• Chapter One - Acceptance

    I was in a bloodstained field, looking around at the bodies of three men in dark outfits. I could see they had died fighting – one held a knife in an eternal death-grip, his wide eyes glazed and dilated in the terror of his last moments. Another man had fallen awkwardly, with his legs tucked under his twisted body. Perhaps he had broken his back?

    The third man lay at my feet, slightly curled as he lay on his right side, facing away from me. I stepped over his body and knelt down, gingerly tilting his head so that I could look at his face. As soon as I did, I wished fervently that I had left the poor man’s body alone.

    He face was twisted and mangled, with his jaw barely still attached – it was like someone had taken their time in tormenting him, tearing muscle and skin in what looked like a jagged, slow movement. One eye had been gouged out – it lay on the dirt in front of its socket, the nerve still unbroken. The parts of his face the remained untouched were distorted in agony and terror, and his lips were frozen in a terrified grimace, his tongue lolling out through the destroyed side of his jaw.

    I couldn’t understand what I was seeing – why was I here, among the dead bodies of men I didn’t know? There was nothing in my memory that made me think I should be here…

    Then I saw a glint out of the corner of my eye, and felt for the first time the hardness of a hilt. Looking down, I could see my knife, with its leather-wrapped handle, clutched firmly in my hand, its blade stained in red blood. Through the gore, I could clearly see my face in the silver metal of the blade.

    Except it wasn’t my face. It couldn’t be – the face I saw was… well, beautiful, if I was entirely honest with myself, and I was nothing short of plain in my eyes. The reflection held no horror, no disgust… no remorse for the crime I had obviously committed. It looked… satisfied, almost. As though the carnage I had committed had eased some hunger or pain inside. The lips were stained red – had I been drinking someone’s blood?

    Most haunting was the eerie silver light coming from the irises of the death angel’s face, glowing in a ring around the normally-blue orbs like cold ghost fire…

    I sat bolt upright in my bed, my screams shattering the peaceful silence of the deep night. Through my window, I could see that the horizon was pitch-black, which meant that the morning’s first golden light would be streaming in through the always-open window in another hour or so.

    It was a regular practice for me to keep my window open and unblocked by any curtains – I liked seeing what was around me, and at night the moon’s cold luminosity always seemed to soothe anything that might otherwise keep me awake. Besides, I loved to watch the sunrise, finding comfort in the warm golden light that would bathe my tiny room every morning.

    I lived in a small three-room cabin with a thatch roof, with no human companions. My only companion was a small blue-grey kitten I had named Tsukiyomi (though I usually just called her Sue or Tsuki for short). I had found Tsukiyomi in much the same situation I remembered waking up from – she as alone, sleeping next to the open door of my cabin, trying to gather warmth from the heat radiating from my apartment. She had pretty blue eyes and white front paws, and her mewls and purrs always seemed to express whatever she was feeling.

    My past had been similar to hers; I’d simply awakened one morning with no memory of anything before, in a house full of people I didn’t know. I had padded quietly down the stairs of that house to find its other residents dead, slashed horribly and staining everything red with their blood. I only took some money, an ornately carved blade with a thin strip of black leather wrapped around its hilt, and my name – Amatsu Makai – before running from the house, leaving my unknown past behind me.

    I was thirteen years old then, and enrolled myself in a boarding school in order to give myself a place to stay until I could fend for myself. When I was sixteen, I left the boarding school without ever looking back, passing through two different cities before finding an abandoned hut in a small clearing in the forest near the mountains, where people very rarely passed through unless they were lost or looking for a lost person. I couldn’t remember my past, but neither could I couldn’t escape the feeling that I brought misfortune and pain to those I interacted with. The feeling was strengthened the night I awoke screaming from a nightmare that was too real to be anything but a memory.

    It had been filled with scenes from my childhood – I could suddenly recall how my father had been kind and firm, and was my closest, most trusted friend – how my mother was gentle and loving, always trying to spoil me. I suddenly saw with perfect clarity how my grandfather had been my rock, my defender in hard times. After the childhood memories had come the horrifying images of my knife cutting through them, of their screams and sobbing questions as I murdered them, one by one. Most terrible was the memory of liking the blood and fear that filled the scene, of wanting that terrible scene to last forever.

