiro didn't plan to- she doubted Hanzo would go against his father's wishes anyway, but she ultimately wanted to be sure. She didn't know why.

But the thought of Genji growing up without knowing he had a sister was reassuring.

And of course it was bad, too. It was. But he would be spared the mess of what a parasite had caused, and anything else caught in the crossfire.