I am so sorry that I have not updated in a long time, but I have been both really busy and in desperate need of the manga series. Fortunately, one of my friends came to the rescue and has lent me the series. Now I can have every quote that I could possibly want and the names of every single character. So please read, enjoy, and review.

Chapter 8: Mitsume

A few weeks after the incident that involved a large beam of light, Mitsume found himself once again walking. He wasn't heading anywhere in particular. Most days, he thought about the summer one year ago when he lost his eyes. He didn't know why he was thinking about this event so much more than he had already been thinking about it. He had tried to get the memories out of his mind when he was training at the dojo and had successfully done so save for the memories of Othello. Those he kept fresh in his mind for when the time came to get his eye back.

Mitsume did have to thank Othello though because, if it weren't for Othello, he would either be dead or just be roaming around the earth without anything to live for. Mitsume tried to think of what his life would be like without a purpose, but he couldn't think about it for some reason. Every time he did, he ended up thinking about some of the final words that Othello said to him:

"...go off, train, then come back and kill me. I look forward to it."

"Spend your life getting ready for the battle. There's your reason to live."

"My reason to live?" Mitsume muttered to himself. He stopped in front of a pond that was in the middle of a park that he had stumbled into. He picked up a small, flat pebble with his hand and tossed it up and down, catching it in his hand with ease each time. "Some reason…" he added in a low voice and tossed the pebble, making it skip over the water. He counted five bounces before it fell into the water to fall down to where the other pebbles were from when other people had skipped stones on this exact pond.

Mitsume crouched down on the banks of the pond and sighed. How was he supposed to find Othello? It wasn't exactly the easiest thing to do considering that Othello was from hell. The only way Mitsume knew how to get to hell was by dying because he knew quite well that he was going to be there when he died. He had made enough choices in his life that gave him a one-way ticket to hell. Sure, he wasn't proud of going to hell, but everyone he knew would be there. Why not be where everyone else was?

A thought then crossed his mind. Would it really be considered a hell if everyone he knew was going to be there, waiting for him? Would it really be his heaven? Could hell even be a heaven to the sinners? Mitsume shook his head and stood up. This pond must have something strange in it, he thought to justify what he had been doing. He threw the pebble he held in his hand as hard as he could into the pond. He watched the splash that occurred before turning to leave.

What was there left for him to do? This reason he was given wasn't much. Mitsume even began to doubt this reason. He couldn't think of a possible way of fulfilling his purpose in life. The only way to get to Othello was through death. Then it wouldn't really be a purpose for life, but more of a purpose for death. However, Mitsume wasn't quite sure that he wanted to die just yet. This must be some other reason to live. Or was he just some wandering being, slaying humans for money that he really had no use for except for living just one more day. No, he had a reason to live. If he didn't then he wouldn't always defend himself from people who tried to kill him in order to avenge some dead relative that he killed for money.

He was still a bounty hunter in his spare time. It was the only way he was able to survive after leaving the dojo. He hated that place. He didn't mind the atmosphere that much. It was more of the people. They always looked at him differently than how they looked at everyone else in the area. Even his sensei looked at him differently. He had tried his best to ignore it, but it just didn't work. Probably it was because he used to live in an environment where he was admired for his talents. Now all those people were dead and he was the sole survivor of that bounty hunter group.

Suddenly, Mitsume stopped dead in his tracks as a man crossed his path. The man had short, black hair and glasses. Mitsume wasn't close enough to see what color eyes her had or any of the other finer details that could be observed. There was something about this man that made Mitsume a little cautious around him. The man's aura reminded Mitsume of death and everything else that was related to evil. The clothes he wore were blood soaked, but reminded him of the people he had seen that were from hell. Those that were dressed in white, button-up shirts, dark pants, and a dark colored sports jacket. Like the others, his shirt was unbuttoned on the top, revealing the top of his chest.

The man turned to look at him. His piercing gaze made Mitsume freeze up inside like he never had before. His eyes resembled those of the dead. His face, splattered with dried blood, looked as if it had died and then miraculously brought back to life with the price of looking like a dead man for the rest of his life. Mitsume had a thought cross his mind that this was a walking dead man. It wouldn't be the first one he saw. Like all the other ones he saw, he wanted to kill this one. He wanted to put it out of its misery, one of the only acts of kindness he gave to anything on this world. However, he couldn't move. He couldn't lift a finger to his sword in order to go through with what he planned to do.

The man finally left, passing by Mitsume completely. Mitsume watched the man's retreating back for a moment, before letting out a breath he didn't know he had held in. He shook his head and then continued to walk down the sidewalk he had been walking on. He tried to go back to thinking about what he had previously been thinking about before that man appeared. However, his face continued to pop-up. Mitsume couldn't place his face anywhere and he had a lot of people whose faces he remembered. However, most of them were dead and probably had no chance of coming back to life at all.

Well, I know that there are quite a few Mitsume fans out there so this chapter was for you. I also want to call this my saving chapter because this one is helping me gather all my thoughts and finally bring forth the rest of the story including the possible resurrection of some other people...no hints, just possiblities (or could they be hints?). Well, anyway, I'm starting up a writing class in my school so I should be able to get better at writing and make bigger chapters for everyone. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

-Eissalande