The Mistake that Paid Well

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

Yesterday, at lamplight, Terith received a letter. And this wasn't just any letter. It was sealed up neatly with a scarlet stamp. It was dancing idly across the gloved hand of an unknown man, and more so, it had an unfamiliar name scrawled across the front.

He stared at it carefully as he flipped it between his fingers. The train ride was a long and boring one, but it was enough time to recall the events that led him to part of a world he had yet to fully understand: to an old, abandoned cabin in the wretched Cursed Lands.

He folded the tips absentmindedly. "To my old friend, huh...?"

---

Terith gave the strange man a sharp eye as he laughed through his mask.

"What's wrong~?" he asked, "Are you not on good terms with your sender~?"

The swordsman had a creased brow as he shook his head. It wasn't because he didn't have an exceptional background with whoever, but it was the lack of background that bothered him. He thrust his hands into the emptiness of his pockets and refused to meet the impatient eyes of the masked messenger.

"It's a wrong send." he said. "I don't know what kind of mailman you are with that fancy get-up, but I really think you should check who you're sending these things."

If there was one thing, Terith knew that elegance was suit man's element, but manners, that was a whole different story that had probably been thrown out of that man's window by now. Terith rolled a heel silently, back turning, with a barely amused expression. "What kind of business do you guys run that sends letters at this kind of hour, any-"

Before he could walk away, the messenger had swiveled his way around him, somehow, and was circling the letter across his pan of vision. "Oh come come~ It's not even Christmas, Mr. Grouch, don't lie~"

A sickly smile carved itself upon the man's lips, "My sources told me that the receiver is a man with blonde hair, he carries a sword, and wears a cape. He travels a lot and is not a permanent resident in any town."

As he said so, the messenger pulled violently against the white material of his cloak. His fingers bundled it together in front of Terith's face. "You're telling me this isn't so much as proof? Are you telling me I'd believe the whimsies of a man on the run?"

The messenger's moonlight yellow eyes burned with ire from behind the sockets in his mask as he stared harshly, a serious monotone forming in his speech. "What kind of secret are you willing to hide, at the cost of one harmless letter?"

Terith yanked his cloak forcefully from the messenger's fingers and rounded the cloth back behind him. He raised a questioning eyebrow at the mailman, but even that was part of an elaborate facade he was slowly failing to conduct.

"You don't know anything." he barked.

He'd never feign innocence, but the entire situation seemed irrevocable and he was definitely muddled knee-deep into it. True, there were no secrets, but if word spreads like wildfire, then he might fall deeper into hell if anyone else knew where he came from. His goals were to pass to the other world as quietly as possible, and a fuss was definitely not something he was willing to take.

"I'm just hear to deliver a letter. Whatever I know is what I know, and whatever you want to believe is your personal threat~" the messenger said.

The swordsman's fingers wormed their way to the messenger's open palm and had yanked the letter from his grasp. He stuffed it into his pocket hastily before facing that smug expression on the  other one's face.

"Finally took it, eh?"

"Trash bin's empty, you know."

The messenger laughed, the lamp lights flickering with his throaty huffs. "What a pretentious fellow! Well, do as you like. But I wouldn't want to go wasting money like that."

Terith was quick to assume confusion. "What mone-?"

And just like that, the messenger had dissolved into a mere shadow before melting into the night.

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

His sword left an uncanny glow as he split it from it's scabbard, almost as if it were hinting him of the wary dangers ahead. Terith toyed with the blade for a bit, flipping it over and back again, before he noticed the corners of his mind being filled up with warm, yet bothered thoughts.

He closed his eyes briefly and made sure to whisper first before the imprint did. "I know what I'm doing, Okita."

When Terith opened them, he noticed Okita Souji's faint presence somewhat settled on the empty train seat across his. The feeling was distant, but he knew what the spirit's intention was. A cold silence hindered the conversation until Souji bore a hole in his chest with his relentless stare.

"There's no turning back once you reach it."

"I know that too. But I feel compelled to uncover something. I wish to help."

