"there is beauty in the ashes of a heart that burned for what it loved."
He loved how her hair fell over her elegant little shoulders, the tone of her voice and how her lips curved into a smile, how her eyes disappeared when happiness blurred her vision and her eyes became invisible.
I loved how in his hand could fit the universe and how on his back he carried the infinite deaths of a million eras, that when his palm caressed mine it was just him and me and the infinite deaths on his back and my hands.
I loved him, secretly but I loved him, every millimeter of every tiny and infinite cell of my being adored him. I adored him with his smiles of lies, even when his words were just an ornament to my ears, even with the heavy burden that invisibly weighed on his shoulders.
I wanted to be his home, and I could feel when I tried that his wounds were much more than deep, they were wounds that like the scar on his cheek had never healed, grudges from the past that don't let you move forward without taking them with you.
At the beginning when his path pitifully crossed mine, when I decided to take him with me, his hand took mine and I knew at that very moment that it was him.
Even when I tried to heal his wounds and his hands beat mine away from his body, in the end I always gave in, it was like the waves playing with the shore in their tides, and I tempted fate with my final decision to follow that man wherever he went and to wait for him until he came back.
I waited for him to come back one thousand and five hundred times with his smile at the end of a road full of blood and he always came back, no matter the circumstance, no matter the form, he always came back, and I always reminded him that this was his home.
sometimes his eyes would darken with memories perhaps of a past that haunted him, a past he did not know, but did not wish for a second to know, for I loved him and whatever he carried.
He would let me sit beside him as he rested, and I would watch him grieve in sighs as if a million battles were fighting alone inside his mind, and maybe so it was, so it felt when upon waking his hands found jubilation between mine, and I could feel his skin bristle and tremble.
"not all things make noise when they break..."
I could feel his heart beating through the palm of my hand, and like a sad and serene song, there was within his heart a vast and enormous emptiness, a cry desperate to be heard, but simply drowning within itself, as if invisible arms were trapping him.
and for me he was like a window, and I could see everything through that small window, from his heart to his soul, the darkness soothed by sleep, but his dreams easily turned into nightmares and every night I had to sit outside his room humming lullabies that could soothe him and let that plaintive heart, hunted by the ghosts of the past, find its way of lagging behind.
he was very lonely and i just wanted to see him smile again, because his smile was so beautiful. the nieces of the village doctor who used to visit us managed to open that heart a little more, i don't know how or why, but those girls managed to change it.
I don't know how or why, but those girls managed to change it, and slowly her dull eyes found a way to shine again and her lips managed to find their way in the form of a smile and the dojo came back to life.
His skin was no longer pale, nor his eyes opaque, his gestures and his strength returned every day with more intensity and I would sneak a glance at him out of the corner of my eyes, but he always found a way to find me and make my heart flutter.
"he didn't kiss my skin, nor my lips, he kissed my soul, I don't know how he did it, but there was no turning back."
"it was her black wings that made her beautiful."
A past that cannot be erased, in a wound with a shape, in an era where neither my hair nor that scar could go unnoticed. The watchful eyes of the shinigami seeking to drag me into the darkness and that desire with my blood to write my name in his notebook were the insistent reminder that my life was not that of an immortal being, death lurked, always.
Kaoru-dono was that future waiting to be present with the scent of jasmine and the hope tangled in her eyes, she held my tired heart.
To pronounce her name will always hurt and among the memories I carry behind me she will always be there smiling, the last victim of the hitokiri that would weigh even to wield a sword again.
"You cannot undo what is already done..."
Traveling roads covered with rotting bodies, trails of blood on the road that converged into rivers, rivers that ran between villages, ideas that poisoned righteous ideals. Shamelessly the edge of the sword not only cut off the flesh and life of people, it undid the souls of those it deludedly believed to be unforgivable demons, heathen bastards.
The cost of a thought wielded in the sword is as high as its edge is thin. It was better then to crawl like a damned pig in the mud and humiliate oneself in front of others for a bowl of rice, it was better a life where at every door hunger, sickness and pain knocked. That is why my master taught me that the sword is not wielded for an ideal, there are no flags at the edge of the sword, only the will of the one who wields it.
By itself a sword is only art in stone, wielded under words sold to war, a sword only becomes a tool that imparts pain, that takes away smiles. But history knows, the reality is that there is no country that has not sown itself over corpses, that has not used the lives of others, that has not used its own bones and flesh as food for livestock.
I walked through those rice fields among sunsets tinged with a red that only reminded me of Tomoe's words "you can make it rain blood". I sheathed my sword among those landscapes where orphans begged for love and bread, where women sold their bodies for a bowl of hot miso, where grandparents dragged their tired fetid bodies over the bastard stone of famine to meet their deaths.
But I was alive, out of thousands of people, it was I who could still breathe for them day by day, it was I who with that simple and delicate sword could still drink crystal clear water from the rivers, who could still enjoy the chirping of birds in the forest.
"Some people survive chaos, and that's how they grow."
I grew up with roots rotted by wars, they snatched away the hugs of love I never received, I honored with sake the deaths of people I could never call family, I served a master whose teachings I did not know how to value, and I twisted at my will the weight of the sword that was built for me.
I did not love anything other than the sound of a body whipped by the cutting edge of a sword, I do not know if I could really call it love, until then I was not aware of that word or that feeling that kept.
Until I found her, her name hid betrayal in her eyes, they say that only through pain we find resolution, and I traveled the world stumbling on the rubble of an era that was crumbling like the enemies in front of my sword.
She not only embraced the murderous bastard, but the human being, she made me forget the sound of the sword cutting, she made me erase from my memory the screams of terror when they saw me. And I erased it all for her, she was my first home, the first smile sketched, the first embrace snatched from childhood.
And so her trap was set and ready, her hands caressed my face, and her blade marked my cheek with the bitterness of having snatched away the happiness that in this rotten world she hoped to create.
Her eyes closed to life, her last sigh found my lips cold and frozen, there I swore never again to wield the sword to take a life. With the fire I made all memories disappear and walked aimlessly almost until I became an illusion, legend they would say years later.
Dirty and smelly, stumbling against people on the roads from town to town, forgetting what had been the warmth of a campfire and hot food, step by step without stopping, I walked through landscapes that I knew from memories, where reality merged with the past and I could barely differentiate between them.
Until I ran into big round eyes that looked at me with astonishment and smiled at me, everything became dark and I just let myself fall. It no longer mattered if I came back to life or not, maybe no one would care, not only my feet were tired, my soul could not find a place to be accepted, maybe that kept me alive.
The fear that my soul could not rest and that the punishment for the deaths inflicted, for the sins committed was to lead a life in suffering, to see how in reality my sword and my will alone made no difference in changing the world back then.
"You must understand that there is more than one way to get to the top of the mountain."