A sea of soft pink petals stretched out until it touched the edges of the horizon.
The air was warm, humid, carrying within its folds the sweet fragrance of flowers and the scent of virgin soil undefiled by blood. We were sitting together, Mugen and I, in the heart of the eternal sakura field.
Before us, the sun was descending with majestic slowness toward its setting, melting like a disk of red gold in the heart of the sky, dyeing the flowing clouds with magical spectrums of purple, ruby, and warm orange. The place was breathtakingly beautiful... as if time had decided to close its eyes and sleep here forever.
"Mugen..." the boy whispered, breaking this delicate stillness: "Will you tell me a story from your bygone era? A story from that distant world... the world where the earth used to dream with humans?"
Mugen did not turn his face toward me. He kept his black eyes fixed on the glowing sun's disk.
"In that ancient epoch..." his deep voice flowed, calm as a forgotten hymn: "There was an assassin. A dreamer like other mortals, chasing an illusion of inexhaustible wealth. But at the same time, he was cold as rock, stripped of any drop of mercy in his veins. He shed blood for whoever paid more, without batting an eye."
Mugen scooped a handful of falling petals in his palm, and let them flutter gently with the gusts of the breeze: "And one night, a strange contract came to him... to assassinate a clown. The assassin found the triviality of the request strange, but he did not care; he had embarked on even more absurd missions before. He sneaked in the dark into the lofty palace where that clown danced. He entered his bedchamber, and stood over his head in the gloom of the night... he was one millimeter away from plunging his dagger into the heart of the sleeping clown."
Mugen fell silent for a moment, and the twilight reflected in his eyes: "But... a soft hand touched his shoulder from behind."
Mugen turned to me, his eyes shining with a rare gleam: "And oh, how great was that assassin's luck... in the first moment he thought his fate was sealed and that he had fallen into a death trap, but in the days to come... he realized that he had won the luck of the entire universe in that exact second."
"What did he see behind him?" the boy asked with the eagerness of a child listening to the greatest of legends.
"He saw a goddess." A pure, genuine smile drew itself on Mugen's lips: "For in that ancient palace lived a goddess of brilliant beauty, who adored the dancing of that clown and watched him tenderly from her heights. That goddess... was merciful. She forgave the assassin his crime, but she laid down one single condition for him: that he must dream, and not merely settle for killing to live. And that assassin lived happily in her shadows... until time folded upon itself."
I looked at him for a long time, the warm breeze caressing the locks of my hair: "Is it true, Mugen?"
His calm smile widened: "Who knows."
We remained watching the sun as it sank into the horizon until it completely disappeared, making way for a full silver moon that illuminated the sakura field with a dreamy, pearlescent glow.
I looked at my open palms under the moonlight.
"Mugen..." I whispered with a trembling tone: "I will confess something to you."
He turned his head toward me, and listened intently.
"I... no longer want the wooden sword."
(Liar). The distorted voice whispered at the bottom of my skull, a vile echo emanating from a dark void.
The boy ignored the sting, and continued with a voice panting for salvation: "I no longer care about the mission... I no longer care about Aurum, nor the family's orders, nor the throne. I want... I just want to live every day like yesterday. To hunt with you in the snow, to sit and share the warmth before the fire's flame... I want to live as humans lived in the era of the dreaming earth."
(Liar... Liar). The genius laughed in the gloom with biting sarcasm: (You cheap fool, who do you think you are? You are a parasite, a corpse wearing a mask of innocence to steal a life that is not yours).
I bit the inside of my mouth, ignored the echo scratching my mind, and raised my gaze to dive into Mugen's eyes: "For the first time in my life... I will be honest with myself."
(Honest?!) The dark entity's laughter grew louder in my chest, intertwining with the voices of countless demons: (You do not possess a 'self' to be honest with, you monster! You are a breathing lie, an empty vessel feeding on the illusion of purity... Liar! Liar! Liar!)
I swallowed the lump in my throat with immense difficulty, and the words rushed from the boy's mouth with a desperate plea that wanted to bury the truth: "Throughout the years of my life, I was walking on a path I did not choose... a path I deluded myself into wanting. I thought I possessed my own will, but I am nothing but a lost child, running madly after illusions created by others only to choke on them."
My voice trembled with tears: "You... you alone made me see this truth. Thank you, Mugen."
