InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Crystal Rain ❯ Crystal Rain ( Chapter 1 )

Love never dies a natural death. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals.

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She had always loved the rain; she had always loved the beautiful mystery of it. For the brief time it fell it cleansed the world, cleansed her.

It was heartbreaking in its temporary nature. It never failed to give her hope, hope that maybe tomorrow would be better than today.

But it never was, tomorrow was invariably worse, tomorrow was always more painful than the day before. She was struggling, fighting to find the strength to hold her head high in defiance to the cruel reality in which she lived.

But she was losing. Her resolve was weakening, her determination waning, her steps faltering. She was breaking, falling apart.

And it was all his fault.

She fell despondently to the soaked earth below her. Her fragile hands grasped the rough edge of the well, the bone white color of her fingers testament to the strength with which she gripped the wood. She peered over its edge, her raven locks cascading across her face, creating a shimmering curtain of black. She made no move to brush the heavy obstacle aside, she had no wish to push away that which veiled her eyes.

She didn't want to see, she didn't have the strength. She knew what lay beyond that magical well; she knew what was waiting for her on the other side.

Hope. A hope which no longer belonged to her.

She lowered her head until it rested on the lip of the well, the cold bite of the grating wood against the skin of her forehead barely making a dent in the pervading numbness she now felt.

She was cold, so cold. She was so alone.

He had destroyed her.

The soft rhythm of the rain echoed around her, echoed in tune to her heart. It soothed her ravaged soul, calmed her raging heart. In a blinding moment of desperation she threw herself away from the well of her past. Standing on shaky feet she beseeched the sky to allow the rain to fall forever, to allow it to follow her on her journey and comfort her.

And then she collapsed in a boneless heap on the water soaked earth, collapsed in defeat. Her wish would never be granted.

Never, because the rain was a temporary magnificence; a fleeting miracle in the endless spectrum of eternity.

In retrospect she knew it had all been her fault. She had been blind, foolish, and naively stupid. She couldn't change the past, but she could change the future.

The cool metallic object in her hand reminded her of her purpose, reminded her why she sat here in the place that was her doorway to two worlds.

As the jagged metal bit into her flesh she remembered. Remembered the day her whimsical heart stopped beating, remembered the day her heart had become a frozen relic of the past.

He had been there. He was always there. With her.

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******

"Do you love her?" Asked the stoic figure dressed in red and white. The hanyou did not respond to the calm question of his companion. But he didn't have to, his silence said what he could not.

The figure nodded, understanding the meaning behind the silence. "You made a promise." The female stated.

"I did" came the gruff response of the half demon.

"To me"

"To you"

"Who will you choose?" The soulless miko quietly asked.

`Yes, who will you choose Inu Yasha?' Kagome asked herself as she watched from behind the cover of a nearby tree. She moved slightly, wanting to get closer to the couple, straining to hear whatever it was he would say. She stepped on a fallen branch and mentally smacked her forehead. She had always been clumsy.

His ears twitched. She knew that gesture, knew what it meant. He had heard her. He raised his head slightly and, confirming her suspicion, he lightly sniffed the wind, searching for an elusive scent he would no doubt find.

She knew he found it when he tensed, his hand going instantly to the sword at his side, and from her vantage point she could see the tiny twitch in his jaw. He was angry. No doubt he intended for this conversation to be had away from her.

But it didn't matter now. She was here, and he had a choice to make. So she waited breathlessly in anticipation, she waited, praying that he would break the vicious circle of fate and choose her.

But it wasn't meant to be.

"You Kikyou" he said under his breath as if by whispering the name she would not hear it, would not hear his betrayal. "It has always been you."

The older miko nodded, a smug smile on her face as she registered her victory.

And then Kagome turned and ran, unable to watch any longer. She ran knowing that they both turned to watch her pathetic departure, she ran knowing that he called her name.

She ran.

*********

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She could have lived with him choosing her. She could have survived knowing that he had willing chosen to die with a woman who hated him. After all, she had been preparing herself for the possibility for a long time. Inu Yasha had stubbornly clung to the past for too long to just let it go.

But she had dreamed that maybe one day he would, she had dreamed that maybe one day he would wake up from the fog of his past and realize that he loved her. But she had only dreamed of it, she had never expected it.

