Disclaimer: Character Do Not Belong To Me. I'm Poor Don't Sue Me! =(
Unravel
"Kaoru, you should get some rest."
I looked up and saw Megumi's deep brown eyes look at me in concern. I turned away, she shouldn't be concerned with someone like me. "I'm fine."
I must have said that a little too harshly, she flinched. "I know what today is."
"I know you do. I wanted to be alone, I thought I told you that."
"Kaoru."
She had stopped calling me tanuki after that day. I don't know why. I don't think I'd mind if she'd call me that again. I would give anything to be that tanuki she once knew. But that felt like a life time ago.
"I just want to be alone, please Megumi."
The doctor nodded and gave up. I heard her footstep become more faint as she left the room.
I didn't want anyone around. This day was meant for me to spend alone, to bear the weight of my sins and repent. I can still see all of their faces, the last the looked when they died. I would never forget, my moment of madness then.
The scar on my face and neck were still there, never fading, just like His. Ugly reminders of what I had done and faced. I had lost everything, failed to protect what I loved.
Megumi found me that night. I was unconscious but I could imagine what all looked liked and what kind of trauma she had endured because of me.
She told me I could have easily died but she had made it just in time. I think I would have preferred death at that moment, but I can't remember. Though it's better now, I can remember and pay for what I had done.
When I woke up, it was like a bad dream. Why had I lived? Why couldn't he have lived instead? Him, not me. For a selfish moment I thought He would come. He would comeback and say how everything would be ok. He would make it right and help me with the guilt. Guilt for killing them all.
But He left a year ago, promised to another. And I laughed, thinking how silly I was believing that he hadn't fallen in love again in those ten years he had wandered. What a ridiculous little girl I was.
He left us alone, to fend for ourselves. Fighting off his enemies as he disappeared into the night with his precious Aya. I was bitter and I did blame him. But I think now, it wasn't his fault, and if he did know He would have come back.
But he never did. And now Yahiko lies in the earth with the rest of my family. I know the brat would berate me for being as I am but all I can do is tell him I am sorry and that I can be nothing else. I am tainted beyond recognition and now must pay for my sins.
Megumi had taken me in and I had been a burden on her for far too long. When she left this room she did not know that it would be the last time we speak.
I walked to the chest and pulled out my traveling clothes. My legs are bare and the cloak covers my upper body. I place the sakabatou at my waist and walk out of the room.
I would repent for my sins the way I had seen Him do. The only way I knew how to.
"Happy Anniversary."