Kourui no Yuki

by: Kagayaki Ame

            …..

            I suppose you're wondering why it was so difficult for me to ask Yuki to marry me.

            I mean, besides being afraid of rejection...

            I would say I was wondering that myself, but I knew... near the end anyway.

            Like I said, I just didn't want to think that she could be affected by my past. But I knew she could have. And deep down, I think I felt she would. But I didn't identify with that until it was far too late.

            They say hindsight is 20/20...

            That doesn't do you a damn bit of good after someone dies and you might have been able to prevent it.

            Everyone makes mistakes. I just happened to make the biggest one of my life at fifteen years old. Joining a radical group of up-stars like myself with incredible genius and even more incredible skill. A bored bunch of know-it-all punks who just wanted to make noise and be heard. We were going to be Japan's new heroes. Forget the old heroes and monsters like our fathers.

            Especially mine.

            In a strange way, I wanted to be just like him...

            The old him, anyway.

            Kill for good. Uphold my beliefs. Feel the rush.

            If it sounds insane, then you've never killed anyone.

            But I assure you, there is a definite rush when you slice through the flesh of another human being and feel the life force draining from their useless shells...

            There are three kinds of killers, however.

            The first kills and needs to do it again. Just to feel the rush. Just to feel alive. Soon, they convince themselves that this is the only way they CAN feel alive and must kill again and again, for whatever cause, until the day they themselves are killed.

            The second feels nothing at all. They begin as a bit of a soul and have it sucked from them to be left empty. They are convinced that their cause is the righteous and best and kill for it. They need not know what the person they're killing  is being killed FOR. They just need to know they have a reason to die.

            The third kills once. And only once. This is not a true killer, but a sad child who wants attention. They wake up after the rush and run home to their mommies, scared... sorrowful... and rid of their need to kill again.

            Before I killed, I scorned my father for being the second kind of killer. And admired him for the same reasons. I hated him because he'd changed. He was weak to me. Docile.

            And still better than I.

            He wouldn't teach me what he knew. But I learned anyway.

            He didn't support my feelings.

            So I rebelled...

            ::chuckles::

            I don't even really remember what we all rebelled against. We were just bored teenage misfits.

            .....

            Bored teenage misfits who decided to murder a very important man one night.

            I was the best with a sword in our group.

            They got the threats out of my way. And I killed the man.

            That's right.

            And afterward, as the gold cleared, I realized what I had truly done.

            Yes, the man was a pig. A thief. A sneak. A cheat. A dirty, fucking bastard.

            But I killed him.

            I... killed him.

            That was when I went home. We were all smart kids. We all went home.

            Except for one.

            He was the first kind of killer.

            And he took the rap.

            I imagine he was rather displeased at that. But we told him... we told him...

            Eventually life went back to normal. None of us talked about it after a while. I apologized to my father and mother. I tried to be the best son I could.

            And I returned my father's stolen Sakabatou.

            .....

            He never did ask me about the stains of blood...