- Eighth Petal -
Blindness
With each falling petal, Kanda refuses to see.
The twenty-year-old man standing in the mirror in front of him is not Kanda. Even with the same long blue hair, the same cold black eyes, and the same flowing black cloak, Kanda refuses to admit that he is he.
What's with the unsightly tattoo covering his entire left side? Kanda does not know the man with a black mark on his chest. Lengthy, ghastly tentacles creep their way from the central, circular core like black worms lusting for the pulsing warmth of blood. They keep their jaws closed as they wait, patiently and silently, for the opportune moment to strike as they continue to grow and grow. And that time will come when Kanda's tender heart throbs and finally shatters into crimson slivers of gasping veins with the completion of the curse.
Why do his eyes gaze dully with the lack of the steely fire of willpower? Kanda does not recognize those dark orbs that have pitifully lost their glint in the face of the inevitable death of the lotus. They tell Kanda that there is no way to impede the growing menace of curling petals and a parched stem, that Kanda's search for that person and a way to stop his curse is fruitless and hopeless. They tell Kanda to give up the struggle and succumb to his destiny, which has already been etched in unwavering stone and cannot be altered.
Where has all the spilled blood gone? Kanda does not acknowledge his astonishing rate of recovery despite his constant confidence in his sturdy body. There are the faint marks of countless scars across his chest, arms, and legs. Time has hammered the cragged lines away until all there is left is the paleness of his skin, a perfect replica of his original self. No human can plug gushing blood and close gaping wounds as quickly as Kanda's body can, though it is at the cost of his dwindling life source. He actually wishes he has a normal human body and a normal human lifespan instead of the near-godlike status he has unwillingly attained.
Kanda refuses to believe because if he does, he will become that man in the mirror: consumed by that sprawling tattoo, possessor of that pair of glazed eyes reflecting blank hopelessness, and victim of a perfect body with a remarkable healing rate.
Kanda refuses to see, even when the he continues to step into the battlefield and coldly stare near-death in the face and the eighth petal flutters to the bottom of the hourglass, gradually advancing his subconscious transition into the man in the mirror.
A/N: To subaru-kun, Belladonna-Isabella, Ai Minamoto, tokiya, kuro666, RebelFlame, whiteninjaachemist, and azab… I am truly grateful of your continued support; you make me infinitely happy. To those silent readers… I know you're there 0.0, but thanks anyway for taking the time to read my drabbles. Now I'm off to enjoy my soba noodles!
D.Gray-Man (c) Hoshino Katsura