Salvation

chapter 3: Shun

I entreat you to listen to the song Passive Sorrow while you read this chapter—it fits very well. It will be the first result on Youtube.

I woke up to the scream echoing in my head, sweat pooling on my skin.

I hate you! my waking mind screeched at me, finishing where my dream had left off.

Yes, that was what she had said.

That was why I ran.

It had been three days since I had killed Eri's father. The thick, metallic odor of the blood still clung to my hands, and I tried to wash it away, but it seemed to stick there no matter what.

I had killed a man, and that was a truth I could not run from, no matter how far away his dead body was from me.

Without Eri, I had nothing but that truth to define me.

-.-.-

I ran without direction, each day meeting a new wild expanse, each day finding new creatures to eat, and each day finding more blood on my hands.

I had been lonely for so long that I did not truly know what it was until I was taken out of it and then thrust so violently back in again. Finding relief from that loneliness appealed to me, but I never ventured near any people that I saw. I was afraid to trust them, and afraid to trust myself. Being at a distance felt safe to me, and I often resigned to spend my days spying on townsfolk, observing their interactions with curiosity and envy.

I should have predicted that it would not be long before someone found me.

I was sleeping when I heard a rustle in the brush that quickly roused me, but I had no time to flee before I was met with the image of two men, staring blankly at me, precariously eying the burned half of my body.

I scrambled to my feet and bolted.

They yelled after me, and by the sound of shifting leaves behind me I could tell they were following. When I tripped I was sure that all luck had failed me.

I glanced back and saw now that one of them was almost over me, and, my limp arm failing to drag me to my feet, I shielded myself.

I thought it must have been my own scream that I heard then, but with the sudden silence, a coldness in my blood told me that it was not.

Maybe it was Eri's scream, the scream that informed me of the horrible things that I had done.

When I stood and saw the two dead bodies and the spray of blood, I did not stop to consider.

-.-.-

As I ran, I tried to convince myself that those men were going to hurt me, but the truth was that I did not know. I wanted to believe that I had only killed bad people, and they deserved it. I was not a monster, even though I had no idea how I had done what I had done.

I couldn't be.

I didn't want to be.

But if not that, then what was I?

I ran for what seemed like ages until my body had no choice but to slow, and then I walked for even longer. I swayed at the crest of a hill when my legs gave out, and I found myself falling, tumbling as gravity rolled me over and over, bashing me into the ground as it had unforgivingly done to countless things before.

When I finally stopped, I didn't realize it for several minutes—my world was still turning, and darkness was closing in around me. I was so tired of falling, so tired of caring, that I could do nothing but let it swallow me.

-.-.-

The first thing I became aware of was the dryness of my mouth and the familiar ache of the right side of my body. My body shifted, and the softness of whatever was underneath me startled me to full consciousness.

When I cracked my eye open, I did not see the open sky, but a familiar ceiling. This realization sent a shock through me, and I sat up, my breath coming in fearful gasps.

"It's all right!" I heard a man's voice say, and my head whipped around, searching for the source, when I caught sight of a short man sitting some yards away in a chair near the cot I had been resting in. Brown hair framed his face in a short beard, and his crinkled, powder blue eyes met mine with what may have been concern. Whatever the look was was not anger, and it stilled me for a moment as he said, "Don't worry. You're not in any trouble. You're in my home. I found you outside."

I stared at him. "Why?"

He blinked back at me. "You know that you've been badly hurt, don't you? I wanted to help you."

I continued to stare, not sure if to believe or even how to believe such an absurd, otherworldly statement.

"Are you hungry?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Where's some water?" I inquired, intending to get it myself, along with anything else I needed. I could not comprehend that he was making offers to me until he set a plate of food and glass of water on the table next to my cot.

I cast him a questioning look, and he nodded. "Go ahead."

While I used my working arm to shove food into my mouth, he talked to me. He told me that his name was Shun, and he was a mechanic, which apparently made stuff. I had no idea what he meant, but as I looked around, I figured he must have been talking about the heaps of weird, shiny things that littered the big room we were in.

