The library
I don't really know what to believe anymore, things change so much over the centuries and there's nothing really that you can cling to. Before we all had our fight, the war, our master, now we only have ourselves. There's no one to tell us where to go or what to do or who to kill. We only have ourselves.
I watch everything happening around us and I think how terrible it's all been, and I try to think of how much better it will get, but I can't bring myself to think of that. Sometimes the bad outweighs the good, and things aren't all that easy when your mind is screaming war, but your heart is saying peace. That is how things are for us now, and maybe how they will be always.
I stared out into the night thinking so many thoughts that they swam about my head, bumping into one another like a crowded street on a hot summer's day. I closed my eyes then, and let the soft sweet breeze wash over me. I let the music wash over me, music can be so soothing.
I smiled to myself as the distant Koto sent it's soft bittersweet music out into the darkness. So soothing, and yet so painful at the same time. I shook off the thoughts like drops of dew and opened my eyes once again. I silently watched as the fireflies became locked in combat with the moon over the glory of lighting the night. There it was again. . . War. . .for centuries that was all we had, but now, now we had a whole new world to think about. No more fighting. I should have been happy. On this night however, I felt that anything but this emptiness was what I needed, no matter where I were to find it. So I turned toward the music and began to walk, slowly, ever so slowly.
The wind blew and I shivered slightly, I had heard a wolf earlier, most likely Anubisu's doing, and there had been screams, but I did not care one little bit. I simply allowed the music to carry me away, as if I were a raft on a river. I remembered a time like this. . . so long ago, on a dark night when I was only fourteen, before I became this way, back when i still at leas had some love of life. Funny how things change.
I was walking to fetch water from the stream whistling a soft tune, which I had heard one of the merchants at the market singing, I had not been able to understand the words, but the tune told a forlorn tale of lost love. Then the wind picked up, I smiled wider than I had been smiling, and watched the night birds taking wing, and whirling up into the moonlight. The only problem was that I tended to have a rather short attention span so I ended up becoming very easily distracted, so when I heard the music of a koto being played somewhere nearby I walked in that direction to see what I could.
When after a few minutes of walking I saw nothing I stopped and turned back around to return to my original course. The path however seemed to have changed somewhat. I looked about myself puzzled trying to figure out what had happened but I could see nothing. The darkness had swallowed the path just as the clouds had swallowed the moon.
I was suddenly jolted back to the present by the screaming and wailing sounds surfacing again above the music, like a woman crying over a lost love. I strained my eyes to see as far down the path as I could but all I could see were a bunch of old willow trees and an ancient looking foot bridge. That bridge, there was something I should remember, something about an old bridge surrounded by willow trees. . . I lost the thought as I remembered a battle fought near a bridge like this. So much fighting. Once again I had to push these thoughts of war away from my mind. I did not wish to lose whatever shred of happiness I was trying to grasp. . . although maybe there was none to begin with. I pushed that thought away as well, and wondered why so much was surfacing on this particular night. As I stepped on the footbridge however, something flashed before my mind's eye. Something vaguely remembered by myself and perhaps someone else.
I was standing there in front of an old willow bridge at night, It was almost completely dark out, and there was a slight chill to the air. I recognized the bridge as the one I had been standing before earlier, but I could not understand why the view was so different. I looked around once more and I had it, I was seeing through the eyes of a young girl. I looked around. Fear, I felt fear, and I could hear screaming and crying. I was confused, I stepped onto the bridge and a terrible darkness surrounded me and covered me entirely.
The clouds that had been swimming before my vision lifted and I was left with the sick dizzy feeling that I get whenever that sort of thing happens, which is all too often. I took another step onto the bridge, I could see a silhouette on the other side, a woman perhaps. . . from what I could see she was quite lovely, with long black hair and a fine kimono. I started toward her but then stopped as another memory, this time my own, flooded back to me. A night just like this, and a woman.
I frowned at myself for being so foolish, I should never have wandered off the path in the first place, but there was not time to think of that now, I was going to be scolded severely whenever I returned home. Then I remembered where I was, this was the location of the shortcut over the willow bridge. I had never been there at night before, seeing as it was supposed to be haunted. I began walking toward it, fearing punishment more than I feared any ghost, and I heard crying, and the music again. . .
Some things it seems are better left unremembered, that is why our minds are made the way they are. One of the most merciful things in the universe is that we can not see all that happens around us. Some of us are forced to however, we have no choice.
I turned away from that bridge then and there, I did not wish to remember what had almost happened to me when I was young, what had happened to that little girl. I heard a noise like breathing nearby. Someone in pain. Pain. I nearly doubled over as the vision hit me, wings, long shimmering gossamer-like wings, and blood, blood everywhere. Someone familiar in terrible pain.
As I walked slowly toward the clearing my mind was elsewhere. I had for so long tried to be rid of this sight that I possessed. I even went so far as to attempt to put out my eyes. Clairvoyance is something many people wish for, but it is more of a curse than a blessing. I am however just as human as the rest of our world. . . or at least I was, until I was seduced to evil, to war. Until Kuroda Jirougorou was struck down, and Gen Masho Rajura rose from his ashes.