A/N: Happy Memorial Day, everyone.
Disclaimer: There is only so much to say before it is very redundant. So. No. Not mine.
Softly the curtains rippled as the breeze disturbed the papers in the empty classroom. Satoshi dabbed his paintbrush into the watercolours in the tray before him, then turned again to the remaining faint pencil lines and the white space left for him to fill in.
He set the bristles gently to the paper and let the colour bleed out from the delicate strokes, leaving behind a golden sheen on the sword hilt that stuck out from the withered autumnal tree.
"This is a waste of time."
Satoshi ignored the voice that lingered in his mind; he refused to let his hand falter.
"You cannot dabble, Satoshi-sama," Krad reminded him in a deceptively gentle tone. "You have work to accomplish."
"Yes. And I will accomplish it, in time," he murmured, then spared a glance out the window. Some of his schoolmates wandered about below, but he no longer saw or heard any hint that Harada-san lingered with her friends.
He turned from the window and dipped his brush into the cup of water beside his easel.
"You will never be what your ancestor was," Krad announced, scorn finally breaking through his words.
After another flicker of a glance towards the open window and the wide world that lay beyond, filled still with people untouched by darkness, he dried the brush and dipped it again into the colours spread before him. "That is my intention."