"You can't move that other arm, can you?" Shun asked, and I shook my head as I chewed, slurping some water.

"I might be able to give you another one," he said then, and I looked up from the plate. "What?"

"It wouldn't be the same as the one you had before," he explained. "It would be metal. But you could use it. Want to see?"

I nodded, curiosity getting the better of me, and he walked to another part of the room before bringing back what looked to me to be a shiny, silver, oddly-decorated arm.

It was glorious.

"This design's my pride and joy. Of course I'd have to give you a smaller one, since this is an adult arm, but that shouldn't take. . . ." he stopped, staring at my expression. "What is it?"

A sudden thought had occurred to me, and I asked darkly, "What do you want?"

He stared blankly for a moment before my words sunk in, and then he looked appalled. "Oh, no, I don't want anything from you for it. See I've never done the operation on anyone's arm . . . ," at the word "operation," I recoiled visibly, and he continued more softly, "and I want to give it to someone who needs it."

I wasn't sure whether to trust him, but his kindness thus far stopped me from leaving, and I did truly want the arm. So I asked, "How long will it take?"

"Hmm," Shun considered, rubbing his chin. "Probably a couple weeks, what with the fine details. But, it might go faster if I had some help." He looked at me. "What do you think? Want to help?"

I blinked at him. "I don't know how to do anything but hunt."

"That's fine, you don't have to know anything special. Most of the time I just need something brought to me." He smiled. "I'll bet you're very impressive at hunting. I'm not even good at it with two arms."

I frowned, then looked all around the room at the metal wonders, and with all these incredible things, I couldn't imagine him being bad at anything. So I said the most eloquent word that Eri had taught me.

"Whatever."

-.-.-

Every day I wandered through the woods outside Shun's house. If I caught something, I'd come running back, fling the door open, and stomp down the steps to the basement where he was working on my arm to show off my catch.

"Looks good," he'd say, then wash the grease from his hands so he could cook it for us.

I did not sleep in the bed again since the day he had found me, but I did often sit in it while we ate. One day over deer, while I sat on the bed and he on his chair, he asked me, "So what happened to you?"

I glared at him.

He put his hands up. "You don't have to tell me."

I shifted uncomfortably on the thin mattress. Even if I wanted to, what could I tell him? Everything behind me was monstrous, and I did not want him to know such things about me.

After a long silence, over the course of which I was sure he had forgotten about his question entirely, I said, "I was a slave."

Instead of asking me what I was talking about, he nodded slowly. Then he asked, "Do you have a name?"

I thought about this. Did Eri's name for me really suit me? Deep down I thought so, but again, I did not want to tell Shun such things. So I said, "I haven't decided yet."

He laughed, and I glared at him again, because I didn't understand. I was being very serious, and so I didn't know what he thought was so funny about it. "When you do decide," he said, "just let me know, then."

-.-.-

So many days passed between Shun and I that I could not keep track of them. I felt so safe and strange that hours began to melt into each other and the simplicity of my new lifestyle confounded me. I expected something horrible to happen each day in the back of my mind, but I eventually came to realize that nothing bad was happening at all, and that knowledge made me all at once confused, uncertain, and ecstatic over each new day.

I felt strangely as if I had become part of the world that I had been kept from for so long, that I had jealously watched from my tree perches, and I had no idea how it had happened.

I had never met anyone like Shun, and so I was uncertain of him. I spent many hours wondering when, if, and how he would turn against me. He could not really be like this, I told myself. He must be doing this for his own purposes.

Yet every time I fell deeply into my suspicions, he would surprise me with his selflessness, and I would be shoved back to square one, proven wrong yet again.

For the first time in my life, I thought I might have happiness, and some slim part of me hoped vainly that there was a chance that that happiness might never end.

