'Hold on...

...hold on...

...hold on...

Hold on'

This couldn't be real.

It wasn't.

This...wasn't his life.

There was no way that this unspeakable atrocity had just happened to him.

Not to him.

Not after everything else the fates had so cruelly forced him to endure up until this very moment.

Because...if it had...there was no way that he would have actually survived the grotesquely horrific incident and lived.

But the harsh, noxious odor of antiseptic iodine solution that flooded his senses with the sharp, ragged inhalation of breath through his slender nose told him otherwise. That he was...in fact...still alive. Despite his very best efforts. Haunted, lifeless eyes of amethyst lingered along the fruits of his desperation and bitter despair. The sickening color of brownish orange stain bleeding through the white medical gauze wrapping both of his wrists as they rested palm up against the orange of his prison jumpsuit trousers. Furling and unfurling his fingers, skin and tendons painfully flexed against the sutures underneath the wrapping.

Pain.

There was so much pain.

And this pain viciously mocked him, heartlessly laughing at his feeble, failed attempt as it reminded him of why he had been led to such extreme despair in the first place. His jaw clenched in almost visceral disgust towards the memory, causing the light tug of adhesive along the hollow of both cheeks. A shaky hand lifted up towards the bandage as long, slender fingers stretched out to run and lightly caress the length of his right cheek to the corner of his lip where the stitches underneath the bandage ended. The muscles of his jaw tensed and flexed against the sutures of his cheeks and tremble of his lower lip as his hand drifted back to his lap.

So much pain.

Pain...as he tightly clenched his hands into hardened fists. The tender inflamed skin of his bandaged wrists protesting along the stretch of his sutures.

Pain...as he curled and hunkered in on himself. His abdomen and diagram tightening to dangerously compromise his breathing.

Pain...as he squeezed tearless eyes shut and his mouth stretched wide open in searing agony against the sutures of his cheeks. His whole body violently tensing and shaking uncontrollably in a terrifyingly silent scream as absolutely nothing came forth from his lips.

He was still alive. Even though the mere memory now threatened to tear him apart from the very inside, he had survived. Survived...the brutality of a horrifically vicious attack he had endured at the hands of a group of prisoners only days before while completely vulnerable and defenseless in the communal shower. Savagely beaten, his body repeatedly and deplorably abused by one attacker after the other, he had been left barely breathing and physically marred along his face as a constant reminder of his place in this world.

Yet...he had survived.

At least in body.

He had survived.

Which had led him to where he was. Right now. Because his attackers had left him with the anguish and humiliation of this memory...and his life. So these past days had been spent in formulating a plan. Because he'd had nothing left in him, yet was cursed with the beating heart in his chest. A heart filled with more darkness and pain than anyone should have to bear. An inhumane, depraved heart that simply refused to relent and release his soul from the prison of his broken body. Because as soon as he had found resolve and means to take his own life by way of a makeshift blade to his wrists, he had been immediately discovered by one of the guards and his self inflicted wounds were quickly stitched and bound.

And his wretched life was spared again as he felt himself propelled into perpetual darkness.

...without her...

In the absence of her light, darkness began to prevail in his heart and in his mind.

And he began to feel it. That he was slowly and helplessly giving way to this darkness.

"Well well..." The strange lilt of a heavy voice drawled in slight amusement as Yuki was drug from these thoughts threatening to consume him, lifeless eyes of amethyst slowly lifting from the bandages along his wrists. "What do we have here?" Yuki's hollow, empty gaze met a fierce onyx stare as the man looked down on Yuki from where he sat. "Looks like you've seen better days." That dark obsidian gaze lingered along his face as Yuki's expression remained flat and void of emotion. "The name's Akito." The man uttered, crossing his arms along his chest with a smirk as he forwent shaking hands with the wounded prisoner.

"Yuki." His own name came muttered reluctantly from lifeless lips before the man let out a snort of laughter at his expense.

"I know who you are." The man drawled in a thick, heavy accent and a sardonic smirk of a smile. "Ice Prince." He spat this name as Yuki scowled towards the insulting tone. "Butcher of his own bride." This came uttered in the man's strange drawl as he gave the soft cluck of his tongue. "You must have a heart of ice to have done something like that." This came followed by the small shake of his head and deprecating smirk. "Even through those unsightly bandages of yours," He spoke with the gesture of his head to the veiled wounds along Yuki's face. "I know you."

"You don't know anything." Yuki managed to counter this bitter defense, holding that dark onyx stare as the man gave himself over to a passive hum and the shrug of his toned shoulderline.

"We do get the news in here." The man offered through the sardonic smirk of a side smile. "So I think I know enough."

"I didn't kill her." Yuki bit this out in an aggressive hiss between his teeth as the man's eyebrows almost shot up into his hairline in amusement.

"Oh, don't tell me that's what you said to the judge and jury." The man barked out in his thick accent. "No wonder you're in here with the rest of us, friend." He finally gave himself over to a small chortle of laughter at Yuki's expense.

