He sat in front of the dresser, long hair unbound and sweeping past his waist, as he stared at the mirror.

	The reflection within stared back.

	A pale face, far too thin, far too feminine to be called 'handsome', grey hair which resisted all his attempts at combing, cold, icy-blue eyes...

	Those eyes narrowed as he frowned, concentrating.

	His breath misted on the cool glass as he leaned closer, still concentrating, trying to impose /his/ reality on the one which was 'real'. 

	The image within the mirror /changed/, hair darkening to black, becoming shorter, eyes going from blue to black, with a hint of crimson.

	From ice, to fire.

	Hanabishi Recca.

	The emotions that teenager conjured in him were simple enough--A slight hint--a /very/ slight hint--of respect, a little jealousy of his absolute devotion to his 'hime', a little more jealousy at the same hime's devotion to /him/...

	He let the emotions wash over him, 'tasting' them with his wine as one might a wine--then quelled them both ruthlessly, caging them and icing them over, burying them somewhere deep within himself, where they would not affect him. Where they would not affect others.

	The mental effort /hurt/, a dull pain in his chest which felt remarkably like heartburn. He ignored it, returning his attention to the mirror--The image had shifted again, this time showing a violet-eyed, violet-haired girl, with a serious expression that was so unlike the one that she usually displayed...

	Kirisawa Fuuko.

	He repeated the process, then again, as the person who looked back at him continued to change, all people that he had had to deal with regularly, ever since the start of the killing tournament. 

	By the time he reached the last two, the pain had escalated from a dull pain to a sharp, stabbing one, making every breath a burden and greying his vision out at the edges. 

	Still, he continued.

	/...again.../

	Long, ash-blonde hair tied up with a ribbon, hazel eyes set in a face more familiar to him than his own--a face which had plagued his nightmares for years, one which reminded him so strongly of the person he had loved more than anybody. 

	He finally closed his eyes, slowly numbing the hate and anger--not at her, but at himself, for not being able to protect her, for allowing her to die...

	The pain doubled as he locked away those feelings, and he clenched his hand convulsively into a fist, so hard that his fingernails dug into his palm and drew blood.

	Only one more left.

	He didn't bother using the mirror this time, calling the image up purely from memory--A flash of liquid gold, an impish, befanged grin...

	The emotions associated with him were buried even before he had time to register them--in a way, they hurt even more than the self-loathing that seeing Sakoshita Yanagi brought him. 

	He knew that.

	He just didn't know what they were.

	That done, he opened his eyes, looking back at a face which was his own once more. He absently wiped the sweat off his face, rubbing at eyes which were slightly red.

	The sweat must have gone in and irritated them, he decided. As the pain ebbed and he gracefully got out of the chair, making his was out of the room to answer the calls of his teammates, he found that he almost believed that excuse.

	Almost.