    I had fallen back against my pillows, crying bitterly. Only now did I realize I had run from the scene of my own family’s murder… had even been the one to murder them myself. It was the one time I wished I didn’t remember my family – I didn’t want to live with the memory of my horrifying betrayal.

    I had been falling into the pit of loneliness and despair when I had found Tsukiyomi one lonely winter night, eying my food and mewling in such a lonely manner that I couldn’t help but open my door and let her into my heart and life.

    It was with that thought that I gave her a healthy portion of chopped salmon when the sun rose that morning. She snarfed it down in her usual “I’ve-never-eaten-in-my-life” fashion, purring and mewling her thanks as I grabbed my own plate of cooked salmon. I didn’t have any particular chores to do, so I sat at my desk and wrote down the unusual dream, almost certain it was one of those eerie future-seeing dreams that sometimes haunted my nights. I could only remember the last part – my face in the blade of the knife – and a few other details. I hastily wrote out what I could remember of my dream before it vanished completely, even though a morose voice in the back of my mind worried that I would not remember the dream anyway until what it had predicted had come to pass.

    The thought that I could turn into a monster, arrogant and vengeful, at any point in my future terrified me. I was not proud – I didn’t believe the people who told me I was beautiful, nor did I enjoy taking responsibility for what I did, fearing that I would be in the spotlight for it. I even had bloody stage fright, and when it came to my temper, I was more the bawling, sniveling type that most people scorned for being weak. I despised fighting, and ran from confrontations that looked like they would lead to it.

    I didn’t want to be a monster, anymore than I wanted whatever had robbed me of my humanity long enough to force me into killing my own flesh and blood. I didn’t want to turn into the kind of person I feared and despised even more than fighting.

    The sudden touch of something warm and fuzzy startled me out of my brooding, and I looked down to see Tsukiyomi staring up at me with her big blue eyes, as if to say, “What’s wrong now? Or are you still mulling over the same thing you always do?”

    Hey, when your closest friend is a cat, you start to get really good at speaking their language.

    “I’m fine, silly,” I whispered, picking her up and setting her on my lap before grabbing a new sheet of paper and working on one of my many psychology essays. Living alone and never wandering into the nearby town had its advantages – namely, no one died thanks to my gruesome history repeating itself – but the lack of social life that resulted from it could make for some excruciatingly boring days at home. Studying human reactions to different scenarios helped to increase my knowledge of how I would react to something and why, and for some reason my dream had told me I would need to sharpen that knowledge as much as I could with this new, unknown future looming over my shoulders like an approaching storm.

    I had just started writing an intensely deep theory about human grief when I sensed someone moving outside. Instantly I froze, my muscles bunching like coils as I listened to the tell-tale signs of life, moving far too close to my door. Tsukiyomi sensed it, too, and her little tail bristled in anxiety.

    Quietly, I rose from my chair and padded to the nearest wood shutter – which was in desperate need of repair, with knife gouges and splinters missing from times when I’d practiced throwing my knife – and peeked through one of the larger slits in the aged wood, searching for the person or thing causing the air to shift.

    At first, I could only see the grass, long and golden like the sunrise, swaying gently in the morning breeze, and for a moment I figured it was just a badger or mouse that I had heard.

    Then I heard someone knock on the door, their fist falling lightly and quickly against the oak wood. There was a distinct sense of urgency in the action, as well as the smallest trace of fear. Curious, I went to the door and opened it just enough to see my visitor.

    It was a young man, probably no older than me, and he had dark, golden-brown hair, straight and cut just above his shoulders. His eyes, bright with worry and fatigue, were a deep shade of blue-green, and his skin – under all the dirt from whatever journey he’d been on – was a smooth peach color. His face had the strangest set of features, with a small nose and round eyes that gave it a young, almost feminine look. A smooth, pronounce jaw to add enough masculinity to balance his face out.

