Chapter Text
The fleeting feeling in his crumbling limbs; the unbearably loud ringing in his ears, the vast waves of nothingness that come crashing down on him mercilessly, and that blurred figure in the distance that looks so painfully recognisable.
'That's enough..'
koyuki...
Koyuki?
Akaza finds himself immersed in a blurred panorama of past memories. The only thing he can make out in the hazed blotches are her eyes. Bright and kind, exactly the way he remembered. But he hadn't remembered. How could he forget her? His one true love, his wife. Its almost as if some force was keeping him from remembering her. Her welcoming smile and benevolent embrace, the feverish warmth enveloping her sickly body. Bit by bit the memories of her become clearer and the deafening ringing turns into her meager voice. She almost feels real like he could touch her and feel her soft skin but...
She's just barely out of reach, looming over an invisible line drawn to spite him for all the cruelties he's committed, adamant to punish him for his crimes and for what feels like the mortal sin of forgetting her.
Her.
Koyuki.
The woman standing just beyond the flames—just a step into the light, the line drawn clearly as if to separate the two. Undeniable good and Undeniable evil. She turns around and casts him a sorrowful look.
"You've done enough.."
He knows he has, he knows he deserves to fade, to burn up and crumble into the flames but just once, just one last time, he wishes to hold her just one last time to comfort her as her red eyes gloss over with unshed tears threatening to drip at any moment
"Koyuki."
And as if to respond, she steps closer—almost as if to cross the forbidden line into hell—if only just for him.
Closer.
Closer..
Closer to him.
Closer together.
Closer, just as they had been before...
Before she had died.
With arms opening to welcome him into her embrace—to share one last comforting hug and then just before he could feel her slender fingertips brush against his crumbling jawline, it all falls. Darkness wraps his eyes like a thick veil and the numb feeling returns to his body.
Every limb feels static and heavy as the ringing grows louder and louder. Loud enough to consume every sound in its wake like a whirlpool of dread pulling in it's helpless victim. The stinging, burning feeling in his neck returning stronger than ever making his throat seize as the ever excruciating second passes by like a fish swimming in a puddle of thick tar. Everything feels slow and the torture continues, the once absent feeling in his body now replaced with sharp, unbearable pain in every muscle—every cell. It all happens so fast and yet it feels so slow, the passage of time becoming just an ignored concept in this purgatory space and just at it's peak when his body feels like its on the cusp of bursting into flames, his eyes shoot open to reveal the damp wood of an old structure—soaked through by the rain.
The remnants of pain echoing throughout his body as his sharp intakes of air threaten to slice his trachea. He's overcome by an indomitable sense of confusion which stems from the sudden change of scenery.
'This place... vague'
what makes it so familiar?
The words that neglect to form in his mind. How could he be in a place so vaguely nostalgic? His confusion is short lived as his fatigue gets the better of him. Passing out on the same cold, wet floor he woke up on.
《☆》
The rain had always carried speacial memories. Sitting under the moonlight watching as it fell endlessly in an effort to wash away all the earth's impurities; stood on the veranda as the gentle drops turn the pebbled courtyard a darker shade of grey with her; positioned under the heavy rains desperate sobs as crimson blood flows off his fist. Forgotten memories flow like a winding river through his mind and he can't help but wonder, why?
Why did he not remember any of this before? It all becomes mundane clutter in his mind as he regains consciousness. This place. Before it all began, before he met her. Akaza, or rather–Hakuji Soyama, finds himself in an old, worn and moldy, woden cell—his wrist and ankles bound tightly by heavy ropes, a bruised body devoid of all demonic traces feeling significantly weaker than it had been before. "Wh—at..the" Hakuji manages to croak out a weak and dry voice over the burning sensation deep within his throat, it takes a staggeringly long time for the now black haired male to sit up and get his first proper look beyond his cell bars. It seems that quite a few people are lined up ogling at him a few metres away in anticipation for something as they buzz among themselves in useless chatter.
