Daigo, you've been freed from the Dark Prescence. When you come to, you'll see it had come at a cost: your little sister, slumped before you. Her blood is on your hands.
DAIGO HAD ALWAYS BEEN AN ARTIST. painting masks, reforming them with gold, a brush to a canvas, sculpting. he created. emotions weren't something he decorated his own features with too frequently, but he could bring forth any expression to the lines of a veil or upon a stretch of material. people had worn his brilliance, had complimented his handiwork, had had reverence for his talent. he RESTORED. brought back together lost tradition, broken artifacts. bound them once more together by gold he carefully tended to. he was an artist.
this was his most powerful work yet; the splatter of crimson, the trails of it across his vanity. his facial prison had shattered, half buried in the blood of the body before him. a f i t t i n g end. upon his knees, his existence felt hollow, the entirety of his being scraped out and laid bare. what was left after it all? a destroyed family, a broken pride, a beautiful soul gone too soon. she was without life, but it was he that his mind compared to a rotting corpse. disgusting, vile, deserving to be buried, forgotten. an ilk, a stain, a failure.
everything he had fought not to be had come to him as a destiny he had picked out for himself. unintentionally, perhaps, but his actions had paved the way for this path, and never had he strayed from it no matter the pulls and pleads of his siblings. was he too confident, was he too egotistical, too ambitious... too protective? too... broken.
his jagged edges had been the downfall. of his island, of his home, of his blood. kendo? there was still kendo, but there couldn't be forgiveness, there shouldn't be. death death death. he was a symbol of it, a representative. death of their parents. death of JADE. jade... the person he had trusted most in the world, the person who had cared for him far more than anyone else. who had been his one link to the balance inside his own tormented head.
he. had. K I L L E D. her.
her her her anyone but her- but there was the blood, there was the body, there was the agony sitting in his chest. a reflection of the one he had lodged deep inside for years and years and years. buried away because he couldn't afford to focus on it, to dwell on it. when their parents were taken, daigo hadn't MOURNED. not because he hadn't wished to, but he had had no time. now? now in the dreaded silence of the aftermath, of the dark presence forced to temporarily retreat, of the heroes licking their wounds and tending to the damage...
he could feel the eyes of kendo. the youngest breaking through it all, rushing to jade. calling to her. it was like listening to people speak from underwater. so distant, so muffled. but her name was burning in his head, his mind, his very core. younger sibling would eventually pull back, and daigo would dare to reach out. twisted hands hovering, pausing, shaking. don't touch her. was that his own voice or his brother's? what was real, what was torment? everything was burning. his anger, his sorrow, his body. trembling, violent thrashes through his being but he was still. ripping himself apart i n s i d e. tearing to the very essence of himself, because maybe, just maybe, that was all that was left of him.
pulling her up into his hold ( had he ever been so gentle with a person before? ), cradling, brushing red soaked bangs, there was something almost peaceful about her. like she was merely sleeping - maybe she knew. knew that he was back, and that was all her spirit cared about. kendo was a blur beyond her, still there, watching, perhaps ready to protect her form, perhaps ready to drive his sword through daigo's chest, perhaps merely to join in the solitude of a broken heart.
his sister... his little sister... gone.
daigo had painted his most powerful work yet. using blood. using a body that he could not PIECE back together with liquid gold. in this art, there lay only tragedy. he destroyed. he obliterated. himself. his home. his family.
he folded over, and for the first time ever... daigo mourned.
@cursedguardian && @lcstwarricr
