Disclaimer: I own nothing...which is not the exact truth but lets just go with it for now.

An upgrade on Master.

Chiaroscuro

I would have never thought a person of my stature could ever ascend higher then the lowest class in society. He saw me though, through the grit and grim, he saw my beauty. He played with my senses, till it was the right permutation, he changed my building blocks to create a stable structure. He drained me of impurities and replaced the void with auxiliary resources. He succeeded in creating the paragon, the vulnerable, lethal design. He created me.

I remembered that night, the witching hour, a lovely time for remembrance, and consolation. With nature a perfect back drop of a morbid play, the night could not be any richer. I preferred to kill at the sweet moments after the sunset, after the glory shut its eyes... The wind blew my auburn hair in disarray; I believe I wore it long then… The rain soaked through my black uniform, it was… a nice feeling, like the night was comforting me. Shuyin assigned this mission for me, alone, but in the crevices of my mind I knew he was there, waiting… and watching.

Sakura's target was approaching sure death, his gluttony and avarice could not protect him from her absolution. His money could not stop this encounter; his soul would pay for the imperfections he sired upon the world. The imperfections the League of Assassins purge from this world. Lightening flashed, and by the time the thunder roared, her katana had slid through the weak car door, severed his gut, and with a flick of the wrist cleansed her blade of the fiend's entrails.

Not even the comforting presence of the night could have prepared her for the glance of fiery amber that watched her with a casual regal manner. The flames shot through her drug infested veins and assessed her perfection with perfect clarity. In that moment, this man intimately saw her through and through, she was a weak as a virgin and novice in the game of life. His indifference, as sharp as her katana, sliced through her formidable garrisons.

He saw me as no man has ever saw perfection. He saw the soul, the body, the mind of perfection. He saw the end result of calculated fate. His eyes…they burned.

Sakura turned to run home, somewhere along the way Shuyin caught up to her. Her speed, her abilities allowed her stability; she was unnatural, but leashed by evolution. Shuyin was too abnormal, but he undulated to the waves of selection. He was the perfect dancer in the waltz of life.

I was the perfect partner at which every song would be exchanged. In this ball with the conclusion of the sweet melody, the heart stopped, perfectly preserved in perfection. Shuyin's collection, his perfect collection of evolutions pinnacles.

Once inside my home, once I placed my sword down, not until I was among my kin again, did I relax…but nobody's eyes burned like his did.

Shuyin sensed my irritation; he detached himself from his insipid wife, to question me. By now I sought the refuge of my chamber, the velvet walls of the darkest red, and the soft masculinity of balance. Balance…

Sakura stared out the window, watching the dance of the shadows orchestrated by the sun and the wind. With glassy eyes she observed the pattern of nature at its descent, its beauty and its errors. She caught the scent of his old spice musk; she saw his reflection in the window panes. She relished in pleasure, he saw her on a pedestal; she always had power over him, as he had over her. His crystalline eyes evaluated her posture, her bodily functions, and even what she watched, he knew her inside and out.

I wish I knew him with the same preciseness, but he was always out of reach, as if he knew me, one too many times.

"I'll never let you go…" His lips seared my flesh as they layered the weights of slavery upon me. I, then, turned to his chest, to find solace in its warmth. My arms snaked around his lithe waist, my head rested to hear the rhythm of his heart. I remembered the heat as he held me, fires that could not be quenched or contained. My heart…it hurt.

"Do you love me?" I whispered in to his neck, I knew he heard me, his heart, his blood burned hotter at my inquiry. I felt the rumble of his chest before the words reached my ears, another imperfection of humanity, sound.

"You are so precious to me Ying Fa," I smiled as he murmured my Chinese name, I liked changing my identity like this, it was a pleasure I loved. I glanced up at his cool eyes, full lips, and strongly set jaw, and I wondered did I love him?

"What will happen if I die?"

"You will never die, Ying Fa. I will preserve you forever. There will always be a Sakura, there will always be you. You will always be perfect, just as evolution dictates…I will never let you falter." At that moment, I was satisfied with the response, I felt loved, adored, watched. He was my protector, creator and preserver. I could not ask for more, at least not yet.

Sakura felt the mattress move with the slightest indentation.

Seiko...

A warm body slid next to her, pinning Sakura. She felt the womanly soft arms snake around her form, and she felt the bodies merge together.

Together in love, together in lust, together in hatred… Ah Seiko

As Seiko's body betrayed her to Sakura's dominance, her inert hatred amplified. Only in the medium of the night, could Seiko relinquish her shame to Sakura. Only during night, when Judgment reared its critical eyes upon her, did she convert her rage to lust. Only in the night, did hot lips sear a nonchalant psyche without remorse, reproach, without fear.

While Seiko and Shuyin occupied my bed, Xiao Lang occupied my thoughts. I became so anxious, deviating from my normal statuesque composure, they worried for me. They had pity in their eyes as I slipped from the sanctuary. I deserved glory, not pity, not like they knew my experience…how wrong I was.