(Liar... Liar... Liar... Liar...) The voices were screaming hysterically, tearing at the walls of my head like axes, but Mugen remained silent, looking into the depths of my eyes with a look I had never known in him before.
The coldness completely vanished from his features, and he said in a warm, human tone: "I too... for a very long time, I have felt nothing. I stopped feeling, and became a mere dead existence... like a deaf stone at the bottom of a dry river."
Mugen sighed, and shifted his gaze toward the silver moon: "I allowed you to stay in my cabin... because I wanted to dream again. I wanted to experience the taste of feeling one last time. And I... have truly felt it, even if only slightly."
He turned to me, and his black eyes were overflowing with life and light: "Perhaps... there is still a future ahead of me. Perhaps I can finally descend from these desolate mountains."
The boy's eyes widened with a pure, innocent joy he had never tasted: "Yes! You are right! We can travel together and roam this vast world... I... I have always dreamed of seeing the ocean!"
Mugen drew a wide smile on his face, warm as the virgin sunrise: "The ocean... yes, many long centuries have passed since I stood before its waves."
"Then... it's a deal!" I cheered with overwhelming delight, and eagerly extended my hand to shake his.
I extended my hand...
(R-U-P-T-U-R-E!)
I turned to him.
Blood.
I am standing in the middle of the field... and my body is drowning in a torrent of black and red blood.
Mugen... is crucified before me on his legs. Izanami's simple wooden sword... is plunged into the center of his human heart up to the hilt!
His face... carried no smile. There was not an atom of hope. It was a pale, cold, dead face... and his hollow eyes stared into the void, motionless.
A hellish black rain violently lashed my head. When was the sun extinguished?! Where did the bright silver moon vanish?!
I raised my trembling hands before my face; they were dripping with the viscosity of hot, foul blood.
(What is this?! What happened?! We were going to talk about the ocean... we were going to see the waves together!).
I looked down... In a muddy puddle of dirt mixed with blood at my feet, I saw the reflection of my face on the murky surface.
My face... was laughing.
A distorted, wide smile, stretching from ear to ear with a sickly madness, and dark blood stained my cheeks and protruding teeth.
(A scream!). I opened my mouth to scream in terror, but the reflection in the mud continued to laugh and guffaw!
I looked around in crushing bewilderment; the sakura field was no longer pink... Every tree, every petal, every flower... had turned into crimson red guts, and the rain was pouring down as viscous blood, drowning existence. And in the background, the wooden cabin that had sheltered us was being consumed by a raging black flame, and the woolen blanket I had wrapped myself in was completely charred... everything was burning and decomposing into ash.
(Caw...).
A suffocated sound of dying pierced the darkness. Yatagarasu... the mythical entity was fighting for its last breaths, its black feathers burnt and torn, and blood spurting from its beak and shattered wings. It was crawling slowly on its belly over the bloody mud, dragging its disfigured body in bitter helplessness, trying to reach the pulseless corpse of its master.
Laughter. The sound of my own guffaws echoing inside my skull like a hammer.
Screams. The screams of the boy inside tearing his vocal cords in the gloom of the soul.
Hysterical laughter rises: (Welcome to the Pink Space).
The voices intertwine and multiply like swarms of locusts: (Welcome... welcome to your hideous truth).
My mind splinters. Cups of crystal glass are being crushed and ground savagely at the base of my brain. The illusion collapsed entirely... and the hideous reality opens its jaws to devour what remains of my consciousness.
I collapsed on my knees in the red mud, and buried my fingers in the polluted earth.
"Anyone..." the boy whispered with burning tears amidst the torrent of blood.
The dark entity's laughter rises in the void: (Hahahahahaha!).
"Help me..."
Laughter mocking my screams and filling the abyss.
"Please... someone save me..."
I bit into the flesh of my fingers until blood burst between my teeth, and curled into myself like a terrified, disfigured fetus in the deepest, darkest corner of his collapsing mind.
The inner child wept for the last time... a desperate scream in the well of annihilation: "Brother..." "Help me..."
(ENOUGH OF THIS DISGUSTING WAILING... THE FARCE HAS ENDED).
(It is time to drag this filthy parasite by his neck to the courtroom to receive his deserved punishment... Vanitas will be shackled in iron and thrown into the deepest, darkest cell, the rubble closed upon him until the time for retribution arrives).
(FADE OUT OF EXISTENCE... AND AWAIT YOUR DEATH SENTENCE).