In the end what destroyed her was not Inu Yasha choosing Kikyou, what destroyed her, what ultimately broke her was the knowledge that Inu Yasha had loved her. Loved her, not Kikyou, but her, Kagome, and no one else.

He had presented her the beauty of her dreams and in the next breath brutally threw it away.

Yes he loved her, but what was love that had no chance to live? It would have been better left as a dream, better left as a fantasy she conjured in her head.

She could have lived with the dream, could have drawn comfort from it. But she could not live with reality. She could not live in the reality which told her that the one who loved her would never be hers because he had thrown it away.

And that was what he had done. He had betrayed her by throwing away the single most precious thing in her life. He had, with one sentence, carelessly thrown away their love.

And there was no forgiving that, no living with that simple truth.

Her eyes fell down to the blood that pooled in her palms. She closed her hands in fists and savored the warmth of her life.

There was no living with reality.

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Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant

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Sesshoumaru wasn't sure what compelled him to seek out her this day; he wasn't sure what force pushed him down the path that led to her. No doubt the same one that had led him to her that day not so long ago.

Fate. He had never believed in it before, in fact he had steadfastly refused to believe that his destiny was not his to control. He was always in control.

Always.

Until her.

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********

An unfamiliar sound floated on the wind. The sound of sorrow, the sound of pain. It drew him in, urged his feet to subconsciously seek out the creature which felt such grief.

Had he known what he would eventually find he would have turned back, would have ignored the poignancy that stirred his soul. But he hadn't known and the mystery of it made the creature that more alluring, whoever it was.

He had nearly growled in disgust when he reached his destination. His half brother's wench. A pathetic human.

But then she had turned her cerulean blue eyes onto him, startling eyes that brimmed with unshed tears, eyes that held more pain than one her age should ever know. She turned to face him almost as if she had known he would come, almost as if she had expected his sudden appearance.

But of course that was impossible, wasn't it?

She walked towards him slowly, confidently, determinedly. Whatever plagued her at this moment, whatever foreign emotion that surged through her blood lent her the strength to do what countless others could not, stand before him without fear.

"I used to think you guys were alike you know" she began suddenly "you and…him" Her confession should have been out of place, it should have made no sense. Yet despite what seemed to be an ambiguous comment Sesshoumaru somehow knew who it was she spoke of; he somehow knew the name of the one she could not bring herself to utter.

And it enraged him. To compare him to his inferior half brother, he wanted to lash out at her, destroy her for imparting such an insult. But something held him back, some unseen force prevented him from following his more basic instincts that were at this moment screaming for blood, her blood.

"But you, you have too much to pride, too much dignity, too much honor to betray someone. You are the better brother Sesshoumaru-sama."

"Clearly" he replied. He should have walked away then, he should have left her alone that night, but his curiosity got the better of him, his curiosity which demanded he understand this strange human girl who followed his hanyou brother, this strange miko who had the courage to stand before him so calmly.

"And what has made you come to such an obvious conclusion?" he asked, finding himself truly curious as to what could have caused such a drastic change in loyalties.

She smiled enigmatically at his question, the gesture a stark contrast to the grief which shadowed her face.

"I think you are right."

He was confused, what on earth was she talking about now? He found her tendency to spurt out whatever random thought which floated through her mind frustrating.

"I am always right, but that is not the question I asked wench" he stated impatiently.

"Humans are weak, Sesshoumaru-sama, we are useless creatures. I used to hate you for believing such a thing but now I know that you right. We blindly follow our emotions, we foolishly allow our feelings to dictate our actions and our judgment, and in the end they always destroy us. It's pathetic don't you think? To give someone the ability to hurt you so deeply, to give them that much power?"

He nodded in silent agreement to her discovery, a fact he had long ago concluded. So he had finally chosen Sesshoumaru realized as he finally placed the cause of the grief she visibly carried. Inu Yasha had finally gone to hell with the dead priestess of his past, and left this one, this one who had loyally stayed by his side for years, alone and heartbroken. His half brother had always been stupid.

"We are the same you know" Her sudden comment snapped him out of his musings. To compare him to his lowly brother was one thing, but now she was comparing him to a human female?

One lethally clawed hand lashed out and grasped the fragile column of her throat and tightened menacingly.

