Sorry guys for the late update, which really isn't even an update. I've been very busy so I have not yet been able to complete the whole of chapter 10, its a work in progress. But I have written this little except about Takasugi. This was going to be in chapter 10 anyway and seeing how this was finished and everything else wasnt, I decided it would be better to just publish this first instead of making you guys wait that much longer. I hope you enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING
Takasugi considered himself a man of many regrets. If able, he would change far too many unfortunate events of the past, tragedies that never should have existed, but they did and because of him. In the past, Takasugi only cared for his end goal, he would obtain it at any cost, regardless of the lives it cost or the lives it ruined. The lives he took, some innocent while others necessary, stained his hands a crimson red. The red never did fully wash off, and everyday Takasugi would stare at the infuriating stain, fully aware of his own wrong doings. He still remembers the tears of heart torn family members and soon after, their expressions of sheer anger. They wanted to kill him, to rip him to shreds and deal him the same pain that he inflicted upon them, Takasugi did not blame them. Moral and just were not words to describe his tactics. But back then, when the ends still justified the means, Takasugi coldly laughed at the anguish of his victims. Their pain could not be compared to his own, and if they desired change, then they, like himself, should rise with their last remaining strength, and grab it. Between losing all that he held dear-his sensei, his friends, and his nation, Takasugi lost a greater part of himself than he cared to admit. Throwing away his old self subsequently followed the traumatic event that changed him forever, the event that caused his soul to disappear, the day when the Amanatos overtook his beloved Japan. What remained of the old Takasugi was a hollow husk of resentment, bitterness, and anger. The world changed through those days, months, and years, and so did he. If the world wanted to change, then so be it, but that did not stop Takasugi from trying to prevent further foreign influence, he was changing right alongside the times. Therefore, with the bitterness still prominent in his heart, he paved for himself the path to revenge, not a path towards redemption. Killing became a necessity to reach his goal, and so, Takasugi shed his morality as he had with everything else of the past, and took the form of the crazy demon people knew him as. At that point, redemption was no longer attainable for a sin infected person life him, he could only continue down this thorny path towards revenge. And that he did, until the day he drew his last breath. Gasping for air as his lungs gradually began to fail him, Takasugi considered this a pathetic and anticlimactic end to his grand goals. Mortally wounded by a soldier of the new Japanese government he greatly despised, Takasugi began reflecting back upon all his past decisions. Though he held no regrets in taking this path towards revenge, Takasugi wished his methods had been different. In those last moments of that life, he sow to himself that the next path he would take would be the one towards redemption.
Call it a blessing or a curse, but Takasugi, soon after his fifth birthday, began vividly remembering his past life. Throughout his childhood, those memories like-dreams plagued his existence. He, in the brevity of his innocence and youth, believed himself to be completely normal. His family consisted of a loving stay at home mother, a caring career man father, and a kind older sister, he was the definition of normal. But with the wave of memories undulating him, Takasugi began growing farther and farther from normal. He started speaking in cryptic Japanese, specifically a form of Japanese no longer used in the 21th century, and this worried his parents, it worried him. The young Takasugi saw images of murder, of death, of utter hopelessness, and his mind could not comprehend or handle the information being provided. Needless to say, young Takasugi experienced a meltdown, one that resulted in him being placed in a psychiatric ward for ten arduous years. But through those ten gruesome years of analysis, and being labeled mentally unstable, Takasugi was able to comprehend the meaning of the "dreams". They were not dreams, they were memories, and no matter what the psychiatrist told him about those dreams being a part of his suppressed subconscious, Takasugi knew better. They were memories of the sins he committed in his past life, unforgivable sins they were, but now the real question was what they symbolized.
College and medical school helped him fully grasp the concept of the dreams as they gradually grew more vivid. After the years of analyzing, Takasugi could only think of one reason why he had been plagued by these memories, he had to make amends. Like how the son carries the sins of the father, the Takasugi of this era had to amend for the sins of the Takasugi of the past. Easier said than done, in the past, he had been a cruel, cruel man. A man perfectly fine with dirtying his hands and dying them red, how could anyone atone for sins such as those?
The time came though. On a warm and breezy spring day, Takasugi saw her, one of the many people he mercilessly killed. But it was not just any stranger, he knew the female, recognized her instantly by the color of her hair and those vibrantly blue eyes. Takasugi could not help but remember the name of the vermilion haired female he murdered in cold blood, and the expression of her devastated brother. Kagura, the female's names was Kagura. On that nice spring day, Takasugi stopped his idle waiting; his chance at redemption had arrived at last.
I hoped you guys enjoyed the 9.5 chapter. I always believed Takasugi to be a greater man than the typical villain. I don't know why, but I sympathize with the man, he has been through so much and the actions he takes are all due to the influence of a tragic past. Takasugi deserves some love, so here it is.