Prompt: Giving Thanks
Be grateful, he heard the servants say as they hustled him along down the hall to his quarters. You should be thankful that you weren't executed on the spot for attacking Her Imperial Majesty and the Tsukiyomi.
He could have laughed.
Grateful. That's what they wanted him to be.
What? Had they expected him to be brimming with fresh hope and aspiration, tears welling up in his eyes at the thought of the new life he was going to start? Fat chance. That was about as stupid as asking him if he was grateful that his parents were dead, if he was thanking whatever higher power was his to thank that he could leave his own country, only after having slain anything living enemy within his reach? Why wasn't he so repentant for his actions that he bowed and expressed his thanks to them seven times a day?
Was he grateful that they had taken him out of there, or that she had shattered his rage with a single sentence? He could have been another monster, wandering through the lands of Suwa, a warning for travelers passing.
But he was not. Instead, he was here.
He supposed that her elder sister must have been grateful not to have to lose an arm for the sake of protecting her people, and that the company of men set out to put down the threat was grateful the monsters wouldn't be coming back any time soon. The palace staff might be grateful to have a promising new recruit training to be a ninja. Maybe someone would sleep better.
But he? Was he truly thankful for anything?
He had a sword and he could use it. He had been taught, then had worked hard to learn the techniques on his own. He owed no one living gratitude for that.
The only thing he was truly grateful for, he conceded as he brushed off their hands and directions and struck out, was that they were buried together. That was the one thing he couldn't have done just as easily on his own.