Nya, you reviewers just keep petting my ego like a little fluffy kitten. :-)

I have been poisoned by the following anime: Tsubasa RC, D.Gray-Man, xxxholic, Death Note, Fushigi Yuugi, Wolf's Rain. YES, BITTORRENT, I AM LOOKING AT YOU. I have a freshly bought volume 7 of Ghost in Shell 2nd gig sitting on my shelf and I haven't watched it yet. I am ashamed.

I'm also ashamed that I actually enjoy Fushigi Yuugi, but that's another story. :-P

I pumped the rating up for gore. Like, X/1999-style birth-of-the-sacred-sword gore. I loved that scene.

Blood Stigma

Chapter 7: Vision

Glou liked to believe that Albel never noticed the sword that Glou had carefully mounted on the wall in his bedchambers. In hindsight, Glou considered that belief to be rather foolish.

The Crimson Scourge might as well have been a large, mysterious and shiny jar sitting on the very top of a tall set of shelves, the kind that any four-year-old would find tortuously tantalizing.

There was something about that weapon that told Albel it was not just an ordinary katana. He could sense something from it – he didn't know quite what it was, but it was something that filled him with a insuppressible nervous energy. It was a weapon that should never have been left to rust on the wall. It would only feel right when in his hand.

When Glou was away tending to his diplomatic duties, Albel crept into his father's room and looked up at the sword resting on the metal bracket. He just needed to feel it in his hand, to swing it like it like he knew it wanted to be swung.

As Albel stepped closer to the wall, he could hear the weapon humming, almost vibrating with anticipation. He reached up, and swallowed hard. No hesitation now. His fingers clasped the hilt.

Something like an electric shock coursed through Albel's body on contact, causing his entire body to spasm. His knees buckled; his fingers, still locked around the hilt, gripped the katana as it followed him to the floor. The steel of the sword screeched in harsh tones against the edge of the metal wall rack, the weapon dragging downwards in his fist as Albel's free palm hit the floor.

His breathing was heavy and ragged, his eyes open wide. The speeding blood in his body seemed to press against his veins. Albel had never felt this way before in his life. It was ecstasy.

Jumping to his feet like he had never fallen, Albel took a few experimental swings, but it wasn't good enough. The Scourge hadn't been forged to cut air. It wanted to cut into flesh, taste blood, and hit bone, seeking even further to reach the source of life and snuff it out. It wanted violence.

Albel was never able to say what it was that kept him from running out the door and impaling the first beating heart he saw. The sword filled him so completely that he needed to push the energy out of himself. He bounced on his toes and began going through some of his solo sword routines at double-speed. Dear God, he needed to hit something. His heart seemed to bruise the inside of his ribcage with each beat. He felt painfully hot. He wanted impact. Resistance. Stab slice slash cut cut cut cut cut CUT.

When Albel was done, not a single thing in his father's bedchambers was left whole. Pillows and futon were split open, spraying feathers and straw to every corner of the room. The wooden bedstead, the closet, all hacked and split beyond repair. His father's clothes provided no satisfaction at all. Too soft. Striking the stone walls only made his arms ache.

But even after decimating the room, the Crimson Scourge was still sharp enough to cut a hair.

Albel tried to pour all the heat into the room, but the weapon continued to pour more into him faster than he could release it. It demanded an outlet, and when Albel, exhausted, was unable to comply, It pounded at him, seeking an internal victim for its limitless rage. Albel's vision blurred, eyes shifting in and out of focus. He began to feel dizzy and sick.

The colors in front of his eyes began to bleed into each other, mixing and changing form. Blurred edges became clearer and a new scene met Albel's eyes. Scattered amongst the ruins of the chamber were limbs, bones, and unidentifiable lumps of flesh. It was hard to believe that all the blood splattered on the walls, ceiling and floor had belonged to only one person. But it had to be a single person. There was only one head.

The familiar face of his father smiled up at him from the floor, the severed neck still oozing dark blood.

Albel's arms could remember the stab, the slicing of skin and muscle and bone. His blade was still wet. He reached up to touch his face and felt the droplets of blood splattered there.

He felt amazing. He felt sick. Something inside him rebelled just as another part reveled in the joy, the exhilaration that rushed through him. Like a white-hot brand – jealousy anger hate RAGE and he wanted to cut and maim and kill and DESTROY and he would LOVE it oh he would –

– Power.

Albel began to smell smoke. His left arm was twisting, distorting, morphing from solid to gas. The smoke crept up into his nose and mouth, suffocating him. He choked, stumbling forward. He tried to break his fall with his left hand, but the hand seemed to go straight through the floor and Albel's face hit the ground.

Pushing off the ground with his sword arm, be brought his shoulder around to look at his left arm. He had to do something about this. It was going to kill him.

Unhesitating, Albel brought his sword arm around to lay the blade just below his bared shoulder, right before the smoke began. At this awkward angle, he wouldn't be able to swing the blade, he would only be able to saw.

At first it didn't hurt. It was only after he saw the growing puddle of blood pooling on the floor that he felt the blade lodged in his flesh and he screamed, wrenching the sword from his arm and forcing his fingers, unclamping them one by one to drop the blade.

In that moment he was terrified. The first thing that hit him was the instinct to run.

Scrambling to his feet and clasping his wounded arm, Albel ran out of his father's room, slamming the door behind him as if a slab of wood could protect him from what had just happened. He paused outside the door as he stood in his family's living quarters. Where was there to run to? Castle guards were everywhere. He couldn't go into the city and he definitely couldn't go into the mountains.

Albel calmed his heartbeat, went into his room and pulled a roll of bandages out of his wooden trunk. He wound the white strip around his arm without care for the pain, then gingerly removed his sleeveless shirt in favour of a long-sleeved one.

He didn't have an excuse or a story, but that didn't matter. Glou was not going to get a thing out of him.