'And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity.' –Edgar Allen Poe


He had done horrible, terrible things in his lifetime.

He had seen the results of these deeds- the tears shed by grieving mothers, daughters, wives, sons, husbands, brothers, sisters; shriveled crops and starving villages; illness sweeping across the entirety of the country, carried by the corpses of the unburied dead.

He had witnessed firsthand the damage he had done to innocent people, and while guilt was the last thing on his mind at the moment, he feared the time when he had no more distractions. Families had been torn apart because of him, including his own.

He was in a war where the number of casualties greatly surpassed the number of soldiers; where the injured, bleeding, dying, dead were almost always people who had never carried a real weapon in their entire lives. Throughout the entire ordeal, he regarded this fact with cool acceptance, knowing that the first sign of emotion he showed would mark the beginning of his end. In such a war, there was no room for compassion.

He rarely traveled far, knowing that he was both endangered and protected within the grimy walls of a dilapidated castle. A force greater than he had ever battled resided with him- in him- and running would never accomplish anything.

He knew pain, sorrow, and anger well. The pain was his own; a deep, aching feeling in his back where he knew a shard of the shikon no tama to be. Sorrow belonged to his sister, who held out hope that he would return to her alive. Last of all, anger was the Wind Itself, who furiously struggled against her bindings in vain.

He was dead, dying, and already forsaken the eyes of whichever god might have had him. Amber, the murderer, slayer of countless hundreds- demons, humans, animals-, just another of Naraku's puppets. His soul might be gone for all he knew; perhaps he was only an empty shell… sometimes he half-wondered if Kanna controlled his every movement, thought, feeling with that demonic mirror of hers, and sometimes he found he didn't care either way.

He could no longer convince himself he was following orders, and on more than one occasion, he pondered the idea that maybe these horrors were done of his own will, and not that of Naraku's at all. When his blade slashed through the air, he tried to detect any uncertainty within himself: any hesitance towards the task at hand. It occurred rarely, if ever.

He could not recall a time when he didn't reek of blood. Lying awake at night, he felt himself surrounded by the overpowering stench of blood and poison- result of his prolonged exposure to a powerful demon's raw, unmasked aura. Occasionally, on such a night, he would find himself dreaming of a pretty brown-eyed girl, and it was only then that the tears would come.

He would sob in a muffled, constricted fashion- throat burning, and eyes red and sore. The word 'sister' jumped to mind, but was gone in the next instant, as would any thoughts of the girl who might have once been his sibling. One day, soon perhaps, he would see her in the heat of battle and look at her with unrecognizing eyes.

Some day, they would be able to dry one another's tears.


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