"You go too far wench"

She smiled. The reaction surprised him, blindsided him. She was smiling in the face of death. Smiling instead of screaming.

"You will not kill me Sesshoumaru-sama" his eyes narrowed dangerously at the newest insult this tiny slip of a girl issued. Did she want to die?

"You dare to tell this Sesshoumaru what he will or will not do?" he growled in anger, baring his fangs, already anticipating the kill.

"I do" she said calmly, "I do because we are the same, we both know what it is like to be alone."

And then he dropped her, dropped her as if she had burned him. Dropped her and walked away.

Walked away because she was right, walked away because he could not face the fact that this one human female had been able to see the truth inside of him so clearly.

He walked away and vowed he would never turn back.

*********

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But he had gone back.

She had been an irresistible challenge, a compelling enigma, a fascinating puzzle that called for a solution.

It was rare that he stumbled upon something he did not understand, and he did not understand her. He could not even begin to comprehend the wisdom she seemed to hold within her young eyes, and he could not grasp the strength with which she lived, the courage with which she felt.

So he had followed her, stalked her in the night like a predator toying with its prey. Hunted her with a hesitancy he did not recognize. For the first time in his life he was unsure, he had no definite plans, no clear idea what he wanted to do with this creature which plagued him.

Kill your enemies. Destroy that which threatens you. Isn't that what he had been taught since birth? Isn't that what had kept him in power for so long?

Was she his enemy? He did not know. The lines were blurred, in his world of black and white; she became the only shade of gray. She was a threat, yes. But she wasn't a threat to his physical power; she was only a threat to his sanity.

And his sanity was infinitely more valuable than anything he possessed.

Kill her. Yes kill her. That seemed to be the only answer, that seemed to be the only way to gain control of his life once more, that seemed to be the only way to banish these foreign feelings taking root in a heart which had long ago ceased feeling.

But he couldn't. He couldn't kill her. He couldn't because she was right.

They were the same.

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*******

"You hate him, why?" He wondered when she would ask him that question and he was surprised that it had taken her this long.

"Does it matter?" He would have answered, he would have told her why. But it was complicated. There was no one reason why, no concrete reason. Perhaps it was the sword, the omnipotent fang envied for its power. But he knew he didn't need it, he was powerful enough on his own.

No, it wasn't his sword, it wasn't because a hanyou was his brother, it was none of these things. These were just convenient explanations, useful excuses he utilized when necessary.

He hated his brother because of what he had. Envied him the life he led. Half human, and half demon he was able to live with passion.

In Sesshoumaru's world, passion got you killed.

So yes he hated his brother, hated him for the jealousy he evoked. He was the almighty Sesshoumaru, the powerful Lord of the Western Lands, he shouldn't want to be a lowly hanyou, he wasn't supposed to be someone else.

His turned his attention back to the slim figure of the woman who had asked him the question. In her indecently short green kimono she appeared ridiculously out of place in this world. She had her head cocked to the side as if she were deciding whether or not his reasons for hating his half brother really did matter.

She nodded briefly, apparently having come to a conclusion.

"No, I supposed it doesn't matter" he was shocked, stunned that she had simply let it go, that she had been satisfied with his ambiguous response. Completely shocked, until she opened her mouth once more.

"It never gets easy does it Sesshoumaru, it never gets easier, this living alone." How she

had known what thoughts were going through his mind in those moments of silence he would never know, but she knew and he had come to accept the fact that beneath her childlike guise was a woman who saw so much.

Too much.

She deserved the truth and that, at least, he could give her.

"No, it doesn't"

********

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She felt no pain. No heart wrenching agony. It was funny that she had spent her whole life fearing this one moment and now that it was upon her she simply felt…nothing.

Is this what it was really like? Did humans live their lives in a constant state of fear only to reach the end and find their suffering was all for naught? Were humans doomed to waste their lives terrified of the end?

What a waste. Her life had been one gigantic waste.

Hadn't it?

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********

"It's beautiful. The moon is so beautiful don't you think?" Kagome smiled as her question went unanswered. He was not one to comment on such frivolous things as the beauty of the moon. But she asked all the same, because she thought it was beautiful, and there was no one else to share it with.