Terith eyed the space after he spoke. The soft-shouldered figure slouched back against the rocking train seat as the afternoon light filtered through him. He unfolded the letter twice in his sparse moment of apprehension. "His name was Marion, Okita. He could be dead and this Wys person might have have been important to him."

Souji clearly wasn't pleased. He shifted his gaze to the window instead, finding the passage of time greatly significant over the passage of the current conversation. Yet the spirit knew he'd stand as Terith's fleeting voice of reason, and especially in these circumstances, where the boy's eyes fell on nothing but his goals.

And it was Souji's job to make sure Terith kept his eyes on the road that was approaching at a desperate speed.

"Is helping your only motive, I wonder?" Okita mumbled. "Someone like you wouldn't really flow nicely with a cheap sense of heroism."

Terith rubbed his thumb over the dull part of his blade, watching it catch light as he did so. The boy couldn't capture the image of the spirit's face on the mirror of his blade, and somehow made himself feel very unsatisfied.

Okita knew too much. Okita felt too much. Okita cared too much.

He frowned lightly in petty disappointment, sinking back into his seat like a child.

"No use lying to a man who practically lives next to my brain."

Though taken aback by the usage of 'man', Souji smiled lightly in response, focusing his eyes to the sun that was slowly falling down the horizon. The sky would become dark soon. He could only hope that the boy would not feel discouraged.

"I don't live next to your brain, Terith, I live next to your heart."

The last few minutes of their exchange had been a groan, feelings of embarrassment, and a knowing chuckle of a father-like figure that gloated over his would-be son.

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

To my old friend,

Hey there, Marion, how are you? I don't know if you remember me, but I need your help. A strange cursed has swept across my home land destroyed most of the population. I managed to escape, and am now in hiding, but while I was escaping from those creatures one of them bit me. Within the envelope I have placed my current location I am currently at an old cabin in the cursed lands, please come as soon as you can as I am beginning to feel rather feverous.

---

Terith steadily folded the letter, end per end, and further buried it in the holes of his pockets. A strong gut feeling wretched at the bottom of his stomach as he continued to venture the darkening road that thickened into a forest. Though not thoroughly scared yet, he could feel the chill escaping to the marrows in his bones, and it summoned an inner coward in him that he could no longer shield.

The further he walked, the stronger the intention, the more he felt the maniacal hunger beyond the forest. There was...something, behind all the shrubs and thickets, calling out in despair, but also had a desperate urge to devour him, maim him, corrupt him and slowly torture the living daylight out of his soul.

Terith inhaled sharply, aiming a false-sense of security at his own pulse that began to pump savagely under his cold skin. Although hesitant, he drew his blade as he slowed down the path. His senses were sharp, but sure enough, he believed his blade was sharper, so he pointed it in every direction that ushered a different sound.

Perhaps his hidden paranoia was the scarier thing here.

Terith stepped back a bit as he vividly noticed the rustles of leaves, he allowed himself to comply to the creeping itch at the back of his head. Softly, he called out to the soft aura residing in the corner of his skull.

'Yasusada...urgent. I need some serious back-up.'

Reflexively, he fell into a defensive stance as the bushes released a sound, something close to a feral warning that didn't seem inviting. Yasusada's sigh filled the back of his mind with a sense of pity.

'You're hopeless.'

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

At first, it had been one hand.

It clawed at the dirt road noisily, almost as if it were grasping for something. Then a head broke away from the shadows and on his figure befell a hungry stare of a monster, its eyes glistening with blood lust, and its mouth wide with desperation.

It drawled at him with a rattle-like voice as it began to stand on its legs, revealing the ugly dark green shade of its skin.

Terith took a step back, positioning his sword as he kept a watchful eye on the monster. It swayed and cocked its head to the side, and back again. Silence was the only exchange between them, along with a mixture of hideous, ragged breaths.

Seconds more, itching, clawing, sweat and a sword shaking with resolve and fear.

Finally, it made its first move -a collection of short staggering steps that broke into a charge that was rapidly drawing Terith closer to its sharp fangs. The sight of it had almost rendered him motionless, until he felt his fear ignite like a candlestick, puddling at the very bottom of his problems.

