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Boy
He was a boy.
I stood there in the forest, hands clenching kodachi tight as I looked around. Everywhere, there were bodies. The blood that dripped from my kodachi, would permanently stain my soul.
Then, I saw him. Young, short, skinny. Weak, they all said.
The boy that stood in front of me was dead. But he could not go on. He was forever bound to this earth, repenting for the sins of another. I could look no longer, but as I tried to turn away, he called for me.
"Aoshi," he whispered.
And with one last look, I walked away.
-----
I looked into those blue eyes. Within moments, those eyes could have closed forever. But then, how? How could he merely look back at me? Was he unafraid of death? What could enstrengthen a dying man so?
But, alas, I finally realize the truth I'd always known.
Young, short, skinny. Weak. No, not them, they who physically realized what the boy had been for years. Only I. It was not his strength, but my own weakness. Only I. And yet, they stood behind me as if they had never gone, as the boy stood in front of me.
"Where the hell have you been?" the boy asked, the chains still binding him to this Hell.
And, for a fleeting instant, he is free.
He smiles, and I smile back.
"I'm heading back home."