Sakura graceful movements fell into a neat provocative rhythmic consistency, down the desolate part of Kyoto's splendor. She fell into sync with the nostalgic current of humanity. The old abandoned cemetery, the ignored novelty shop, served as lodestones, attracting her to him, visions of him, and his amber eyes.

Her kind could blend right into society, and never arouse suspicion. She was as alluring as the sirens of ancient Greece, as dark as the coal in which diamonds arise from, and as lethal as fate. It was her burden to ensure the world was set in balance. Her duty to eradicate, her duty to be ideal; that burden resulted in the growth of selfish avarice and revulsion from other inferior beings.

My body acknowledged his presence, even if my mind was determined to be ignorant. His gaze stopped me in my tracks, which was coincidentally was under a blooming cherry blossom… how quant.

Sakura's mental defenses could dispel pain, hurt, inflictions. Throughout all of her years in humiliating obedience, in her years of succumbing to an honored plague… on her knees, she created her asylums. With a single inquisitive glance, he cut through her, again she felt as an untried virgin, raped. She cherished it; she loved the mockery, and then wanted to see this man, who continuously saw her.

I wanted to explore his depths, see his impurities, to observe and interact, not destroy. Xiao Lang, a feeble nuance, invoked me to feel, to suffer, and to stumble.

She could see his fiery ambers gaze at her face. The soft wind blew the cheery blossom petals throughout their space. She could see the glint in his eyes as he remembered her, vaguely…

"I have seen you eyes before," Xiao Lang husky voice trailed off. Its raspy quality set Sakura's senses keener on his corporality, it attracted her. Sakura set her lips at a smirk. Something about this specimen attracted her, something else from what she felt for Shuyin's affection. This dark man, this unknown creature, Sakura wanted to see what was under his skin, wanted to expose him as she was now.

Unlike all the imperfections I purged from the world; no man has seemed so balanced in his inaccuracies that he was in a quirky sense, ideal. His eyes, his bones, his structure, I remember them all in precise meticulous detail. If people like myself were to whither in to extinction, he would be the paradigm of excellence.

Shuyin never provoked her warm emotions, her morality, or her consciousness. She never questioned the depths of her person. Perfection is the creation of ignorance, the less consciousness of our bodies the more useful they are. Xiao Lang made her nervous, scared, he made her want. He lit her dark corridors; he provided vitality her katana was used for. His presence made her rise, from her state to something else.

Something un-perfect…

Sakura wanted to say something, something that would not break the mood, something to show her obsession with his eyes, his lips, his stance, his light. Before she knew it his hand clasped her long auburn hair and tugged their lips closer. Then all she was aware of, the most perfect she ever was, was when her lips touched his scorching ones. His flames engulfed her, enflamed her soul, and as quickly as it set aflame, the flames died. Sakura fell in the torrent of pleasure; it was her choice, her fault, her mistake.

"What is it about you?" Whispered Sakura as they separated, their exhausted shallow breathes mingling. She found out that night, where for the first time, she copulated in nature; she yielded herself for his pleasure. She was not idealized; she was cherished, loved, and treated equally. Insulted and comforted, Sakura found herself wanting; she found her glory, her rising and descending sun. Over and over, she fell from glory and crawled back again, she craved it. The cycle, the duality, the need of another part, Sakura undulated in this illicit affair.

For far to long did I allow myself the luxury of caring for him, idealizing his imperfections, I was a walking paradox. For far to long, did I hope we had a future, a fleeting glimpse into normalcy.

During a sparing session, several months later I remembered about my life as an infidel. I danced away from Seiko's arc, and nimbly grabbed her arm, to break it. I sensed that my Seiko was not there; at least I did not have all of her attention.

Seiko felt the hate disseminate in her heart. She felt Shuyin's gaze slide past her, his wife for better or worse, to stare at Sakura. Sakura…Ying Fa…always was attractive even in the inferno of loathing, Seiko would not deny the infatuation she felt for Sakura. Everyone panted on their knees one time or another, but for her, she was enslaved to crawl into Ying Fa's bed like a humble servant. Her blood froze; her husband a brilliant man worth requited love, settled for this. Despicable man, Seiko was foolish to believe that over time he could come to love her too.

Seiko loved him as much and perhaps more then I did. This was an imperfection for her. Seiko's love was genuine and complete, the true love that takes a century to find and a minute to ruin. But that in turn made her weak and utterly useless, even though I proclaim my love and affinity to Shuyin, it was complemented by undying hate and anger.

Sakura knew of this feeling in Seiko, she accepted it. She understood subjugation. Perfection could only be temporary as time continues because of evolution. The very concept of evolution counters perfection's ideals. So perfection was always a slave to evolution, to nature. Therefore, nature and perfections are not the same, not when evolution strives on imperfections to exist. Perfect people are not meant to survive or even to produce progeny. Perfect people are meant to die, by the very things that made them perfect, the imperfections.

People like Seiko, subjugated by people like me, in the end execute us. I accept my death, at the hands of someone I trust to always hate me.