-.-.-

When the day finally came, I had been biding my time outside running through the woods until my cheeks were red and the sting of the cool air burned my throat with each gasp. It was getting colder, and I had just decided to walk down to the basement and ask Shun about it when he cheerily informed me, "It's completed!"

I was caught between my thought and his, and my mouth flopped open, attempting to articulate a coherent response. "What? It is?"

"It is," he affirmed with a smile. "Come look."

I nearly tripped over my own feet in my excitement as I raced to his worktable, and when I set eyes on the glimmering prosthetic limb, I was filled with the strangest feeling that no delight before, aside from my escape from slavery, had ever come close to.

"Now," Shun said, so gravely that it called my attention, "before I attach it to you, you have to understand the procedure. It will be painful." I blinked, letting his words sink in. "Very painful. But I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think you could handle it." His gaze turned to my burned half, and I nodded seriously.

"I want it."

His lips tightened. "Tomorrow, then. I—"

"Why tomorrow?" I interrupted.

"We'll both need plenty of rest to prepare for it. You'll need your strength. It could take hours."

Hours of pain, I thought. But I could deal with the pain in order to use my arm again. I had already endured the pain of flesh-searing chemical burns, the slow pain of losing sight in my eye, the pain of whips and knives and chains and rape. My utter lack of self.

This pain would be a minuscule addition to my collection of pains.

-.-.-

When the blade touched the first living nerve, I screamed.

It was a brief scream, and I swallowed it. Shun hesitated for only a moment, and after that, no matter what sounds I made, he did not stop.

We had to get rid of my useless arm in order to replace it. This I understood completely. I understood that it would be painful.

I did not understand how the sharp agony would dizzy me, as I lay on my side to keep the blood flow away from my shoulder. Shun won't let me die, I thought, and I clung to it. Shun won't let me die. Shun won't let me die.

It occurred to me that I had no idea how the mechanical arm worked, but I had not asked before, and I could not concentrate on forming words while I battled with my stomach and my nerves and the screams that I choked into whimpers.

I had to ride it out as I had rode out all the pains before now. It would end eventually. I had to look forward. I had to concentrate on what I was gaining. The pain was a stepping stone.

It'll be over soon. Shun won't let me die.

-.-.-

The next thing I remembered was the softness underneath me again. My hair was matted with sweat and tangled, and my skin clung to everything around me.

My shoulder ached, and I was not sure why. When at last I breached consciousness, I almost cried out at what I saw.

My arm was gone, and in its place, gleaming metal.

I was hit with the sudden overbearing feeling of loss for reasons I cannot explain. My arm was gone forever. I had wanted this, but now that it had finally come about, I was scared.

But that arm was useless, I reminded myself. It was already gone.

"How do you feel?" I heard a soft male voice ask me.

I was expecting something different. Something about the arm, maybe, or about how I should get off the bed. But this was Shun.

Of course, he wanted to know if I was okay.

I started crying.

I don't know if it was because I was drowsy, hurting, happy, sad, confused, or all of those things, but I felt as if a storm cloud of tears had just burst inside of me and I couldn't stop the downpour. Before I knew it, I was sobbing, and Shun crouched down beside me.

"I should have known. I should have known. It was too much for you. I'm so sorry, I'm so stupid," he was saying, but I shook my head, unable to stop wailing, unable to tell him what I was feeling.

-.-.-

Shun explained to me how the arm would work—it fed on my energy. As long as I still had some, the arm would function as normal and be able to move as I wished. This system also served as a rudimentary 'sense,' where I was able to feel what the arm felt because of the energy it employed.

Shun then had to explain to me what my energy was, exactly.

"All apparitions have energy that they can utilize in different ways," he told me. "I use my energy to create machines that can work on the energy of others, such as your arm. You're young, so you may not have had much practice with your energy yet."

My energy, I thought. My energy must have been what had killed Eri's father, the two men in the forest. What I saw flashing before my eyes in bright streaks of red. A destructive force.

My energy was nothing like Shun's.

