My heart bleeds in silence, in the night. From a thousand wounds, blood pouring, unstaunched, into my soul, poisoning and draining.
Self-inflicted pain, wrought by my own hands. My own blood-stained hands.
My mother. I was so young when she dissappeared from my life. I remember little from that time. There is little to remember. A faceless woman, more often than not lost in drug-induced fantasies. When she was fully aware, she had a harsh tongue, and harsher hands. I remember hunger. A great deal of that. I don’t, however, remember a name. Any name. Then, when she abandoned me to the filth and squalor of the streets, I remember the cold.
My fault.
My master. He found me that night, adopted me and named me. Ryo Chuin. He gave me his family name, treated me with the only kindness I’ve ever known. He, too, though, is shrouded by time’s misty veils. I remember his dancer’s grace, his aged, wrinkled hands. I remember his loving eyes, sun-bleached, faded blue. He brought me to the opera-house, taught me to sing and dance. I have done neither in years, although I retain the knowledge.
But there were others there as well. Drunkards, most of them, not involved in the opera for love of it, like my master, but because they had no other options. As for their interests--causing pain seemed to be highest on that list.
The first night--my master seemed withdrawn that evening, concerned about something. A group of four men approached us, and he sent me upstairs to our room in the attic. I remember hearing glass break. I remember alcohol-slurred cries. I remember the heavy sound of their boots on the stairs.
When they burst into the
room, I could barely see them. A new moon hovered in the sky that night;
the only light shed was a cold, steely radiance from the uncaring stars.
That night’s events are branded into my mind as my first clear memory.
Their blunt, clumsy hands. Their yellowed teeth and stinking breath. Their
braying laughter. The pain, white-hot agony slicing through
me like burning blades.
Warm, wet blood on my thighs as I jerked away in a terrified frenzy and
fled down the stairs. Crashing to the floor. Turning, looking.
My master’s face, blank-eyed and staring. Trickles of red at his temple, lips and nostrils. Blood, everywhere, filling my vision. Blinding tears soaking my face and hair as I was dragged back up the stairs. My own thin, high screams.
Afterwards, I remember the biting cold, harsh on my sensitized, uncovered skin. I lay in my bed, curled into a tight ball, shivering and bleeding and sobbing. The touch of my own hands on my flesh recalled the memory of theirs, ripping and restraining and beating.
My fault.
That was the first time, and by no means the last. After that, my years at the opera house blur into a muddled cloud of sensations, red and filled with the sour stench of blood and sweat, the sounds of hoarse, gunted breaths and unheeded screams. Foiled escape attempts, the ensuing pain made all the worse by the chokehold of crushed hope.
My fault.
Until he entered my life. Bright as the sun and sky, cold as those cursed stars. I loved him instantly, longingly, hopelessly. He, like everyone else in my life, could not have been less concerned. To him, my love was merely the key to controlling my powers. It aligned me with him as surly as a collar and lead do a dog to its owner. My life became a tool for his cause.
My fault.
He twisted my purpose as Seiryuu shichiseishi. To protect the Seiryuu no Miko, to defend her, to fight for her. I never fought for her, never once. Another crime to add to my list of sins.
My fault.
Murdered by one of my own for torturing one of my own.
My fault.
The words smoulder in my chest, burning like the wound gaping there, throbbing and aching and accusatory.
My fault. I deserved it. It’s my fault. All my fault...
My tears smear my makeup, but blood obscures them. They seep onto the cold, hard ground, only to be drunken up by the thirsty earth.
“Nakago--”
Master
“Forgive...”
me...
My voiceless cries echo unanswered in the dark.
My heart bleeds in silence, in the night.
It's one of my own personal beliefs about Tomo that, somewhere in the depths of his subconscious, he has always blamed himself for what happened to him. From what I have heard of child rape victims, many often do feel that they have done something wrong to deserve what they see as "punishment"--rape. This is obviously untrue--but Tomo never had anyone to tell him that, did he? So it grew ingrained into his character, far below even his ability to recognize it. I also feel that, perhaps a bit of his love for Nakago was also a self-induced punishment. Why should such a bad child deserve to be loved? Oh, I know he loved Nakago. But even that emotion was not untouched by the events of his past as I see them. (Anyone who would like to comment on this, please do--I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the matter.)