The monster flailed its arms that aimed to snare him in a grip. Terith somehow managed to swivel his body out of harms way with a single lock of hair to spare. He tore his blade through its thin skin as he positioned himself behind it, flaying bone and making it shrill in agony. When it turned, it immediately attacked and lunged forward. Terith swung his sword from its stance at his hip, the blade piercing the creature's neck as it barred its dangerous fangs. He felt the edge of his sword cut through a thin layer of skin and touch a tough chunk of bone. His left grasped his etherblade's handle swiftly to push the blade a little further with a determined force, pulling it down towards the monster's chest and ultimately sheering its torso open like a piece of tissue paper.

It staggered back a few steps before falling backwards with a painful screech. Terith doubled over as his hands fell to his knees, his lungs violently searching for air. He tore through his hoarse breathing patterns with a half-smile, and in his mind, Yasusada was clapping like the damn bastard that he was.

'One second later and you could've had me killed!'  he snapped.

'Pfft, ora ora, don't be so pissed~ I gotta concentrate hard for it to work you know.' the spirit said.

Terith made a face that strongly showed his fit. 'Shut up! Since when did you need concentration?!' He broke into a sigh before fixing his posture,'You just want me to run, don't you?'

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

Another sound approached the swordsman with interest, however terror had leaked in their advance, their mere presences caused the air to thin in dread.

Yasusada's eyes had narrowed. A chill had reached the back of Terith's spine as soon as the spirit silenced. He spun around to hear the cowl of an unsatisfied beast, and the gruesome sound of a ghost whose voice was muddled through the darkness, plight and pain only a shallow description for what lied ahead.

Out from the thickets came a pair of eyes that set themselves on the swordsman.

There was a dog. The dog's fur was black, and it was torn away on some parts of its body that the rotting flesh underneath was beginning to peel from its bone. It's slithery saliva fell from its mouth in copious amounts.

Then, there was something else, a faint outline of white in the dark. He could feel his hairs stand from one end to another at the unblinking stare of a pale white ghost. He readied his blade almost immediately, though his imprint shook his head as he spoke in warning.

Yasusada had almost sounded bothered, for once.

'Listen. The pale lady isn't something your etherblade can pierce. Perhaps you're better off using Bokken to shove the dog away. Seems the pale one is bonded to it. As soon as you do, get the hell out of here and run as far away as y-"'

'So you really want me to run like a coward?!'

'Do you REALLY want to fight a ghost with a sword?!'

'.....'

The spirit clicked his tongue as he noticed the wall of restriction baring him from speaking any further. With his voice fading, he only said one word.

'Run!'

'Goddamit! Bokken!'

Terith ground his teeth together as he shattered Yasusada's domain and invited Bokken over. The spirit sleepily responded, and eventually settled on Yamanbagiri, seething into the metal and reducing it into wood. Terith held it up against the light as he beckoned the cursed animal towards him.

"Here doggy doggy."

From the pits of his mind, he can hear an imprint laughing like an ass. It sounded like Souji.  

'S-shut up Souji! You're not even in domain yet!'

He knew the spirit wasn't entirely open for conversation, so he left it at that. Instead, he eyed the ghastly pair with a consistency. The pale white ghost floated around the canopies like a far memory of an relinquished plague. It eyes were glued to Terith, but the gaze nonetheless was hazy, clouded, and pale white.

Though less than keen to meet whatever god forsaken grudge it has against him, he certainly was more interested in the change of mannerisms from the dog. Now it looked like it had contracted a type of epilepsy as it started to spazz, crazier so than the last step. He estimated a total of 2 meters of space between them before the dog decided to haul itself towards Terith in a threatening tackle, slober decidedly ended up everywhere as the monster displayed its sharp canines.

"Batter up!"

The swordsman quickly singed with determination as he held up his bokken like a baseball bat to meet the dog's stomach, the impact erupting like a taiko drum. It inevitably rendered the dog airborne before hitting the trees and landing with a thud.

He no longer stopped to hear whether the dog had died or not, instead, he prompted to concentrate all his remaining energy in his legs as he bolted into a run that rivaled a bullet train in the burning of fuel. He could only barely make out the faint lining around the path he was initially following, and he didn't stop running until the road ceased.

