A/N: Hello, meowmeow814 here! Just a brief warning, this chapter has some violence involved. Not extremely gory, but be prepared/ viewer discretion is thus advised. Thank you for reading!
The girl yawned. She stretched luxuriously as she awoke from her nap and blinked in the dim light. She sat up.
What to do… The bare room had nothing except the backpack and… She abruptly stood. The lilies were lying on the ground. She groaned. How could she have forgotten? She hastily scooped them up and dashed out the door.
The rain pelted against her, gelid and sharp. They stabbed her cheeks, hands, and eyes, but she sprinted on through the wilted city. The rain tore apart the petals, leaving a glowing trail that slowly sullied in filth.
Finally, she reached their space ship. She raggedly panted and bent over when half the ship exploded, blasting into smithereens. A solid, hot gale slammed into her. The lilies were torn from her grasp.
Kagura fell from the sky and slammed into the ground. She was covered with more blood and wounds than the girl had ever seen, the red like spilled paint. She heaved for air but choked, and gagged out more blood instead. It trailed down her bluing lips.
"Ka-Kagura-san?!" The girl was instantly at her side. A pool of blood was already forming beneath them like a shadow and she almost slipped. "Wha- but how…?"
Clatter.
The girl looked up.
A man with a scarlet braid stood before them. His hands hung limply at his side, long nails dripping. The girl felt a freezing shiver as she saw his eerily clean clothes, only slightly scuffled. His umbrella had dropped.
"Ka… " His mouth fumbled like it was swollen. Her eyes, so much like… like…
Like something that shouldn't be alive.
His hands were gripping her neck then, without warning, his body moving without any say of his own. Squeezing, constricting, destroying, drowning the shrieks of terror with his own horror.
An otherworldly howl resonated as a bullet ran through his arm, and he dropped it, that whichever he was holding.
"Kana, Kana, are you alright, Kana, answer me! Don't die! Wake up!"
Kagura frantically shook the girl's limp body with all her remaining energy. At last, she blinked blearily. She coughed weakly. Relief crashed down on Kagura.
"Oh Kana, you're alive, you're alive, you're alive…" Kagura murmured without stopping, hugging her tightly, tears dripping down without permission. At the beating pulse.
"K… who is… Kana…?"
Kagura froze. Realization dawned upon her of her mistake. Dread slowly creeped forward, the unstoppable black ink spilled on paper or the approach of a harbor wave or the shrill screams of a pig before a butcher's knife. She haltingly let go of the girl, looking down at anything, anywhere, but her. Her fingers twitched uncharacteristically nervously, her hands then clenching into a snow white grip.
"Ka, Kagura-san, who is…?" the girl hoarsely croaked, alarm increasingly exponentially, fear and apprehension churning like a whirlpool. An inkling of a thought itched her mind but she refused it, absolutely. "Kagura-san? K-Kagura-san?!"
"Kana."
The word was Fear poured down her back. She creakily turned around but she knew, without knowing, what will happen. What must happen. There could be only one reason someone would know her name, she who had been traveling since birth. She who had never heard of her name before then.
The protests from Kagura were muted as Kamui regained his composure. He smiled with a heart of only malice, laced with love. A love of hurt, a lust with pain, a passion for all things that can scream in agony at the rain. The soft pattering rain of carnage.
"Sister, you are too late; see, even the girl knows."
"No, stop, you can't, don't say it, all her life, she, she-"
"Kana. You, you are my daughter. Come with me and I can let your pathetic aunt live this one time."A bloody hand stretched towards her. The blood of his own sister began to dry and crackle like old dragon scales. The raw stench of flesh and gore pinned her down revoltingly.
She could only stare at it numbly. Lightheaded, she was dropped in an endless sea and she was sinking, sinking, sinking, the darkness closing over her head, despair incarnate, as the light died out.
"Kana. Do you know what this means, that you are my daughter?" She was unresponsive, but he continued on cheerily. "It means that your life was all based on a lie. A lie. That woman over there isn't even your mother. In fact... "
He paused to peer over at Kagura and sneered. "In fact, she killed your mother and took you. You were forcefully taken from family because one woman wanted to have a replacement for family. A bauble, a toy. She always liked playing with small animals, now that I think about it. Until she killed them." He laughed good-naturedly. "Always a Yato, or at least she pretended to be. But she never could accept that there is no companionship for a Yato."
"No… Tell me it's a lie, this is all a lie, tell me it's so…" Kana dragged herself from the inevitable anguish for a last grasp, a sailor gasping for air for the last time, alone in the open sea. She stared pleadingly at Kagura, but she only hung her head, defeated, a carcass picked by vultures of guilt. Stop, I don't want this, I don't want this…
"No… no, no, no-"
"So? What will you do? You have no one except me now, your blood father. The one who should have been the first to say your name." His hand remained outstretched.
You have nothing to lose… not anymore.
She expressionlessly took it, her hand squelching in the liquid pooling there. Her father beamed at her, a smile that didn't even brush his beady, calculating eyes.
"No, you can't go with him Kana, he'll hurt you, why do you think I've been chasing him down-"
"Don't say it. Don't. Say it. My name. Ever." Hurt and tears scratched Kana's throat. "You never told me anything. You've hurt me through your fake kindness more than my father could ever hurt me because how can I know what was true and what was false. But maybe you could do all that because I'm nothing of value to you. All of my memories, my entire life, nothing, just, just… cheap gold. How could I trust your words? How could I have loved you?"
Her coal black eyes slowly ignited, until they were swirls of fire and ice. Kamui looked on approvingly. "Even though she's a hybrid, she'll be a better Yato than you would ever be sister," he mocked.
Kana blinked and her concentration snapped for a second. "Wait, what do you mean woul-"
A hand shot forward.
Blood exploded out her back.
"Hmm, we can't be having mixed alliances now can we, Kana? It was either her or me and now that you've chosen, there's no reason to keep her alive."
He slid his hand out of her chest, now a gaping wound. Kana looked in horror. Kagura crumpled to the ground.
"Ka-!"
"Who. Who are you loyal to Kana. Say it."
Disgust was stamped across her expression, complete and utter disgust. Rage flooded her senses, power seeped through her veins, hate choked her heart with its briars of fear. Beneath it all, glass was shattering into as many shards as there are stars.
She gave herself up to it, up to it all.
Kagura hoarsely whispered in desperation, her hands clawing towards her, but Kana heard, saw, none of it as she raised her fist against her father.
Days ran into nights ran into weeks and then a month. By the end of the month, she was done; there was nothing else left in her. At all. She had no name but girl or servant, and he was none other than master…
"...I traveled with master for some years, helping him with... whatever he needed or wanted. And here we are now. In front of you."
Kana finished her story.