A rattling sound leaks into Hakujis prison—one that he had neglected to sense before, had his senses dulled? The door, bound by equally as thick ropes, opened accompanied by the sound of a man's deep voice "Get out, demon child."
'Demon child..?'
Demon. A title that had perfectly summed up what he had become but... child? He can barely make out the feeling of hazy familiarity with the title before he's dragged by his arms out of the cage and into the crowd of amused bystanders. The perplexity of his situation blinds his sense and he is caught off guard as a heavy slash lands square on his smaller than usual back–causing his body to sieze up and squirm around in an attempt to escape. It's ultimately futile as his ankles are bound tightly to eachother, but that's just survival instinct acting out—something that he was not accustomed to relying on. The onslaught of lashings don't allow him time to think for as long as he needs to and instead a weak and muddled Hakuji focuses every little remaining ounce of strength and energy on enduring his sudden test of perseverance.
The vicious beratment of whips comes to a halt after another long and torturous unknown amount of time, leaving the bloodied body of a boy curled in on himself gasping for even the most minute bit of air or just- anything that could momentarily ease his never ending waves of grotesque pain that keep clinging to him like a flower growing in between neglected concrete. As if to seek solace for all the lives he viciously took not only as a demon, but as a human aswell he is left tossed aside and ignored by the people standing tall and obtuse before him.
It's in this desperate search for breath where Hakuji realises that alongside being human, hes also significantly younger, closer to the age of prepubescents–helplessly hurt. The jeering mass of faceless bodies stood over him cast mocking looks, chanting all sorts of empty pity. The faceless mass of weak and insignificant humans.
' Disgusting.'
《☆》
'Am i being punished?'
At just 11 years old, Hakuji Soyama had already amassed a criminal record. Being branded with thick black lines on each arm. He was plunged into a wicked and harrowing life of violence before he even became a teenager. The young boy hadn't chose that life just for the sake of it though.
Standing in the doorframe of an old, decrepit house, the young boy watched blankly over his fathers lifeless corspe. He remembered his father as a sickly man, one that had always relied on him for tasks his frail body wasn't strong enough to fulfill and for how he had truly wished his son would cease his life of meaningless bloodshed and just live for himself. Not just for the sake of fighting or for the sake of strength, but just for himself. For his happiness.
'It hurts?' Unsure if he's referring to the sight before him or the poorly bandaged wounds all over his body, the boy finds a place near the corspe to sit.
Looking back on it, he should have listened to him. He should have stopped fighting and focused on living an honest life but back then or... now? It was hard to see how he could live for anything other than to get stronger and crush the weak he held so much corrupt contempt for. Maybe things could've been different if he had known better. Maybe he wouldn't have had to watch those he loved lay lifeless before his clouded blue eyes–
At the age of 11 years old.
'So this is what hell is like huh?'
A cruel relay of past mistakes and failures that haunt you at every turn. You wish to forget like you had before but something keeps forcing you to remember–something unmistakably familiar, something or rather someone...
"Rest in peace." With those final parting words, Hakuji got up and left. Never to look back or even return, dead set on keeping the past where it rests soundly in the deepest corner of his mind and yet he can't help but feel remorse. A melancholic and somber feeling bubbling to the top of his very being.
Why?
Why...
'The weak are only a burden to this world but... why? Why must the strong be inclined to protect? Why must I be inclined to protect?'
There's a strong feeling of regret that seems to wash over him like a surging typhoon 'why do i feel regret over an unchanging memory?'
Memories.
They always remain with you, locked away in every little corner of ones soul. Changing, growing, evolving into a mere feeling of fleeting and painful nostalgia—brought about at any vague resemblance of a time long forgotten.
The past is unchanging and the future remains unwavering.
Like fate ones path is set in stone.
But, what if it was possible to change fate? He had already changed his fate once before. Maybe if he could once again—if only for himself or for a century's old promise. If only he could change his fate, so wired and tainted with blood, to one more befitting of her tears, a fate almost as clear as her altruistic eyes–which never once left his mind since he opened his own.
If only for her, whom he holds so dear.
If only for Koyuki.
《°.+☆+.°》