He wasn't sure how long he ran, but by the time the narrowing road cleared into a space with a rickety old cabin, fear was now a forlorn feeling and all that was left was a certainty that the boy was out of breath. With the assurance that there was nothing following him, he gave into his impending fatigue and fell to his knees with a huff.

And, honestly, he couldn't think of what else to think. He was just...tired, incredibly. Then he heard the noise of things being cluttered about in panic, before the door to the cabin swung open.

"Whose there...?!" the woman yelled, a single hunting rifle shaking in her arms.

As soon as she caught sight of Terith, she too, had fallen to his level on her knees. She seemed so...happy to see him, but it only made the him instantly regret whatever reasoning he had for this.

He knew he would never be, never was-

"Marion...!"

-her old friend.

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

The tea she'd pour him was cold, the teabags were dry and the cup was cracked at the edges. Whatever remained of the tiny log cabin was in shambles as the original owners must've fled long before the outbreak even began. The small kitchen was only slightly illuminated by the fickle light of a wavering candle, placed daintily unto the cap of a dirty jar. Terith seated himself awkwardly at a three-legged table that did little to hold itself steady. His eyes wavered over the area indefinitely, stitching the atmospheric details into his memory as if they were strings to his tapestry.

The woman whom he has come to identify as Wys was a gentle figure with a yellow shawl caked in dust. Her face was worn, but it was as youthful as the rising sun with her gracefully messy brown curls adding depth to her troubled gaze. She peppered her tea with a generous amount of sugar before assuming to question him, her eyes searching for any semblance of Marion on his face, a quest that he was sure would end in naught.

"...You're right." she finally uttered after a soundless conversation, clutching her shawl tighter to her chest. "You have the same face, but there is definitely something different about you." Wys offered him a sincere smile, though he could not exchange the gesture, nor could he forge his composure in a situation that warned him of an impending tragedy just by the way everything was arranged. It was a painful, foreboding feeling that stopped him from saying any word at all.

Her expression that followed was a mixture of grimace and disappointment, and though his experiences with human emotions were none the better, he still felt that she still held unto an inkling of hope underneath the pitch-blackness that she found herself in. What kind of hope it was, or what it was for, was what he couldn't understand.

His fingers traced the simple curve of his teacup, the contents rippling at the motion. He'd take the fragile thing into his hands, tipping the rim unto his lips as he gulped the cold tea down in one swift second. It tasted too sweet, and the water was oddly rough against his throat, but he had reserved a courtesy for his host, so he might as well commit to it. He rubbed off the stray drops of tea lining his lips with his wrist, sharply swiping it off before finding his voice, an unusually confident baritone bouncing off empty walls.

"I...Wys...I may not be Marion, but I'll..." he swallowed a lump of anxiety down his throat, freeing his words, "I'll help you out of this, I'll take you to do the medics on foot if I have to!"

This time, it had been his eyes that searched into her for a response. He gently filled his fingers into her shaky ones, gathering them tightly into a bundle of conviction. "It may have been a mistake, but I won't let you suffer the disease..." he continued to urge, watching the woman's sea-green eyes dilate for a moment before she ushered an unearthly scream. On instinct, his hand flew to his sword, taking a cautious step back.

Wys breathed in with a ragged edge, her chest rising and falling to an uneven beat. "Please...you're too nice, but I'm...h-hopeless." Her figure fell from her chair to the floor with her shawl pooling away from her arms, revealing a dark blue mark slithering up half of her arm. His eyes visibly narrowed at the ghastly mark, causing the woman to shamefully grab at the fabric, trying to futilely cover up her unhealed wounds. Terith bent at the knee and approached her calmly, and though she backed up against the wall in hesitation, he resolved to grab hold of her by sweeping his arms under her legs, hoisting her up with the passing thought of how weightless she seemed to be.

"No one's hopeless, Wys." he mumbled, holding her crumpled figure close to his chest, "Some people just don't have enough determination. Allow me to offer you mine, and we can both make it out of this pit." He then proceeded to repay her flustered expression in kind, a sincere smile curving his lips.

