'I want to go home.' A sentence that was repeated over and over again by a young woman that had now found herself on a flight from Osaka to London half a world away. 'I want to go home.' The sentence had little meaning to anyone but her, a young blonde of English and Japanese heritage who finds her and the toddler sitting on her lap, a vestige of her time in Japan, a gift, a symbol of the life she shared with her husband, the last gift he would give that had not been taken away. 'I want to go home.' The words that her husband had grown to despise.

The home the two built, the family they were starting, the wife's dream. None of that, none of it stood at the sense of loneliness, the sense of Isolation she felt half a world apart from all that the wife knew. 'But you are home.' A reply from the husband, but not the one the wife wanted.

'I know.' The response that accompanied the man's reply, an Indictment of what their life has become, a frighteningly mundane norm. He knew what she meant he knew what her words implied, and yet through his jealousy and stubbornness he would not see the forest for its trees choosing to offer no support other than that that would force her to stay, and for a time she did, he was her home after all, the only thing her son ever knew.

Yet the dissatisfaction permeated. The drive to fix the air around them took shape, and he agreed. The husband agreed to it, a visit, for however long. 'I can not join you.' He told her in a bid to wish her well, he could not help it any longer.

'It won't be forever, I will always come back home.' Was her answer, an answer that remained true for a time. The time between now and then was short and everything a blur. She had packed and was gone in such a short time that it hurt them both.

An unavoidable outcome, but it would come to hurt all the same. The plane touches down near where she had longed to be for quite some time now. Here she was returning to the place of her birth, showing her young son her old home half a world away. Here she was being welcomed with open arms by a woman she barely knew, here she was hugging a brother that she had not seen in years, here they were introducing the newest arrivals of their family.

She smiled at a little girl enamored by the sight of the toddler in front of her, her younger cousin, the new baby of the family. A boy that shared in the family's emerald greens, a boy who will become more attached to the girl's hip over time. 'What's his name?' The girl asks with her burning curiosity centered toward the boy.

She held the boy to her niece introducing the pair. 'Well Lucia, I would like for you to meet my son, Issei.'

(...)

A decade prior and not much had changed, the seasons were rough on the lad of fifteen on his knees with his hands restrained behind his back, His kind mother cooing a crying infant in her hands, heartbroken at the reality of its birth. Unlike his mother, his father was seething under a demeanor of calm. In his line of work he was used to what the boy had done, crimes like what his youngest had done so he treated the boy the same as he would any other. There was a price to pay, and with the family's background, he could not let the arms of the law handle this. He also did not want to hurt his wife, further destroying what was left of the image of her son. 'What do you have to say for yourself?' The man would question the boy over and over time and time again, before and after this moment.

The boy on his knees remained resolute in his silence, bowing his head so that the red hair that matches his mother would cascade over his bandaged eyes. He had nothing to say to his parents at least though he had hidden warnings for his older siblings where they would find once their parents had passed. He would warn them of the events to come for the sake of his unborn nieces and nephew, he would ask his older brother to take care of the crying child in her grandmother's arms as his own, his little Lucia. The girl who will protect her cousins from harm when the time came. Of course, the boy could not tell them all of the curse that plague the next generation or how he would come to know it. A stream of red that stained his cheeks was the only sign that he had any remorse for his actions. He had resigned himself to the fate that awaited him for a long time. Everything was as it should, his parents will take care of the babe until their last day, his brother and sister who will now not face the worst fate imaginable for a parent.

Feeling the heat of his holy sword on his neck and hearing the rush footsteps of his mother who was quickly leaving the room, of which he had no idea of the time he had spent in there. For the first time in almost a year, he uttered his first words in his father's presence. 'You are so much stronger than I could ever be.' His final thought was of his kind and gentle older half-sister that both he and his mother adored dearly. He tilted his head up as if to look at an unseen sky that he would watch with her as the sides of his lips curled upwards.

The sound of the boy's body crumpled to the cold hard floor shortly after his father dropped to his knees punching into the pool of red that was forming under him. 'Is this why you did all of this? I am weaker than you thought William... I'm sorry if this was in any way my fault, I will look after her, my child. I will make her the best of all of us.'

Cradling the child in her arms was the girl's grandmother, for the first time since she had taken the girl in her arms did the babe's wails subside, and her form calmed into a peaceful slumber. 'There, there... I'm so sorry that this is the way you would come into this world little one.' She began speaking to the little girl with her grandfather's eyes and hair, pain coming to her thinking of her son. 'Now what do we call you, huh?'