It starts with Kuroi- Kuroi and that cool spring morning on the porch, where Anotsu grinned and said "Yeah. That's the way I want it." He's thirteen and hungry for blood and he wants to prove himself. Kuroi isn't an old man yet, and he only has one dead head attached to his shoulder. He's a poet and a murderer many times over- ink catches with blood under his fingernails. He smirks widely and ruffles Anotsu's hair into tangled disarray. "Then that's what you'll get," he replies.

It continues with Makie, and the raw stinking bodies of one hundred slaughtered wild dogs. Anotsu gasps at them, stumbles, kicks a coil of intestine away from his foot. The stink of blood rises in the air and makes his head light. Flies are buzzing everywhere. He gazes across the sea of red and envies the girl that spilled it: he wants to be her; he wants to reach the pinnacle that she is balanced upon. It pushes him onwards throughout the years, more so than even the bitter words of his grandfather and his own thirst for justice. He attempts poetry for her, once or twice: like Kuroi. But he has no grace with words, he thinks- all he has is grace with the sword, and that grace comes all too slowly. It seems his destiny is to live with blood under his fingernails only. He pledges himself to strength, and puts away the scrolls and ink to be forgotten.

Rin makes the next part- at her own beginning, the event that birthed her future, where she curled weeping in the corner as Anotsu's hungry men took their fill of her mother. Rin makes the end: the angry girl flinging daggers through the air, the girl who resolves to bite off her own tongue rather than suffer his touch. The girl who hunches and chokes out sobs she can't control. The girl who stands over him with sword unsheathed, and cries again. Always always crying- what a waste of water. This is like the end to the story, a pure young girl ready to slay the killer of her parents. Anotsu smiles at the thought, puffs breath sharply off his lips and watches red speck the ground in front of him. Rin's changed too. He's proud to have had some influence in forming- what she is. The angry-compassionate-not-very-good-at-fighting-truly girl who isn't that much like him, no matter what he said once about them being the same.

She swipes the tears and snot off her face, using the sleeve of her pretty red kimono. She's furious that he's forced her into this, Anotsu can tell. He's glad she's reluctant (remembering all that casual cruelty, and how pointless it was in the end. At least Rin's not like that).

If Anotsu can make sure another person doesn't grow up to be like him, he'll be happy.

END

8/26/05

Edited 9/2/05