-.-.-

I stayed with Shun even after my arm was completed, and neither of us ever questioned it. Sometimes I helped him fetch things for new experiments he worked on, and I began to learn the forest and wilderness as he knew it, every plant and animal by name. He even began to teach me to read.

I was an excellent hunter. With two functioning arms, rarely anything got away from me. My remorse at killing the animals slipped away, my happiness at all other things far outweighing it.

Eventually, I also became adjusted to Shun's smiles. For all the goodness he was, his smile could be nothing but genuine goodness in and of itself. It made me want to return it, all of the potential light and love he projected, though I knew I could not. Still, I tried.

I tried to smile again.

-.-.-

One day, Shun and I were not alone. I was down in the basement, helping Shun rearrange parts when we heard the blip that announced when someone was standing at the door—Shun's energy detectors were truly astounding for their time—and a rapping followed it. Something foreign crossed Shun's face then, and he told me to stay.

I did not.

I stood on the steps and stuck my head just above the floor, watching as Shun opened the door. I first saw only one man, and then I noticed that a taller one stood behind him.

"You've got it ready now, haven't you?" the shorter man said.

Shun was silent for a moment, then he said, "I need more time. The construction isn't completed just yet."

"Look, old man, this is important," the short man growled. "I've got money invested in you, money that's going to waste the more you sit around with your thumb up your ass. In case you hadn't noticed, there ain't a whole lot of that to go around these days."

Shun's head bobbed. "I understand, I understand. I'll work as fast as I can. Just give me another week."

"A week better be all it is, or else you'll find yourself in a very compromised situation, Shun." The two men grinned sickly and walked away, and Shun shut the door, resting against it with a soft sigh.

I padded up the stairs slowly. "I got you in trouble with them, didn't I, Shun?"

He turned around, surprised. "No, no. Nothing of the sort. Let's go back down and keep working, eh?" He smiled at me and approached the stairs, but my gaze was transfixed on the door.

Deep inside, in my very marrow, I could feel the evil that came from those men. They were going to try to hurt my happiness.

-.-.-

I was outside when the men came back a week later. I had been outside often, almost waiting for them, my mind slowly warping with some inane curiosity and hatred. I wanted to truly see them, but not be seen. I wanted to know where they came from and who they were, and why they were so stressful to Shun.

He tried to hide it from me, but I could see it in his face, his posture. All was not well. Perhaps it had never been well, and their weight had always been on him, but I had simply not seen it.

The thought of that made me hate them even more.

They came from the north, the shorter man with his pasty green skin leading the taller man who was covered in hair. They were ugly demons, which I decided reflected their ugly insides. I hid behind a tree as I watched them beat on Shun's door.

The door cracked open and I saw the painful expression on Shun's face. Both my fists clenched.

"That look tells me the device isn't ready," the short man began.

Shun's brows furrowed. "I just need a couple more days, a week at most—"

"We gave you a week. A week ago. You're gonna have to pay up one way or another."

I saw the fear in Shun's eyes as the taller man stepped forward, raising his arm. Something inside of me shattered, and before I knew it, my vision was fractured with red.

I had closed the distance in what must have been a split second and thrust my metal hand into the taller man's rib cage. My other hand pointed at the shorter man, found his throat, crushed him.

Coated in blood, my chest heaving, I stood over my work.

Then I lifted my gaze.

I wished I had not. The look I saw on Shun's face was what made my heart freeze and flashed memories of Eri, the shock in her eyes, the underlying despair. That look was what made me run. I could not bear to hear him say what she had said to me. I could not bear the reality of losing him for what I had become.

I knew what I was beyond a shadow of a doubt in that moment. A murderer.

That was the first time I truly enjoyed killing someone, and it was only the beginning of the destitute road that lay ahead of me.

Author's Note: This chapter is going to be the last relatively happy one for a while . . . that's just the way it goes, unfortunately. But yes, as you can see, Shun is the mechanic that gives Mukuro her arm, and clearly a relatively important person in her past. Thanks for reading!