    “I need your help,” the young man said, “Please, if I could stay here until things calm down again? I promise, I won’t be too much trouble…”

    I felt the muscles in my right arm cringe; for the entirety of my new life, I had avoided human contact – I hadn’t even had friends in that wretched school – and now I suddenly had to help this man hide from whatever problems he was facing? I very nearly told him no, but then I saw something – something good and kind – in his eyes, and my resolve failed.

    “Come in,” I said, opening the door wider and stepping to one side to allow him access to my home.

    “Thank you,” he sighed, rushing in as though he was freezing to death and my cabin was the only source of heat for miles. “I normally would head to the nearest town, but… ah, the people there remember my brother’s less than appealing nature. They would not welcome me, though they know nothing of anyone in our family but him.”

    “Why?” I asked, my curiosity spiking again as I shut the door. “What did your brother do? Throw a rock at one of the guards?” I knew little of the towns and their residents, but I knew that the guards were respected as nobility, and throwing a rock at them could warrant just about any punishment the guard could dream up. A day in the stocks, the Drink… even death by sword, if the guard was close and quick enough with his blade work.

    “No,” the man said, seating himself by the fireplace, “He was… accused of several rapes and petty thefts. None of the accusations were true, but still, he was crude with most women – save our mother and dear sisters – and he had the oddest habit of eying anything of value much longer than most people tend to. The townsfolk believed every rumor, and our family was forced to move.” He stopped then, casting a look around the living room-kitchen.

    “Do you live with anyone else?” he asked, his voice polite but confused. “Where do you eat?”

    “I live alone, sir,” I answered, sitting next to him, “It’s just me and Tsukiyomi here. I eat at my desk, or next to the fire, if it gets too cold.”

    “Tsukiyomi?”

    On cue, Tsukiyomi bounced out from behind my ankle and leapt onto the man’s lap, rubbing her face against his shoulder and purring loudly.

    “My kitten,” I explained, smiling as the man traded a surprised look with the little furball. “I named her after the full moon – that’s when I found her. If you give her some food, she’ll follow you everywhere.”

    “Hello, little kit,” the man cooed softly, “Do anything for a treat, will you? Let’s see…” He reached into one of his coat pockets and drew out a small piece of cooked meat, probably saved from the last meal he had before coming here. Tsukiyomi snarfed it down, almost taking off a bit of the man’s finger in the process.

    “Don’t let her fool you,” I laughed as the man snatched his hand away, “She’s a nightmare to deal with if she isn’t fed twice a day.”

    “I’d imagine she is,” he agreed, digging in his pocket for another treat. Tsukiyomi was too busy purring and playing the innocent, half-starved stray to try to attack his hand the second time.

    “What are you running from?” I asked, the words slipping out before I could stop myself. The man’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t jump up and try to run, so I figured he wasn’t any sot of wanted criminal. I may not have spent much time around people, but I knew how to judge their reactions.

    “I… made a poor choice,” the man said, “And I ended up angering the wrong people because of it.”

    “What did you do?”

    He looked up at me then, absent-mindedly scratching Tsukiyomi as he searched my eyes – for what, I wasn’t sure. I held his gaze steadily, and after a few more seconds he looked away.

    “I picked a fight with a well-known town thug,” the man explained. “It was just a simple disagreement over the prices on some of the food in the store he ran as a side-job, but he decided to try to fight me, and I ended up hurting him pretty badly when I defended myself. Now his friends are after me, so I’ve been hiding out, hoping they’ll forget the whole incident ever happened.”

    I tilted my head to the side. I’d heard of people arguing over some pretty useless things, but I’d never heard of someone being tracked down by a gang over an argument about prices.

    “Well, you can hide out here as long as you need to,” I promised him, “Not many people come past this house, so you should be safe here until you need to leave. I’m Amatsu, by the way. Amatsu Makai.”

    “I’m Ezekiel Shoemaker,” he answered. “Thank you for letting me stay here, Amatsu."