The days were so lonely now, but the nights, the nights were her solace. Her secret comfort because of him. He would come to her always at night, hidden in its dark shadows, almost as if he wanted to hide from her. But he couldn't hide from her, not now. Grief had given her the gift of sight, and she saw him.

So every night he came and every night he left. Silently, he was barely a whisper in her life, like the wind that blew invisibly over the land. But she felt him there, and that was enough.

He never spoke of promises he would never keep, never carelessly unleashed words that would hurt, words that would destroy. He did nothing carelessly, he did nothing impulsively, but most importantly, he was not a man to do something he did not want to do.

She found comfort in that, found comfort in his confidence. Found comfort in his presence because he had chosen to be here with her every night.

She never really knew why he came; she never really knew what it was he thought about in the still quietness.

But he was there, always, and it made her smile, made her smile when she had been so sure she would never be happy again.

"I wish I could just be free" she whispered silently into the night. It was only beneath its cover of darkness that she could admit her true desires, that she could confess her true feelings.

"Free from what?" the soft masculine voice reached her ears, made her shudder as she felt warm breath on her neck. When had he gotten so close? She turned around in surprise at the unexpected question.

Turned around and found herself face to face with the amber eyes of a dangerous demon, golden eyes that were clearly widened in curiosity. It was unnerving; to see such an open expression on his beautifully sculpted face.

Her heart fluttered as her eyes trailed down the graceful line of his neck to the muscular expanse of his chest. She longed to reach out and lay her hand across his chest where she knew his heart lay. Would it be beating slowly, calmly like the man appeared to be? Or would it be beating furiously and rapidly, masking an inner turmoil he hid so well?

Almost as if she was in a trance she watched herself as her hand slowly extended out to find the answer to her question, her hand blindly reached for him and she couldn't stop it.

But he could. He grasped her hand just as her fingertips brushed the coolness of silk. Had he known what it was she sought? The sudden feeling of his heated skin on hers brought her crashing back to reality in a jolt of awareness.

She raised her startled blue eyes up to his once more finally remembering the question he had asked.

"Everything Sesshoumaru-sama, I wish I could be free from everything."

*******

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What would it be like, he wondered, to truly be free? To be free from the responsibility which burdened, free from the power which choked him?

He had always silently envied a human's ability to do as they please, to live their lives as they choose, to live their lives with reckless abandon.

But she had made him realize that they weren't free, she wasn't free. She was a slave, a slave to her emotions, a slave to the love she so blindly gave away, a slave to the one she entrusted with her heart, and a slave to the pain he invariably inflicted.

They were bound to this earth by their loneliness, by their grief, by their sorrow. Would they ever escape?

He too wanted to be free; so he too looked into the fathomless depths of that black sky and wished to be free from everything.

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Every time I think of you I always catch my breath

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She saw him. She saw him coming towards her with powerful steps. A magnificent figure of blues and reds, molten eyes she had thought she would never see again.

He stopped in front of her, still on her knees all she could see was white, the pristine white silk of his clothing as it gave her a brief reprieve from the ugly brown mud her eyes had fixated on..

Was he a dream?

She reached out and grasped that white silk in her hands and watched as it quickly stained red, the fabric greedily soaking up her blood.

He was no dream. Suddenly she felt guilty. Felt guilty for ruining his obviously expensive clothes, felt guilty for luring him out into the furious rain, felt guilty for marring the beauty that was his perfection.

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**********

"Why?" he asked.

"Why what Sesshoumaru?" Kagome replied. She was used to his cryptic questions. Things had started to change, he no longer stood in silence by her side, he no longer wordlessly sought her out.

Questions, he had so many questions.

"Why did you give him so much of yourself, why did you willingly leave yourself so vulnerable?"

He was always so good at asking the questions that mattered, he had an amazing ability to unearth the questions she couldn't face.

"I used to think the pain was worth the dream. I used to think that in the end it would have been better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. So I risked myself, gladly." She let out a half hearted laugh, how stupid she had been.

"And now?"

Kagome bent to pick a stray flower from the ground at her feet. She plucked each petal and let them go, watched them float across the night on the wind. She used to make wishes with these flowers, she used to spend hours plucking petals and making wishes praying that one day all her dreams would come true.

