Prompt: Spade

When a fortune teller had refused to tell his future, he hadn't cared all that much. He was being forced into it by the group of people he'd been traveling with, and it didn't matter to him one way or the other. It was when she called him the human incarnation of the Ace of Spades that his interest was piqued.

She refused to tell him any more, regardless of how much he pressured her to enlighten him, so he left, wondering what on earth something like that might mean.

Through another world, they had said that he was one of those cursed people that brought devastation wherever they walked, that he was afflicted by some seven sins or something, and that he corrupted their holy spaces. He found one of their followers eating lunch at a cafe and cornered him to get more information.

He was never one for people saying things about him that he didn't understand.

And so, Kurogane pondered their accusations.

Sloth has never been his forte; no matter how he starts his day or goes through it, he doesn't slack. You want laziness, talk to the mage. He had work to do. Such as finding all these damn feathers (he'd spent an afternoon when they'd all gone to the zoo, watching the tropical birds and trying to get a count on their feathers, figuring Sakura would have a few times that number. It was depressingly large) or returning to Nihon to get back to protecting the palace and roosting on Shirasaki's roofs.

Greed, he considered, had never been a problem. He had few goals, and while he wanted them to succeed, he wasn't deadset on obtaining possessions for himself. Ginryuu was all he had that truly mattered, and he'd make sure to get that back from the witch at any cost...

Gluttony, perhaps in bloodshed, he conceded, but even that was lessening. This damn curse was nothing if unforgiving, and he didn't like to push its limits. Typically, once he caused something to start bleeding, it tended not to stop easily. So, he left it at incapacitated.

Envy had only been a holiday experience, something that came about perennially but was pretty rare otherwise. Would he envy them their lives untouched by sorrow? Or course not, not any more. Perhaps the only thing he was really envious about what the fact that someone else would be protecting his princess while he was out gallivanting across worlds. And that bothered him more than he cared to admit...

Lust only in bloodlust, he told himself. Control was something he prided himself on, and he certainly wasn't going to let any irrational feelings get in his way when he came and beat any of Tomoyo's suitors to a pulp on his return. Feelings just needlessly complicated these things further.

Pride, perhaps. Alright, fine, he was proud. But hadn't that been the kind of pride that comes with accomplishment and hard work, the kind of back-breaking training that you feel good about having survived at the end of the day? He asked. Didn't you deserve to feel proud of your family, your country, proud that you were chosen above all the others to guard the princess, or proud that you had done your best to avenge the wrongs done to you?

He certainly felt like it.

But the last was something he couldn't debate. For he freely admitted, without any argument, that it was Wrath where he gave up. He wouldn't comment on how it took him over, fueled his actions, and occupied his brain. It was controlled, premeditated; he was far from attacking anyone in a rage, unprovoked. But wrath? Oh, he had it in spades.