"It's the truth, whether you choose to believe it or not." This fell cold and lifeless from Yuki's lips as his gaze drifted away from the man back to his wrists. "I didn't do it..."

"Oh sure...mm-hm..." The man nodded emphatically in mock agreement, keeping his arms crossed along his chest. "Because death row is filled with innocent men just like you, hm?"

"Or like you?" Yuki spat, watching as the man's expression changed and subtly shifted with the sudden turn of this conversation.

"Don't compare my crime to yours, you filthy Jap." The man uttered this racial slur, the heat of his voice matching the fierce intensity of his dark foreboding gaze. "I did what I did, make no mistake about that." His voice grew just a bit lower and more ominously dark as he spoke without remorse. "And I would do it again, because it was necessary to make my point." He took a threatening step forward. "Because blood, death, and extreme acts of violence seem to be the only thing you filthy disgusting roaches understand!" The man finally unfolded his arms, muscles coming flexed and tensed as his hands clenched into tight fists. "Never compare yourself to me."

The man's body language screamed menacing hostility and ill intent as he took another step forward. And Yuki found his arm unconsciously raised to instinctively shield himself in an almost pitifully submissive act of self defense. Akito stopped suddenly, his dark gaze taken in by the bandages as his expression relaxed some with the unfurling of his fingers and the smallest of sighs that passed through his nose. His stance calmer now, and far less menacing, Akito took a slight step back as Yuki's arm slowly drifted away and towards his lap once more.

A moment of silence followed as the two regarded each other before Akito's voice finally broke the quiet standoff.

"I'd tell you to watch your ass, my friend." He murmured with the small smirk of a smile. "But it seems that bit of advice might be coming a little too late." Lifeless, empty eyes drifted away in silence as Yuki avoided responding to this barb.

"May I see..?"

Amethyst eyes lifted towards the man's face as brows knitted together in slight befuddlement. But Akito's expression was calm and passive, his dark obsidian gaze eyeing the wraps along Yuki's wrists as he waited for a response. And Yuki held still for a moment, not entirely sure what the man was searching for.

What he wanted.

...what did he want..?

Akito made no further move towards Yuki, simply waiting in the silence that ensued as Yuki thought over this request. Slowly extending his arm towards the man, Yuki held his breath as Akito slowly approached and claimed his hand to turn it palm up. Black orbs took in and lingered along the bandage, trailing the length of vertical brownish stain seeping through where the wound had been saturated in iodine as he let out a low whistle.

"Well, shit." Akito murmured passively as he continued to stare at the bandage. "You weren't messing around, were you?" With that, Yuki slipped his hand from the man's grasp.

"No." Yuki uttered, his voice cold and frigid. "I wasn't." He acknowledged this truth feebly as he averted his gaze.

"Trying to run from your fate?" The man questioned as Yuki gave a bitter snort of a hollow laugh.

"I'm already sentenced to death." Yuki quipped sourly. "I wasn't running from anything." To this he felt the involuntary quiver of his lip. "They should've just let me die and saved themselves the trouble." His gaze came so far off and distant in thought. "...why didn't they just let me die..?"

...oh, how desperate this desire was in him...

To die.

"Well that's simple." The man murmured, having made himself more comfortable in this conversation as he leaned himself against the nearby wall and folded his arms to his chest once more. "You're thinking about this all wrong. That your death sentence is the punishment that the courts handed to you." This came with the soft cluck of the tongue. "But it's not." Akito lulled in that thick drawl as he continued. "Death isn't your punishment, my friend." This came with the pointed stare of those black orbs. "Because death in and of itself is deemed far too merciful for your crime." Lips came twisted in a small, knowing smirk. "What this so called justice system wants...is for you to suffer before they legally terminate your life at a time of their choosing. And the truth of the matter is that there is nowhere else on earth you could possibly suffer more than right here." The smirk playing along his lips now formed into a full fledged smile towards Yuki. "That's the real punishment, my friend."

"...but..." Yuki breathed as his brows furrowed under the weight of Akito's words. "...the end is the same." His lip trembled as he clenched his fists, feeling the stretch and searing pain of his stitches. "Whether they take my life...or..." His gaze lingered along the wrapping of his wrists, unable to finish the death wish lingering just on the tip of his tongue as the silence that followed was consumed by the softest of sighs.

"Believe me..." The man murmured lightly, offering final words of bitter consolation. "It's very rarely considered justice when you take matters into your own hands."

A/N: Wow. Three months since the last update on this. Good job, me. Way to go. I want to say thank you all for continuing to follow this story. And, I'm happy to say, I am feeling it coming to and end. Soon...ish...

Also, my sincerest apologies for all those I psychologically scarred with the last chapter. Honestly...I apologize for this whole story, really. It's pretty much all just terrible. But you guys keep coming back for more, so I feel obliged to provide you beautiful masochists what you want. It's the least I can do...