"Now I know" she started, letting the now bare stem fall to the ground, "now I know nothing is worth the pain."

************

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"Why?" He wanted to know, had to know why she would choose this path, why she felt there was no other way.

She sighed. Such a fragile sound, where had her strength gone?

"I'm tired…just tired" she said dejectedly. When had she stopped fighting?

"So you would give up?" He said, a trace of anger lining his usual cold voice. In all the time he had known her she had never been weak, she had never given up completely, until now.

And it angered him, enraged him to see her so broken and know that he could nothing to fix her, nothing to save her.

For the first time in his life he was useless, completely and utterly useless. It was ironic really, ironic that first time he wanted to use his power to save rather than destroy he couldn't.

And it was tragic that he had wanted so few things in his life, yet he wanted her.

Wanted her desperately, but he couldn't have her.

She had been his hope. His only hope.

She didn't answer his question; she just looked up at him with shadowed eyes and a sad smile.

She had given up.

She began to sway, her life was leaving her and the exhaustion was taking over. Her hands shot out as if to stop the fall that was inevitable, the fall which she had created.

She needn't have bothered, because he was there.

And he caught her.

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************

She tripped. Fell over some branch that her inferior human senses could not see. So he caught her, caught her before she fell, moved to stop her fall without knowing why.

"You're clumsy" he said to the startled blue eyes.

"I know" she responded with a tiny smile. And then he realized that he was holding her, that the soft curves of her body were pressed intimately against him.

He realized that she was beautiful. She was saying something, her lips were moving, but he couldn't hear the words. A heady scent of lavender and roses was clouding his brain, making him dizzy, creating a delicious sensation that he did not want to stop.

Desire. He wanted her. He hadn't wanted anything in a long time.

"You've changed you know" her lyrical voice finally broke through the fog of his mind. He looked down at her, still holding her not caring that she no longer needed his support, he held her anyways.

`What?' Though he didn't voice the question she heard it nonetheless. She smiled, a secret smile, a mischievous smile. She only shook her head and burrowed deeper in his arms.

"You've changed" came the murmur from somewhere inside the folds of his clothes. He pulled her closer, embraced her, a human, because he wanted to, because he needed to.

Yes, he had changed.

************

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It felt so good to be held by him, felt so good to be enclosed in such power.

He shouldn't have been here, he should have stayed away. She didn't want him here to see this, didn't want him to see her so weak, so pathetic.

She was ashamed, ashamed of the frailty she exuded, ashamed that she had given up so easily, ashamed that she had lost the strength to fight.

She was ashamed to face him because he still fought, he was fighting the battle she had given up, and now, now he would fight it alone.

She turned slightly, she wanted to see his face one last time, she wanted to remember forever the only one who ever truly understood her.

And what a surprise that had been, to find a kindred spirit in the form of one of her enemies.

It had been unexpected, unbelievable, and completely wonderful.

Her eyes blindly searched through the tangled mass of her hair and stopped when she spotted the silvery strands of his.

His face filled her vision, that hauntingly perfect face of his and she gasped.

Gasped in pure disbelief at what she found there.

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*********

"Damnit Sesshoumaru can't you feel!" Kagome screamed as she furiously pounded her tiny fists on his chest, hoping to make an impact, hoping to make him feel something, anything.

The tears flowed freely down her cheeks, hot tears of anger and desperation. "Am I alone? Am I the only one who feels this pain?" She yelled into the silence of the night as her flailing fists continued to assault the stoic demon lord.

With one hand he captured her wrists, imprisoned them in his iron fists and halted her frenzied actions.

"Stop this madness miko" he demanded.

"Don't you feel anything?" she questioned on a sob.

Glancing down at the fragile hands he held, he placed one over his heart and let her feel its rapid beat, let her feel the turbulent rhythm of it, let her know he was not as impervious as he seemed.

Her hand instinctively curled into the fabric as if she wanted to capture that wild beat forever.

He raised his free hand and placed his clawed fingers beneath the delicate flesh of her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, forcing her to see.

"I feel Kagome" he nearly smiled at the shock that left such a bewildered expression on her face at the use of her name.

"I feel everything"

************

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On his knees he held the tragic miko in his arms. She was shivering, her rosy lips were turning blue, and her face was pale and hollow.

