As I look at the young girl on my operating table, she begins to remind me of something I had never spared a thought for ever since I joined the Uruha.

I had a daughter like that once. My wife, my beautiful Leika, died giving birth to her. To honour her sacrifice, I gave my daughter her name. Always laughing, always smiling, she brought light to everyone’s lives, especially mine.

A beautiful girl with sun-kissed bangs, and tanned skin that glowed with vitality. All those who saw her agreed that she was the finest looking girl in the village.

There wasn’t much left to look at when Kurei was finished with her.

The girl I’m operating on mutters a low moan of pain, and for a moment I pause.

She looks so young, so innocent, so vulnerable… I wonder what Leika would think of me now if she saw what I was doing? Subjecting a girl so young to tortures such as this…

Perhaps… perhaps I should call off the operation. Perhaps I should stop. Perhaps…

But it is too late now. There’s no turning back. Kouran Mori will have my head if I do not continue.

But then, death doesn’t really matter anymore. Something in me already died a long time ago, when my entire life went up in smoke. Something irreplaceable.

My heart.

No longer am I Genjuro, the laughing, smiling man who loved his family dearly.

Instead, I am the Genjuro who is a shell of my former self – Kurei’s dog. His underling.

A man whose life is to be treated like tissue – to be used and then thrown away when it has outlived its usefulness.

The look on the girl’s face – Menou, I think she is called – somehow arouses a feeling in me which I have not felt for years… sympathy, and a wish for peace. That is all I wish for. One that I can never achieve as long as I work for Kouran and his bastard son.

I want to stop causing other people pain, and to go back to the days when I was a loved man.

But it is never wise to live in the past.

I will never again feel the warmth of a person’s smile, or the glow of happiness one gets when he is surrounded by loved ones.

Since my wish is unattainable, I want others to feel my pain. To join me in my misery, my self-loathing. I want them to feel all the suffering I’ve been through, the lonely nights where I wake up and mourn for days gone past. After all, misery loves company. Truer words were never spoken.

Kazura Sakura was the man I chose to inflict this pain on. Kazura, the man with everything I lost. His humanity, and a daughter. A daughter who loved him deeply. Father and daughter. Not a complete family, but the perfect example of a happy one.

I hated him for that.

Damn you, Kazura! Why has life been so kind to you and yet so unfair to me? Two man with dead wives, but who left wonderful daughters behind. And yet, why was it decreed that I should lose mine? Why should you get to keep yours? Why? WHY?

I was something once, a most important person to a girl with golden hair and eyes sparkling with life. Now, I am nothing.

To your daughter, you are everything. And this made me jealous. I wanted to take away all that you valued from you. And that proved to be her.

The filial daughter, who brought you lunch everyday. My Leika used to do that too, you know. She would take especial care to make a delicious meal for me every day, then, before rushing off to school, would hand me the package. Sometimes, she would tuck a note inside for me. Decorated with glitter, or with graceful lines that curled delicately around the edges, it always held the same message, done in elegantly written script.

I love you, Daddy.

Those messages I would keep in a pouch in my pocket – a pouch in which I put only my most precious things. Never did I leave them in the house, for I wanted to keep them close by me all the time. For the simple reason that she was the only person who really mattered, after Leika died. My beautiful daughter.

But after Kurei had ‘recruited’ me, I took them out and read them again, tracing the words with a trembling finger. Then I cried, tear after tear rolling down my cheek to splash down upon the fragile paper. After that I tore them up and threw them away. They ceased to have any meaning after her death. For they were only little slips of paper, written on with black ink and smudged by water.

I am distracted from my thoughts as Kazura bangs on the sides of his glass cage and mouths a silent curse towards my direction. The corner of my mouth turns upward slightly, and I suddenly throw my head back with a laugh, a chilling laugh that I had never known how to utter before I became Genjuro, one of the Uruha Group of Ten.

Your daughter will never be the same again, Kazura. No longer will she be the innocent girl with the glistening cerulean strands. She will be my own personal killing machine, the way I am Kurei’s. She will never be able to forget the blood she will shed, and that it was by her own will that she did so. She will never be able to forget the screams that rent through the air, or the pleas for mercy. Nor will she forget that she caused the deaths of men who could have been fathers and had children who loved them, like you and me. She will never forget.

Innocence, once lost, can never be regained.

1) Not sure if this really counts as symbolism (I don't think so), but here goes... sometimes I don't say which Leika I'm talking about... which one do you think it is? You decide. ^_^

2) The part about Leika's notes to Genjuro. Notice how Genjuro describes the notes as being really beautiful at first, then later on, after the Kurei incident, they become only slips of paper smudged with water. (The use of the word water and not tears is intentional)

3) The innocent bit may not only be referring to Menou.