I felt like such a fool to believe that Shuyin, in his acute wisdom, would be blind to my love tryst. He could have a prosperous future (defined by society's impure doctrine of success) if he enrolled himself into the public. Shuyin only gave attention to his favorites, myself and Seiko (who served as a control for an experiment). He understood and researched a number of sciences. Conquered the hindering blocks of modern scientists, he used his intellect to change me, to be perfect. Drugs, operation, construction, whatever put me in evolution's criteria he made. He understood my DNA, my sequences; he could predict my thoughts, my being, intact and absolute.

"Do you love him?" His jagged voice cut through my hopes of lobbying his verdict.

They held Xiao Lang in a vise like grip in front of me. I wanted to scream my sorrow. I was the reason for his sure death, I was the poison. His fire will never bellow in the wind, I will never feel the same elation again. The light has left my corridors, in their dark stank splendor.

Did I ever love Xiao Lang? No, as I looked upon his withdrawn expression. I never allowed myself to go as far as love. That is why, as they killed him in front of me, I shed but one tear, Shuyin will not let me go. Not now, not ever. He will kill what fit so closely to my person, to keep me leashed. Trained, on my knees... like a whipped puppy, I swallowed all of it. Every last drop of inhumane slaughter, of killing the pseudo ideal, we roam this world to spread our seed to the highest bidder.

Touch; Shuyin was ideal in receiving his own wants, efficient too. Marriage would bring a veil of possession of upon me. However a bond of this perfection would result in less then adequate offspring, would it not? My children; spawns from touch. Intimate hatred, dominance, subjugated screams. When Master proposed the merging and carrying of my blood, my answer was simple: no. He took me regardless, rape is inflicted because the rapist wants some sense of dominance or to have his victim submit, but this was not my downfall, far from it. My perfection forced submission on him in equal force; it wasn't rape after that was incorporated. Dominance vs. dominances can only produce dominance.

My sweet progeny reflected a daughter and a son. They were saturated with submission that immersed my son with the same viscosity of my daughter's still blood, imperfect demon. Perfect people aren't meant for mere humans, obviously nature did not prepare for that mixture.

My son a hybrid was destined to fail a miserable life. For his sister's death plagued his heart of its own vulnerabilities. The abilities to become perfect lusted him to strive and the same weight that his father bore into him kept him a normal human, thus trapping him in the middle with a terrible nightmare. I love you, my progeny.

Death; I remembered that in the absolute period of my life, I could not stand being touched. Xiao Lang's love ran my insides cold, Shuyin's scars burned and ached with impudent resolve, and Seiko's hate crashed, and mutated me. A mutation, I could not tell right from wrong, sex from rape, it all went by in a blur. It was too fast for my defenses, too strong to be resisted, too deep to be involved and too there to ignore, the disease overwhelmed me; I was finally broken.

Seiko watched from afar, she was aware of the enmity surrounding this league of killers. She could smell the corruption, the degradation of this once prestigious faction. A downward slope of increasing velocity that leads to the daunting apex.

Sakura could feel her body die, feel her will fall. She knew she was past her prime, past her perfection. She was conscious now, of her hands, the same hands that killed countless heathens.

Sadness is a weak emotion but an indicator of a turning point in which the life can be salvaged. No one could help me, when I had no injuries, no pain, just suffering that manifest in my head. I had my own virus in which there was no panacea. I was alone in this dying world. Once idealize, I shrank to normalcy; it was torture to be once again part of the crowd, I miss the rose tinted glass.

She walked down the slippery steps of perfection for another to assume position. She quietly drifted off, to end up here, the ocean, the border of the known and unknown. How many times had she breached each world? Straddled realities? Her pale lips cracked into a slight smile, at the approaching foot steps.

"Is it time for my redemption?" She whispered in to the wind. As cool as the morning air, cool metal rested against her neck. She made no move to save her life, she accepted her fate.

"Is this your fate? Is this going to be the fate of all your copies!" Seiko gritted through her tears, no matter how much she hated Sakura, she deserved a better death, a better fate. "I wonder what number you are Sakura, 28 or 31? You would think that if Shuyin could figure out how to copy you, he could have found a way to preserve you,"

"You cannot preserve perfection, Seiko. It is like taming a sea. The only hope for perfection is to constantly create in accordance to evolution. But, what does it matter? We are created to die. Imperfections have so many details, it is not just a play of light and darkness," and quietly to herself, "How many times have I died here, Seiko? How many times have I asked these questions?"

Seiko stood alone on the beach, watching the sea engulf another into its accepting realm, and the sun fall from its glory…

The idea of perfection seduces the mind while in turn perfection is calamitous. It was a perfect trap, a perfect way to convey perfection's redundancy…

We selected few were meant to accentuate imperfections on the world…

…I stood on that beach and witnessed the sunset for the first time, my auburn hair…I believe I wore it long then wisped around in the air and obscured my emerald eyes. Tonight I was to kill my first demon.