She was dying in his arms. And suddenly he was tired as well. Tired of holding back, tired of being in control, tired of hiding.

So he let those crystalline drops slip from his eyes, he let her see the weakness he held inside, he let her see that he felt it too, let her see that she was not alone.

So he let the tears fall because this magnificent creature had been ravaged by the pain of reality, this lovely girl had been unable to find a way to survive in this brutal world

She was meant to live for so much more.

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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain

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He had always been beautiful, but the raw emotion she found in those brilliant eyes made him breathtaking.

For once she hated the rain, hated the rain which masked the tears he shed. With a trembling hand she traced the invisible path of the tears he cried. She hadn't known this was what she wanted, hadn't known this what she had been searching for. She hadn't known until this beautifully perfect man unveiled his only weakness.

His only weakness was her.

Her hand wavered as she caught sight of the crimson rivulets that flowed freely down her arm.

It was too late.

Two mistakes, two fatal miscalculations. That was what her life boiled down to. The first had been believing too much, trusting too much the one she had fallen for.

But the second, the second was worse, because the second time she hadn't believed enough, hadn't trusted enough, hadn't opened her eyes in time to see what had been in front of her the whole time.

Sesshoumaru.

Cold, she was so cold. But this time she wasn't alone. She had nothing to give him, nothing left but a promise, a promise of next time.

So with her last breath she whispered her pledge and watched those haunting amber eyes flame to a brilliant gold and she knew.

She knew as the blackness consumed her that he understood and she knew that he would wait.

Next time.

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*********

"If I could go back in time I wouldn't pull that arrow out of his chest, I would leave him pinned to that tree. If I could back to that one moment in time I would choose differently, I would fall in love with someone else."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

*********

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She had made a promise to him that day. As he held her in rain that ran red, she had whispered a promise with her last breath. A promise which haunted him, a promise which had fought its way into his heart, and floated through his mind.

A promise he would never forget.

"Next time Sesshoumaru" Her voice had been calm, quiet, and firm, "next time I will fall in love with you" And then she had died, left him the same instant he had finally realized he was not alone.

Her promise had been so beautifully tragic. But it was fitting, fitting for a girl whose beauty seemed to shine and grow with her sadness.

Her death had been anticlimactic really, expected. Hadn't he known she was too good for this world? Hadn't he known the purity of her heart could not withstand the sins of this world? Hadn't he known that her tainted innocence would kill her?

Next time.

She had finally found her freedom, she had finally escaped from the prison they had both been condemned to live. She had escaped, and left him behind.

She had left him with nothing but a promise of next time, a time which had no shape, no form, no place.

Would she be waiting for him, would she be waiting with her arms open wide, her eyes sparkling, her lips curled in a smile?

Would she be waiting for him next time?

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Do you seriously think that blood is the only thing is this world that is colored red?

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The red rose looked strangely out of place in the hands of such a lethal demon as he walked with determined steps towards the place of her death.

Much had changed since the day her blood had soaked its earth. The once vibrant greens and lush colors of the clearing had faded to a dull gray, as if they too mourned the loss of the one who had so magically appeared.

The well was splintered, rotted, and broken. A useless heap of wood. When she died she had taken all the magic with her.

Everything about that day had been hazy, the silvery veil of the rain had dimmed her features, blurred the landscape. Only one image remained in his mind, there was only one vivid detail he could recall with perfect clarity.

Crimson, her blood had been a deep crimson that shined defiantly through the fog of that day.

So he laid that lone rose on the ashen earth, the rose whose petals were of that same scarlet hue. The rose's brilliance overshadowed the dull gray of its surroundings.

But it was only temporary, temporary like the rain she had loved so much, temporary like she had been. A fleeting miracle, a momentary beauty that raged so brightly yet died so quickly.

Next time.

He would be here next time as well, laying another rose on the spot which he held her last. He would be here next time remembering the girl who had dared to defy him, he would be here next time to remember the woman who dared to see what others could not, and he would be here next time to remember the one he could not forget.

Drops of water started to fall as he walked away, causing him to smile. He closed his eyes and remembered the words she had spoken so softly to him in the rain.

"I will be here…next time" he whispered to the wind.

And he would.

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In a lifetime made of memories, I believe in destiny, every moment returns again in time

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