Crimson Rubies, Rose's Blood
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Your face is so pretty, Kurama. It doesn't belong here, with the hordes of demons and beasts. Like a light among the darkness, it is too different. Too strange. But your hair, so bright...it makes me think of the blood that will soon stain your clothes, spreading until it swallows up all of you - all of you except your face.
Your face I will leave intact, Kurama. Do you know why? Your eyes I leave so that you can watch your own demise, spiraling towards you, closer and closer and closer until you know that death is mere seconds away. I can already imagine the way those glittering emeralds will dart back and forth, frantic, as you try to think of some way you can save yourself. But nothing will save you then.
Your ears I will not touch, Kurama. Do you know why? Because, Kurama - because I want you to hear the pounding of your own heart as your end nears. I want you to hear yourself gasp for breath, wheeze and pant until the noise slows and you fall, giving up at last. You keep your ears so you can hear your killer laughing, laughing, delighting in the fading of your strength.
You nose and mouth I will not mar, Kurama. Do you know why? I wish that you would smell your fear floating on the air, taste it upon the back of your tongue. I want you to fear me. I want you to know that it is I, I who have always had the power to end your life with a single movement, a single word. As you die, I want you to be ashamed, ashamed that your soul is shattered at last. Shattered. Shattered like a stained-glass window, a thing of beauty no longer.
Your soul I will break, Kurama, but your face I will leave. Then everyone will know you for what you truly are - weak. Your pretty face is nothing but a facade, a mask. You wear a mask just as I do, but at least I behind mine am still strong. You are weak, Kurama. Your soul is weak. Your pitiful human body is weak. The fox has left you once again, Kurama. You stand no chance against me. You never did.
You are a flower, Kurama. You are a rose. You are a rose and I am a rock. You could never hurt me, but I will crush you in the end. Beautiful, yet so pathetically fragile. Easily breakable. It strikes me as strange that you should fight with something so delicate, and so similar to yourself.
The petals of your roses are crimson, Kurama, crimson like your hair, crimson like the blood that is soon to be spilt. Every time you try to escape, your hair fans out behind you, mingling with the swirling mass of rose petals, borne by an imaginary wind. To me they are drops of blood, to me they are red, red rubies. Red is a beautiful color - don't you agree, Kurama? Like yourself. Very like yourself.
Roses have no right to exist, Kurama. Do you know why? Because, Kurama - because they are beautiful. Beautiful, but useless. I want to crush them beneath my feet without a second thought, as I shall soon crush you. You are beautiful, and you are useless, and you should never have existed. Even if it was not by my hand, Kurama, that you should fall, sooner or later another would have destroyed you in my stead.
I hate roses, just as I hate you. You deserve to die, Kurama, for being the flower that you are.
You deserve to die, but I will leave you your pretty face. So I would treat a rose - crush the stem and leaves, yet keep the petals as they are, as a reminder, as a bloodstained memory.
Roses have thorns, Kurama, but they are feeble weapons indeed. They may penetrate the skin of the rose's holder and draw forth a single drop of blood, but what use is that? Most would prefer a blade, an easy way of slicing away another's life in a spray of crimson. Yet you, Kurama, always you are strange in your choice of tools.
You challenged me for wondering why I kept looking at you so oddly, did you not? You wish to know the truth now, do you not?
The truth is simple, Kurama. From the moment I first saw you, I only wanted to destroy you. I am not a rose like you. I am something far different, something much stronger.
Destroy. Crush. Annihilate. Exterminate. All such beautiful words. All of these mean one thing: I want to kill you, Kurama. And I shall.
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At the very spot where the black-haired raven last stood, a plant grows out of the arena floor. It will soon be trampled as more battles are played out, but for a few precious moments it blooms in crimson glory, blood-red petals the only remnant of one who had never understood the true meaning of strength. Close to the plant, one with hair that matches the vibrant red of the flower stands triumphant, not noticing, not caring.
We are all roses on the inside.