Terith forged the door open with his foot, flexing his shoulders a bit as he readies his voice for a shout he had yet to use. "Hang on tight, it'll be a rough ride."

The woman Wys dug her fingers into her coat, sinking her face into the warm material, her voice a soft humming sound. He took to this response as a positive sign, and with the better future ahead glowing slightly brighter than dim, his roaring voice echoed through out the forest.

"RISE UP AND REFUSE!"

it may sound absurd but don't be naive

even heroes have the right to bleed

The shadows on the wall began to crawl toward the pitch-black figure squatting quietly at the old cabin's veranda, the mountain breezes creating little to no form of noise as a human figure molds itself from liquid darkness, footsteps fluttering across the tatami floors. The uninvited guest sat himself comfortably beside his willowy host, his pin-striped suit lining the sharp edges that tailored his form into something rough and incomprehensible. His long gloved fingers grasped at a filled cup, the tea forming ripples as he swirled it around in quick succession.

His host said nothing as the guest noisily devoured the drink that was supposedly prepared for himself, resisting the urge to get up and leave. He set his gaze at the moon instead, refusing to meet the messenger's eyes.

"Your boy is doing nicely." the odd man would begin, tracing the edges of the distant moon's craters with his scarlet irises. "Even if you had no intent to question me about it, I came to deliver your daily reminder to consider him as your legit apprentice."

Stray strands of black fell from his face towards his line of vision, deepening the shadows underneath his heavy eyes. He remained quiet, and proceeded to measure the grass lines at his front yard as they swayed with the wind.

The messenger relished the last bits of the green tea with a satisfied expression, crossing his leg to completely admit to the mood. "He's a good boy, you know, a bright sparkle in his eyes, the endearing spirit of a warrior..." his chilly voice trailed off a little, "...much like you, back then, before you had succumbed to the curse."

A strong batch of nightly winds blew over their still figures, nothing to be said at hand, but both at a point where the conversation, if further intensified, would lead to nothing but grimace. The messenger would not urge his host, but he knew very well that the man had words to tell, and he waited patiently for them.

When he did speak, however, it had been the voice of a wise man speaking to the arrogant fool. "It's not a curse. It's a responsibility I have to bear. I brought this upon myself." His rough hands crumbled together in a bundle of fingers, placed deftly near his lips as he mused into a rather depressing thought. "...If I wish to exist with this world, I would not regret being forgotten."

The man in the suit would not smile this time, instead, his eyes told a story of sadness unforeseen. "And yet you do, don't you, Shizuo?" the messenger said, "Or should I say, Marion Anthromei, the hero whose memory was never written, no matter how much sacrifice he's done?"

Shizuo had no words left in him, and even if he did, they would not permit a sensible conversation with the messenger. So he sat back, letting his repressed emotions tackle him momentarily before purposely killing them off with a long sigh.

His guest would only stand, back turned against the light as the shadows engulf his legs. "Your boy, Terith Blair, I sent him Wys' letter that was purposely sent to you, just as you've told me to do. On that day where I approached you about it, you refused the opportunity of rekindling your memory with someone who genuinely remembers you. And until today, I do not understand how you manage to waste away in this loneliness."

By the time his torso had been fully molded into the darkness, his voice had began to blend into the faint noises in the dark, hollow and gentle at the same time. "I watched him carry the woman in his arms Marion, running across a forest, hurdling himself into the early morning before settling Wys into a hospital. Though her arm was amputated, she seemed genuinely happy, and had given him a wholesome pay for his efforts. He resembles you so much that it's crazy...I just hope the boy doesn't end up as pitiful as you."

Before the messenger's voice completely dispersed, he made sure Shizuo would listen to the remaining echoes as he ebbed his form back into the shadows. "Such a wistful existence you are, Marion, what use is a hero whom people have forgotten?"

He could not reply to the silence that followed, though Marion knew deep in his chest that the messenger's words were both meaningful and meaningless at the same time. "What use is heroism if done only for fame?" he'd rumble, mostly to himself, an assurance that his sacrifice was not in vein. "By all regards, a sacrifice is more noble than an act of selfishness."